LOL, Mary. I think we have a winner!

:O.)

Bugsy

Mary wrote: "Your critique fills a much-needed gap in the literature."

Hmmmm . . . Is this a clever way to indicate that your imagined respondent has trouble with logic? Is there such a thing as a "much-needed gap"? Or might he/she have meant: "Your much-needed critique fills a hitherto obvious but somehow previously overlooked gap in the literature"?

Many thanks for your feedback on this poem. You make several good points. I will look at those parts of the poem that you have identified as areas for improvement.

Dougsie et al.,

I think that you my have misconstrued the particular modalities of praxis in my last post. Rather than negiotating the semiotics in a Saussurean context, my piece instead interrogates the very processes of arbitrariness itself, based on tropes of bewilderment and stupefication.

Does that clear the air?

Bill Pemberton III, Attorney-at-Law

Tugsy - Neither Mary nor the lamb are intended to have a metaphorical connotation.

Slugsy - I am not dogmatically opposed to varying the repetends, but in this case I feel it works better if they don't change.

Mugsy - I think this is a question of regional usage. "Pulling the train" has a meaning in the States which might not exist in Australia, but I considered this, and tried to cast the expression within context in S6 so as to make the poem clear. I think I'll wait to see how other critters respond on that one.

Hugsy - Yes, I agree - it probably would not have taken place within a home schooling environment, but that was not the point of the poem.

Rugsy - of course I respect women - my mother was a woman.

Pugsy - well, sometimes PETA goes overboard. It was only a poem. Can you scan the stuff and e-mail it to me? I'll forward it to my attorneys.

Bogsy - when I say I "harvest my life" for my poetry, I has speaking in the broadest possible sense. This one was pure fiction. Sorry, but Mistress Strict and Madame Stern do not exist, there is no Great Hall of Discipline, or Cellar of Pain and Humiliation, and consequently there are no directions to be provided. But thank you for the photograph. The saddle is very becoming.



[This message has been edited by Michael Cantor (edited July 04, 2006).]

How nice to have a response that's longer than my poem.
I realise that there needs to be more biographical background for the frogs since they do jump out of that line.

Since you feel the need to know more about why the cat was there I will endeavour to answer that problem, within metrical restrictions of course.

I'm sorry if you feel that my poem is maudlin. The death of a fish is hard to deal with.
Thank you for quoting your own wonderful poem beneath my own.

I will post a revision once I have absorbed your many helpful comments.

Dougsie,

Thank you for chiming in. I'll be giving careful consideration to your comments re the "fluff" and "excess baggage" in the poem.

Janet,

Thank you, and yes that was a little unclear. I think the new stanza will make S34 a little less obscure.

Thanks,
Jason

Thanks, Janet. Dougsie, I'm glad you like my poem and I appreciate your suggestions, though I wrote this in 1955 and am rather reluctant to change it, especially since I don't care for modern poetry anyway and think the only good poet is a dead poet.

To any others who may have commented, I pasted the thread into Word and had my wife delete your annoying comments so I wouldn't have to read them. But thanks anyway.

http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/ubbhtml/smile.gif

Your words are "as the buzzing of flies in my ear", as Sinuhe often said, in "The Egyptian" by Mika Waltari.

--Larry

Dear everybody, thank you for helping my poem. I am so glad I finly found a sight where the people are intellengent and will tell me the truth about my poem and help me learn and that is why I am hear even if it really is to bad nobody realy understood that it was a poem about my spiritual plane because I have had a lot of it and everyone seams to care only
about the typoes and the comas and the meater
which is hard to understand any way and I no in my heart it is not my best work and doesnt have enough images like you said but I am so glad you told me because I shouldnt have posted it becuse it already got publsished in an impotent magazine and thankyou for all you're help because next week I will post a much beter one. it has a butterfly in it. and many other images to.
with all my love
Suzie

PS Micheal Cantor thank you, but what does pffa stand four ?

HA!

