How can you not want to root for a poem that has both a Lexus/Texas rhyme and a canyon/banyan rhyme? There are some metrical oddities. L12 is interesting -- it works short for me on some readings, or as five beats on others. Either way it manages to work for me -- neat trick. L3-4 is a bigger problem. It seems unnecesary to me to lengthen L3, especially since L4 comes up a beat short, and it hides the space/face rhyme -- maybe that's the point? Anyway, the narrative is not terribly accessible -- but of course noir plots never are. What bothers me is that the noirishness doesn't fully come across for me -- the poem is too bright and bouncy to come off sinister and creepy, but too twisty and dreamy to come off sharp and snappy. I am not sure what to make of it.
David R.
Last edited by David Rosenthal; 04-09-2009 at 10:46 PM.
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