[Dr. Ernest C. Ville, D.C.S.]

Re: The landover baptists are truly quite mad

Had you read what he wrote, you would know that *he* knew it wasn't haiku either.

[Poetic Peter]

Re: a crit of Brother Temperance's fine poem

I think I see what you are doing -- trying to make the rythmic pattern tighter? But I think I really do prefer BT's original version -- not to knock you Peter, it's just that maybe the original voice, even with minor techical errors, is better than an attempted revision.

Yes, you are quite fair in so-observing.
I speak only to note that I prefaced my illustration
as being -only a variant conforming to my own, intuitive likes-.
See, it's not really a revision at all. It's only an alternative perspective.
The poet takes these suggestions and discards what is useless to him or her.
That's why I do it. To illustrate by example, one other way of many possible ways.

----

To Ixi: Your poem shows great promise for your future life as a poet.
The young person, not having the milegage of the old geezer, is not often
free of that -need to spill out personal feelings-.
In other words, you are a teen. And it's a time of life where you feel all these new conflicts.
We've "been there done that", we olders.

Your ear is good. Your intelligence is high. You're green, naturally--we all are when young.
Cherish this time, surely. Yet time will alter your vision. You'll see
better ways to poeticize--external-reaches are more successful than feely-touchy lovey poems, though this one of yours is a nice one.

The internet is flooded with a hundred thousand teen-love-angst poems.
If yours would rank in the upper ten percent of the lot, well, what good is that?

-If the poem is to be self therapy; that it makes you feel better for preserving your (human-universal) thoughts, well--what fault is there in that?
None, really--but it cannot be a memorable poem. It is, perforce,
mediocre -because- the topic has been taken to task by ten thousand teens, still teens today,
plus, worked to death by all their ancestors too!

The love poem is the most difficult to carry off because it's been done to bloody death. Yet it can be done.

Hints: Distill, shorten, avoid all stock phrasings. "Moonlit eyes" is unfresh.
There is so much of your Christly self made evident by this poem
regardless that it cannot be taken as a "great" poem.

Hint: Write of the external, as soon as you can.
Find an irony--find the way to -show- (rather than hammer home)
a point of interest.

And, as you did, make the closure a quick climax of summation.
Here, though, your closure ended on that old, old, everywhere fact of human love affairs:
so easy to trip in, so hard to trip away from.

Hope this helps.
You're really worthy, you know?
I know you are--I know this now.

Thanks,

Peter

[Rachael Van Helsing]

Re: The landover baptists are truly quite mad

Had you read what he wrote, you would know that *he* knew it wasn't haiku either.

Mine was technically haiku, 5-7-5

[Enobarbus]

Re: The landover baptists are truly quite mad

Mine was technically haiku, 5-7-5

There is a little more to haiku than just the right number of syllables. And I'm not sure if it should really be syllables or feet that matter, as it were.

Is this Haiku?

Silly woman her
Much noise makest she ever
Husband clip ear should

[Enobarbus]

Re: a crit of Brother Temperance's fine poem

Yes, you are quite fair in so-observing.
I speak only to note that I prefaced my illustration
as being -only a variant conforming to my own, intuitive likes-.
See, it's not really a revision at all. It's only an alternative perspective.
The poet takes these suggestions and discards what is useless to him or her.
That's why I do it. To illustrate by example, one other way of many possible ways.

----

To Ixi: Your poem shows great promise for your future life as a poet.
The young person, not having the milegage of the old geezer, is not often
free of that -need to spill out personal feelings-.
In other words, you are a teen. And it's a time of life where you feel all these new conflicts.
We've "been there done that", we olders.

Your ear is good. Your intelligence is high. You're green, naturally--we all are when young.

{Stuff removed for the sake of space.}

Hint: Write of the external, as soon as you can.
Find an irony--find the way to -show- (rather than hammer home)
a point of interest.

And, as you did, make the closure a quick climax of summation.
Here, though, your closure ended on that old, old, everywhere fact of human love affairs:
so easy to trip in, so hard to trip away from.

Hope this helps.
You're really worthy, you know?
I know you are--I know this now.

Thanks,

Peter

I agree with most of that, but might even be inclined to emphasise that Ixi's poem is a lot less angsty and self obsessed than many teenage (or older love poems).

It seems a fairly calm look at the situation from, at times at least, a step backward from it.

Is it more angsty than that famous Auden thing that some think wonderful and others think starts brilliantly and then fades?

I wonder what Ixi's and others views on this are. I have doubts about it, but do think its superior, on the whole, to Evanecesnce.

Lay your sleeping head, my love,
Human on my faithless arm;
Time and fevers burn away
Individual beauty from
Thoughtful children, and the grave
Proves the child ephemeral:
But in my arms till break of day
Let the living creature lie,
Mortal, guilty, but to me
The entirely beautiful.

Soul and body have no bounds:
To lovers as they lie upon
Her tolerant enchanted slope
In their ordinary swoon,
Grave the vision Venus sends
Of supernatural sympathy,
Universal love and hope;
While an abstract insight wakes
Among the glaciers and the rocks
The hermit's sensual ecstasy.

