My sincere thanks to Richard Wilbur for the time and the honor of his critique, and to Tim Murphy for providing me with the opportunity to participate in this poem-fest.
Richard, your comments on S1 are right-on. I was working to crowd in as much internal rhyme as possible to catch the feeling of the Duval Street area - and I share your unhappiness with "adressed" and "quest". Once I got past the T-shirts, that stanza was a battle.
What I found most classy about "indiscrete" is your gentle assumption that I knew what I was doing with the misspelling. Actually, it was a case of serendipitous illiteracy. I originally meant to say "indiscreet", but spelled it incorrectly. Several critters noted the error. Thinking it through, I decided to stay with the second meaning you chose to praise. I'm pleased you noticed it, but it wasn't planned from the start. For what it's worth, my note to Terese and Susan - going back to their comments on the original post - is below:
“Indiscreet” is what I meant to say, and the correct spelling, and thanks. However, when I looked at it again, it struck me that the mass of jabbering and self-important fressers was “indiscrete” as well – they blend into one loud voice – and if I leave it as it is I get some serendipitous wordplay. So I’m not making the correction, I’ll pretend it was deliberate cleverness rather than iliteracy, and I will depend on you and Susan to keep the secret.
Rose - I'm 68 years old, and I've written exactly one poem in my entire life that started with "FUCK", and that's the one that Tim the Murph chose to submit to Mr. Parnassus. What can I say?
Tim - thanks for the support. If the poetry doesn't work out, maybe I can free lance doing T-shirts for the Key West shops.
Terese - the italics on "Venceremos" and a few of the other Spanish and Yiddish words didn't make it to the repost. Thanks for pointing it out, and I've asked Tim or Carol to make the change if they have the time.
Thank you all, and particularly Richard Wilbur, for the feedback and encouragement.
Michael Cantor
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