[conny]

it's all a bit glib, but for a shallow, insincere subject i guess
it kinda fits. Its a good draft but i think it reads like its not had
a chance to develop.

which makes it all a bit disjointed somehow. l.5/6 and the dead
and beauty turned into style, i don't really get, and why are they
blind? dunno.

[Vernon Sims]

i I WAS NOT AWARE THAT MY HUMBLE OPINION WOULD WOUND SUCH EMINENT AND KNOWLEDGEABLE PERSONAGES AS YOURSELVES. IT IS MERELY AN OPINION BACKED UP BY RACKS AND RACKS OF MASS MARKET PAPERBACKS. This was not an attack on the poet's skill which is apparent, but on the choice of subject.

[Martin Rocek]

Reading the comments by DaveC and Vernon, I feel even more strongly that "Vampire" in the title does a fine poem a huge disservice. It's a distraction.

[Catherine Chandler]

This sonnet commits a major no-no in that there is only one instance of imperfect rhyme and it sticks out like a sore fang.

Lots and lots of padding, like the use of "within" instead of "in". Maybe the author wanted to use "inside" but found he or she had already used that word in L2.

The ending wishes to be strong, what with words like "death" and "grip", but it goes down like a watered-down martini.

It seems like a very early draft, and needs major work to improve.

[Susan McLean]

This one seems a bit empty and undeveloped to me, the vampire as straw man. Without knowing what he has done to become a vampire, all we know about him is that he is bad. Yes, the portrait could fit a lot of rich people, but I think the suit is off the rack rather than bespoke. If a particular person is intended, a lot more specific details are needed to bring some life into the characterization.

Susan

[Christopher ONeill]

The sonnet certainly wears its heart on its sleeve: it would be almost impossible to understand unless one shared its authorial distaste for corporate finance and government by consensus. The way the piece uses 'vampire', 'rictus' and 'puppet' reminded me very much of what Orwell says about standard 1930's Marxist vocabulary in Politics and the English Language: the words seem to be largely emptied of meaning as such, so that we can snug down in an emotional collusion with the poem's central drift of censure.

I had trouble with the notion of a mirror 'worn smooth': I don't think I've seen a corrugated mirror outside an amusement park. I also struggled with the semantics of ll. 5 - 9: is it 'the dead' who spellbind, or is it beauty, or even style?

Someone else has questioned the validity of the 'survive' / 'alive' rime. I am intrigued by rimes which fit the formal rule, but rime words which are semantically synonyms (or near misses for that). One doesn't normally rime a word with itself (in English, at any rate); perhaps some of us carry this down to a semantic level (I know that I sometimes do).

I am having serious problems with this piece. As far as I have understood it, it is the sort of thing one might endorse if one already thinks this way. I am hoping that someone will happen along to suggest some radically different way of reading the piece.

Vernon has received severe criticism for at least one of the pieces he has posted on the 'Sphere: I was responsible. If he now supposes that ingenuousness is always its own defence on a poetry forum (and that one can always dismiss an unpleasant critique by remembering that all critics are fallible); it might be fairer if people took that out on me, not Vernon.

[Duncan Gillies MacLaurin]

What Tim said about L13 also applies to L1 and L3. In fact I can't see L1 as anything but tet.

Duncan

[Christopher ONeill]

Originally Posted by Duncan Gillies MacLaurin

In fact I can't see L1 as anything but tet.

Duncan

If desires is a trisyllable, doesn't that make it a standard pentameter?

It is how I read it.