[Yves S L]

N. Matheson,

I don't get all the seemingly bitter disappointment. If the poem is just one part of a greater whole, then it does not necessarily have to have the same success criteria as a standalone poem. Heck, I would say that the poem need only be clear (and some people have given specific advice on that), and fit in with its surroundings (which no one can comment on because they can't see the wider context)., while being stylistically consistent enough to fool inexperienced modern readers. If your poem needs a passage where some men are talking smack about a woman, then okay. The opening of the Illiad is somewhat entertaining for how quickly the super macho men establish women as property. They go all in.

Some folk said 16th century, and some folk say 17th century. Would the above poem be a stand-out effort in any of those time periods? It doesn't have to be. Most poems written now are not stand-out efforts of the current time period.

Living and dying on poetry forum comments is a sad way to go.

[Carl Copeland]

I’m repeating myself, but this time in the words of the Dalai Lama: He likes to say that people don’t have to be Buddhists. They can freely take from Buddhism whatever suits their needs. Do the same with this site. See what you can take, and if you’re not getting what you need, look elsewhere.

[Jim Moonan]

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That a poet executes a form flawlessly or meter impeccably is an afterthought to me. I hone in on the pulse of the poem, hoping to absorb something vital I can take with me. Of course, I've come to recognize that in good poetry often the two come hand in hand. There's something so jewel-like about a good poem that I consider them possessions. I keep them in a safe place where I can find them when I need them. I'm always looking for them.

My point is, a poem that is written in an antiquated style and diction and adopts outdated mores/norms must be, almost by definition, relegated to the shelf of obsolescence, existing more as a curiosity than as an important poem that sheds light. It is still admired, still of value, but only to a small slice of readers.

Welcome to the Sphere, N. I look forward to reading more of your work. A rough landing, maybe, but keep your composure and settle in. Hopefully you'll find what you're looking for in the robust dialog that is Eratosphere.

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[R. Nemo Hill]

In the end, N, the effort to simply write in the style of another age seems, to me, a sterile experiment, unless one includes in it the great distance that separates one from that age and that style. And I don't mean smug asides to one's readers (although Byron was a master of such a technique). I mean something subtler, something in the very texture of the language itself, weaving one age to another—creating, in the process, a commentary on the very passage of time, and the evolution of language (or its de-evolution, if that is your stance). The mysterious thing about poetry is not that it fetishizes one moment in time but that it incorporates all the time available to it—that it evades time's barriers.

Nemo