What made me angry is that I was told that I could post after seven days and 15 posts, and then I was told that I couldn't. As for the one-poem-a-week limitation, in my opinion it is too strict. There is more that you don't know which I am not going to share here.

Well, developing my disagreement with you strikes me as fruitless, so I won't do it. I just say, once again, welcome--and I encourage you to, as it were, walk around the party for a while and make conversation with the other guests before making up your mind or picking fights.

Dude--My reply above is to your reply to me. But your reply to John Isbell (any relation to Jason? I've wondered...) makes me want to once again discourage you from your present tone. There will be a time for you to express your suggestions for the site. Airing your tussles with the moderators in a GT thread before you have earned your posting privileges--and then gesturing to behind-the-scenes nefariousness--is not the right time, the right place, or the right manner in which to do so (in my opinion, of course).

Best,

--Simon

Simon, please butt out. Thank you.

No, Perry. You go too far. You started the thread, but that doesn't give you the right to speak to me thus (even with the winning "please"). I will speak in this thread precisely as much as I choose to, irrespective of your instructions to me. That said, I've obviously rubbed you the wrong way with my advice, and I apologize for that. Good luck to you!

Hi Simon,

Off-topic, but Jason Isbell is from northern Alabama, and that's where our Isbell line is from. So yes, we're probably distant cousins, if you go back.

Cheers,
John

Perry - why don't you pick up your marbles and get the hell out of here. Find yourself a nice beginner's Board where everybody will be impressed by your iamb-dropping ability, and you can play all the games you want, and post as often as you want. All you've done here is blather and blather, question the standards of an organization where you're not even a full member yet, pick a fight with many who disagree with you, and tell various members not to participate in the thread if they don't agree with you.

Alternately, stop fighting, post your four additional crits - preferably on poems you haven't already commented on - and get on with it.

That's actually exactly backwards.

As I'm guilty of not coming by often, I don't have a right to say how people should or should not discuss on the board...

But I'm afraid that I'm of the opinion that a reader has to take into account the speaker of "My Last Duchess." A man so possessive? I would put the stress on "my" in the opening line, but I see the argument in the other direction.

This business of "counting" as you go: I don't think about meter when I write in iambic pentameter until after I have a draft. But somehow the draft turns out to be close to iambic pentameter all the same. Evidently meter becomes a part of what we call "second nature." And it's interesting to see that variations in feet often coincide with and support changes in the poem's sense. That always seems a little magical to me.

One thing that I don't think anyone has mentioned is reading the poem aloud. The ear of the mind is clever, but reading aloud is more revelatory than reading to oneself. Hearing the poem will tell you a great deal, including where a line is weak or awkward. Stumbles on a first reading can be especially helpful.

Good cheer, all!

p. s. "Isbell" is a lovely name...