Poetry Forum

Strange that that link doesn't work, Caleb. I'm not sure what's gone wrong there.

David

Well done, John. I like the poem. I'm not sure the fish image actually works, but I wouldn't want to be violently negative about it. (Was that someone I know, I wonder.)

Cheers

David

I just got fed up of seeing the topic that was popping up at the top of this forum every time I logged in.

But happy Christmas anyway.

David

It's just a one-off, John. That's been demanding enough. I'd hate to do it on a monthly basis. Hats off to them that do.

Cheers

David

Thanks John. This was just a test - quite a rigorous one - and I am just (well, not quite just) a drama queen. The results might have required me to undergo some sort of operation but, happily, I have them now and it seems that that won't be necessary. A nice pre-Christmas buck-up. Glad you're likin...

I have found a new forum which could become our new home (if Kris decides to close PAT) I don't think this one is beyond saving yet, Caleb. Let's hope it's not. This may be why some of you praise my poems with just a few words, and then say nothing else. It's true, the comments on poems are not usu...

Thanks for sharing this, Phil.

jisbell00 wrote: ↑

Sat Dec 16, 2023 9:23 pm

Complete with triskelion!

Or, as we call it, the Three Legs of Man.

The room is Spartan, windowless and small. A clock is making faces on the wall. Left alone, until the doctor comes to catalogue my history and symptoms, I fall to contemplation of my feet, my comely ankles and my slender calves, that have conducted me through Skye and Crete to Etna’s slopes and San ...

Thanks John. (Especially for the Pope. He is a great man for couplets, isn't he?) It is, indeed, taken from life, and quite recently. And thank you Mac. Your quote reminds me that I was brought up, sharp, on the linen gown when I first posted this (elsewhere) - it was cotton, and I should have made ...

This sounds like a harrowing time, John. I think I agree with Mac that you could make more of Shekhinah - the details you've given us but don't use in the poem, for instance. She is an obscure one, isn't she? To me, at least. I wonder who you're addressing in V2. Again, this will probably have more ...

The content is great, as usual, but the metre comes and goes for me. The first six lines are great - those galloping triplets (don't ask me what they're called, but you know what I mean) - but then L7 seems to limp along in quite a different rhythm. And that's what happens for the rest of the poem (...

I started this thread 13 years ago, I wonder if anyone will still be up for it. A lot has changed in the world since then and, I think, the internet has become an angrier place. Anyway, here's the original remit: ----- Well, we're getting close to the most miserable time of the year so who's up for...

I quite enjoy the elevated language here, Caleb. It makes me think of an aging film star, famous for his looks, soliloquising (philosophically) in front of the mirror. I'm not sure about the ending either. I too would like to think that "the world / is moved by words, and not by force", bu...

Great stuff, Ray. Have you tried doing this one in performance? (You used to do that sometimes, I think.) I imagine it would go down a treat. I did think the last line was - relatively speaking - a bit of a damp squib. Maybe there's something about it that I'm missing, but for me there's only one me...

I like it. I see Nasher's point about the start, but I like the details - they animate it, and they seem true to the experience to me. I particularly like "we might ride the bow wave of illness…." - still thinking about that, not being a very nautical sort, but it's a great line. Cheers Da...

This has already been published - just recently, in Snakeskin - but it's the first of a longer sequence of poems, so I thought I might as well post it here before any of the others, so that you can follow the sequence ... Not with all my worldly goods do I endow this locker, just what I have on me ...

I like this one, John. I also like Nash's 6-5-4-3-2-1 idea, but I'm going to blow that to high heaven (appropriately for the poem) by suggesting that you lose S2, which I think is too much in your didactic mode, to which you often turn. I'm not a great believer in "show, don't tell" - I th...

OK, nuff said. My hope is that others will post more, but I agree, I could usefully cut back, for the benefit not only of PAT, but of my own work. Let some air in the room. Thanks for making me think, as you so often do, David. Hi John. Thanks for approaching my presumptuous remarks so generously. ...

Christopher Smart's For I will consider my cat Geoffrey is a special favorite One of mine too. I like this about Smart, from Dr J ... "I did not think he ought to be shut up. His infirmities were not noxious to society. He insisted on people praying with him; and I’d as lief pray with Kit Smar...

As much as I admire John's ability as a poet, I feel that he has sucked some of the air out of the forum by posting a poem a day. I sometimes wonder whether I might get more critiques if he were posting less, although I understand it probably doesn't work that way. Let me balance that out by adding...

Hello David! Yep, 23 years in and still going! Funny how there's still a pull towards this place. Other than for business I don't really do the internet much anymore but popping back here has reminded me how much fun it used to be. I wonder if the Badcoes are lurking in the wings too. I bet they ar...

Well done, Caleb. I like both of those.

David

Macavity wrote: ↑

Sat Dec 02, 2023 5:02 am

Congrats to all for their publication in Snakeskin

https://www.snakeskinpoetry.co.uk/

Bw

Phil

That's a good haul all right.

David

I'm in.

Gnasher, delighted to see that you drop in from time to time. I have been doing that too, a bit more frequently just lately, although I've probably had a furlough of a few weeks now. Which I intend to break.

So Earthworks (I think it is) is still going? Good to know.

Cheers

David