[Mary Meriam]

L1 is strict IP - Jones Street is no spondee.

I admire the attempt to write a dull, drab, monotonous poem worth reading: all the repetition: every, each, every, another, another, another.

But there's too much filler, and it deadens the poem too much. Why "apple blossom tree"?

Seems like too many words for the same damn thing:

a single bush trimmed squat and round and so
symmetrically it seems manmade. No one
can deviate from others in the row.

The lines and rhymes feel forced, and I'm not particularly moved by the cliche ending.

[R. Nemo Hill]

Yes, Maryann, I was not immune to the military 'symmetries' (as I called them) that provide the deceptively bland backbone of the poem. They are no mean feat, unobtrusive as they are, and they would be a loss of much no-doubt exacting labor. But, to stay with the military metaphor, such loses are legion in the editing process. I am not totally convinced they are the best course in this case, I was only trying them on for size.

Nemo

[Rick Mullin]

Um...Nemo's gutting is a great idea. It does create a very intense poem, and you loose the theme from Pleasant Valley Sunday in the background, which is the only thing working against you in the sonnet. If you keep things the way they are, you're good, and the Navy atmosphere works. Moreover, I think we've been shown the volta. But I am for bold, risk-taking at this point.

Rick

[FOsen]

The title reminded me of walking a dog through San Francisco's Presidio - admittedly some phenomenally nice naval housing, and it may have led me to read this as more nuanced than it is. I thought it was amusing that the n can't remember which way they turned, because I couldn't see a turn here, either.

Frank

[Janet Kenny]

If my guess is right about the the author the author can do much better than this menacingly nice poem. I read "toward" as "t'ward" which is probably regional pronunciation. I like the jarring enjambment of "No one" which emphasises the authority of conformity.
The cloying niceness of this one is deliberate and suggests a quiet madness. I don't think that it is suburban life that is being mocked but something a move further away from individual freedom.

[Susan McLean]

For me, there is a poignance to this one that the title makes possible, which lifts it above the standard satire of suburbia. I think the volta is in L8. The speaker's sense of loss of self, to me, comes from being in an atmosphere of military uniformity that is undesired by the speaker. Even the beauty of apple blossom trees can be disturbing if everyone has them and they all look exactly the same. The speaker's desire to stay inside reads as a wish to escape the uniformity, as well as the disorientation. The speaker is "at sea" even though on land. And the residents' pitiful attempts to make these standard-issue homes personal are a dreadful warning that the speaker may also be forced into the same mold. I'm not saying that there aren't comical overtones here, but I feel a darker undertow.

Susan

[Jan Iwaszkiewicz]

I think that Nemo's edit shows the padding and this means that there is much more space to take this to the next level. It has an almost Twilight Zone feel.

[Rick Mullin]

Yup, yup, yup. The more I think about it, the more I think this is a case where the idea for the poem served as a mold that you now break and throw away. And…there! You have a wonderful poem. Really unique, emerging from the ineffable, which is always better the best of ideas.

[R. Nemo Hill]

"The speaker's desire to stay inside reads as a wish to escape the uniformity, as well as the disorientation." Yet, Susan, the killing irony here is that it is precisely that staying inside that gives the empty streets of these uniform suburban landscapes their twilight zone quality, a quality that enforces uniformity rather than escapes from it. Were everyone to come outside the inhuman chill might dissipate.

Nemo

[Allen Tice]

Originally Posted by Michael Cantor

Is David Lynch competing? Wow!

I had a mixed reaction to this. Technically, it's superb. Everything is well handled, the voice is pitch perfect, it's creepy and eerie and well done. My only nit would be that, with the empasis on uniformity, you want to get those iambs bumping into place at the start, not leading with a ("Jones Street") spondee, unless that's deliberate - the David Lynch signal that something's wrong on Jones Street. Assuming it's not, I'd suggest:

On Adams Street each house is painted white,
all doors are white....

My objection is that it's been done. Over and over. In articles and stories and films, if not specifically in a sonnet. So much skill - but nothing new is said. A+ for execution, C for originality.

Er, I live on an Adams Street, but I don't mind the Jones rhythm. In fact, I prefer it. But I agree that with a common topic it's the execution that really counts. Everyone has painted flowers, but the great museums only hang stunners. As a child I almost lived in one of these zones, and I remember the visit sharply. Let it be.