It seems clear that most of the recent crit-activity in the metrical sphere is on the “Metrical” board, and very little on TDE.

At present, for instance, there are ten threads on Metrical which have responses bearing today’s date, and four with yesterday’s date.

On TDE there has been only one posting with today’s date, and just the one for all day yesterday.

When I used to post, TDE was where the action was, and the board was in constant activity. Now there are threads which sit for a week or more without responses.

Why does TDE look like it’s dying?

"Is TDE dying"?


NO

'Cause Met pwns TDE. Why else?

(I'd put a smiley face on this, but it goes against my principles.)

Quincy

Creatures die because they need certain nourishing substances to sustain them plus proper functioning of their bodies. I suppose it is similar with electronic things. They die if they don't get power, or if their hardware/software breakdown.

What TDE is experiencing, in human terms, is lack of love. Love, of course, is important, but we all know that we can live for two weeks if a girl(or boy)friend hasn't called us for two weeks. TDE will live, and maybe will find some better (and wilder?) lovin' after its current heartbreak.

One of the things that has happened is that we have all learned to dance, partly because of TDE, and now we want to tango.
Janet

So why, Janet, is there no tangoing allowed on TDE?

Who said anything about the tango? Know where that particular dance originated? Brothels. Is that what you think about Met, Janet? That we're all into whores? (Well, we are, every single one of us, but that's beside the point.)

Dr. Whup-Ass

[This message has been edited by Quincy Lehr (edited November 16, 2006).]

Quincy,
This isn't self-aggrandizement. I workshopped this on TDE some time ago. I wanted to show you that I'm full bottle on this one:

Tango
to Astor Piazzolla

Sweat, sex and menace swamp the dying-ground;
the bandoneón sucks life from passive veins.
Straight like a knife the fatal song arrives.
Hypnotised, submissive bodies find
responsive hip and knee, close--close, asleep,
asleep and watchful. Obedient, the feet
walk always where the pounding beats command.
Dawn has no interest in the darkness where
mindless impulse rules. Just this is here.
Animal--there is but one, as cells compound
to bind beasts firm in unified revolt.
A death-defiant dance of tense despair.


Across the gloom eyes challenge, fight or die.
Men fresh from factories and docks now pride
themselves as kings of territories earned
through batterings and terror. In their time
they challenged and defeated. Now their turn
has come as younger criminals and thugs
vie for the slinky girls knit to their thighs.
Women with an aura show contempt
for younger girls with faces still unmarked.
Old lovers’ faces show that they have been
to places where the soul of tango lives.
No skin too tired, no arch too flat to glide.


Dark, dark--the place where tango dancers go
inside the senses back behind the mind.
Mechanical and animal, they know
that knowing is a barrier to being.
Out there, the danger comes from somewhere else.
Here, in the dance-hall, danger lies within.
Down in the street the policemen hide their guns
watching from rain-soaked alleys as men leave.
Futureless moments, seized with angry greed,
comfort the tired people as they cling,
pulsed by the bandoneón’s crunch and moan,
grateful for what is now. To hell with then.

That's a ripper, Janet.

Yes, I remember it on TDE.

But why is Metrical the best tangoing rink on the board now?

People follow the vanishing man.

I don't know why I haven't posted to TDE in a while. For some reason I feel more comfortable posting my poems about pig-people and angst-ridden ventriloquist dummies to Metrical.

Rose,
Do you think that the problem is less about form than about content?
Janet

Neither, exactly. More that in TDE you're supposed to post "polished" poems, so when I've posted there it's been stuff I felt somewhat confident about. When I have no idea how something's going to go over, I post in Metrical rather than risk the humiliation of being told it's not deep end material.

Funny, I sort of do the opposite. I post poems I want a thoughtful response to because I'm not certain, to TDE. I post poems I just want to share, not necessarily less polished--often more--to Metrical. I welcome crits on both.

