[John Isbell]

What I was mostly reminded of was the young man on the West Coast who videoed himself setting fire to dry brush and put it on Facebook and is currently, i am told, in custody. Times change, i guess.

Cheers,
John

[Jim Moonan]

x
I like it.
Nothing gold can stay.
I don't think there are any other (intended) metaphors to decipher, no genders to parse. Just one man's thoughts. Just passing through.
x

[Ed Shacklee]

I wonder what river it was? Lisle, Illinois, is somewhere near the DuPage River, but not near enough to account for this, at least from the maps I've seen. Much is lost with time.

"Some" woman as opposed to "your" woman seems to me a way of signaling your heterosexual nature while displaying an affection that you're afraid will be misconstrued as homosexual -- or correctly construed as homosexual, for that matter. This particular attempt hasn't aged well, but men are like this. We're a bunch of damn fools, I mean.

Best,

Ed

[Daniel Recktenwald]

My two or three cents:

I haven't read much of Harrison's poetry, because I don't like it. He's always struck me as a kind of Big-Sky Bukowski-- and I don't like Bukowski, either.

Not that this poem's first 11 lines did much for me, but the last two are so disappointing. So . . . Now, why'd ya have to go and write that? Not just the blase misogyny, but the measuring of one joy against any other joy-- asking whether it "equals" this or that. As rustic and unpretentious as all the camping trip pleasures are, the rating/comparing belies the mindset of narrow, shallow hedonism.

A poem like this one just begs to be parodied. But that got done already, anytime anyone parodied Hemingway.

[Allen Tice]

I’m not on other social media. Just lucky about that, I guess. I laughed at Ann Drysdale’s parting remark. Not quite sure about the burning stump. It’s very much a “guy thing” poem, and as a slightly outdoorsy guy with imagination, it works for me. But I think it makes one heck of a lot of difference who the woman is. Totally. In every possible way.

Where’s the rhyme? Where’s the attention to syllables? It’s all imagery. Is that legal?

As for women reading it, mileage will doubtless vary. Can’t be sure, of course! but some I have known a little (or a lot) here and there, I think could understand it as an appreciation. I’d welcome a woman’s version of the same that could be equally engaging. Yes, I do.

[Bill Carpenter]

Thanks, Sam. Excellent poem. The rude "some woman" phrase is a shaded contrast to the still glowing significance of the burning stump crashing down the river bank into the water. Drunken fiery destruction, hooray!

As for guys' camaraderie, at a party in high school, talking with friends, I used the word "homoerotic" to describe it, which I thought was the correct use of the word. They've never let me forget it!

Is the meter "loose syllabic"? The lines have more or less 10 syllables, as if there were a distant recollection of IP as providing a desirable standard line length.

[R. S. Gwynn]

Matt Q, I did suggest that "some woman's legs" might refer to the table of a woman who had succeeded in drinking Mr. Harrison under it.

[Allen Tice]

Despite my previous approving post, it’s glaringly clear that this is a high-level Potemkin poem with no reality about events that never happened, including anything having to do with a woman or women. Sam, this was written by a platypus with an expensive Oxford MFA who had read Gray’s Anatomy closely: my proof is the phrase “camped on a bluff” — a pure giveaway that the platypus holds no worthwhile cards and is betting that no-one has read Susan Sontag (brrr) on “camp”. Add to that, the doubtless fictitious “Manton” and other touches, it’s poporn, like a pinup of no artistic value except to those dupes who waste their time imagining a better life in the great outdoors, or under a table among the French chairs at Versailles in 1763.

Still, as a total fabrication, it’s not too bad. Other opinions are available.

[R. S. Gwynn]

Jim Harrison was, from all accounts, quite manly, too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Harrison

[James Brancheau]

I like most of this at first blush, but the close turns me off. Not so much because it's piggish, though that doesn't do the poem any favors, as is. No poem should be for everyone. A poem that appeals to men, certain men, ha, could be bold. My problem is nothing is done with it. And that it's uninteresting. Even sloppy, lazy. Maybe exactly that was intended, but it doesn't work for me.

And Daniel, I'm not Buk's biggest fan, but I do like some. A lot. I don't know this poet at all, but based on this lone poem, I don't see the similarity.