Check on General Talk for what to do.

(Just for a week.)

TJ

(eaf,
That is a great idea. So, experiment for awhile!
(But not the PM part)

I'll start a thread on TDE, title the poems "anonymous," and people can respond anonymously.

1.) Either use your own e-mail or set up a wild non-de-plume at hotmail or yahoo.

2.) E-mail a poem for crit to tomjardine@wwdb.org
and I will post it under a new thread. (put "anonymous poem" as subject. I won't know who anyone is, or if you use your own e-mail I won't copy it to the TDE.

3.) Send crits to tomjardine@wwdb.org "anonymous crit" as the subject, in the body of the e-mail put the crit and which poem it refers to.

I can do this about a week or so, and check every four hours.

Then, after a week, people can come out and say whatever they want here at talk, or even on the thread.

Thread Started!

TJ)



[This message has been edited by Tom Jardine (edited September 18, 2004).]

Why are you putting this on the Deep End? You have no idea what kind of poems will come in in response.

Do you intend to start a new thread here every time somebody submits an anonymous poem, regardless of content, etc,, etc.? If you don't, it gets confusing. If you do, it hijacks the Board - not just Carol's thread - and, if a number of poems are sent and you post them on individual threads - has the potential to screw up the normal function of the Deep End.

I urge you - and the Mods - to delete this post and get the "experiment" back on General Topics.

Tom, I'm moving this to FunExcise. I know you won't be able to create multiple theads here, but I don't think we can have anonymous posts and critiques on the Deep End.

Carol

Michael,

Relax. It would have been there for a week or so. When you are right all the time, nothing ever happens.

I thought it would have been an interesting idea.

I'll see what happens.


TJ

By Anonymous:
__________________________________

To A Creased Snapshot of Us

Of you and I,
photography
will always lie.
The pictures try
but fail to see
how you and I

would smile to cry.
But misery
will always lie,
and won’t supply
the history
of you and I:

my hand, your thigh,
the bed where we
will always lie,
snapped only by
my memory
of you. And I
will always lie.

By Anonymous:
______________________________________

Private Mann

After Reading the Diaries of Thomas Mann

Have you called on Thomas Mann at home?
Writer, hypochondriac and doer,
great-hearted snob, gourmet, a vain coxcomb,
thinker, self-absorbed, but still with fewer
faults than most, a real celebrity
who boldly faced down Hitler with direct
instinctive, unabashed integrity,
which places him among this world’s elect.
Atrocities aroused great consternation.
When possible he tried to save his friends
and Jung’s essays earned downright condemnation,
he said, for passive aid to fascist ends.
“Disingenuous self-justification”
exposed, he said, Jung’s real affiliation.


[This message has been edited by Tom Jardine (edited September 18, 2004).]

Reminder;

If you want to crit, just send me the crit with "anonymous crit" in the subject, either your own e-mail or get one from hotmail or yahoo, such as "critter123456@hotmail.com" It doesn't take long to do one, (and can be handy when some sites request an active e-mail address and you think they might send spam.)

Same thing to post a poem. Put "Anonymous poem" in the header so I know it is a poem. Send to tomjardine@wwdb.org

Same usual rules apply, you know, meaningless ad hom, etc.

TJ

I, myself, won't post an anonymous poem or crit until much later, that way people know they are dealing with others, not me.

Fair enough, so far?



[This message has been edited by Tom Jardine (edited September 19, 2004).]

By Anonymous:
_____________________________


No Movies of Me

Think of the movie stars that were --
their heydays brimming with hormones,
then their relentless public ageing:
a bloated Brando, a withered Bacall,

a Groucho shifting his dentures in a shriveled mouth,
a crumbling, leathered Moore,
a doddery Hope, no hope left,
gazing into the distance, or the past.

How lucky there are no movies of me
on my Road to Anywhere, only stills:
no home Super-8 replay of someone past,
fresh-featured, lithe and limber, playing the fool
forever in a ski-sweater of Norwegian style,
splashing water at the camera lens,
or taking a loving glance for granted.

