[W.F. Lantry]

Originally Posted by Maryann Corbett

I can't remember even one.

Exactly. We remember, fondly, good times, and our memories fail us. After a while we talk ourselves into believing our good memories.

And we forget the bad ones. As with broken bones, months or years later. We don't recall the sharp pain, the feeling of vulnerability. We just have a vague memory of it being difficult. I remember I couldn't pick up the christmas tree with my broken arm, but I don't remember the exact feeling that made me curse when I tried.

Best,

Bill

[R. Nemo Hill]

Enough with the royal "we", Bill.
I am not being mistily nostalgic. I remember clearly.

Nemo

[Julie Steiner]

I've noticed a LOT more announcements about good poets dying than about good poets being born.

[Michael Cantor]

What Nemo said, Bill. It was a time when, not only did we attract outstanding poets, but we actually worked our poetry - we didn't brag about getting bored with it the minute the first draft it was finished, and giving it to our wife to polish and submit. And we didn't think there was anything wrong in telling people we didn't like their poem - as a matter of fact, that's why most of us were at the Sphere - for tough feedback and improvement. It isn't just nostalgia - it was a more demanding environment.

[Roger Slater]

My real problem with Bill's comment isn't the royal we, which is only slightly annoying, but the fact that it seems to have nothing to do with the Maryann's comment that he quotes and purports to be responding to. All Maryann said was that she can't recall any poem that Alicia posted here for critique. To which Bill mysteriously says, "After a while we talk ourselves into believing our good memories." Huh?

[Julie Steiner]

I looked up "Aftershocks," which was in the 2003 Sonnet Bake-off (not workshopped).

And lo and behold, in the thread announcing it as one of the winners, several people took the opportunity to lament that the response had fallen off significantly from the previous year's Bake-off.

Even in the Golden Age, people were longing for how much better things used to be. (Not that they didn't make good points.)

It seems more productive to focus on making the most out of the present realities. One such reality is that I seem to be getting grumpier (which is sometimes unhelpful and unwelcoming and I'll try to keep that under control better than I did in a recent critique); but I think that my grumpiness has positive qualities, too. I'm more likely now than in 2003 to say I don't like something, and I doubt that my previous silence helped many people to become better poets.

[Matt Q]

Originally Posted by Roger Slater

My real problem with Bill's comment isn't the royal we, which is only slightly annoying, but the fact that it seems to have nothing to do with the Maryann's comment that he quotes and purports to be responding to. All Maryann said was that she can't recall any poem that Alicia posted here for critique. To which Bill mysteriously says, "After a while we talk ourselves into believing our good memories." Huh?

Roger,

Maryann was responding to Michael's comment that A.E. Stallings "almost certainly" posted her own poems for critique, and in that context, Bill is making the point that we tend to inflate our memories of the good old days. Or that's how I read it. It made sense to me.

best,

Matt

[Ed Shacklee]

Indeed, Alicia Stallings did post many poems back in the day -- it's just that we hardly noticed since we were busy stuffing the golden apples of youth in our knapsacks as we rode through the abundant orchards on dinosaurs; all of it, all of it made possible by the fact that we were incredibly, gloriously cranky.

Best,

Ed

[Andrew Frisardi]

Originally Posted by Matt Q

Roger,

Maryann was responding to Michael's comment that A.E. Stallings "almost certainly" posted her own poems for critique, and in that context, Bill is making the point that we tend to inflate our memories of the good old days. Or that's how I read it. It made sense to me.

best,

Matt

Well then, I really don't get what Bill said. I thought it had something to do with being like Hesiod and Ovid, back in the golden days when they were Sphereans.