POETRY WORKSHOP COMMENTS: A short glossary

I'd like to hear that again = I was half asleep with boredom.
That's your best one yet = They're all rubbish.
I'm sure that should be published = You'll never find a publisher.
If you left out the first two and last two lines and reworked stanza four
= Scrap it.
Where did you get that idea? = Rubbish.
The language is so unusual in this poem = The language is grammatically
and syntactictically incomprehensible.
How many have you written in this sequence? =It's remarkably boring.
Did that actually happen? = What a sordid life you must lead.
You've captured the whole scene = It's overworded and prosy.
That's a prizewinner = But, no chance.
You're good at that kind of thing = None of us understand it.
That's very sad = You're so depressing.
Do you have any more like this? = Burn them.
You've obviously spent some time on that = You've killed the whole idea.
When did you write that one? = obviously one of your early efforts.
That's an unusual approach = It's totally unintelligible.
Your "voice" is really in that poem = Same old monotonous verbiage.
James Hall Thomson

Withdrawn

[This message has been edited by Jan D. Hodge (edited October 06, 2006).]

David, I can't think of anything to add to your glossary so I'll follow Jan's lead and post an oldie of mine that's sort of in the same vein.

DEEP END CRITIQUE

I like this very much, but you should cut
everything that follows stanza three,
maybe change the second yet to but,
eliminate that pompous royal we,
then think about the meter. Are you sure
those anapests you favor don't create
a sort of sing-song bounciness that pure
iambic verse could help you mitigate?
You might just try this as a villanelle,
or better yet, a series of haikus.
Remember, poet: always show, don't tell.
And there's a ton of padding here I'd lose.
I've seen your other work and thus surmise
this poem will turn out great -- once you revise.

My favorite is "your best one yet." Whenever someone says, "That one's my favorite of yours" or "It's one of your best" I always think, "Yeah, but technically, that doesn't mean it doesn't suck, does it?"

How about:

This is a recurring theme for you = Oh no, not that again...

A complex, challenging piece = Huh?

Something about S3 just doesn't ring true = Poser!

Roger,

some fine points here. It's poignant. Only nit
would be your choice of form: the sonnet. Let
it go. Compress and focus: It’s a bit
longish. Maybe rewrite it in tet?
That thumping IP pulse: Give it a rest.
In sum: This draft is not among your best.

Regards,
Jon H.
;)

(Seriously: Good one, Roger!)

This is so complex = I don't understand a damn word.

You have such a unique view. = Boy, you're weird.

Interesting... = It sucks.

You know, Yeats deals with this theme in _____ = For God's sake let's discuss some real poetry for a while!
RPW

From the Critter

Apologies for coming to this one so late = I couldn't understand the poem until I read the other crits.

This is too good to drop down the Board so quickly = I hope you realize you owe me one.


And From the Poet

I will keep your comments in mind for the rewrite = Actually, I believe it's perfect as is.

Constructive criticism only, please = if anybody says anything bad about my poem, I will whine for a week.

Elitist attitude = critique that points out problems with grammar, syntax, spelling and punctuation

Fair and thoughtful critique = pat on the back

That's intriguing, and I want to think about it for a while = I don't have the faintest idea what you're talking about, and I suspect you're a crackpot; but on the chance that others may agree with you, I'll stall for a while and see what they say, and maybe I can figure it out then.

Thank you for commenting = Screw you!



[This message has been edited by Michael Cantor (edited July 07, 2005).]

I'll wait to see what others think of this.=My brain is on extended loan to the local hospital.
I have read this poem several times.= I just couldn't believe it the first time.
This reminds me of an early Tuscan poem by Roberto di Guccietti-Follicle= Look upon my reading list, ye Mighty, and tremble!
I've written a poem on a similar theme = I'll email it to you to show you how it should be done.
O, you naughty man, is this poem about little Me? = I may not know much about poetry, but my skirt is really tight.
I liked this because my niece is called Frances, like the cat in the poem = Where am I?
This is far and away the best poem I've read here for months.= The rest of you pathetic hacks suck big time.


