"To keep the review thread clean..."

[Angeline]

Clearly, your education and your experience here with other writers have combined to produce a masterly touch. Your verse is finely nuanced and your style is unobtrusive. Yet, your style thrills. I find smiles tumbling joyfully onto my face because of how safe it feels to be buoyed along by the play of your words. It is, I suppose, the joy of admiration. Your style hits my sweet spot.

Then there are the many other thrilling poets here that I have just begun to discover. Who would have imagined such a rich literary experience on a site called literotica. I arrived expecting sexual stimulation and find that all of me is stimulated, body mind and soul.

You are very kind to say what you do about my writing. Thank you.

I feel very lucky to be a part of this writer's community. The collective talent here is off the charts, imo. I think many people are, like you, suprised to see that serious (and seriously good) writing is happening here. People come for the porn and stay for the poetry lol. I hope you'll stick around and write with us. I saw what you said in your other post about being too cerebral in your poem. You're too hard yourself, I thought, and since you see exactly what you need to do (write about concrete, specific things to get your theme across), you can keep plugging away at it. Understanding that about poetry (the need to be specific and immediate) is half the battle won. And you'll get support and feedback here. People who don't flinch from honest critique (and understand it's never personal) really grow here.

There's a lot of mediocre poetry here and plenty that's worse, but there's also some incredible writing here. And some really wonderful people.

 

[UnderYourSpell]

And Angeline is one of those wonderful people ... welcoming, helpful, funny and irreverent!

 

[Angeline]

And Angeline is one of those wonderful people ... welcoming, helpful, funny and irreverent!

Aw shucks.

I'm glad you're here, too.

 

[lorencino]

You are very kind to say what you do about my writing. Thank you.

Hardly kindness, per se, rather my visceral response to your verse.

. . . I hope you'll stick around and write with us . . .

Now that is a kindness and a warmth that makes me want to be part of this community. So, by way of introducing myself and making my first contribution to the joy of poetry conversation, I'm going to begin with a comment prompted by the poem Angeline recommended today: seasonal adjustments by hmmnmm . I want to tell you about my all-time favorite poem.

The first two line of the poem, specifically the clause, "now shiver" straddling the two lines have the effect of making me repeat the "now" in my mind, once as the end of the first line and again to begin the second line, but this is completely different to the feel of not repeating the "now." Consequently there is this dancing dynamic in my mind that happens here which has an effect on my mind similar to the effect that tickling has on my body.

While in the throes of a response to the tickling I realized that this was a device similar to the one in a poem that I really love. Compare the first two lines of "seasonal adjustments":

the trees are naked, now
shiver, I suppose

with

I CAUGHT this morning morning’s minion, king-
dom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,
As a skate’s heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird,—the achieve of; the mastery of the thing!

From "The Windhover" by Gerard Manley Hopkins
The complete poem is here.​

Don't you want to repeat that "king" so that it can sit alone on the end of the first line meaning one thing and then begin the second as part of another meaning. I am convinced that is exactly what Hopkins intended.

What locked this poem into my heart was the third line. I choke up (even 40 years after I first read this poem) with the power of this imagery: the bird riding the air, the string of words which somehow, through a very complex rhythm and the shifting density of the sounds that make up the words, manage to convey the characteristic of moving air becoming as solid as a horses back in conjunction with the skilled body of the bird.

I'll leave it for those who are interested to experience this poem for themselves and continue with a brief introduction of myself.

Hopkins, who was a Catholic Priest and a convert to Catholicism, wrestled all his life with the conflict between his religion and his poetry. His poetry is deeply connected to his spiritual life and his religion. I am an atheist. My brain feels that God is none of it's business and I don't argue with that. Strangely, Gerard Manley Hopkins is my favorite poet and I am able to relate on a very deep level with his reality as exposed to me by his verse. I feel that he is a very dear human being who has passed through life and left a magical legacy for those who want to become intimate with him. I was interested to realize that Hopkins said "The Windover" was the best thing he ever wrote--I'm flattered that he agrees with me; It is the best thing I have ever read.

