The Poets' Graves Workshop

btw this whole pc, can't write this or that crap does my head in. Why is it Ok for prime time TV to tackle subjects like this and portray unlikeable characters, but when it comes to current publishing trends everything's automatically rejected, except by left-field publications, unless it's all nic...

Sorry to butt in. For me it's both the image and the abruptness. Hard to know, but even this: while I'm being buried daily under these concrete sacks improves it for me, as ending on the word 'concrete' just has this neutralising effect - I know you probably wanted to establish that lightness and th...

What's the unleashed passion?! Suzanne - wonderful. Very glamorous title, actually I find the whole poem sort of glamorous - must be the vivid colours, and the confidence. The evocation of the leaves as paper stamps will stay with me whenever I look at the birch leaves I'll think of it...where is th...

Me too. Voting for one good poem, that is.

Well done, Ros, Mic, Brian, Delph? I can't keep up! It's fantastic and great for this, umm, community.

Ros wrote: Are the reviews fun to read, then?

No! Bonkers! Very peculiar.

Sorry, I missed this topic, and also, I can't contribute because I got Staying Alive from the library and managed to lose it - God knows - and had to pay £22. That's what Staying Alive did to me. I don't know. I've only just remembered the whole damage. I got it from the library like an addict, real...

Nice example about Selima Hill and the associations, Ben, thanks. Brian and Mrs Brian, glad you liked the balloons! To be honest that line, picked out as pleasing, happened as I was looking the other way, intent on some conceptual pursuit which now eludes me. Geoff, yes, no. And John, yes. I just en...

Yes, fantastic! I actually think you can't lose 'volunteer'. It refers more to what used to be, to a prior status quo. Which is important. I hope that makes sense. I'm not sure about 'peeled wallpaper is the new art'. I can't work out if it's uplifting at the end or if once a fortnight isn't enough....

Lost! A word? What for, a title/theme?

Aiee, yes, a muddle this is. I thought the present perfect could be a sort of invisible tense. I've just got a little edit to make but will probably end up changing the title, and everything else...

You pre-cut the cake into 28 - you'd look good live , like a croupier. You place transparent tape in X's, smooth traces out of paper, tie your breath up with balloons, maybe a dozen to fill the room. But the room grows, like velvet frogs - though it's the room and not the breath that grew - I said f...

Hello there A few thoughts here, for you to take or leave (as Clara Bow used to say....) I'm taking this part to illustrate where I think you need to be direct and pare down. Using my red pen. Toothpaste hangs limp over the holders rim, fruit bowl offers a n open hand of furry rot, two bruised apple...

I'm certainly not going to try and undo the whole thing No! By no means. It looks like John Lott and I commented on the form but not the poem. It does express its idea - I won't try to summarise the idea but I think I understand what it is - but it is an organic and mutable idea that seems to invit...

Hello Ryan. But about the piece itself: Did the images/symbolism work for you without my explanation? Yes! To me it does, absolutely. But like Nicky, I'd say some tweaking of sonics - of the poetry if you see what I mean, not the imagery, will nail it. Think about the action you are suggesting, the ...

Sounds great to me!

Is this a pantoum? I'm not confident with that diagnosis. It definitely has some symptoms! All the repeated lines are fantastic and I would only suggest minor changes like I don't think you need 'now' in the snow line, because accent should be on 'domain', and I also would say 'the swish of a cold c...

Hello Vincent. I think your explanation for the butterflies in tummy makes sense - but in that case have you tried using consistently less artful language throughout that S1? I actually really enjoy language like: everyone is giddied, fluttering from their catastrophes like sparks from a burning car...

Me and RS Thomas, Hay-on-Wye, circa 1992!!! No hold on. 1991.

But it won't / isn't.

Hi Jane, thank you!

The re-write makes me less sure of this than I was, now the suggestions of fertility/pregnancy are stronger - 'morning-after' and focus on the eggs. The first line: 'Denial shaken, hope floats fragmented' doesn't make sense to me. S2 sounds better to me in the revision. Shouldn't the tense in shell ...

Thanks Owen and Nash. On reflection I'd be more likley to remove specific Clare reference, it's too well known and loved, and concentrate on the poem as fiction working or not.
Merci.

Nice write. I stumbled on ' far away', then got the feeling that it stayed in to rhyme with A - but there's no consistent rhyme scheme. Saying that, it is the sort of thing a child would say/think - that he's gone over the hills and far away. I must say I like it, just enough detail, good structure.

Interesting. Miles out of my comfort zone (on my own) so I'm in, as a floater please.