The Poets' Graves Workshop

Well done Mac!

I must admit I thought the lunchbox reference was a bit lazy. I can remember that being sort of funny, ooh ... years ago. Usually, sadly, in a Linford Christie context. Cheers David Thanks, David. I cannot be held responsible for the smutty minds of my readers. Ouch. Well hung by my own oo er missus.

Brilliant. And - pace Jules, whom I've learned to love - I don't think it plods at all. It surges along with a song in its heart.

Good link, Mac. Personally I like the idea of Arthur's Bosom as somewhere that sounds wonderful but may actually just be a mistake of wishful thinking. Sounds like heaven to me. Glad you're starting to enjoy it. Something similar happened to Seth when I posted it elsewhere: "I'm liking this more and...

Looks like it's IPTO time again. It's been a while. IPTO? You could ask an old-stager here, or I could just tell you (and I will) - it means that I prefer the original. So often my mantra, and it's applicable here. I prefer the sequencing in the original. And I prefer the original title too. (More o...

Is this the first Masterchef poem we've had here? It could be. Actually, I think in order to truly capture the Zeitgeist it should be a Bake-off reference instead. I agree, good title, great last line, and the filling is quite tasty too. I must admit I thought the lunchbox reference was a bit lazy. ...

Thanks all. Was it Eastcheap, Joao? Thanks for that. I shall put that right in future. But yes, not actually Mistress Q in this case. Just so as not to be too coy about the whole thing, it's an attempt to apply this scene in Henry V - a very affecting one - to a contemporary situation in the form of...

Well done Jules! I haven't got to your poem yet, although I have managed to take in both of Seth's, which are excellent as usual.

Your first publication too! An exciting moment. I wish you many more.

Cheers

David

I must be feeling brutal today, because I would happily lose S3 completely. To be replaced by a new one, if you feel the need for it, to highlight the contrast between the high ideals (allegedly, at least) of the Age of Exploration and its actual achievements. I'm not sure you need one, though. So y...

1lankest wrote: ↑

Sat Aug 31, 2019 12:27 pm

David, the birds are there to further represent the teacher’s longing for freedom, change. But also to show that even the ‘free’ go round in circles, that even explorers must return to some shore or other. Are they too distracting do you think?

Luke

Oh okay. I'll reread it on that basis.

Does subject fumble with her sheets? She does. And play with her finger ends? Yes, that too. Does subject babble o' green fields? Certainly there is burbling, if not babbling, difficult to follow, with interpolations, as Hi! and Come on then! Ending often with That's right, isn't it? Which is alway...

I'm stumbling over the birds at the moment. I'm missing something obvious, aren't I?

Taming of the Shrew is the subject of the first chapter, which is a good one. I am reading or rereading each play as they occur in the book - she doesn't do them all, just about half of them, I think - and the Shrew didn't hold up very well to that either. Some great discoveries or rediscoveries, t...

1lankest wrote: ↑

Tue Aug 27, 2019 8:24 am

Nothing renaissance about this, sadly. I’ve dropped the references to TMHT, with a pang of regret. Still think cyclists look like ninja turtles though!

Ninja turtles! D'oh!

Your reading record is, as ever, stunning. Is the Tom McCarthy the one one about reliving a traumatic event again and again? I hated it. I am intending to read Housman Country, based on your previous praise of it. Wow - Midnight's Children. Read it when it came out. Enjoyed it. Since then he's writt...

Macavity wrote: ↑

Mon Aug 26, 2019 4:07 pm

Thanks Luce. Not so pleasant, what lies beneath the 'seductive' veneer is the point. Any reason you prefer revision2? (the one David found 'bloodless and abstract').

Ah. That seems a more than a little harsh to me now. Let me go back and refresh myself on the Dudley story.

Cheers

David

k-j wrote: ↑

Mon Aug 26, 2019 5:33 pm

Bleak House and Our Mutual Friend are by far my two favourites; together with Pickwick they're the only ones I liked at all.

They sound like my top 3 too. Although I also remember enjoying Nicholas Nickleby. And, I think, Martin Chuzzlewit.

I love Ulysses , but I could just could not get on with the Wake . On the Road I read years ago, round about the time I was reading Catch-22 and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest . (It was a teenage thing.) Should I - can I - go back to it? And I love Dickens, but I haven't tackled one for a while. (I...

Hypnotic, isn't it, Jules? And I thank you for the favour returned. I must look him up. I'm even a bit vague on his dates.

Cheers

David

ray miller wrote: ↑

Sun Aug 25, 2019 4:00 pm

Greetings, Luke. I don't think referring to Donatello and Michaelangelo does anything to help the poem, unless I'm missing something obvious.

Yes. I'm trying to detect a clever Renaissance poem here, but failing. And bikes I don't really know.

Cheers

David

Reading the title I was definitely expecting a political allegory of some sort. Actually, I'm not sure it isn't one - perhaps Boris-related - but I could be wrong. Even if it's only about cricket, it is - as Luke says - a good one. We definitely seem to be in Roy Harper country here. But I still don...

Just never got round to it, Tristan. Too much Summer, too much sun. Hope it's a great success anyway.

Cheers

David

Actually, I see now that I didn't notice this poem when it first landed (sorry!) here. It's very good. I only wonder why you chose Aldrin rather than the better known - and slightly more pioneering - Armstrong. Geoff said It has a kind of "morning has broken,like the first morning" vibe - exactly. I...

Well done, Luke! Lighthouse is a good thing to be in.

I've moved it into Finishing touch, just to be safe - here: http://www.poetsgraves.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=24040&hilit=rover - in case anyone wants to read it now.

Cheers

David

Maybe I don't know enough of the historical fact - although I thought I did (so that's been sobering) - but I'm not getting much of a true Elizabethan buzz from this, Mac. It didn't (apart from the title, I admit) seem grounded in any particular time at all. It all just seems too abstract and bloodl...