[Jim Moonan]

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Originally Posted by Alexandra Baez

I wonder if you really need the last two lines. They break from the form of the rest of the poem and also feel superfluous in light of the previous tercet, the more so for perpetuating the “ark” rhyme. Ending at the last tercet would create a nice note of tension.

Or you could turn the last two lines into a tercet by inserting a third line between the two. Imo, the last two lines are a culmination to the poem and I think stamp it "done".

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[Jan Iwaszkiewicz]

It is an envoi is it not.

Jan

[Duncan Gillies MacLaurin]

It all seems very rhyme-driven to me.

Duncan

[Roger Slater]

Originally Posted by Glenn Wright

H
The “spilled,” Roger, was admittedly rhyme-driven. The direct object of “spill” is usually a liquid, but one could spill a bucket of ball bearings or one could “spill the beans” or the contents of a folder. I think a sheaf of papers dropping one-by-one into mud could reasonably be described as being spilled.

How about "on every piece of paper ink was spilled"? Or "on every paper sheet where ink was spilled"?

[Rick Mullin]

Hi Glen.


I like this. And I like the pages being spilt. Its wrongness promotes an image.

My first thought is that it could wind up a bit shorter. I like terza rima sonnets. Just to take a look at it I did this:

Poète Maudit

Like Medusa and Cain, I bear my mark.
My curse denies me friendly company.
No one will speak to me, no dog will bark.

My crime was feeling things too visibly.
Jesus in the Garden sweated blood;
I sweat my words, expressed for all to see.

Language flows from me, a constant flood,
burning my skin. I blot it onto pages
that drop from me like scales into the mud.

From deep inside, the poems come in stages--
Charon’s raft emerges from the dark.
Some celebrate my joys, some vent my rages.

They are my monument, contain my spark.
Their ashes blow away as I embark.




You can easily drop the fatal border--poetry reader maudits know Charon. Having him emerge following From deep inside, the poems come in stages-- is quite dramatic, I think. Some adjustments might be necessary, but this is just a thought.

The one week spot, I think, is "expressed for all to see". There is some importance to the transparency entailed, but it feels like a filler prompted by a required rhyme to me.

Hope my posting an edit isn't too obnoxious,
RM

[R. S. Gwynn]

I've translated Villon, but I miss the references everyone seems to see. I'll have to go back through the poem and comments.

Now I approach the final, fatal border.

You need to be carefull here; you're actually approaching the fatal Paul Anka.

[Added] Is the title alone supposed to summon Villon?

[Glenn Wright]

Originally Posted by R. S. Gwynn

I've translated Villon, but I miss the references everyone seems to see. I'll have to go back through the poem and comments. . L .
[Added] Is the title alone supposed to summon Villon?

Yes, the title is the connection to Villon (although it could just as easily connect it to Rimbaud, Baudelaire, or Verlaine).

Alexandra, Rick, and Jim, you expressed some discomfort with the length/ending. The concluding couplet is the traditional way to end a poem in terza rima—at least that’s how Dante did it. Julie Steiner taught me about a medieval/Renaissance verse form called a capitolo. This is usually a satirical poem in terza rima that ends with a single line rhyming with the middle line of the last tercet. She translated a clever capitolo by Machiavelli on Opportunity in the “Translation” section. Perhaps I’ll think about a way to reduce my final couplet to one line.
Rick, your radical tercetectomy has the virtue of solving the “spill” and “pile” problems, and I must admit I like it better and better every time I come back to it. I think it pretty much says what I wanted to say without belaboring an admittedly fuzzy image. It also reduces it to 14 lines, giving it exactly the same terza rima sonnet structure as Frost’s “Acquainted with the Night,” which, in tone and subject matter is very similar to my poem. What a good idea!
Jan, an envoi is a short concluding stanza usually found at the end of a ballade or complaint, but the concluding couplet in terza rima probably serves the same purpose. An envoi originally was supposed to function as an address to the person who was supposed to carry the poem to its intended reader. Chaucer, in order to ask his boss for a raise, wrote a clever “Complaint to His Purse,” including an envoi to King Henry IV—his boss.
Carl, my thinking in the first tercet is that like Medusa’s curse, the poet’s curse prevents him from being able to befriend people, and like Cain’s curse, it protects him from hostile attacks, for example, by menacing dogs. I think I fixed the metrical issue in line 1 that you and Alexandra pointed out.
Thanks, everyone, for your critiques and ideas. I’ll keep working on it.
Glenn

[Glenn Wright]

I’m convinced that the poem needs to be condensed and clarified. Invariably, it seems, my earlier drafts overwrite. Ruthless amputation is almost always required.

[Glenn Wright]

Originally posted by Rick Mullin
The one week spot, I think, is "expressed for all to see". There is some importance to the transparency entailed, but it feels like a filler prompted by a required rhyme to me. —

My thinking on “expressed for all to see” is that it is a callback to the crime for which the speaker was cursed—namely, showing his feelings too revealingly. I’m playing off two meanings of “expressed.” First, the speaker is expressing himself in his poetry. Second his poems are being “squeezed out” (the literal meaning of the Latin verb exprimo from which the English word “express” derives). We see this meaning in the word espresso, which squeezes coffee out of the ground beans. The “for all to see” is supposed to suggest that there is something scandalous or criminal about a poet revealing his feelings honestly, as if he were exposing himself “for all to see.”

[Glenn Wright]

Rick, I used your suggestion to revise the poem into Version 2. Thanks!