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  #1  
Unread 08-26-2018, 06:55 AM
Catherine Chandler's Avatar
Catherine Chandler Catherine Chandler is offline
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Default Poem in New Verse News

My poem, "Altar Boy", is on the New Verse News website today, Sunday, August 26, along with a 3-minute video. Unfortunately, the reverend was "kicked upstairs" (i.e., promoted to Monsignor) and transferred from my church to another parish, where he abused a dear friend of mine. My chopped up sonnet is the second poem on the page.
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Unread 08-26-2018, 08:48 AM
Susan McLean Susan McLean is offline
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I like the poem, Cathy, but found it harder to read with the spacing and the lack of punctuation. I had to ignore those in order to hear the music of it.

Susan
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Unread 08-26-2018, 09:42 AM
Aaron Poochigian Aaron Poochigian is offline
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The chopped-up nature of it struck me as apt for the speaker and the subject. Brava, Cathy!
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  #4  
Unread 08-26-2018, 11:22 AM
Erik Olson Erik Olson is offline
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I like, too. While one of the words starting with f rubs me up the wrong way, at least the jolt of crudeness is purposeful; an indecent word for an indecent object of treatment. I could say the same thing for the want of punctuation and the spacing that further disorients. Yet as Aaron rightly observed, the absence of such coherence is, for this particular speaker and subject, only apt. I should think it well compassed, then. Congratulations, Cathy!

Last edited by Erik Olson; 08-26-2018 at 11:53 AM.
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  #5  
Unread 08-26-2018, 03:36 PM
Mark McDonnell Mark McDonnell is offline
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(Never mind. Embarrassed by the clanging noise of my own opinions.)

I think it's a brilliant, powerful poem, Cathy.

Last edited by Mark McDonnell; 08-28-2018 at 03:20 PM.
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Unread 08-26-2018, 04:36 PM
Martin Elster Martin Elster is offline
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Congrats, Cathy! The poem is powerful. Here is the link to the actual poem, rather than the website.

https://newversenews.blogspot.com/20...altar-boy.html
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  #7  
Unread 08-26-2018, 05:52 PM
Julie Steiner Julie Steiner is offline
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I sincerely thank Susan and Erik for expressing their honest opinions about whether the poem would be more effective if approached in a different way.

However, I can't resist mentioning that of the dozens of poems on this topic that I have written in a more formal and more euphemistic way than Cathy has here, I have only ever succeeded in getting ONE published. (Bless you, editor emeritus Paul Lake at First Things.) [Edited to correct this statement: He only retired from teaching, and is still poetry editor at [i]First Things[.i]]

Regardless of what punctuation conventions and diction are used, is very, very hard for victims' point of view to be heard on this subject. Period.

[TMI deleted.]

For disturbing topics like this one, I think that techniques that work for one audience will fall flat with another. And that's okay.

I liked it, Cathy. Thanks.

Last edited by Julie Steiner; 08-27-2018 at 10:27 AM.
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Unread 08-27-2018, 05:51 AM
Mark McDonnell Mark McDonnell is offline
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Again, as above.

Last edited by Mark McDonnell; 08-28-2018 at 09:48 AM.
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  #9  
Unread 08-27-2018, 06:29 AM
john savoie john savoie is offline
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(Aside question: is Paul Lake no longer poetry editor at First Things?)
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  #10  
Unread 08-27-2018, 06:54 AM
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Catherine Chandler Catherine Chandler is offline
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The course of my life was directly impacted by what the Monsignor did to the first and greatest love of my life. It took fifty-two years to get to the truth of the matter, and I am devastated.
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