On a less intimate level, Milton is another poet who writes from a very specific religious viewpoint that I don't share and yet I am easily able to suspend my prejudices in order to savour the delights of Milton's poetry. Seduced by the poetry, I gladly surrender myself to the ecstasy it brings.

So I'm really pleased to have found this place of poetic orgies and orgies of poetry.

 

[Angeline]

Hardly kindness, per se, rather my visceral response to your verse.


Now that is a kindness and a warmth that makes me want to be part of this community. So, by way of introducing myself and making my first contribution to the joy of poetry conversation, I'm going to begin with a comment prompted by the poem Angeline recommended today: seasonal adjustments by hmmnmm . I want to tell you about my all-time favorite poem.

The first two line of the poem, specifically the clause, "now shiver" straddling the two lines have the effect of making me repeat the "now" in my mind, once as the end of the first line and again to begin the second line, but this is completely different to the feel of not repeating the "now." Consequently there is this dancing dynamic in my mind that happens here which has an effect on my mind similar to the effect that tickling has on my body.

While in the throes of a response to the tickling I realized that this was a device similar to the one in a poem that I really love. Compare the first two lines of "seasonal adjustments":

the trees are naked, now
shiver, I suppose

with

I CAUGHT this morning morning’s minion, king-
dom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,
As a skate’s heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird,—the achieve of; the mastery of the thing!

From "The Windhover" by Gerard Manley Hopkins
The complete poem is here.​

Don't you want to repeat that "king" so that it can sit alone on the end of the first line meaning one thing and then begin the second as part of another meaning. I am convinced that is exactly what Hopkins intended.

What locked this poem into my heart was the third line. I choke up (even 40 years after I first read this poem) with the power of this imagery: the bird riding the air, the string of words which somehow, through a very complex rhythm and the shifting density of the sounds that make up the words, manage to convey the characteristic of moving air becoming as solid as a horses back in conjunction with the skilled body of the bird.

I'll leave it for those who are interested to experience this poem for themselves and continue with a brief introduction of myself.

Hopkins, who was a Catholic Priest and a convert to Catholicism, wrestled all his life with the conflict between his religion and his poetry. His poetry is deeply connected to his spiritual life and his religion. I am an atheist. My brain feels that God is none of it's business and I don't argue with that. Strangely, Gerard Manley Hopkins is my favorite poet and I am able to relate on a very deep level with his reality as exposed to me by his verse. I feel that he is a very dear human being who has passed through life and left a magical legacy for those who want to become intimate with him. I was interested to realize that Hopkins said "The Windover" was the best thing he ever wrote--I'm flattered that he agrees with me; It is the best thing I have ever read.

On a less intimate level, Milton is another poet who writes from a very specific religious viewpoint that I don't share and yet I am easily able to suspend my prejudices in order to savour the delights of Milton's poetry. Seduced by the poetry, I gladly surrender myself to the ecstasy it brings.

So I'm really pleased to have found this place of poetic orgies and orgies of poetry.

Wow! Well you are very welcome to be here and I know I speak for so many here who also find the visceral joy in poetry you obviously do. It's always fascinating to me to learn which poems other poets love. I'm barely familiar with Hopkins though my academic specialty was Victorian literature (but the novel much moreso than poetry). I always confuse him with Rossetti, probably because I read them around the same time.

I'm embarrassed to admit I don't remember The Windhover, but it's really lovely--a complex stew of words, rich with alliteration and assonance. I see what you mean about the rhythm (I just read about Hopkins' concept of "running rhythm," and The Windhover is certainly a clear example of it). And your comments about the repetition one carries across lines are interesting in light of the discussion on enjambment in another thread here. I don't think I typically do that when I read--repeat the last word on a line that is split from the first word on the following line. Usually I pause at both words and think about the dual meanings in the respective lines; and I do that when I write. That's what enjambment is all about to me. Here, for example, is how I just used it in a poem I wrote a few days ago:

love is carved on the trunk of an oak.
Everyone can see why

Can’t you be indifferent
like the slender branches shrug
and grow?​

I wanted the reader to pause on the end word of line 2 there, and the beginning word of line 3 and consider the various things that could mean. To repeat that end word at the start of the following line to manipulate rhythm never occurred to me, but it's a wonderful concept! So I just learned something new that could be significant to the way I write. And that's why I love this place.