I do think we tended to favour vanilla a little occasionally, mind you that's not necessarily always bad. I think we self-edit our material for TDE and that may be more our doing than anything else. Jax is an honorable exception.

I don't think it's necessarily more honest or profound to write about the dark side, but it's obligatory to have a place for it.

Nor, as you've noticed, do I think a delightful bauble is a thing to despise.

We want the lot!

Janet

PS Rose,
The two poems you mentioned are among the most polished poems I've read anywhere for some time. What's "polished"?
Sometimes I fear that "polished" can be code for "translated".



[This message has been edited by Janet Kenny (edited November 16, 2006).]

So, from what you say, Rose and Janet, I gather that the attraction of Metrical is its looser, lighter atmosphere.

As you say, Rose, a place where you feel freer to test less conventional poems without the burden of high expectation, which can lead to that commonly heard charge of "not Deep End material".

Fair enough.

But how does this account for the apparent preference for Metrical?

Why does it seem that more people than ever before are looking for "crit-lite", rather than "industrial strength" reviews?

As I said, I remember when it used to be the other way around.

Mark, it's just momentum. People want to be where others are. It's a party, we've been hanging in one room, conversation is dying down. So we check out the next room. No big preference for one room or another. We'll probably go back to the other room at some point. (The party may last all night -- though we might need phytoplankton after that!)

All in all, I think you're overthinking this one. Someone thought General Talk was dying down, then Terese got suspended, then all hell broke loose. One week cannot predict the next. TDE will be just fine.

What Daniel said. Godawmighty, what a navel-gazing fuss about nothing.

On the other hand - what if the silence over at TDE signals some kind of Marxist, deconstructionist, post-modernist, freedom-hating, Germaine-Greer's-left-tit-sucking takeover? Today, The Deep End, tomorrow those cretinous bastards will lay waste to the entire Sphere. Should we consider going to Code Orange, and bringing in some heavily armed "contractors" from the Blackstone Group to replace the Mods? Just temporarily, of course, until order is restored.



[This message has been edited by Michael Cantor (edited November 17, 2006).]

Daniel,

Yes, your explanation seems very reasonable.

Like tidal-flow patterns changing.

I only mentioned it because it seemed to be so marked a difference in the activity, and I wondered why.

Michael,

when we have threads discussing breakfast menus, I don't think this thread has much chance of winning the "navel-gazing" prize.

And no, I don't think the situation requires just drastic measures as you suggest.

Not yet, anyway.

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

Why? It's too late now, the election is over. To maximize the effect, you have to do it before, not after, so everyone feels tough and macho when you're doing it. Don't you remember Propaganda-101?

Robert Meyer

I have just reclaimed TDE for light poetry you orotund pontificators.
Janet

Janet,
Love your tango poem. Of course, being married to a Uruguayan, I've been told that the tango originated in Uruguay and that one of the greatest tango singers of all times, Gardel, was Uruguayan (not French or Argentinian, as others claim!). My own "tango poem" is really a song!

Tango norteño
(To be sung to the tune of “El choclo”)

How can a poet who grew up in Pennsylvania
think she can possibly pretend to entertainya
with tidy poetry that lacks Latino passion
in rhymes and rhythms that defy the latest fashion?

Ah, but this U.S. native knows the sorry stories
(despite the fact that she’s akin to Whigs and Tories)
sung in La Boca bars in dusky Buenos Aires
not just on Fridays, but all week long.

She sings of heartache, of love gone unrequited,
of destinies decided
by vagaries of chance.
She sings of jealousy, treachery and censure,
and I would venture she is partial to romance.

She sings of absence, of lovers long-departed,
and of the brokenhearted,
of friendships tried and true.
She sings of sinners who flaunt the Law of Moses,
and she supposes a confession’s overdue.

And so this gringa won’t skip the light fandango –
too much of guava, papaya, quince and mango;
because her sorrow can’t be sweetened by their juices,
she’ll keep their symbols for other uses.

