The Poets' Graves Workshop

Getting through Crime and Punishment slowly, I'd like to say that it is because I don't want it to end and I'm drinking in every word, which is partly true, though to be honest somewhere in my student lifestyle I lost the stamina for novels. It is one of those texts that sparks off so many ideas in ...

I hope I'm not breaking any rules, but I posted this a while ago in the beginners forum. It's been redrafted and I think it's now ready to withstand the fury of the experienced forum... readyaimfire! On a Finger The years have turned its skin to another shade, With spring's light translucence wiring...

Good stuff, grabs your attention then goes on to make it worth your while. A good insight into the world of the damned - the whole thing fits together really well, the final image sets the whole thing into place for me. Thoroughly enjoyed this one.

Geat force and imagery, loved the end. Could help think of that Larkin poem that end "Such attics cleared of me! Such absences!". It's hard to accept that as an artist you can create something that goes beyond your our own sad little world, even though it was created within it - but you've done it h...

Good imagery< I liked "cocoon sleep" especially.

Thanks, got another draft up now. Quite rewarding getting into the swing of revising a poem. Again, girl I like because it harks backs to youth in the way woman doesn't.

Yeah, I have that a lot - of course in my case it developed into a florid psychotic mania and I wound up in a psychiatric ward. Feeling much better now, thank you. But yes, I think it is often the downside of a creative mind. Manic Depression is termed the artist's disease for good reason, and like ...

Or my nice blue shoes
Will be torn about the heel
And the puddle leak

Thanks, I think you're right. Far and away my biggest influence is Larkin, so I'm looking to mix in the deep with obscene in my poetry - unfortunatly I'm not Philip larkin so it doesn't come off as well. I totally agree with the title, it needs to go - it was just an afterthought, I didn't have a ti...

Hi,

You made me smile, so thanks for that.
again, I could crit, but it's be rather like taking a hammer and chisel to a blow-up doll.

Always gotta love Morse, but then like most of the general public I've never actually read any of the novels so have no business mentioning him here really do I?

Hi, I like this a lot, the melting of the contrast and conflict of the erotic to the routine is brilliant. The lost potency... brill... The whole thing captures the warm pleasure of a enticed semi in yer trousers that never comes to fruition but was nice anyway. I'm struggling to find something to a...

And thus it came to pass that Joseph did leaveth the stable and drowned his sorrows in newly wined water.

The years have turned its skin to another shade, With spring's light translucence wiring the blood, And summer's heavy rays double tapping the grave And autumnal rains seeping through the opening pours The winter's darkening nights into hollow bone. That digit keeps present a static joint Encapsulat...

Yes, that is a good interpretation. I've always seen the priest and the doctor as primarily emblematic of man's frantic but horrifyingly futile desire to avoid death... but I think the strength of Larkin's poetry is that many of his poems contain a duplicity in meaning. I don't know what it is about...

I think there's a lot in that... To turn it on it's head I've heard it said that maths is the purest form of poetry. I think there is a kind of poetry in Maths, but you don't really get to see it untill you're at a high level or if that subject really turns you on... (alas, I am in neither group...)

I liked this, the change of tone with the italics worked well.

With discerning eyes,
I map your face, counting all
The hairs on your chin.

Hmm, " A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many, I had not though death had undone so many. "? Yes, food for thought Wab, certainly. What is nationality, and is it important? I have no ready answers, but I have just finished reading "Brave New World", I'm reminded of the Savage's exile from his tr...

Would Italy be allowed the likes of Marcus Aurelius and Cicero too?

Thomas More should really make the GB team IMO, "utopia" is a very important humanist work.

On that subject, where did Erasmus come from? *googles* Rotterdam, hmm, anyone else from the Netherlands to make a team with him?

Well, I read "A Girl in Winter". Good, but not great. Worth the read if you're a Larkin fan though, because, and I know this is a cliche, but it really does shed new light on his poetry, and there are some really great passages in there even if it does drag a little at times. As one might predict, t...

With cement, of course,
cracks in grounded soles will heal
and no waves break them.

"Well, obviously it's not supposed to be taken literally it refers to all manufacters of dairy products..."

They should just make it a criminal offense to decline the post, that way they wouldn't have to phone the entire literary establishment to find someone nice enough and talantless enough to take the job. Hey, and then poets would be less eager to force their work on us - two birds one stone! Could wo...

Yeah, I didn't see much exciting in the first one either- the second one, I agree, is a half-decent poem. It's true, he hasn't written anything paticuarly inspiring, though there are a few on the poetry archive that are worth of attention. 'My poems are the product of a relationship between a side o...