Have you checked out the roll call thread yet? It's a good one and a great place to introduce oneself (hint, hint).

And now I will be good and go back to working on my new big editing job, which goes down just fine when accompanied by Charles Mingus.

 

[Rybka]

Gaia Lives!

Seismologists in recent years have recast their understanding of the inner workings of Earth from a relatively benign homogeneous environment to one that is highly dynamic and chemically diverse. This new view of Earth's inner workings depicts the planet as a living organism where events that happen deep inside can affect what happens at its surface, like the rub and slip of tectonic plates and the rumble of the occasional volcano.

. . .

Full story:

Deep Inside Planet Earth . . .​

 

[hmmnmm]

The observational qualities displayed by both Angeline and Lorencino are chillingly keen. That, or you have direct access to telephoto lenses that point directly through the kitchen window to the table. I say this because of the 'companion' mention, since both of them were written during the same sitting. They just kind of popped out, which is very rare in this house. I feared if I touched them too much, they'd disappear, which would give a definite fuzzy finish. Actually, the naked trees piece knocked about my noggin for a few days, almost procrastinated it.

Strange - or not so strange - after an intense stint with poetry I decided to go back and mess around with some prose, and, as I suspected, the prose seemed to come out noticably more colorful and compact. Yet, the more time I neglected the exercise of poetic muscles, the prose seemed to gradually revert back to the old habits.

Had something else - but as usual, it's gone.

Hang loose and sit tight.

 

[lorencino]

chillingly keen.

Now that's powerfully poetic

 

[unpredictablebijou]

Lorencino wrote:

Besides the note on my profile, a few things:
I'm opinionated, marinated, regurgitated;
I'm only any good in areas I feel inferior;
I am given to infuriating hyperbole.

Sixty years old, I was born on the same day
Modern India uncoiled from Britain's rapacious
Imperial plundering, fracturing in the first
Great Partitioning. Born the year before
Palestine's Partitioning, and the Afrikaner came
To power bearing partition-inspired Plans
Of lily-white lands and pure blacklands.

I felt the rawness of rebellion in Elvis
And James Dean, the sexual angst in
Home from the Hills before I was sexual.

The heaviness of DeathChurch Pontiff's scorn
when the electric potency feelings making
my body ring with joy was turned to sinful abuse.
Oh how I wrestled with Church, with self
my irresistible self, between Confessions
And Pleasure, Confessions, self-pleasure, Confessions,
Pleasure, irresistible pleasure, needed pleasure,
but time between confessions grew
guilty pleasures helplessly self-pleasuring
while the church shredded this little boys heart.

In Manhood the drifting boy converted, becoming,
over time, a Jewish Atheist and proud to be Jewish
thrilled with the universalism of the Prophets
Learning along the passages of life, what better thing
could friends share than intimacy, and mental intimacy
is more intimate than fucking intimacy, that the eye is
more intimate than the groin, but the groin
Is led by the eyes and the mind. Finally to know
that the unity of existence is the greatest intimacy,
and humility the strongest guardian.

I want from this community
Honesty that never allows me to delude myself into thinking that there is some worth in my mediocrity. Either I get it right or you tell me to wake up.

I offer this community
My impulsive reactions, my carefully considered reactions, my joyful enthusiasm for life, and my sympathy for having to put up with my bullshit, my loyalty.

Yowza. Nicetameetcha.

bijou

 

[Tathagata]

Thank you Lebroz for the mention of my work and thank you also to those who read and/or commented

 

[UnderYourSpell]

Perhaps this isn't the right thread but will put it here anyway. I am no angel or in anyway perfect and have been guilty of grammar mistakes all over the place, but if folks are going to submit can't they at least learn the use of the spellchecker and the space bar?!