Ay! Ay! El Choclo! Her hoot will not be muted;
she’ll sing her stories, unlike the owl, reputed
to have grown silent so a señorita’s lover
would not discover that his trust had gone to hell.

And though she favors the flavor of the Beatles,
she needs the tango, with all its pins and needles,
when she is craving to engrave the dark pulsation
lost in translation, like the birthplace of Gardel.


C.

Catherine,
Love your Gardel poem. What a suave and sinuous singer he was.
Janet

Sorry, Catherine, the tango's from Buenos Aires, a way of passing the time before screwing a prostitute.

See Donna J. Guy. Sex and Danger in Buenos Aires: Prostitution, Family, and Nation in Argentina. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1991.

Or skip that and listen to this .


But New Zealanders invented the Pavlova dessert no matter what Australians say.

My own hypothesis is that the spurt of activity on Met is a confluence of ordinary variations that have randomly varied all in one direction.

It's true that a few people who go back and forth between Met and the other boards happened to pick Met this week.

Additionally, there are several regulars who post poems weekly, and for the past long while "their day" has been Thursday. (I used to be one of them, but I fell behind the pack.)

There are people who post very irregularly but nearly always on Met, and they happen to have posted on yesterday.

I wish I had statistical evidence to back this up, but I feel pretty confident that nothing bad is happening. Quite often, people feel sure that a rash of illnesses or accidents in their area is being caused by some identifiable evil Thing, but the numbers say it's nothing more than chance. I think that's what we have here.

Maryann

First, I *adore* Janet's and Catherine's poems on this thread. I appreciate and am nourished and delighted by excellent formal verse. However, and though I will refrain from partaking nourishment from Germaine Greer, I'm not necessarily interested in writing perfect formal verse myself, and so probably am one of those Communists to whom Michael refers.

I know how to spin iambs. I've written and published poems in many different forms. I don't need to learn how to do those things. What interests me is learning how to break the rules, unprettyfying/de-regularizing formal structures, refusing to meet expectations, but to seduce the reader anyhow. Formal poets are cruelly used in this free verse world and I love that TDE is their sanctuary. But it *is* their sanctuary, the rules for admission are clear, and because I like seeing how far I can bend those rules before they break, I oughtn't post my work there. On the more practical side, I believe that if I did post there, an analogous thing would happen to me in TDE as happened when I submitted formal verse to free verse workshops in MFA settings: members of TDE would push me toward writing strict formal verse just as free verse workshops pushed me to give up form altogether; neither group has an interest in, probably isn't capable of (this is not a slam but acceptance of insurmountable differences in mindset), helping me to do what I'm trying to learn to do in this phase of my work. If I really understood what I was doing, I would just do it; I guess I'm hoping to run into the right critic(s).

Which brings us to: I only post work that I need help with. If I think a poem's not got any more wobble in it, I stick it in an envelope and let an editor have a go. When the editor rejects it, it's time to reconsider and see what people on the boards perceive the problem(s) to be. All feedback is good, you just have to know how to interpret and apply it. If I put up what I considered perfect work, *I* would just be showing off. Publication is sharing. I respect people who circulate their work informally and they are probably nicer people than I am. The funny/silly poems on the Vegemite thread, for instance, are brilliant, as is the fellowship with educated persons, but are Mike and Mark going to send those poems out? (Go for it, boys!)

I can't theorize why people aren't posting at TDE, but I hope I've explained why I am unlikely to post or spend much time there.

Best,
Lee

Yes, Mark, clearly The Deep End IS dying. And everyone here knows the reason, but they're too petty to admit it. It is because you, Mark, no longer post your poems for critique there.

Do the math.

Midterm elections.

The new Congress has put the kibosh on the secret budget for sending coded metrical messages through our operatives "Tim Murphy," "Rose Kelleher," "Jan Iwaszkiewicz" (whose name, when combined with "Janet Kenny," is an obvious reshuffling of the letters in "Jesus, what the hell are we gonna do about Iraq") and Donald Rumsfeld (a.k.a. "grasshopper").

