2013 Poem a week comment thread

[butters]

It is what keeps me coming back. Things will slow for a while and then it's like a renaissance of poetry and everyone is picking up on each others' ideas and tricks. I have never seen it happen in quite the same way elsewhere online.

exactly this! lit is unique in my experience, too.

 

[Angeline]

exactly this! lit is unique in my experience, too.

Well in many ways, eh? I think it is the combo of freedom to say pretty much anything (because it's a porn site) and the anonymous quality of being whoever you want because it's not meat world. Also that instant exposure to diverse people and cultures you only get on the internetz. I love it!

 

[Tzara]

Geez. We're about to enter the last week of the poem-a-week challenge, and I want to thank everyone who participated, whether they finished or not. A week here, a week there--it adds up.

So I appreciated everyone who posted to the thread.

But golly. Persistence matters, and I just have to award the coveted Tzarist Gold Star to Tess, Angie, and gm. Excellent poets all, of course, but now also officially endurance poets.

I know Neo likes to say his challenge is hard. And it is. But a year-long commitment, even if not so frequent, is killer. At least it was for me. Very hard to do. Hard. And such good poems!

So I'm giving y'all the last week off, if you want. Close enough. And thanks.

Appropriate festive comments to everyone.

I need a nap.

 

[greenmountaineer]

Tzara,

I'm going to share my thoughts about this experience soon because I think there have been a number of things I have learned about writing as a result of it. I suspect others have too, regardless of the numbers, and hope to read those perspectives as well.

 

[greenmountaineer]

Tess's poem, "The Moon and the Donkey," left a powerful impression upon me, perhaps because I live in a part of the country where this can and has happened.

The spare language as well as the narrative reminded me of "Out, Out" by Frost.

 

[Angeline]

Tess's poem, "The Moon and the Donkey," left a powerful impression upon me, perhaps because I live in a part of the country where this can and has happened.

The spare language as well as the narrative reminded me of "Out, Out" by Frost.

I was really knocked out by Tess' latest poem, too. And I did not know that Frost poem, but when I read The Moon and the Donkey it had a very New England feel to me--not so much because of the setting but the the narrator's voice as well as the narrative itself, if that makes sense.

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

Tess's poem, "The Moon and the Donkey," left a powerful impression upon me, perhaps because I live in a part of the country where this can and has happened.

The spare language as well as the narrative reminded me of "Out, Out" by Frost.

I was really knocked out by Tess' latest poem, too. And I did not know that Frost poem, but when I read The Moon and the Donkey it had a very New England feel to me--not so much because of the setting but the the narrator's voice as well as the narrative itself, if that makes sense.

Thank you both kindly. Robert Frost? Oh my!

The poem is based on a real incident, the forestry industry had a very high mortality rate, steam donkeys aren't used anymore of course. The donkey that rolled onto Moon was called a wide faced donkey but that didn't strike me as very poetic.

 

[HarryHill]

Brilliant Tess

 

[Angeline]

Brilliant Tess

Ditto! What a wonderful poem to close out the year!

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

Brilliant Tess

Ditto! What a wonderful poem to close out the year!

Thanks again, I couldn't think of a way to wind up the challenge. It doesn't make any sense, I just divided the poems into tens starting at the beginning but each poem is random within the ten.

Both of you are out-doing yourselves. Harry always knocks my socks off in "writing live" this for instance and your ghazal, Ange, is sterling.

 

[butters]

thirded, tess - the moon and the donkey piece, and this last - two very different but both strong in their own rights. cool summing up of a year of writing.

 

[greenmountaineer]

A few thoughts about the process. I may add others as they occur. In the meantime, I hope others will comment as well, regardless of the frequency of participation, or if they even participated at all in the weekly challenge.

First of all, thanks to Tzara for the initial suggestion. I usually enjoy the challenges because they force a discipline upon me. I always thought of my writing as disciplined, but looking back, such a notion pales with the discipline I developed as a result of the weekly challenge. To my surprise, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Of course, there were ebbs and flows throughout the year, but more than once feeling "stuck" produced the best result, at least for me.

I knew there would be no way inspiration would provide me with a new theme each week, so I saw the challenge as an opportunity to retrieve some poems of I mine I considered mediocre and edit them. In some cases, the "Son of Kong" became something entirely different. In virtually every case, I spent as much time editing an original poem as I did writing the original. Again, I thoroughly enjoyed the effort.

Lastly, I don't think anyone would suggest that a poet is going to write an outstanding poem with every weekly posting, but among the 300 or so in the thread, there are some real gems on par with anything I've read elsewhere, so it wasn't just the writing but the reading that made the thread worthwhile.

 

[Tzara]

Well, gm, I'd have to say you experienced the thread the way I intended it and wasn't able to experience myself. I'm apparently too erratically inspired and too iffy an editor to make the "steady as she goes" thing work for me. Which was my intent.

What I liked about it is that it makes one think about poetry for at least an hour or so every effing week. That was the real intent of the thread, and I guess I succeeded at that, if only in the "OMG, I have three hours in which to post something" way. Neo's 30/30 thread makes that crisis happen daily. The result is similar.

