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  #101  
Unread 07-06-2020, 08:32 AM
W T Clark W T Clark is online now
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Hi Julie,
I mean, aren't we all influenced by our personal lives. Objectivity can only go so far.

Om...I am not convinced. I mean, why shove words together randomly (as I see in one line of the first sonnet you present), but with little pattern. I reckon Cummings has about ten good poems, (most have been posted here), but I'm not a fan. Anyone lived, yeah it's fun to recite, but does it do anything apart from that. What's the meaning. A guy called anyone (satirising suburbia) lives in a "pretty how" (satirising what?) town, marries anybody, then dies. Along the way there's a lot of ups and downs.
I carry my heart with you, I disagree he makes any of the clichés sound original. Cut out the brackets and it's just cliché. Imo, obviously, only from my perspective, I encourage you to think differently.
What I'm saying is that Cummings has got some skill with rhythm, but I just can't get passed the idea that there's no real deep meaning. Oh yeah there's some political outrage, olaf and that poem, his best being next to of course, but then there's love poems. And then... What? There are not depths with cummings. There is a surface, a meaning under that, then... nothing. Still, just imo.
And then there's the point that he never really progressed. And what about William Carlos Williams point about his poem (I forget which). He said himself he's a word painter, I'm just agreeing.
Regards,
Cameron

BTW. Have you read Eliot's poem (not a sonnet sorry) about the catholic church. The Hippopotamus? Similar to the furnished ladies.
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  #102  
Unread 07-06-2020, 10:58 AM
Aaron Novick Aaron Novick is offline
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As it happens, the journal Sequestrum is currently seeking sonnets: https://www.sequestrum.org/themed-su...s-sonnet-haiku
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  #103  
Unread 07-06-2020, 11:48 AM
Matt Q Matt Q is offline
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Thanks for the heads up Aaron.

From the submission criteria: "Please follow traditional sonnet and haiku standards"

Hmm, ok, but what are those, exactly ...? It kind of depends where you think the tradition stops.

So, I guess they want IP, 14 lines, full rhyme, volta and Shakespearean, Petrarchan or Spensarian rhyme scheme? But probably not bothered about it being a love poem.

(Maybe a nice 18-line Hereoic Sonnet ...? That's very traditional)

(I wonder if they want a 5-7-5 syllable count for their haiku?)
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  #104  
Unread 07-06-2020, 12:03 PM
Aaron Novick Aaron Novick is offline
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I've been writing non-traditional sonnets, so I'm gonna send some. They can decide for themselves if they count.

But yes, I had exactly that same thought when I read that.
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  #105  
Unread 07-06-2020, 12:38 PM
Mark McDonnell Mark McDonnell is offline
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Quote:
From the submission criteria: "Please follow traditional sonnet and haiku standards"

Hmm, ok, but what are those, exactly ...?
Ha! Matt, this thread is in danger of becoming deliciously circular.

Thanks for the link, Aaron. And for the back-and-forth. Fun as ever.
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  #106  
Unread 07-06-2020, 05:42 PM
Julie Steiner Julie Steiner is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by W T Clark View Post
The first line of the sonnet bears that out. It has power as a word painting, but is there any real way to read that out and make the audience feel in spoken words what the reader sees in punctuation?
Quote:
Originally Posted by W T Clark
I mean, why shove words together randomly (as I see in one line of the first sonnet you present), but with little pattern.
Cameron, I don't understand your objections to this line:

Quote:
"kitty". sixteen,5'1",white,prostitute.
I don't see that set of words as random at all. I see it as imitating a police blotter's reduction of a multifaceted human being--a child, no less!--to a brief catalog of physical characteristics, ending with a designation of criminality. The smashed-together typography makes that reduction even more literal. I think that's brilliant.

The "brute" is presumably much larger than this "babybreasted" child, and has more money to throw around, and the experience to know that the higher alcohol content of a whiskey sour will give him even more of an advantage over her than beer would, even while he seems to be treating her with dignity (but actually objectifies her) by calling her "the lady." The word "unequal" near the end sums up the whole sad situation, and I like the litotes of "her least amazing smile" because it suggests that no one will ever see her most amazing smile--her circumstances not being conducive to that kind of joy.

Last edited by Julie Steiner; 07-06-2020 at 06:05 PM.
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  #107  
Unread 07-07-2020, 09:54 AM
W T Clark W T Clark is online now
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Julie,
It might work here, yes, but when he does it so often, in every single poem almost, does it always work? Are the successes more numerous than the failures?
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  #108  
Unread 07-14-2020, 04:12 AM
Matt Q Matt Q is offline
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Interested to see that the Sequestrum submission criteria have been revised from:

"Please follow traditional sonnet and haiku standards"

to

"Please follow sonnet and haiku standards. For haiku, we’re open to standard 5-7-5 as well more traditional/modern styles."

I'd imagine this was in response to queries from haiku-writers, since there's no further clarification on the sonnet front.

That said, the word "traditional" remains in the preamble:

"[...] we’re currently reading sonnet and haiku poetry. We want poetry which not only functions within these traditional constraints, but surprises and delights as much as its free verse cousin."
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  #109  
Unread 07-14-2020, 05:54 AM
Chris O'Carroll Chris O'Carroll is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Aaron Novick View Post
As it happens, the journal Sequestrum is currently seeking sonnets: https://www.sequestrum.org/themed-su...s-sonnet-haiku
Sequestrum charges a submission fee.
A deal breaker for anyone but me?
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  #110  
Unread 07-14-2020, 07:54 AM
Susan McLean Susan McLean is offline
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Chris, it is not only an unusually high fee, but for a journal with an extremely low acceptance rate. The combination of the two suggests to me an attempt to lure the many people who write haiku and sonnets into supporting a journal that normally doesn't accept anything like what they write. I am not planning to submit there. My experiment with journals of that kind was not a success.

Susan
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