Certainty, fidelity
On the stroke of midnight pass
Like vibrations of a bell,
And fashionable madmen raise
Their pedantic boring cry:
Every farthing of the cost,
All the dreaded cards foretell,
Shall be paid, but from this night
Not a whisper, not a thought,
Not a kiss nor look be lost.

Beauty, midnight, vision dies:
Let the winds of dawn that blow
Softly round your dreaming head
Such a day of sweetness show
Eye and knocking heart may bless,
Find the mortal world enough;
Noons of dryness see you fed
By the involuntary powers,
Nights of insult let you pass
Watched by every human love.

W H Auden

http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/307.html

[Poetic Peter]

Re: The Poetasters' Korner

You are right again. It's mainly that it's a long-ish lovey-worry poem,
sensitive, but -every human has run through that cycle-, and quite a few
have written the very same thoughts.
It's natural and inevitable that every new human must learn on its own,
and cannot be "taught" affairs of the heart by vicarious accounts.
Her poem aids her poise. It cannot aid my poise. I see her potential is
superior to even, perhaps 99 percent of teens. But that doesn't make
a good grown-up poem. Her poem is -good- for her peerage, not ours,
unless (and we do) delight to learn that she has a fine heart and soul;
growing more capable of Christian care and empathy. She cannot go
and waste herself on dark things. There's so much good and needed work
for Ixi to accomplish. She has much on her plate.

But the poem of hers has been written a thousand times already.
That's my primary point. She must, if she would be noticed by readers
not of this board (where she is our pet), she must be wholy distinctive
in her voice, and crystaline in her expression of fresh insights and strong outlooks.
Plath is dead. Be a life affirming -realist- and fight dark things,
Ixi? Please do! Because you can communicate, and you are needed for this work.
Poetry can aid you to map your thoughts now.
Later you will may mentor younger-others, and others older, still unwise,
in ways which you -may have a spark to illumine,
including myself, I do like to think. May I live a few years
to see you at thirty.

[Dr. Ernest C. Ville, D.C.S.]

Re: The landover baptists are truly quite mad

Mine was technically haiku, 5-7-5

*sigh* Speaking with women is like reasoning with a Muslimiac! Neither can fathom the logic that a Godly man has in his little pinky. Yours may have been "haiku", but we weren't speaking of *yours*.

[Brother Temperance]

Re: The landover baptists are truly quite mad

*sigh* Speaking with women is like reasoning with a Muslimiac! Neither can fathom the logic that a Godly man has in his little pinky. Yours may have been "haiku", but we weren't speaking of *yours*.

No, we were speaking of hers, and were perfectly right to say that it wasn't.
This is Al's original haiku, the one that actually is a haiku:
Peter shines
iambic pentameter
like waxed apples

Notice, this poem is actually poetic. Now compare with your own feeble effort:
You all are meanies
And horrible ones at that
And cats make you fat

To a Christian of refined and elegant sensibilities such as myself, verse that lumpen is positively painful. It is not a poem by any stretch of the imagination, and, as it is not a poem, cannot qualify as a haiku, any more than

meh meh meh meh meh
meh meh meh meh meh meh meh
meh meh meh meh meh

does. Syllables alone do not a good poem make!

[Pastor Al E Pistle]

Re: The landover baptists are truly quite mad

To a Christian of refined and elegant sensibilities such as myself

You and I, Brother. The personification of refined elegance.

[Father Maurice Lester]

Re: The Poetasters' Korner

If a Super Pastor might repair my faulty draft? I would tithe my teeth today

Both of them?





Bless you, my dentally challenged child
Father Mo

[Brother Temperance]

Re: The Poetasters' Korner

Both of them?





Bless you, my dentally challenged child
Father Mo

That's a pretty poor poem by anyone's standards. Have you seen my ode to you yet?

[Father Maurice Lester]

Re: The Poetasters' Korner

That's a pretty poor poem by anyone's standards. Have you seen my ode to you yet?

Oh Brother Temperance
His wit worth but two pence
And musical taste
Akin to dog waste

Oh Brother Temperance
He of high waistpants
A scripture abuser
An Internet loser

Oh Brother Temperance
Alone at the school dance
Not even Sue V.
Would bother with thee

Oh Brother Temperance
Your poem was nonsense
I read it indeed
Were you smoking weed?



Bless you, my future parolee
Father Mo

[SUV]

Re: The Poetasters' Korner

Oh Brother Temperance
Alone at the school dance
Not even Sue V.
Would bother with thee

Papist LIES!!!

[Ixi]

Re: The Poetasters' Korner

I was going to suggest to Peter that there was no need to encourage you to submit your own poetry, but that is not nearly as painful as I was afraid of.

I put a ' in the 'were' in the last line of the second verse, btw, which I think was meant to be there.

You certainly have more of an ear for metre and rythm than that tone-deaf Helsinker does.

So is that a good thing or a bad thing?

[Father Maurice Lester]

Re: The Poetasters' Korner

I put a ' in the 'were' in the last line of the second verse, btw, which I think was meant to be there.

You certainly have more of an ear for metre and rythm ...

As long as you are in the mood to address such issues...



Bless you, my troisieme mi-temps janitor
Father Mo