(Wendy, if you ever have the time, I would love to see the poem Suzie posted.)


I do feel for Suzie, since I too have had work published in impotent magazines.

Dear Mark thank you for you're interest in my poem. I see you are from Austria. I once read a book and it talked about Austria and it had recipes to. I hear the food is really intresting and I would like to visit their. anyway hear is my poem.

crash slam bang goes my soaring vearing silver
flying airplain of distress and woe
on to the runweigh of darkness and unhappiness and sadness and lonliness becaus you called me a hoe
(this part might be hard to under stand but I really like it because its about God) and I landed in the soft loving tarmac of heaven lo
and behold all around me was insents and peace and
other kinds of oh
how my spiritual vesel flies and soars and spreads it's evervesent wings so.

``````````

thank you.
also I should add that I am not really a hoe.
keep writing every body!!!!
All my love
Suzie

Muggy,

You said, "This just goes to show what a moron you really are. I do not mean this as an ad hom."

Did anyone ever tell you what a moron you are? I hope the mods get you.

You said it first, so I was just defending myself.

[This message has been edited by Terese Coe (edited July 04, 2006).]

Hugsie,

You said

Hugsie, I would defintely appreciate further comments when you get the chance to take a closer look. For now, I wonder if you were maybe reading another poem at the same time. The closest referent in my poem was, "I fling my poetry at the heavens."

Thanks for taking interest all the same,

Tundra Boy

Hi Marvella!

Have you heard this one?

Do you know why they call it "PMS"?
Because "Mad Cow Disease" was taken.
--Unknown, presumed deceased

Terese,
That's hilarious. I showed it to my wife. We seemed to find different parts of it funny, though. Odd, eh?

;O.)

Bugsy

Egbert: I'm sorry you find my poem "a heap of pointless babble." Here's what I was thinking (though of course, if you failed to see this in the poem, then I must have failed to communicate it clearly enough for your type). The train wreck represents the speaker's failed relationship. This is what's known as a metaphor. You can read more about metaphors in Ted Kooser's "Poetry Home Repair Manual," which I highly recommend.

Octavia: You are right to observe that the ending does not explicitly say whether or not the relationship can be repaired. I left that up to the reader's imagination. An imagination is a part of the brain some poetry readers have that allows them to visualize things in their heads without every detail being provided for them. Another term for it is "Negative Capability." Keats (a famous poet) thought Negative Capability was a good thing, but perhaps he was an idiot.

Leander: I'm sorry you feel my meter is "bumpy." Yes, I suppose you could say the first foot of Line 5 is "backwards." I used a trochee there instead of an iamb. In one or two places, I also used anapests instead of iambs. Those are what's known as metric substitutions. Some poets who are considered masters of meter, such as Swinburne, used substitutions quite frequently, and their readers have been somehow able to cope with it. But perhaps you are right, and metronomic tick-tock is much to be preferred. I'll take it under advisement.

Rose: Don't be silly, you're not dense at all; in fact you're very perceptive for someone who went to night school. I'm actually quite pleased you found this poem frustrating, arrhythmic, and, to use your delightfully candid phrase, "utterly without payoff." You have perfectly summed up my intent here: to convey what it's like to be a grad student hopped up on No-Doze by writing a poem that no one wants to read. I want this to be confusing, jarring, and generally unpleasant. I want the reader to scratch her head and say to herself, "Why did I just spend five minutes of my life reading this?" Let the blue-haired old ladies write pleasant, treacly, melodic lullabies that package life's uncertainties in tidy little boxes topped with bows. I'm trying to do something more with my poetry than provide an escape route from reality. 99% of real life is confusing, jarring, and generally unpleasant. If, as you read my poem, you felt as if you were waiting in a very long line at the bank, while suffering from schizophrenia, nausea, and neuralgia, then I have, if I may humbly say so, succeeded.


[This message has been edited by Rose Kelleher (edited July 17, 2006).]

Rose

That's not original. I've seen that used before.

Unfortunately the person was serious!!!