Regards, Maz

[This message has been edited by grasshopper (edited July 06, 2005).]

Right, Michael, so next time you thank us for commenting, we will have the correct translation http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/ubbhtml/wink.gif

Roger,

I really like your piece, except, isn't it the other way around, that it's the "pure iambic verse" which produces the sing-song effect - the "iambic stomp", which the anapests help dissipate?

This is fun - I will make a note book of all these translations from euphemism, and consult it while reading crits.



------------------
Mark Allinson

Hilarious, Maz.

I'm posting this one again= I'm trying to be the first person to write a poem hated by EVERYONE in the world.

I wrote this one a while back= pre-emptive excuse for suckiness

I wrote this one a while back= ...and since I have no new ideas and cannot refrain from posting, because it's my entire life, I give you this... therapy referrals welcome.

I wrote this one a while back= I was 6. Wasn't I precocious?

I wrote this one a while back= Yesterday I felt really immature.

I wrote this piece [of shit] a while back: break out the longbows and nock your arrows, mates, I'm wearing my favorite bullseye tee-shirt!

I wrote this one a while back= I'm ahead of my time. Does the world appreciate my genius now?

I think this could be drastically cut = I don't really like poetry and I try to read as little of it as possible, but I write it because otherwise no one listens to me at all

from the critic

I haven’t read the other comments = I have read the other comments, but haven’t anything to say other than what they have already said.

from the writer

Sorry this didn’t work for you = It works damn fine, but you just don’t get it, do you?

Perhaps an appropriate occasion to re-introduce my experience in the movement.

Encounters in a Poetry Workshop

The Toady

Will only critique poems by ‘Staff’
“Lick a stamp and this is great”
Unaware he’s made a gaff
The ‘poem’ is a note from staff to state
“Guidelines that you must pay heed to”.
(Toadies think they never need to.)

The Entertainer

Likes attention to his post
Truth is never of the essence.
It made me laugh is what he most
likes to hear of his excrescence
When criticised his voice is terse
“Its really hard to write light verse”

The Formalist

The rhyme is poor , you’re missing a stress
it’s only prose— says the formalist
No work of merit will he bless
or credit if an iambs missed
He’ll sell his soul to the devil in Hell
to write a decent villanelle.


The Free Spirit

Has half a thought and lets
It run and run and run
And run and run
Proving to his satisfaction that the universe consists
of line
breaks.

The Space Cadet

A sensitive soul obsessed with space
laid out on the page while quietly lamenting
he’s not a poet but dreams of the place
he could achieve with better indenting,
Sensitive insights are his forte,
that and being a dab-hand at cliché

The Wise-ass

Is conscientious in carefully noting
all your grammar and typo mistakes.
He fixes your spelling, corrects your misquoting
and give his opinion on making line breaks.
He’s read your lines and smugly advised
they are anticipated and anthologised

The Show-off

Your poem invariably starts too early
He’s a liberal sprinkler of imo’s
Tell him you think you’ve been critted unfairly
and he’s liable to lecture on lineated prose.
Then just as you think that his discourse is run
he quotes his own poem to show how its done.

The Incredible Sulk

He’s really a nice chap, modest and meek
but looses his cool when he’s cut to the quick
by a less than fulsomely-praising critique.
from morons, stupid ill-read and thick.
When he isn’t resigning he gets himself banned
and always returns with his cap in his hand.

Jim Hayes

Jim!

That is fabulous!

The Incredible Sulk! - My God I am exposed!!!

Thank you Jim, I am keeping this one.

Priceless.

------------------
Mark Allinson

Jim - marvelous! You encouraged me to think of two other types - The Hitchhiker and The Sprinkler

I really like this, and - excuse the intrusion - but I thought you might get a kick out of mine on the same theme, written some time back = What a great opportunity to (a) post that villanelle I finished last night, and (b) hint that I was there first!

http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/ubbhtml/smile.gif = I can't write too good, so I resort to liberal use of symbols and shorthand to underline my points (LOL).

Michael Cantor (who knows it's really hard to write light verse) http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/ubbhtml/tongue.gif



[This message has been edited by Michael Cantor (edited July 07, 2005).]