Or maybe just one. Somewhere in a tin trunk
stashed in the lumber-room of a childhood friend
now gray or gone, there may survive a short trick sequence:
thirty grainy seconds of me at ten or eleven
climbing out of the same cardboard box
again and again, before fading out.

Crit by anonymous of:

To A Creased Snapshot of Us

Of you and I,
photography
will always lie.
The pictures try
but fail to see
how you and I

would smile to cry.
But misery
will always lie,
and won’t supply
the history
of you and I:

my hand, your thigh,
the bed where we
will always lie,
snapped only by
my memory
of you. And I
will always lie.

This is a very skilful dimetric poem. The ideas are deftly presented
with with perfect aim.

I like the economy of words which reveal so much in stanza 2.

The end is positively brilliant, especially the last “and I, will always lie." Elegant word play.

Crit by Anonymous:
___________________________________


Private Mann

After Reading the Diaries of Thomas Mann

Have you called on Thomas Mann at home?
Writer, hypochondriac and doer,
great-hearted snob, gourmet, a vain coxcomb,
thinker, self-absorbed, but still with fewer
faults than most, a real celebrity
who boldly faced down Hitler with direct
instinctive, unabashed integrity,
which places him among this world’s elect.
Atrocities aroused great consternation.
When possible he tried to save his friends
and Jung’s essays earned downright condemnation,
he said, for passive aid to fascist ends.
“Disingenuous self-justification”
exposed, he said, Jung’s real affiliation.

Critique of "Private Mann"

There are some good historical and character observations in this poem but the poem is half developed. Apart from the misspelling of the final word, the punctuation leaves much to be desired. There should be a period after "most" in line 5.
This poem needs work.

Anonymous Crit:
____________________________



I don't know who "Moore" is . . . aside from that, this fires on all cylinders. Excellent.

Anonymous Crit:
_____________________________________

For 'No Movies of Me'

This is so good! The last stanza contradicts the
poem's title, but I am willing to forgive this. If I
were a film critic, I'd give it four stars out of
five.

Anonymous crit:

_____________________

TO A CREASED SNAPSHOT OF US:

Of course there's a certain technical challenge in writing a dimeter poem with only two rhyme sounds. But I can't agree that this is skillfully done.

There are problems with sense: for example, "The pictures try/ but fail to see/ how you and I/ would smile to cry." Huh?? There's a problem with grammar: that repeated "of you and I" should be "of you and me." There's a problem with cliché: that play on the meanings of "lie" has been done over and over.

And there's a problem with the meter: it's uniform and monotonous! This would really benefit from some loosening up: hit the beat sometimes on the first syllable of the line, and maybe give some lines a feminine ending.

Sorry I can't be more enthusiastic. I know dimeter is hard.

Anonymous Crit:

_____________________________

NO MOVIES OF ME:

Good job with this! It conveys an emotional attitude effectively and affectingly. Some might see it as a poem of depression. I don't know: there are two ways of looking at it. It might be negative to say "I don't want to be reminded of how I was compared with how I am" or equally it might be seen as a positive, "let's be what we are now, without the distraction of constantly confronting the past."

I especially like the construction and syntax, and the images. The phrasing is distinguished. And the poem occupies an interesting space technically. It's free verse (is it? isn't it?) yet with "the ghost of meter." And it's a lesson in lineation---I'd only question the L4-5 strophe break, which seems unnecessary.

Anonymous crit:

_______________________________

No Movies of Me

Think of the movie stars that were --
their heydays brimming with hormones,
then their relentless public ageing:
a bloated Brando, a withered Bacall,

a Groucho shifting his dentures in a shriveled mouth,
a crumbling, leathered Moore,
a doddery Hope, no hope left,
gazing into the distance, or the past.

How lucky there are no movies of me
on my Road to Anywhere, only stills:
no home Super-8 replay of someone past,
fresh-featured, lithe and limber, playing the fool
forever in a ski-sweater of Norwegian style,
splashing water at the camera lens,
or taking a loving glance for granted.

Or maybe just one. Somewhere in a tin trunk
stashed in the lumber-room of a childhood friend
now gray or gone, there may survive a short trick sequence:
thirty grainy seconds of me at ten or eleven
climbing out of the same cardboard box
again and again, before fading out.

