Poetry Forum

David, I like this very much. There are crazy-avid gardeners in my family who I think would love thinking of blooming as healing aphasia! In my view, the word choice and clarity and rhythm work beautifully through the third verse, but become lumbering in the fourth, just where I expected the plants ...

I think the title is misleading - implies the writer has ADHD. I think Ros is right, Ray, and the prospect of reading a poem that covers the author's whole life with ADHD is a bit off-putting, even though the first verse makes it clear. I'm trying to read your role on the day's outing into the last...

Scrabble (revision 1) Scramble your tray. From the cascade behind your eyes slice a near word of strong meaning, length, and ground lacking one sound. Scan the board’s vendors. Be circumspect. Search all their positions. Challenge how they surveil and who repel. Return home. Review your interlocking...

Can I also ask people what they think of the title? Personally, Luke, I'd like to see the title refer somehow to the dramatic tension of the dogs' expectancy masking or controlling the danger they could pose. Agreed, the man's regular behavior keeps everything in a breath-holding calm, but Methodic...

Just a note, Luke—

If you're going to use the original (I liked it myself), please consider using the plural "los" with "niños" instead of the singular "el".

And using "el cuarto" (the fourth) instead of "el cuatro" (the four).

Jackie

Elphin, Am I just imagining you’re saying she saw a kindred spirit in George Michael, who, if he had boxed himself into an “L” life (“dull like a librarian or a lawyer”), would have joined her in S3 in his dreams? I’m interpreting it this way because the stress pattern changes at S3, maybe to accomm...

Much appreciated, everyone. You’ve given me good help on this one. Mirrorball, you seem to be saying that the couplet works for you because it parallels the alignment between the narrator and twilight. I love it! Perry, I agree with you about the technique; the problem rests with whether the poet ha...

Thank you, Steve. I get caught in that dilemma so often, writing things that don't seem to make it as narrative poetry.

Mac, thank you so much for your observations. I'm glad the imagery worked for you.

Jackie

Tristan, I enjoyed reading these two versions. Whether you use "pull our pasts in" (which I like) or "pull together our pasts," doesn't the second part of that sentence need a verb? Something like "just as easily as tuck in / stitch up the present." Would "All too ...

“People say we started rap and hip-hop, but what we really got going is poetry. We put poetry on blast.” This Guardian article relates to Mac's discussion question about whether poetry—or poets—should have a moral compass. Perhaps the question comes up only when poetry is driven by themes of human ...

Woodpile The jagged mound waited streetside for pickup. She recoiled at the stained, moist logs on top. They displayed like off-color tributes at a funeral. Inversely, this heap had spanned their two spruces out back, in the family, for seventy years. She must have been ten in the photo, turning fro...

This paints an intriguing picture, Luke. And “bathes / consecutively in the swash” rolls in nicely. The adjective-plus-noun structure gets in the way for me: ragged tarp, adopted curs, solemn diligence, fierce stillness. Are adopted and solemn really needed? The last line feels too complacent for a ...

Seth, what a beautiful allegory for the sense one suddenly has that a relationship has gone awry. I loved this—especially the askew foot! Personally, I could do without But there was by now little shape in her body, …rich in colour, but emotionally null." because it seems to explain what doesn'...

Hi Seth,

This sets you to thinking. The irony of point of view and of time gone by vs now.

I like the power you brought to it by naming the place, and the words wistful and strides.

Thanks for this!

Jackie

Hi Steve, I enjoyed this very much. Perhaps in this line— He decreed his ashes would be scattered —you could try omitting “would be” and changing the verb. The beginning is beautifully factual and specific. To me, you distance yourself at the end: blooms wildly, bringing life—what do those things lo...

Thank you, NMOliver. It definitely needs revising. I've been working on a grammar project, and it's nice to get back to poetry. Ross, much appreciated. It helps so much to know what exactly works for you and what doesn't and why. This tree in our compound took on its various names long before we mov...

Thanks, Stranger, I enjoyed "Banga" at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPfNOd1JZrE&list=PLaQQ4QWywSEc5S0fIeDp1Rl7TTb451bgw&index=5 ." She has the now meaning of banga in mind—a person or party that was unexpectedly exciting, I think? Your URL sent me to another of her songs (&...

Ross, thank you for explaining in such detail; your comments are very helpful.

Charles, yes, it does make sense. I have a really hard time staying balanced on the emotional tightrope when I write.

Thank you both for taking the time.

Jackie

Thanks so much to both of you, Mac and David, for reading and thinking about the poem and for enjoying this bird that so tantalized me. David, I can't identify it exactly for you but I'm in West Africa, not the Caribbean.

Jackie

Much appreciated, Not. It helps to know what works for you and what doesn't. All that about the darkness inside and the bit of sun that revealed him speaks more to the hours I spent trying to see what kind of bird was in there, I guess. (but 'tips his hand' ? I'm not so sure) That's funny: on an imp...

Mac, your first description is just what I was trying to convey and I'm glad you felt it. Twilight only lasts for a few moments here, but it's intense and magical. Not, your specific comments are very helpful. The color transformations from just moments before and moments after are astonishing, and ...

Through a banga tree’s wall (as if its hand-shaped leaves all faced me just to halt my approach) I’ve seen a cuckoo’s sleek white belly woosh straight across as through a maze. You’re not to know that the tree grows in whorls; once he’s gained entrance he must, between the tiers, easily see almonds ...

Call me when twilight turns the yard golden. Let it bathe me—I want to breathe in the glow. Call me when our peach wall yellows and all the red roofs wane as if with closed eyes. Call me when dark gold-laced clouds threaten wildness and thunder in the night. Call me while the leaves shine that clean...

Hi k-j I enjoyed this very much. With word choice and using the 3rd person, you have kind of a push and pull of sensuousness/intimacy and propriety in the poem, which you have probably balanced just as you wish it. I keep wondering who the audience might be—the author himself? The refrain sounds mor...

I did consider "Marionette" as a title, Mac.