Because I'm a grown-up I don't use Spell Check.

The "mistakes" in our scansion are our own and are a jolly good indication of what our poetry is about. Mechanically supervised scansion would send me to the nearest suicide jump. It is possibly the best definition of Hell that I have encountered.

Where does The Deep End fit into all this? I thought that was for the more experienced poets who require a more unforgiving level of criticism and who have worked their poems to a higher standard. The fiercer criteria seem to be more relevant there and I'd agree wholeheartedly with their adoption (even though I believed they were adopted already!)

But surely there has to be somewhere for relatively makey-learney poets to try their wings? I don't think many would deliberately post something they knew was crap and there is such a thing as tempering the wind to the shorn lamb. Why have two levels of "Metric" otherwise?

"It is a damn poor mind indeed which can't think of at least two ways to spell any word.”
--President Andrew Jackson

Deleted by request.
I apologise for my joke.
Janet

Ann, the original and still operative idea behind Metrical is that it's a place to learn. And sometimes we do have newcomers who need if for that, but not always. Janet's right about its use as a testing ground, or a place for early drafts, since the Deep End rubric says "work should be well developed...."

It's also true at times--this changes--that different groups of people congregate on the different boards. I find it valuable to post on each of the main boards, and translation too, once in a while, just to see a wider range of responses to my habits. But this is getting away from the topic of meter and scansion; forgive my straying.

What Petra said. Since only a small minority of two in this thread can understand your post, Peter, I suggest you translate it for the larger community and give the context.

For the record, I deleted my previous post on confusing its and it's because it caused misunderstanding, not because of your mention of the jantelag.

And we all type the wrong it's/its sometimes when our blood sugar is low. Spell Check wouldn't detect that.

Do your best. Assume good will. Those take care of a lot of it, I think.

David R.

Nobody claimed it would, Janet.

Obviously I am not talking about typos, I am talking about not knowing the difference; in a broader context, I am talking about a general tendency of not knowing, or not caring, enough about the poem and comments one puts up.

Mary Ann

I think you mean "typos"?

:D

P