Poetry Forum

Thanks, John. I am working on making the poem more lyrical. I have already changed "Hades" to "Hell". Does English have feminine endings? Is "Hades" feminine? What I actually did at that time was I called the police and asked her if they shouldn't try to rescue the woma...

Fahrenheit, Not Celsius (version 5) A big meal before bed turned my body into a steel-smelting blast-furnace producing prodigious amounts of heat, making me hot under the covers. Switching them in and out, it took me an hour to be satisfied. As I settled into the warmth, all I could think of was th...

I didn't care for it the first time I read it, but the second time I found it lovely. I have to ease my brain into modern poetic logic the way one eases into a hot tub that is too hot.

The point I'm trying to make is that I don't believe in chance. I'm old enough to remember when owning a good typewriter filled me with pride, my favorite being the Olivetti Praxis (which turned out to be terrible to type on because of its small keys, but it looked wonderful). Now -- never having le...

By that logic a monkey on a typewriter will write the complete works of Shakespeare if given enough time. Tony I've heard that many times, but doubt it's true. We could put a hundred billion monkeys to work at a hundred billion typewriters, and I don't think even one of them would come up with a go...

Good poem, John. Congratulations. It reminds me of "Ozymandias".

That's some character carved into the rock!

Well, his web site says that he accepts all kinds of poetry, including modern free verse, as long as it is alliterative. I did exchange some notes with him, and he revealed that he really wants accentual verse.

I sent this guy four of my most alliterative poems, and he wrote back saying they weren't alliterative enough. Go figure.

Oh my God, this is perfect for me. I employ so much alliteration in my poems, I don't see how they wouldn't accept at least one of them. Thank you, Phil. On second thought, their last issue had only 14 pages in it, and not all of it was poetry -- and much of that had an experimental quality. Simply ...

...but Blake has a timeless quality John🤔😃 Time to resurrect morn... https://www.proleartthreat.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=26617#p231596 👍 When I click on that link, I get my poem The Matchmaker. Didn't you mean to link to a Blake poem? Oh oh oh, I see. You were talking about "morn" and ...

Here is another favorite song of mine: Crazy on You, by Heart. This band showed us that women can rock with the best of them.

I'm reminded of what Judson Jerome said. (Jerome wrote a poetry column for Writer's Digest for 30+ years. He died in 1991.) He wrote about a woman who was proud to have written 4,000 poems, and Jerome wondered if it might not be better to write 25 outstanding poems than 4,000 mediocre poems. However...

I'll admit that I only read it a few times, and that I was also a little tired (I'm always tired because of my afibs). If I had read it more times, I might have gotten the meaning a little better. Sorry. To a certain extent you may be writing over my head. I'll read it again with what you said in mi...

It has been bothering me that no one has critiqued this poem. The problem for me is that this feels like one of your therapeutic poems, probably written to help you work something out in your mind. Your writing is clear, as always, and your word choices good (insofar as I am able to judge them), but...

That's interesting to hear. In this poem, I see meandering as good, as somehow more natural than my usual instincts. I was trying to write it as one sentence so I could send it to One Sentence Poems.

I'll be back later today if you post another comment.

Oh, I see. I haven't read that many of his poems yet.

Thank you for saying again that you like the poem, but what is that reference to drinking? I'm confused.

Thank you, Phil. That is mostly what happens in old age. I'm mostly confined to my house because of my atrial fibrillations and my back which won't stop spasming. Linda Ronstadt, that wonderful chanteuse, is confined because of Parkinsons. The end of life is no fun. (At least for most of us -- all t...

I think that Phil likes the poem because he writes similar stuff. Most people, I think, will find the poem enigmatic. I used to advise people to write clearly, but I don't bother any more. If I read your poem repeatedly, even to the point of studying it, I can ascribe my own meaning to the various i...

I would like to make a point, though, Phil. The forum has very few participants. It seems to me that a person like John, who posts so many poems, is at least showing enthusiasm. I'm now involved in two forums, each having very few active participants. In the other forum, days pass without any posts,...

I find the mother's voice more soothing. To see a mother-daughter in this joint effort warms my heart. In my family, we just fought constantly.

Posting two poems a week will be easy for me -- my output isn't that high.

I looked up Bukowski. I've read a few of his poems now. I need to read more. I'm not overly impressed. I don't see much "craft" in his poetry, just spontaneous self-expression.

This is definitely a clear poem, John. I like to read poems that I don't have to struggle to understand. I agree with Tony that the lumber room image is a good one. That incident in which you almost [did that horrible thing to yourself -- I don't even like to say it] obviously left an impact on you ...

I'm away for a day and come back to people sniping at each other and Phil suggesting that we post fewer poems. What's going on? John, you could have given some reasons why you feel the poem isn't that good. And Tony, you could have responded more graciously. Regarding the images in the poem, some st...