We're currently working on a more cost-efficient triolet-based system. Those who need to know will know when something is known.

I was never here, and you are not reading this.


p.s. "Jim Hayes"...the condor has flown over the taco stand...repeat...the condor has flown over the taco stand. Over.

Do we need a new thread to take up the issue of right tit versus left tit sucking (or suckling, and I think the term goes in certain minority-group cases)? Perhaps not.

Michael and others should know that the left tit is considered generally inferior to the right tit. Well, maybe you shouldn't know it. I dunno. But I believe it's true. In terms of milk, that is. (I have not googled or dogpiled this info, but you're welcome to.) And this is not about Greer, whose tits I have never encountered anywhere (for transparency's sake).

oh, nevermind

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

First, let me say how happy I am see poems posted on this thread. I think it is the greatest pity that on a poetry site such as this there is no forum for the simple sharing of poems.

In John Barr’s Essay (on a thread below), I found this:

The one valid impulse to write a poem is not to impress but to share: wonder or anger or anguish or ecstasy.

And I agree. However, the present system operates on the implicit principle that a poem is posted to impress, since the criterion for “success” is that the poem has been purged and cured of all perceived faults.

Poems may be shared in a sense by posting them to a crit forum, but then the poem is no longer presented to be shared but to be “improved”, “corrected”, “tightened” or “Polished.” It is not read with the same eye as a poem presented for sharing. And so poems on the present boards can only be shared by becoming patients, and we read them with a view to making them “better”.

Lee, you say that “Publication is sharing.” But not every poem we might like to share is destined for publication (like the poems on vegemite you mention), and so if such poems cannot be shared on a General Talk thread, they will never be shared at all.

Lee, may I quote one of your paras above:

You are quite right, Lee, to realise that you cannot post such work on TDE. All your experiments with bending or breaking the rules would instantly become faults to be corrected, and you would not enjoy the experience. And so there is no forum on this site for you to get any feedback on the general impression your poem makes, unless it submits to the process of becoming a patient to be cured.

It seemed to me a possible explanation of the increased activity on Metrical, that people were becoming more interested in receiving this type of general response – a simple indication of the poem’s effectiveness, without the prescriptions for major surgery.

Anyway, if anyone has anymore poems they would like to share with us, I am happy to see them posted on this thread.

One of the reasons often given for not sharing poems on GT threads is that it may compromise future publication. But if the poster removes the poem in a later edit (after a few days) then the poem has received no more public exposure than those posted for crits.

My preference would be for two metrical boards with a clear-cut division of labor:

[1] The present "Metrical" for light, general response only.

[2] TDE for detailed, in-depth criticism.

Mark--

Dude, you don't even post to either board, so why do you care?

Quincy

Quincy, if there were such a thing as a light response board I would certainly post poems on it.

I would love to share some of the work I am doing.

But not at the cost of having the poem treated as a patient presenting for surgery.

Of course, some people want the surgery, and they should have every chance to gather as many opinions as they can.

But if you are more or less happy with a poem (but could use a helpful response), then at present you either post under false pretences or not at all.

I don't agree. I've often posted poems I was more or less happy with. Sometimes, in the process, critics have pointed out weak spots I hadn't noticed before. Other times, I've gotten confirmation that the poem was good. And of course there have been many times I've gotten advice I didn't agree with, and which I never acted on. I don't consider that posting under false pretenses. I'm posting to find out how readers react, but there's no promise built into that. It's my poem.

Why on earth would anyone come to a poetry workshop and expect to "share" his poems there, lobbying for a forum exempt from critique? Nothing wrong with the idea of sharing; what's wrong is the location. If people want to share your poems they can Google you up and visit your blog or buy your books and share away. If they want to engage in reciprocal critique with their peers and work on writing more effectively, Eratosphere's the place.

As Maryann points out, a random or cyclical lack of activity affects all boards. Sometimes there's nothing up that moves anybody to comment, and sometimes people have other things to do. And then of course there is an endless supply of GT threads which are more fun and less demanding than critiquing, with no dues to pay.

