[Alan Sullivan]

I would never bait an orchid! No, I only visited this site for the first time a few weeks ago.

[Josh Hill]

Carol,

Jerry chose the wrong fishing rod? I can't believe it!

I'm afraid you're right about Frost--Julie convinced me a bit after I posted my last message. But I've learned a lot about fabrics today--I now know for example that satin ribbons are stiffened with moth bodies.

Anyway, this raises another question. To what extent can an author employ poetic license (or fabric ignorance) of this sort? For example, I referred once to a monsoon in a poem I wrote about Japan, whereupon Jerry (natch) promptly informed me that Japan doesn't have monsoons. I left things as they were, but I've been uneasy about it ever since. Many great works of art contain factual errors or anachronisms, e.g., apostles who dress like renaissance Italians. But it doesn't seem to matter. There seems to be a relativity to these things; if it's plausible to most of your contemporary audience, it will pass.

Josh

[Carol Taylor]

That's probably true, Josh. I haven't changed the orchid either. Not that it was a real orchid anyway, just part of the metaphor. I can understand somebody as painstaking as Jerry wanting technical accuracy in his poetry, since it is currently being published and may be around for awhile. But in fact I don't think a poet has to be a scientist--in fact, how many unlikely images are poets making up off the top of their heads even as we speak and getting congratulated for "stretching the language"?

Carol