The Poets' Graves Workshop

I lived in Nederland for a few years, back in the fabulous 80s, but I don't think I ever visited Flevoland. It had something of a reputation for provincial dreariness, if I remember correctly. I can see how the poem might work in relation to it, though, although I don't see what is distinctly Flevol...

Well ... S3, at least, is a little prosaic, I think. That could do with some touching up. Very nice closing line, anyway.

Cheers

David

I don't know, Perry! I can see the attraction of the blog thing, but it might be dispiriting to do that and still no garner no attention from the outside world. I thought there were quite a lot of formalist mags - on-line and off - in the States now? The only thing I've submitted to Rattle - ages ag...

I read this when it was only called Epistle , and I didn't pick up on Jane at all. Perhaps I should have done. I'll try again now. It isn't too late to read one of her novels. Which one do you recommend most highly? Pride and Prejudice is the great crowd-pleaser, Perry - and rightly so. I'm pretty s...

I had just stopped to admire a bumble-bee reversing out of a foxglove's flower, an amiable burglar with her swag between her feet, when a butterfly alighted on my shoulder. I stood stock still, frozen by this chance promotion, this unlooked-for epaulette, and hardly daring to breathe, as though the ...

Is "banter" the only change? Not a word I'm fond of. It is redolent of what the Americans call "locker-room" talk to me, with a vaguely nasty, often misogynistic edge, which I'm sure can't be appropriate here. I much prefer laughter. To almost everything. Cheers David P.S. Mac, you're mocking my cha...

Nice one, JJ. Very evocative, both of pubs and of fells. I'm a fan of both.

https://ringobellskendal.webs.com/

Looks good! I'd like to think this is within walking distance for you.

Cheers!

David

Ah well, if we're talking in fairness, I would have to admit that I don't know an awful lot of his other songs either. But, if any of them are better then this, I'll be very surprised. And mightily impressed.

No, not the Big O, or the Big W. Big H.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJCqECUmx44&fbclid=IwAR29KRqMg5BVgSp8csSvZ3hK_hx-Alx3rrE9tGnIXvtnISgQVfPJbDd5CJw

It's years - decades, even - since my only romp through On the Road, but this seems like a great and resonant evocation of it. Could be a bebop solo in itself, Jules.

Cheers

David

Terrific, Mac. Really good. A new favourite of yours of mine. I only deplore the presence of an apostrophe in "clothe's" (although I'm really not sure what you're trying to say there). And I think there's two t's - okay, make that three - in "tattooed". Somehow I can imagine this, in pictorial form,...

The title, and some of the poem, remind me of one of Bob's early protest songs - The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll, that sort of thing. So it's sort of noble, and lofty, and angry. but It does also seem rather distanced from the crime, as though you were looking down at it from far away, or from ...

I have to say that I think you're trying to satirise the unsatirisable, RC. Nothing you can invent could be as ridiculous as what he comes up with himself on a regular basis. I agree with your sentiments, but I think you're wasting your breath. On the other hand, it may have been a healthy outlet fo...

Perry wrote: ↑

Wed Jul 03, 2019 9:37 am

Now that I am using the Active Topics link to see everything on the board, I am suddenly seeing things -- like paintings -- that I didn't know that people were posting.

Yay! That's the attraction of it, isn't it, Perry?

I like what you're trying to say, JJ, but I still don't think you're saying it. The first line is, again, very arresting, but sets up a conundrum that the next two lines don't solve. If distance was love ... It's arresting, but it doesn't give you a lot to play with. Distance and love are a forbiddi...

Hello,David I'm glad you are not sure about this yourself, as I was waiting to see what others would say. I'm probably in a minority of one,but I think the rhymes don't need accentuating;if they were internal rhymes they would still work. Yes, this is probably true, Geoff. That's definitely worth t...

Thanks Tristan. I agree that "my Mum's CV" is a little homely, maybe even twee, but it would appear on a list of places where she worked, so I'm hoping it night qualify on those grounds. Mac, I share your qualms about the endline pronoun emphasis. But if I think I can get away with it, I will. I hop...

When was the Dhoor? Unpromising name! A place obscure, of little fame, that features in my Mum's CV, the uncertain biography I have of her. It's all up here, a jumbled blur of place and year. It was somewhere she taught, the Dhoor. I thought that there was traa dy liooar, eventually, to get it strai...

So how to keep the minimalism while dragging the sleepier reader over the border into comprehension? My key suggestion would be to simply put the second 'your' in italics or bold. I must be a sleepier reader, because the repetition of "your" is not conveying anything of great significance to me at ...

I wondered about “lunging roars” too – especially due to the potential reading of something to do with lungs – but I suppose it’s probably okay. Conveys the sense very neatly, anyway. And quite a solemn ending to what was almost a jolly romp up to there. Works well, though. Enjoyed it. Have you seen...

Now then. Don't rush it.

Well played, Perry. I did worry that this thread might get slightly out of control, depending on your response to Geoff and Barrett (two sterling chaps, by the way), but it hasn't. Well done all.

Cheers

David

Just to be clear, I like the poem, and being somewhere between Disney and Wordsworth is an honourable aspiration. But you're definitely nearer one than the other. I'm not sure Wordsworth was a sensible comparison.

David

Macavity, you gave me a lot to think about, and the poem will be improved as a result. Sorry if I was getting paranoid that the group might be snubbing me. The number of critiques on my poems has dropped lately. It's summer, Perry. (And what a summer! Alarmingly so.) I think I've mentioned this bef...

I think your original instinct was right, Perry. The tree's voice is not convincing - not to me, anyway. But the poem might work pretty well if it ended with S4. Maybe - but only maybe - with a revised S7 (as your new S5). I know you hate being advised to cut large parts of your poems, but that's wh...