[Mary McLean]

I feel lukewarm about this. I like the sea in a sack analogy, but the other observations feel a bit thin and unconnected. If it were mine I would cut S1 entirely and try to work the mortality in more subtly, though I don't know how.

[Kate Benedict]

There's a fine line between a theme that is "overdone" and one that is "eternal" and I consider this theme eternal.

The various descriptions of the bodily state don't seem apt to me, however. Thoughts arise in the mind, the mind is meshed with the brain, so speaking of thoughts inside the entire body (bones, skin) seems jejune. S2 reminds me of that Star Trek episode in which a non-carbon life form addresses the crew as "Ugly bags of mostly water." A big jumble of metaphors here: sack, ghost, shell, chains.

The final couplet struggles and sounds pat. Eternal themes need freshness or they're flat. Ooh, I made a couplet too.

I do get a vibe that this is a deeply felt sonnet an one well worth revising.

[Michael Cantor]

Any stanza is well crafted. But put them all together (and, actually, I think it works better if you switch S1 and S3) and it doesn't get past been-there-read-that. But think about restructuring the stanzas. It doesn't make it brilliant, but I think it helps. S2 is a more interesting starting point.

[ross hamilton hill]

It's very Shakspearian and archaic, thoughts don't 'die' with us, quantum mechanics has opened up a whole new perspective on what thought is, ie a wave of energy.

[Pedro Poitevin]

Thoughts are not waves of energy.

[Ann Drysdale]

But the bells, the bells?

Why is it odd to think these things while listening to bells?

When I put the idea of bells back into the mixture, I get a slightly different take on the whole thing. The feeling of being overawed by something so loud (dong) and plain (dong) and simple (dong)...

OK, I've put that into the poem because the title told me to, but I like what it does when it's there. It gives a reason for the thing we all think to be thunk here.

I was put in mind of Housman, in summertime, on Bredon Hill.

That simple shrug of a start seems right to me; bells do concentrate the mind wonderfully.

[Mary McLean]

Isn't it odd that a poem with a title about bells has no imagery at all related to sound? I don't see anything in the poem that connects me to the title apart from the obvious "ask not for whom the bell tolls". That's what strikes me as heavy-handed: there may be some subtle resonances lurking behind this, but they are drowned out by the deafening toll of mortality. I want to readjust the balance on my stereo.

[Charlie Southerland]

I'm not getting the Title in relation to the poem. I get the listening part but not the container part. Bells are generally open to let sound flow. Sound does not reside within the bell. And philosophically speaking(which this poem is attempting) one has to ring a bell for it to sound just like life (breathed in, and rung by the creator) makes men sound. I agree that the poem is well written. It tries too hard to be existential. Been done, lots.

[Martin Rocek]

This meditation is a bit too familiar and ponderous for me. I did like "This remnant of a sea inside a sack," but that line is not enough to justify the whole poem.

[Jennifer Gordon]

Forcing the end-rhyme in L1, I'll sorrily quip that if only I'd not read so many finalists by now its particular cleverness might strike me more forcibly.

Suffice it, the haunting vanity of life as rendered by the image of bells ere wont to toll out the same, most especially regarding death, if I'm not mistaken, the sonneteer rather skillfully weaves the concept of our transient spirituality bound in these bodies of clay with pretty imagery which takes the mind on a flight not unlike that of its vaporous essence swiftly flown ere we know.

Lovely and beautifully rendered, though I feel cheesy in finishing thus.