David wished he had written Bill's poem..

I wish I had written Carol's critique.

I would like to add that in poetry as in all else comparisons can be, if not odious, at least trivial.

I think that there is a point where talking about something becomes more important than doing it. It is a danger among poets.

As an Italian minimalist poet said to me once after seeing a large book:
"Tante parole!"

Janet

I'm delighted to see Carol weigh in here. I asked Sam Gwynn and Dave Mason and Clive Watkins to look in because they are infrequent visitors. Figured we would hear from Anthony, Hayes and Taylor who frequently police our boards. Tony Hecht is disadvantaged here. He doesn't use a computer. I have to drive to town, disconnect my office computers which share a line with my fax, transcribe what members have to say, wait for Tony to deliberate and return his thoughts by fax, transcribe his comments. No shit. Nonetheless I think that like Wilbur he's more than sufficiently intrigued with our efforts that he will return as my guest in a few months and critique some of our best work. (Woe to the chosen!) And I have promised him that I shall print out this entire thread and snail mail it to him.

Now that we're arguing against the "carrying-over" of the erotic in the refrain (I was afraid for a while everyone was going to keep quiet about that), in the service of fair-mindedness I should say that in general contexts accumulate when words and phrases are repeated, as here, and that the phenomenon of contextual attraction does exist and should if for no other reason than that it greatly expands the expressive power of poetry. That's why it's important that the use of the refrain in Bill's first stanza be recognized as neither exclusively nor primarily erotic, as Carol states.

Chris



[This message has been edited by Chris Childers (edited January 05, 2004).]

An erotic element in "sleeping with God" wouldn't disturb me at all, since religious ecstasy has sometimes been described in sexual terms.

I have to be brief because of the press of business. I'll come back for specific comment later as time allows.

For now, I would just like to say thanks for all the criticism on my poem, both the negative and positive. I must say it took no courage to ask Tim to get Mr. Hecht to reconsider. I think it would have been churlish of me to evade honest criticism, especially after the run-up on General about ambition. I have few illusions: I knew this was an apprentice work. Mr. Hecht forthrightly criticized it as such. Like others, I found his remarks about "eroticism" to be a misreading, but the rest was fair comment. I am his beneficiary, not his victim. I will take what I can use and make my poetry better because of it.

I am forming the opinion that a poem, however flawed, can be brought to a certain point and no further. That the comments fall on a continuum from Murphy to Hecht, with so many poets that I admire somewhere in between, is pretty good evidence of that. I could spend a lot of time on it without really improving it and without getting anything new written.

I'm glad I could be of service to the 'Sphere is some small way. Thanks again for all the comments, which you may be sure I will make good use of in the future.


------------------
Bill

[This message has been edited by Wild Bill (edited January 05, 2004).]

Bill, Tony Hecht just called because my coal-fired fax couldn't transmit your comments. So I read them to him. He expressed nothing but forthright admiration for what you had to say and wishes you well in your writing.

Tim asked me to put my two cents in, but I can't spare more than one cent. Though I'm always sorry to disagree with Tim
and Rhina, I pretty much agree with Mr. Hecht and with Clive
and Dave Mason and others. The jiggety-jog rhythm is, for me, an immediate turn-off. I don't think such a regular and untroubled meter could begin to express the emotion that the poet wants to convey. As it did with others, the penultimate line called immediately to mind the Xmas carol, an echo that does nothing for the poem---a rather jarring echo that almost silences the poem for a moment. The poet has talent, clearly, but this is a pretty bad poem.
I think some of the people who commented on "The Man He Killed" don't quite understand what Hardy is doing. There is nothing sentimental or naive about the poem---it's a little dramatic monologue: it's the soldier who speaks, not Hardy.
The soldier is reflective enough to see the cosmic irony in killing a stranger who might have been a friend, but too stupid to pick up on the deeper irony of calling war "quaint and curious."



[This message has been edited by robert mezey (edited January 05, 2004).]

I think some of the people who commented on "The Man He Killed" don't quite understand what Hardy is doing. There is nothing sentimental or naive about the poem---it's a little dramatic monologue: it's the soldier who speaks, not Hardy.
The soldier is reflective enough to see the cosmic irony in killing a stranger who might have been a friend, but too stupid to pick up on the deeper irony of calling war "quaint and curious."

[This message has been edited by robert mezey (edited January 05, 2004).]


Mr. Mezey has hit the nail on the head, as usual. Hardy manages to be at once sympathetic to and ironical about his persona's obtuseness.