I think, now that I think about it, that it was Neo who posted something about editing being where poetry really happens, so I'm pleased you made revision work for you.

I am, as usual, looking at the kind of wordy wreckage that might be left after a session of Call of Duty: The Wrack of Sonnets. But my writing seems to me to be {self-pitying sophistries removed}.

I don't think I'll do a 2014 52 Poem-thing, but I've been thinking about what we might do instead. Is there any interest in looking at a poem a week from "accomplished" (i.e., non-Lit) poets and talking about what we like/dislike about the poem?

I think of this as a kind of supercharged "recommend a poem" thread, where each week some Lit person posts (or, preferably, links) to a "mainstream" or classic poem that he or she really likes. The poster talks about what they especially like about the poem and we all comment, flirt, and talk about news events, in the way we always do.

In any case, Happy New Year, y'all. Have a great New Year's Eve and an excellent 2014.





Hmmm. Four of the preceding seven paragraphs start with "I" and in two of the other three, "I" appears in one of the first three words.

OK. I'm self-absorbed. (See? Another "I".)

Merry After-Christmas.

 

[Angeline]

Tzara your thread got me writing again after a long period of burn-out. I'm grateful to you for that and to everyone else who wrote in it, whose perseverance kept me motivated when I was ready to quit (over and over). And the thread proves to me yet again that this forum is something special. Poetry happens here--and not just in your thread--that is as good as any I read in magazines, ezines, anthologies, etc. There is a lot of talent here and that's inspirational, but so is the humble way that people come here and just work at their writing.

I'm in on any discussion/review thread you want to start. I just want to be around you people on a regular basis because a) you are all great for my muse and b) I like youse guys.

 

[todski28]

Well, gm, I'd have to say you experienced the thread the way I intended it and wasn't able to experience myself. I'm apparently too erratically inspired and too iffy an editor to make the "steady as she goes" thing work for me. Which was my intent.

What I liked about it is that it makes one think about poetry for at least an hour or so every effing week. That was the real intent of the thread, and I guess I succeeded at that, if only in the "OMG, I have three hours in which to post something" way. Neo's 30/30 thread makes that crisis happen daily. The result is similar.

I think, now that I think about it, that it was Neo who posted something about editing being where poetry really happens, so I'm pleased you made revision work for you.

I am, as usual, looking at the kind of wordy wreckage that might be left after a session of Call of Duty: The Wrack of Sonnets. But my writing seems to me to be {self-pitying sophistries removed}.

I don't think I'll do a 2014 52 Poem-thing, but I've been thinking about what we might do instead. Is there any interest in looking at a poem a week from "accomplished" (i.e., non-Lit) poets and talking about what we like/dislike about the poem?

I think of this as a kind of supercharged "recommend a poem" thread, where each week some Lit person posts (or, preferably, links) to a "mainstream" or classic poem that he or she really likes. The poster talks about what they especially like about the poem and we all comment, flirt, and talk about news events, in the way we always do.

In any case, Happy New Year, y'all. Have a great New Year's Eve and an excellent 2014.





Hmmm. Four of the preceding seven paragraphs start with "I" and in two of the other three, "I" appears in one of the first three words.

OK. I'm self-absorbed. (See? Another "I".)

Merry After-Christmas.

I like this idea Tzara, mainly because I am too lazy to go read professional published poets this would give a really good insight into peoples ideas, conceptualization and favourites from a broad spectrum of published poems and give myself the uneducated dolt an insight into poetry

 

[greenmountaineer]

I like this idea Tzara, mainly because I am too lazy to go read professional published poets this would give a really good insight into peoples ideas, conceptualization and favourites from a broad spectrum of published poems and give myself the uneducated dolt an insight into poetry

I like the idea too, although I'd like to read some poems the poster doesn't like and the reasons why as much ones he or she does.

 

[butters]

1-17, tods - ouch! good writing. brutal, but good.

 

[butters]

I like this idea Tzara, mainly because I am too lazy to go read professional published poets. this would give a really good insight into peoples ideas, conceptualization and favourites from a broad spectrum of published poems and introduce myself, a receptive and swift learner, to unfamiliar poetry

fyp. you're welcome.

 

[butters]

*snip*

I don't think I'll do a 2014 52 Poem-thing, but I've been thinking about what we might do instead. Is there any interest in looking at a poem a week from "accomplished" (i.e., non-Lit) poets and talking about what we like/dislike about the poem?

I think of this as a kind of supercharged "recommend a poem" thread, where each week some Lit person posts (or, preferably, links) to a "mainstream" or classic poem that he or she really likes. The poster talks about what they especially like about the poem and we all comment, flirt, and talk about news events, in the way we always do.

In any case, Happy New Year, y'all. Have a great New Year's Eve and an excellent 2014.


*snip*

colour me interested, Tzara. it's an excellent way to get acquainted with poetry and poets new to me. HNY