[R. S. Gwynn]

Matt Q, I did suggest that "some woman's legs" might refer to the table of a woman who had succeeded in drinking Mr. Harrison under it.

[Allen Tice]

Despite my previous approving post, it’s glaringly clear that this is a high-level Potemkin poem with no reality about events that never happened, including anything having to do with a woman or women. Sam, this was written by a platypus with an expensive Oxford MFA who had read Gray’s Anatomy closely: my proof is the phrase “camped on a bluff” — a pure giveaway that the platypus holds no worthwhile cards and is betting that no-one has read Susan Sontag (brrr) on “camp”. Add to that, the doubtless fictitious “Manton” and other touches, it’s poporn, like a pinup of no artistic value except to those dupes who waste their time imagining a better life in the great outdoors, or under a table among the French chairs at Versailles in 1763.

Still, as a total fabrication, it’s not too bad. Other opinions are available.

[R. S. Gwynn]

Manton, MI, and the river is the Manistee; both are very manly indeed.

[R. S. Gwynn]

Jim Harrison was, from all accounts, quite manly, too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Harrison

[Allen Tice]

Thanks for the background on Jim Harrison. My post # 12 was the product of working with academic articles on Greco-Roman classics, a few of which will try to persuade the reader that a dead sparrow was actually an impotent phallus (Catullus), or further and worse. The data are sparse enough that I soon expect to read that someone can solidly prove that Julius Caesar never existed, or that Aristotle taught that the world was entirely fat.

[James Brancheau]

I like most of this at first blush, but the close turns me off. Not so much because it's piggish, though that doesn't do the poem any favors, as is. No poem should be for everyone. A poem that appeals to men, certain men, ha, could be bold. My problem is nothing is done with it. And that it's uninteresting. Even sloppy, lazy. Maybe exactly that was intended, but it doesn't work for me.

And Daniel, I'm not Buk's biggest fan, but I do like some. A lot. I don't know this poet at all, but based on this lone poem, I don't see the similarity.

[R. S. Gwynn]

No similarity to Bukowski from what I know of his work.

The last line is I5 and so are several others. I'd call it "close blank verse."

[Bill Carpenter]

An admirable technique, akin to Aaron P's irregular rhyming.

[Allen Tice]

Here I go again, swinging for the bleachers, but a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do. I will return with my shield or on top of it. I tried fully twenty alternatives to the abhorrent “some woman’s”, and after savoring some fine vintages with differing levels of selection among excellent women, comparisons, narrowing down among great women, and maintaining as wide an appeal to the alley cats among men as I could (hey, there are some truly in every way dynamite women out there!), I nudge forward this sentimental wording: “one’s beloved’s”.

Is that manly enough for Jim Harrison’s poem?

[Julie Steiner]

I honestly don't see what all the tut-tutting is about. Surely it isn't news that some people have casual hookups with partners whom they regard as more or less interchangeable. As long as everyone involved is a fully consenting adult, and has the same expectations re: love and faithfulness (or lack thereof), what's the big deal?

[Clarification: People who mistakenly assume that they are in an exclusive sexual relationship are not fully consenting.]

Would we also scold the female sex workers and one-night-stands in the narrator's past for their disrespectful attitude, if they were to refer to him vaguely as "some man" who once lay between their legs? I don't think so.

I also have no problem when a male narrator addresses his male friend in terms that make it clear that the addressee is male.

This isn't that very annoying pseudo-universal "you," which seems to be addressed to every human being on the planet, but turns out to be addressed only to half. This "you" is addressed to a specific, individual person who happens to be male. (Yes, the "you" asks us to imagine ourselves in his place, but as him, not as ourselves.)