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  #11  
Unread 05-16-2019, 02:50 PM
Mark McDonnell Mark McDonnell is offline
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Well, despite my shiny new mod status, I am still very much a newcomer given the Sphere's 20 year history. I joined in 2016 and I've often wondered about the 'heyday of The Deep End' that I keep hearing about. The Deep End's existence presupposes not just that a poster had better be sure of their poem, but also that anyone critting there is obliged to be somehow more rigorous and 'knowledgeable' than at the other forums. So, I suppose my questions to old hands are these: Did the Sphere used to feel more obviously hierarchical, in the sense that there was a recognised coterie of feared heavyweights that doesn't exist any more? Has the Sphere since become more of a level playing field in terms of the voices that are presently active, so nobody really differentiates (except privately) between a regular and a 'Deep End' poet/critter? And isn't this a good thing, on the whole? As Roger says, people aren't deliberately softening their crits on met/non-met and the idea that some newcomers might think that's how it works is annoying. I do sometimes wish some people were a bit more forthright and/or detailed in their crits, amd when the rare poem does appear at TDE I try to give it the detailed focus that I assume the poster is looking for, but at the same time there's something about the idea of a separate place for 'no holds barred' crit that seems a bit like macho bobbins to me.

I think the Sphere itself is a deep end. Well, it was for me and it made me a better poet. People who post inferior work are dealt with fairly mercilessly on the 2 main forums and either take the criticism on board or disappear. Perhaps The Deep End's 'close attention to craft' is a hangover from when the whole idea of a New Formalism revival was still fairly novel and there was a kind of fervent protectiveness about prosody and the mechanics of poetry. Is this still the case?

Anyway, these are just rambling thoughts. I can't personally see a need for The Deep End at present or envisage a situation where it will suddenly be magically revitalised. I suppose it does no harm being there, but in its inactive state there is the sense that it's a constant echoing reminder that the Sphere 'isn't what it was'. As a relative newcomer I'd like to think this isn't true. 'There were no good old days/these are the good old days' as The Libertines sang.
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  #12  
Unread 05-16-2019, 02:52 PM
Bill Carpenter Bill Carpenter is offline
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Posting on TDE invites the reader to spend more time and go into greater detail than he or she would in response to a post on Met. At times readers have responded to the invitation, which they are free to ignore.

When posts and readers in TDE dropped off, and migrated to Met, posters relied on the poem itself to invite the attention of the reader. It would be hard to say if the volume and quality of responses suffered as a result. The invitation on the Met board is to spend as much or as little time as you like, which is what people do.

I was not around in Alan's time. I benefited from the Deep End invitation when it was populous, then migrated and continued to receive helpful criticism. It would be a relief to get rid of TDE and end this recurring controversy. Let Met be the new Deep End. Even rename Met TDE.
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  #13  
Unread 05-16-2019, 03:48 PM
David Anthony David Anthony is offline
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I joined about the same time as Jim Hayes, about the turn of the century. I don't post often now, but I lurk.
It was quite thrilling when Erato started, since it provided a novel forum for formal poets.
(The Alsop Review was also formal-friendly and in fact published my book. But it's moribund since Jaimes Alsop died.)
I do discern politeness in the comments nowadays, but also some serious talent.
We had some wonderful flame wars in the old days. Jim will remember them.
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  #14  
Unread 05-16-2019, 04:01 PM
Julie Steiner Julie Steiner is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Matt Q View Post
So if we had Met and Dark Met, say, I think Met would likely go pretty quiet, pretty quickly.
Maybe The Deep End should be open for "swimming" only for two weeks, once per quarter, with one entry allowed per poet per session. The expectation would be that poets have saved up and polished their very best work for this special occasion, and should be ashamed if the work they present there isn't truly special. Sort of a Bake-off, but without the anonymity, voting, and high administrative overhead.

Definitely password-protected, though--members only.