Hell at the Poetry Workshop

Tonight, no demons stay to stoke
the fires, but lousy poets burn
a lifetime’s jotting at a stake

crafted from worthy and well-worn
tomes of junk. On a topmost skewer,
among fag ends and belching cairns,

Dante smokes, condemned to bear
performances from every workshop
hell has spawned, the worst manure,

the crap - rhythm kings from rap
alley, rookies who’d hook a headline
to a haiku, spewers-up

of bland, spoon-fed Shakespearian
sonnets, bumblers daring to dabble
with terza rima who can’t rhyme

properly, know-alls who babble
and bore, the Lower-Case-Obsessed,
lunging manuscripts from the rubble

of their lives, some sad to cast
those sentimental timepieces
away, others agog at the blast

their verses failed to ignite. Their faces
drift upwards, bereft of mercy,
longing only to change places -

by some feat of necromancy
swap the rhymes they used and abused
on the ring-roads trod by Dante’s

shoes, with his – and so confused
they’d choose a painful death by flames
before the feeding of them. Roused

by the rabble that bedevil his name,
by a flame that licks up his boots
and sucks at the petroleum,

Dante rolls the last cigarettes
in hell and hurls them at the crowd
who’ve already used their last lights,

and eyes the scramble on the ground.

I'll come back to this when I have more time= Uh, uh. Ain't gonna happen. This counts as a crit.

I'll come back to this when I have more time= I have to break a large bone sometime in my life. I'll read it in Intensive Care.

I'll come back to this when I have more time= Consider it a partial payment for the crit you gave me. When, by reading the other critter's remarks I figure out what the fuck you're doing with this one, I'll second some really safe objection. Won't even click the revision, so don't bother on my account.

ROFLMAO= I smirked.
LOL= I actually considered laughing.
FYI= Dumbass.
BTW=Dumbass.

Thanks for starting this, David, it's given me some laughter. Jim, Michael, funny, though it's a little sloppy, Jim (probably the point).


[This message has been edited by diprinzio (edited July 08, 2005).]

Jim,

Let me quote my own poem to show how it's done ;) Here's my take on The Formalist (written after a scathing critique of one of my rare attempts at free verse):

Fenster the Formalist

"Dear Rose," he opened condescendingly,
"Your so-called poem fails to float my boat.
It doesn't showcase virtuosity
with rhyme and meter. Poetry should tote
that bale and lift that barge! You've heard the quote
from E. A. Robinson, who never stooped
to mere vers libre for, he said, he wrote
badly enough already. Don't be duped
into complacency by Modern hacks
who, mostly women, gays and PhDs,
produce a plethora of "verse" that lacks
the artistry that's present in a sneeze.
In short," he said dismissively, "dear Rose,
it isn't metrical, therefore it's prose."


p.s. "Thank you for your comments" = "I'm going to pen a resentful sonnet about you later"


[This message has been edited by Rose Kelleher (edited July 08, 2005).]

This is the worst jibberish about nothing I have read in ten years. = This is the worst jibberish about nothing I have read in ten years.

This is the worst jibberish about nothing I have read in ten years = I have great difficulty spelling gibberish.

Spelling problems? Not Tom Gardine!

Quite making fun ov me.

Tom Gibberish.

I'm not sure if the colloquialisms work = if this were the period in history I'd like it to be I'd have you hung just for having the cheek to learn written language, peasant.

Good luck with this poem=before hell freezes over.

Well, had I only known everyone was speaking in code... ;0

Now that you have all revealed your own subconscious codes..
Mwaahaha :} Yes, these may prove useful in my plot for world domination (smart people codes).

These should be in the FAQ for the site..

I'm locking this thread down = If I am going to represent the people who pay for this I am going to get the last word and shut this bastard up for insulting my friends because I can

Given your own recent experience of a locked thread when you lost your temper, Mr. Carr, you don't acquit yourself well with this oblique complaint. As the young people say, 'get over it.' Please.