This poem is superb. I find no faults. Masterly.

Non-anonymous comment on the "No Movies" poem: "Moore" must be Roger Moore, an erstwhile James Bond.

(robt)

David, send it to Tom at his email mentioned at the top of the thread and he'll post it, leaving you anonymous.

Carol

Poem by Anonymous:

______________________________

Alphabet Passion, Envelope Love

P q r s t u v;
w, w, j k l.
God, I love you! Can't you tell?
A b a b a b b.
M n o? X y z?
R d p r v v j?
I'm useless since you went away.
D d c c a b b...

Anonymous Crit;
________________________________

'Alphabet Passion, Envelope Love'

For this reader, the poem had the impact the author
must have aimed at when writing it: it is childishly
tender and wise at the same time. The title is in
itself a poem.

Anonymous Crit;

___________________________________

Alphabet Passion, Envelope Love

P q r s t u v;
w, w, j k l.
God, I love you! Can't you tell?
A b a b a b b.
M n o? X y z?
R d p r v v j?
I'm useless since you went away.
D d c c a b b...

Just as well you're anonymous.

Total crap.

Anonymous Poem:

______________________________

FOLLOWING HER

Are you sure, Zoe?
That part of our building: is it not off limits?
The smell that comes from there sometimes—
I pack towels into the cracks of my door.
And the dinginess!.
Even the custodian won’t replace the bulbs.
Now that we’re here, I have an inkling of what draws you.
The corridors tug so, a mazy momentum:
I rush through them,
I am swift around the turns.
Slower now, much slower.
What are these alien growths along the walls?
Some kind of tumor, some kind of villi?
I can’t edge through without being touched all over.
I think they are more alive than I am;
they bear down on my dwindling vitality.
The sanctum that you promised me—
is it around the next bend, the next?
I do not know if I can hold on any longer,
beseiged, as I am, by small flagellents.
I seem to be swelling now, pluralizing,
and my mind that was so keenly watchful
goes dimmer than these shadowy hallways,
darkens utterly, sleeps.

PLEASE note: if formatting does not come through, let me know.

TJ

Once again, everything is being passed through to this thread fast as I can.

Anonymous Poem:

____________________________

SPAM DIPTYCH

I: Authenticating an Audubon

Is it conceit, a fiefdom of definition,
a fictive explanation, a codeword imperative?
Must we rummage through a bijouterie,
suffer its custodian’s trophic acerbity --
the crystalline wiggins, the corduroy ottoman,
dandelion tea and Delft?

Skip the chromatogram, close the casebook,
engage no Jacobi inquest.
Courage! Simplicity! Swig the dose
and cranny the matchbook Camelot:
a Rhodes Landslide, a Pinball Townsmen,
a Thundershower on the Esplanade.


II: A Gangplank near Nantucket

Alex and Jean meet like a metronome,
pockets stiff with triplex documentation,
conscious an aristocratic escutcheon is doubtful
as gild, borderland impracticable --
Persian carpet or not.

Shall an Haitian scold eardrum or cochlea
or a conscious contraption breathe of mullions and arches
by a riverine minnow-streamed Chaparral airstrip,
as somewhere a chimpanzee
passes the Turing Test?


[This message has been edited by Tom Jardine (edited September 23, 2004).]

Re the Audubon and the Nantucket Gangplank:

Whoever wrote these is on thin ice, using obscurity to question the need for obscurity. The first poem especially reminds me in a weird way of George Herbert's "Jordan"--I sense in each a tone of complaint at the same time that each betrays a degree of attachment to the very qualities of verse about which he(she) complains.

Has anyone here, by the way, tried out the Turing Test associated with Raymond Kurzweil's cybernetic poetry generator? It's not altogether satisfying, but it's reassuring to see how far computers still are from being able to counterfeit (or authentically create) sense convincingly. The test does, however, leave one slightly saddened at the failure of certain HUMAN poets (Kurzweil himself included) to counterfeit sense convincingly.

-Peter

Anonymous Crit:

________________


On Spam Diptych:

Poems composed to incorporate a heap of random words, such as spammers now use to camouflage their efforts from spam filters?

