[Robt_Ward]

I don't see a child here for the simple reason that the first line sets a different stage: I come festooned with flowers, smiles and grapes... Would you bring those things to a child's hospital room? I don't think so; smiles, sure, but balloons and coloring books are more likely than flowers and grapes, eh?

I'm in the "don't reverse the couplet" camp as well, for reasons well stated above.

(robt)

[ChrisGeorge]

Hi Carol

You asked, "In England is the word 'surgical' limited to actual surgery?" To partly answer your question, raditionally in England, a doctor's office, and I am talking about the office of a general practitioner, has been called their "surgery." So you would have people waiting there with various ailments, whether they involved surgery or not. Yes some people might end up having surgery, usually after being sent to a specialist, but others might be just there for a sore throat, to have wax taken out of their ears, or because of warts! So I should think, a similar situation might pertain to a surgical ward, that the patients are there for various ailments not just for actual surgery. Someone with more information on the present-day British medical/hospital system might answer the question... I have not lived there since I left England (Liverpool) at age twenty in 1968.

All the best

Chris

[Marion Shore]

I find the image of the frenetically clowning monkey trying to keep back the raging, griefstricken dog enormously original and striking. It's this powerful animal imagery that gives the poem its extremely visceral feeling of fear and grief and pain. I'm also in the leaving-the-couplet-as-is camp. Having the "last farewell" come at the end makes the whole situation come together at the end with a climactic forcefulness that strikes right to the heart.

[Greek Streak]

Well, here I go again:
If one might be interested in the opinion of a reader whose native language is not English and who has no training in metrical poetry, please let me congratulate the authors of my three favorite poems from this fine selection of 18.

This is my third best (but it moves me more than the other two).

Congratulations,
Tonia

[Maggie Porter]

Expert poem.

I kind of wonder if it was intended as a sonnet?

Universal with the inside joke, the death, the cajoling and cavorting and a DOG.

So, it's a hit but I am not in agreement with it actually being the kind of poem one describes as a Risk Taker.

[grasshopper]

Thanks so much for all your comments on this poem. I received a lot of good advice when I workshopped it re the title and the need to change the original first line, amongst other things.

Carol, I wasn't thinking of a visiting to a children's ward, but, in a way, that seems appropriate to me, as patients in hospital do often seem to be treated like children, which makes them feel even more vulnerable.

Many thanks again,
Maz

[This message has been edited by grasshopper (edited December 08, 2004).]