Alan

Roy,

Given the events of this week, the fact that you've cried foul over a comment you didn't like in posts to multiple threads, your own thread, and a slapdash poem is offensive.

People have more difficult things to get over than an unfavorable arrangement of letters beaming from an electronic screen. Grow up.

Ethan

You are quite right. There are much more important things to get over. Whether or not they can or will be is another question.

What do you think happened this week that has not been happening to someone somewhere since the beginning of time?

We have lived our entire lives, many of us, in terror, they just didn't call it that, they called it defense

Modern nations are governed by what once were called terrorists but they don't call them that anymore because they succeeded

It is no longer possible to "grow up"

We can only try to grow out or go back in

Watching flourescent screens of any kind is a madness in itself

I suppose you mean "The War on Terror" or do you mean "The War on Death"?

Someone is dying right now

Yes we should be praying

Do you feel my pain

Alan
Saying I lost my temper is rich when I was responding to someone practically telling me to get "fucked"
I guess I don't see that as polite behavior. I'm funny like that. I'm sure I'll get over it.

Roy

This is so sad.

I was rather enjoying this thread, but now it is semi-ruined..

If you guys aren't going to post more secret smart people codes, then I think you're in the wrong thread.

Go to www.flamewars.com to continue your battle please.

Sorry to interupt, I will just go back to lurking again now.

Hear, hear, Nash!

I'm not one for writing humor, but I'm a sure good reader (and a closet laugher)...

Now get on with it,

Sherri

And now back to our featured program:

1 sentence of polite compliments followed by 10 sentences on what could be "brushed up a bit" = please get the hint that you're poem really stunk and it's beyond redemption, so please don’t post a revision…PLEASE!

What have you been reading lately = Do you know how to read?

IMHO= I am God and you suck.

Cheers!,
Fr. RP


[This message has been edited by Robert Pecotte (edited July 09, 2005).]

What about instead:

That's a prizewinner = That is, the booby-prize.


Robert Meyer

With the thought of getting back to the lightheartedness of the thread, these are my contributions:


1. Good luck in your revisions = Lord knows you'll need it to straighten out this mess of a poem.

2. This is what I consider "real" poetry = as oppose to the "Hallmark" crap you just posted.

3. I really don't like this type of poem but... = Heck, I'll crit this because you just reconfirmed what I hate about this type of poetry.

3. Are you trying to do an end rhyme? = Hey, I know you're trying to do an end rhyme and you failed miserable but I just want to rub your nose in the mud about it.

************************************************** *********

1. The moment I posted the poem, I knew it was a mistake = My mind was out to lunch when I did this and it didn't come back in time to stop me from posting.

2. This one goes back in the drawer = This one goes down the toilet.


Disclaimer - Any resemblance to real or imagined events and/or persons is purely accidental. I've heard this in other forums too.



[This message has been edited by Yolanda Cruz (edited July 09, 2005).]

ROFLMAO = I almost allowed my perpetually dower countenance to smirk but it came out as a grimace and hurt.

I didn’t read the other comments = all of them where written by a bunch of grade school hacks and my opinion is the only one that matters…morons.

http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/ubbhtml/wink.gif = I just ripped on you pretty hard and now I am trying to soften it with this stupid icon

A bunch of stars below the author’s name = quake in my presence worm!

http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/ubbhtml/wink.gif = I just ripped on you with an ad hom, but since I used an icon after the slam, I am automatically granted riplomatic impunity.


[This message has been edited by Robert Pecotte (edited July 09, 2005).]

A challenging read, but
I didn't finish it, but

Though I applaud the experimentation,
Though I have never visited your home planet,

I'm puzzled by a few of your line breaks.
I'm certain a few of your meds aren't working.

I confess I had to look up "contumacious."
I didn't look up "contumacious," and you can't make me, Big Word Jerk.

The disparate images fail to coalesce--in short, the whole is less than the sum of the parts.
Sweet Jesus--seven invisible unicorns charging into a bowling alley during a party thrown by stuttering lefthanded Scientologists is supposed to convey your take on capitalism? What is wrong with you?

I've done a quick edit = your poem's mine now, boy