Peter's comment may have been intended as satirically tongue in cheek, but these pieces do "counterfeit meaning" to the point where we wonder what deep connections might be escaping us.

A well-executed joke, perhaps, or a faking of surrealism, but such exercises can produce results we never intended or foresaw. We might dismiss this as the nonsense it was probably intended to be, and yet L3-6 of I, and the first two and last two lines of II, do seem to reach a kind of sense.

Anonymous Crit:

__________________________________

Alphabet Passion, Envelope Love

P q r s t u v;
w, w, j k l.
God, I love you! Can't you tell?
A b a b a b b.
M n o? X y z?
R d p r v v j?
I'm useless since you went away.
D d c c a b b...

I thought this was touching. It looks light but there's a little dagger in it.
The way I read it was this:

Alphabet Passion, Envelope Love

P q r s t u v; (Things were going along smoothly, you thought. Everything in order.
w, w, j k l. (Oops. Trip up. Relationship is stalling. Suddenly, you're emotionally back in the middle where things like committment are still up in the air.)
God, I love you! Can't you tell? (Desperation is starting to make you panic.)
A b a b a b b. (Go back to the beginning and examine things. Did you miss something?)
M n o? X y z? (Examine the middle. Is it really over?)
R d p r v v j? (I'm so mixed up. Maybe it was this. Or that. Maybe both. And probably some of this, too. I don't know. I can't figure it out.)
I'm useless since you went away. (Self-explanatory)
D d c c a b b...(Still ruminating...and doesn't know how to begin again.)
I enjoy a free thinker who likes to stretch boundaries, and this one appeals to me.

Non-anonymous grammar nit...shouldn't it be "a Haitian" instead of "an Haitian"? There was a thread in General about this very thing about a year or so ago...

-eaf

Anonymous Crit:

____________________________


This piece worked well overall--my only complaints stem from a few
awkwardly-worded lines and a couple of unnecessary statements. The
ending worked very well, if a bit on the predictable side.

No Movies of Me

Think of the movie stars that were --
their heydays brimming with hormones,
> Opening works fine, though that first line could be a bit more
engaging.

then their relentless public ageing:
a bloated Brando, a withered Bacall,
> Not sure there's enough contrast between the heydays and the
aging...seems a bit out of kilter. Four lines of "aging" images and
just one line glossing over their early performances? Might want to
consider giving the readers a bit more meat for the comparison.

a Groucho shifting his dentures in a shriveled mouth,
a crumbling, leathered Moore,
a doddery Hope, no hope left,
gazing into the distance, or the past.
> The last line is too much for me. Borders on overwritten. Liked
"doddery".

How lucky there are no movies of me
on my Road to Anywhere, only stills:
no home Super-8 replay of someone past,
> Reusing the word "past" stuck out for me. "Only stills" doesn't seem
necessary unless you want to talk about them. They kind of interrupt
the narrative flow, anyhow.

fresh-featured, lithe and limber, playing the fool
forever in a ski-sweater of Norwegian style,
> Really liked the way these lines felt, though the wording of the
second line is a tad awkward.

splashing water at the camera lens,
or taking a loving glance for granted.

Or maybe just one. Somewhere in a tin trunk
stashed in the lumber-room of a childhood friend
now gray or gone, there may survive a short trick sequence:
thirty grainy seconds of me at ten or eleven
climbing out of the same cardboard box
again and again, before fading out.
> Nice ending.

To all,

Just to let everyone know that I can extend this anonymous project out a while, as it plugs along slowly.

Once again, I do not know who is sending the poems and crits, and I just pass it along. (Actually, one or two just used their own named-e-mails)

I have not posted anything myself at all.

Anyone can post non-anonymously if they have a comment.

I think a few more poems put up for crit would be good.

If I get several poems anonymously, I will start each one on its own thread.

Just another week or so. Then whatever people want.

TJ

Anonymous Poem by Anonymous


________________________

Instant Messages

Eye-Emming, Dad. Not Eye-Ming! A mnemonic:
You watch TeeVee, not Tiv. You make folks smirk
by saying “I will I’m you.”. How ironic
that retirement made you a piece of work..

