Hi, everyone—thanks so much for all the feedback so far. I’ve been in the throes of stage 4 cancer (complicated by GERD) and have just begun the steps preceding treatment, so I apologize ahead of time for any lapses in my communication. Trouble or no trouble, spending time on Eratosphere has been a tremendous buoy in my life, and I don’t want to let it go unless I absolutely have to.
Carl, wow, it’s a special thrill for me if I can mesmerize a person into liking things that they didn’t think they would! However, I wouldn’t really call my rhyme scheme “sporadic.” Except for S3, which has a loose off rhyme, every other line has an “ew” rhyme, and all of these rhymes even start with, or have an internal word that starts with, “s” except for the last rhyme (“clue”).
I’ve had mixed feelings about the subtitle, epigraph, and notes at the end. I definitely don’t want for the presentation to seem too bloated with these, but I was concerned that people might not grasp the full significance of the poem without them. Also, in the interests of integrity, I felt the need to include “paraphrase” after the Emerald Tablet epigraph because that phrase isn’t actually in that book. However, I've been persuaded to remove this epigraph, so now the point is moot.
Why would you prefer the title “Full Sturgeon Moon”? The reason used the title that I did, and included the details that I did, is that not all full sturgeon moons share the characteristics of the one that this poem is based on. Particularly, I wanted to convey that this one was a supermoon, because such moons have a very distinctive, more pronounced energy than standard full moons. In this and many other ways, the August 2022 one was the result of a very specific confluence of circumstances, as described in the note at the bottom. Still, from all the feedback I’ve gotten so far, it sounds like most people don’t care about these details, and feel that my description is apt for any full moon, which to an extent it is.
Personally, I’ve experienced the wide range of effects that a full moon can produce: a year after I wrote this, I stayed up one late August night to try to fine-tune my poem based on what its full moon made me feel, but I found that it had an entirely different energy from the one a year before—it was astonishingly mellow and understated. Dismayed, I actually thought I would have to seriously revise my entire poem based on this new perception—until I did some research and learned about how even full moons that fall at the same time of year have very different energies from year to year.
Hmm, about “trackless”—I see that your opinion has been echoed by some others. I had never heard of star tracks before, so that certainly was not my intent in using this term. I’ll contemplate alternatives. [Update: Siham likes this word for its soundplay with "light-shafts," but I've found another way to achieve this--let me know what you think.]
Ha ha about the mad dog. I do feel that being over the top is the essence of this poem, but maybe I could spin the effect here slightly differently so it doesn't rub you (and possibly others) the wrong way. [Update: I'm trying out "loon" in place of "mad"--I realized there's an opportunity to play with the lunar etymology of the former.] There’s actually nothing over the top about “swallowed Perseids” as I meant it, though—I simply meant that the Perseids, while normally the most brilliant meteor showers of the year, were obscured in 2022 by the light of the supermoon. These two events don’t always coincide.
And I knew that I was stretching comprehension a bit with “witch-kid lot.” Yes, it’s meant to refer to my visions and cast them as the offspring of something witchy.
And yeah, “hem” just sort of jumped out of nowhere at me at one point, suggesting an alternative to the more prosaic line I’d had before. As odd as it sounds, I think it works logically, too, because “hem” is a way of describing the edge of something.
Siham, so nice to hear from you, especially as you spend most of your time here in non-met. I’m so glad that you perceive in this poem a “well-tuned ear,” because it's a quality that I prioritize in poetry. I had not revised anything in the poem before the time you wrote your comment. I’m not sure if I would want to include the explanatory bit at the bottom if I were to try to publish it, and I’m sure that an editor would be a big determining factor there, too. But I’d thought that the details helped to explain the specific energy of this specific full moon, because as I’ve recently learned, each one has its own very distinctive characteristics—as I explained to Carl, above.
Matt, I’m glad this poem got you! Your point is taken about the epigraph—I’m glad that you feel that its message has been adequately conveyed in the poem itself, so I’ve removed it.
I'd already intentionally let the meter of the "askew" line slide out of regularity with its headless first foot--I'd naturally start with "my"--but yes, I could make the metrical cleverness a little less subtle by omitting "normal"; I think I'll try this radical suggestion but add "my" at the beginning so there's only one variation here. Or maybe I could do this but add a trochaic modifier before the last foot.
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Since the end-word isn't a rhyme-word, maybe there's a different verb? (maybe one that doesn't need "get").
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Actually, I’d conceived of “swallowed” as a loose off rhyme with “howled.” I’m not sure that the point of this line is coming across to people generally—as I said to Carl above, it’s that the Perseids, while normally the most brilliant meteor showers of the year, were obscured in 2022 by the light of the supermoon. These two events don’t always coincide, and I thought it was a neat way to emphasize the power of this particular moon. So I'd hoped that the passive tense here emphasizes that the moon and nothing else is in control here. [Update: perhaps "The searing light of Perseids gets swallowed" would be clearer and more effective?]
I’ve changed the semicolon at the end to a colon as per your suggestion. Thanks.
About changing the title to “Full Sturgeon Moon,” please see my comments to Carl about this.
All your other points are well taken, too, and I’ll be mulling them. Thanks so much for the careful and thorough read.
John, thanks, and I’m really glad that you like “the wild, the push” here. It's especially gratifying to me to be able to reach a poet who has poetic preferences and values that in many ways are very different from my own. Common ground is great! I feel that I’ve begun to absorb through osmosis the gestalts of other poets here and elsewhere, which is really intriguing and exciting to me.
Cally, hi, so nice to hear from you! Another crossover from non-met! Yes, based on what you and some others have said, I’ll be reconsidering the peripheral information that I included. I’ve already been persuaded to remove the epigraph. I’m so glad that this poem reached you the way it did.
Mark, I’m very happy that this poem has worked some magic on you, as well. About changing the title to “Full Sturgeon Moon,” please see my comments to Carl about this. And of course, I'd love to hear any additional thoughts you might have. Your comments are dependably trenchant and intriguing.
Joe, wow, I’m really excited that you feel a shift in my approach here--I love growing and morphing as a poet! I, too, felt a new voice emerging here: the moon ensorcelled me, and I strived to let that energy command me as I wrote. I’m also glad you like the title “Moonsqueeze.” I feel that it gives more to the reader than “Full Sturgeon Moon,” as I explained to Carl, above. Oh, I love that term, “well of quicksilver”!
Jim, I’m really happy that you, too, seem to have been captivated by this poem that the moon wrote through me. Yes, I caught a wave. You captured that so keenly—see my comments to Joe, above.
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The screw/spew/strew/askew/stew/slew/clue rhymes act like a shoelace tightening the fit to be snug just right on the foot.
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Oh, what a lovely analogy! Perhaps more than anyone I know, your comments are poetry in their own right.
That’s interesting that you found the first stanza erotic. I hadn’t thought of it that way, but I’m not averse to people taking it so, either. The most important thing to me is that people feel a wild, powerful energy that's both potentially positive and potentially dangerous, and eros definitely has that.
Historically, I never gave much credence to astrology, but the comments I included at the end of the poem so precisely and uncannily fit the way that this moon made me feel that it left me with no doubt that astrology as applied by an expert is really on to something.
Yes, I’ve gone ahead and changed the semicolon to a colon. Thanks for the second vote!
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