Last edited by Julie Steiner; 05-16-2019 at 04:03 PM.
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  #15  
Unread 05-16-2019, 04:39 PM
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Nicholas Stone Nicholas Stone is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Matt Q View Post
Roger, I can definitely see why you'd want this, particularly given that you write poems for children where magazines are ultra-strict about public posting prior to publication. Julie has also said that she'd post more here if there were somewhere private to post it.

I wonder what the consequences would be, though, of adding such a forum. Anyone who wants to publish incurs some slight risk (however small) by posting publicly. So, if there were a choice between posting in a public forum or a private forum, how many people would choose to post publicly?

So if we had Met and Dark Met, say, I think Met would likely go pretty quiet, pretty quickly.

In which case, maybe making all the critical forums private is a way forward. The argument I've seen made against this option is that then we wouldn't attract as many new members, as potential new members wouldn't be able to look around before joining.

That said, maybe if all our critical forums were private, we'd actually end up attracting more people. I do get the sense that many people are put off of by the idea of posting publicly.

I think Matt's onto a few things here.

I do avoid posting in Met because I don't like the idea of disqualification. This is despite the risk of disqualification's having been repeatedly debunked. People can go on debunking it; so far as I'm concerned it stays bunked. If TDE became a "Deep Drills" of the Metrical board, I'd feel much more positive about posting in it.

However, I think the point about new members being attracted because they see poems being posted is correct. I think this because I only discovered the Sphere while searching for information on the Spectator competition back when I started entering it. The search engine brought me to Drills and Amusements and I was amazed. A few weeks later, new Spectator threads became undiscoverable to non-members, so I might well have missed Eratosphere had the timings been different. If an increasing or numerically stable membership is considered desirable, having less stuff on show or searchable probably won't help. On the other hand, maybe it would.

Last edited by Nicholas Stone; 05-16-2019 at 04:50 PM. Reason: I wanted to introduce a note of indecision.
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  #16  
Unread 05-16-2019, 04:46 PM
James Brancheau James Brancheau is offline
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Sorry, Roger, I should have also addressed your other point. Without any doubt, it affects critiques.
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  #17  
Unread 05-16-2019, 07:32 PM
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R. S. Gwynn R. S. Gwynn is offline
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Would it be possible to post poems anonymously to TDE? That might encourage more people to post on a more rigorous board. Anon. is bound to get his or her feelings hurt, but at least we won't see ad hom attacks.
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  #18  
Unread 05-16-2019, 08:08 PM
Aaron Novick Aaron Novick is offline
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Sam, I think most of us know each other's voices too well for anonymity to accomplish anything.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Julie Steiner View Post
Maybe The Deep End should be open for "swimming" only for two weeks, once per quarter, with one entry allowed per poet per session. The expectation would be that poets have saved up and polished their very best work for this special occasion, and should be ashamed if the work they present there isn't truly special. Sort of a Bake-off, but without the anonymity, voting, and high administrative overhead.

Definitely password-protected, though--members only.
This seems like the best idea thus far floated in this thread. Would solve the problem of people who worry about being disqualified for publication, while also allowing the met board to have activity and entice new members.
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  #19  
Unread 05-17-2019, 02:18 PM
Martin Elster Martin Elster is offline
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My thought is, if there is a Deep End for metrical poetry, then why isn’t there one for Non-met? It seems illogical. I’m sure the critiques and the poems in non-met are just as good or bad as in the metrical forum, which has varying degrees of detail and quality. So I say let's have one board for met and one board for non-met. Simple!

Added in: Also, why not a Deep End for Translation? See how silly the concept of TDE is now?
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  #20  
Unread 05-17-2019, 02:58 PM
James Brancheau James Brancheau is offline
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I wasn't around in those old days. And I talked to my counselor, and, for sure, I'm not a metrical poet. But I think the existence of a Deep End~ ooh, waa~ scary stuff (anyone from hell has got to be scary), makes me question what you got accomplished. This recent crap seems to me just an aggressive push to keep bad poetry relevant.
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