Remember? You did slide rule computations.
You’re an engineer. You sent man to the moon!
I’m speechless that my e-mail explanations
require me to draw you a cartoon.

Since mom died you dread dinner, so you eat “dunch”.
Although you rib, here’s my interpretation:
The slow time in a restaurant’s after lunch,
when waitresses have time for conversation.

At night you eat your Cheerios with no doubt—
you’ve gone from "to the Moon", to moon about.



[This message has been edited by Tom Jardine (edited September 28, 2004).]

Anonymous Poem

_________________________________


How to be a Pilot's Wife

At the party, stand just so, don't muss
the hair you primped (so casually) for hours.
Glide with ease, the slim wrist of your glass raised
as if to toast him. Be bright as polished brass. Don't drink

if you can't handle it, don't mention the call you got
two weeks ago: midway through a mission
his cockpit slid partly open,
like a sleeper's eye, and air,
shrieking, tried to wrench him from your life.
Don't give them his description
of the bruise left by the harness,
how it made a pattern, crossing his chest
like a pair of bandoliers, or the sight
of a rifle.




[This message has been edited by Tom Jardine (edited September 30, 2004).]

Anonymous Crit:

______________________________

"Following Her"

Couldn't quite figure out what was going on here. The name "Zoe" doesn't carry any special significance for me. I wondered at first if this is chronicling the slow descent into mental illness and death after
a loved one has passed away, then wondered if it was an egg fertilized after traveling down a fallopian tube. The latter seems way over the top. Zoe as a play on "zygote"? Flagellents appears misspelled.

Regardless, it's a fairly horrific picture, but in the end leaves me cold because I can't really identify with what's taking place.

Liked "mazy momentum".

Kind of interesting that all of the lines are end-stopped except for one--this had a sort of slowing effect on the piece. Good for the end, but in the beginning I'm wondering if some sort of enjambment would help
things move along a bit quicker and mirror the action at the beginning. The lack of stanza breaks worked fine, though the transition from "swift around the turns" to "slower now, much slower" was a bit sudden and
could have been handled better.

I think this has run its course, and anyone, if they want, can post what they want to add, who wrote what, who critted whom. But I won't add any more anonymous posts, because it takes up time and so forth, and I really think people want their views appreciated as much as their poems.

Maybe if poems were posted anonymously for a week or ten days, and then who wrote the poem is revealed, might be a good idea, one of Carol's good ideas, but the discussion goes on and on and the simplest way might be easiest.


TJ

Anonymous Poem:

(The format may not be exactly right, but I think the sentences are right.)

__________________________


“Plague”



Must every person lose a mother
every man inter his wife,
Will every sister watch her brother
seeping out his precious life,
Before we see we have a plague,
once 1 in 4, now 1 in 3.
I wonder how can this be vague –
can we all look and yet not see?

Before the culprits were the rodents,
carrying infected mites
Now the rats are much more potent,
bearing the Religious Right;
Holding legally-gained tissue,
banning it from all research
Knowing death is what they issue,
while they hold it in the lurch.

They shake our hands, request our vote;
in the pews, they ask our tithes,
I wonder do they quietly note,
their preference for the one who dies.
They likely hope that sad selection,
( one in three who’ll meet his fate)
Will be the one in the election,
voting for the other slate.

When looking in three cherished faces;
giving hugs and loving pats,
Remember that in most all cases,
to cure a plague, burn out the rats.

Anonymous crit for "Plague"

____________________________________

I enjoyed the timely vehemence of this, its
combatitive spirit. It would make a good rap song in
the pro-liberal concerts, the last line serving as a
motto.

A non-anonymous crit of anonymous poem

___________Critique of To Be A pilots Wife_________________

Dear Anonymous, whoever you might be and where ever you might go. Just know you dont have to deal with such trife as to be a pilot's wife. I bet that your as wonderful as you poem is when your, "primped and pressed." This poem caught my eye and held it there. Thanks for the read Anonymous, I look forward to seeing more of your poems. ( ;

Sincerely,
J.P



[This message has been edited by Joel VanDersarl (edited October 24, 2004).]

UH-oh, Joel. You've trespassed on Tom's private kingdom. Off with your head! *grin*