Carol

Carol, where does this idea of "exempt from critique" come from.

Let me repeat my earlier point:


The first board would NOT be "exempt from critique", but merely exempt from the prescriptions and directions and on-going persuasions to change.

Critique on this first board could be as pointed and as scathing as the ad hom rules would allow, and comments like: "This is the worst load of crud I have ever read on this site" would be perfectly acceptable.

Rose, this short response board would certainly not preclude the sort of helpful comments you mention. I have been happy with poems too, and have had suggestions which have transformed them to the improvement of the original.

At present the two boards seem to be doing much the same thing. So why not make the distinction between them more clear-cut?

Am I the only one experiencing a feeling of deja vu here?

Quincy

What Carol said. It's a workshop, Mark, not a billboard. Crappy poems get knocked - sometimes with a great deal of detail - good poems get praised - again, sometimes with a great deal of detail. And everything in between. And generally with disagreement. We post here because we are striving to work and improve our poems, and we value that feedback, and it's up to the poster to be a big boy or girl and deal with the critiques, as Rose indicated. You takes what you wants, you ignores the balance, you thank everybody graciously, and - damm - sometimes you discover something.

If you don't want the feedback - fine. Paste your poems to a fence. Start a blog. Do whatever you want. But will you stop continually whining and complaining and proposing WORKSHOP changes because you don't want to workshop.

Second point. Lee, the Deep End is not some kind of Formalist fortress. I've never had a problem with knee-jerk negative reactions (at least from writers I respected) when I pushed the envelope on a poem. As a matter of fact, in my experience it's been encouraged. Once you demonstrate that you know what you're doing, and you're not a fool, I think that the main players on the Deep End will work with you. You want to write a random het-met (which I have at times), or mess with rhymes, and the critters you have to worry about (I can't speak for every single member) will crit the piece on the basis of whether the poem works, not on some ananlysis of whether you followed the rules. We've had villanelles posted that replicated the repetends precisely - and were knocked as being lousy poems - and others that barely respected the repetends, and were highly praised.

It's a Metrical Board. Write metrical verse - or at least verse where the substitutions don't overpower the basic meter, or where the lines just don't clang because it's an inherently lousy poem - and I believe that it will be treated on its own. I think what sometimes does happen, however - and it creates problems - is that "I am breaking free from the straightjacket of tight-assed Formal verse" is used, on the Metrical Boards, as an excuse for poor writing. That's sometimes a tougher call, and there can be honest differences of opinion, but I believe that the thrust of the criticism is to push for good poetry, not formal orthodoxy.

And, if you want to break away from formal verse, or you want to avoid the restrictions of formal/metrical criticism - post on Non-Met. I won't pretend that all of the poems or all of the crits on that Board are at the same level as the Metrical Boards (FV inherently has a lower entrance barrier), but some of the best Metrical poets post and crit on Non-Met as well (Maz Griffiths, for example, and Maryann Corbett), and in my experience good, thoughtful poetry attracts good, thoughtful crits. It depends on you, as well as the critics.


[This message has been edited by Michael Cantor (edited November 17, 2006).]

[quote] "In John Barr’s Essay (on a thread below), I found this:

The one[!?] valid impulse to write[!!??] a poem is not to impress but to share: wonder or anger or anguish or ecstasy."

-- Excuse me, but that's one of the more arrant pieces of [Quincy, what's the word I want here?] Oh, yes, Nonsense that I've read anywhere in a long time.

Did someone elect John Barr Lord of the Poetry Pronunciamento when we wasn't looking?

Frank

How many times and in how many different ways is Mark Allison going to whine about wanting to post without having his work critiqued? Why can't he get the message? What parasitic bum will Britney Spears marry next? Which elected official will be caught next with his hand in the till or someone else's pants? Stay tuned for the next repetitive episode of It's Déjà Vu All Over Again.

[This message has been edited by Howard (edited November 17, 2006).]