 

[lorencino]

What's with the haiku problem

I've seen remarks scornful of calling 5-7-5 poems "Haiku." Anyone care to fill me in on this issue?

 

[Tzara]

I've seen remarks scornful of calling 5-7-5 poems "Haiku." Anyone care to fill me in on this issue?

If you are referring to my comments in the review thread, I hope I was not being "scornful." Not my intent.

If you are interesting in learning what the form of haiku is, you might start here.

 

[DeepAsleep]

Thanks for the mention and the (i think) rave review.

This is the person the poem was written for:

www.daphnegottlieb.com

I'm glad she liked it, too.

 

[lorencino]

If you are referring to my comments in the review thread, I hope I was not being "scornful." Not my intent.

If you are interesting in learning what the form of haiku is, you might start here.

I was not referring to your remarks, though it was your remarks that reminded me of some stuff I saw earlier. I did warn that I was given to hyperbole or at any rate I have a habit of using an hyperbolic turn of phrase--opposite to the British habit of employing understatement when feeling disdainful, I overstate without feeling anything malicious.

I read your suggested reading on haiku and found it very illuminating. Thanks.

 

[lorencino]

From Friday Morning's New Poetry Review

sensualquills exercises the rhyme and meter of the limerick in her five groupings. The unsophisticated language of this form doesn't rouse my laughter, as I'd expect from a limerick, in fact, I found it far too juvenile to be appealing. I hope this poet keeps writing but I do so with the wish that she'll begin to mature and use more individuality in her writing. She has an astute grasp of worldly wisdom and I'd like to see what she'll do with it if she unties the straps holding her to convention.

While champagne1982's virile language is accurate in implying that sensualquills' power as a poet will only be fully realized once she jettisons the restraints of this "form" poetry that she has been playing with, it is inaccurate in completely negating what sensualquills has acheived with her contributions to date.

While there are exceptions, I normally ignore Elizabethan sonnets written since the second Elizabeth ascended the English throne because it is mostly all form with no substance. Limericks are of even less interest to me. Yet there is something quite remarkable with what sensualquills has done within seeming doggerel in using the very triteness of the form as part of the interplay of elements that produce the final result. While her pieces are still clearly the exercises of the poet in training, the consummate skill on display is worth exploring even as it presages the emergence of a master poet.

Please understand that the purpose of this entry is not to condemn champagne1982 for her honest opinion nor to praise sensualquills into dizziness, but to bemoan what seems to have been the inadvertent consequence of champagne1982's remarks on Friday: The limericks I had planned to explore this morning, having been too busy all weekend to do it earlier, have all been taken down. (And also to point out that there may sometimes be more to doggerel than meets they eye or that doggerel is not always doggerel because it looks like it. )

 

[Angeline]

From Friday Morning's New Poetry Review



While champagne1982's virile language is accurate in implying that sensualquills' power as a poet will only be fully realized once she jettisons the restraints of this "form" poetry that she has been playing with, it is inaccurate in completely negating what sensualquills has acheived with her contributions to date.

While there are exceptions, I normally ignore Elizabethan sonnets written since the second Elizabeth ascended the English throne because it is mostly all form with no substance. Limericks are of even less interest to me. Yet there is something quite remarkable with what sensualquills has done within seeming doggerel in using the very triteness of the form as part of the interplay of elements that produce the final result. While her pieces are still clearly the exercises of the poet in training, the consummate skill on display is worth exploring even as it presages the emergence of a master poet.

Please understand that the purpose of this entry is not to condemn champagne1982 for her honest opinion nor to praise sensualquills into dizziness, but to bemoan what seems to have been the inadvertent consequence of champagne1982's remarks on Friday: The limericks I had planned to explore this morning, having been too busy all weekend to do it earlier, have all been taken down. (And also to point out that there may sometimes be more to doggerel than meets they eye or that doggerel is not always doggerel because it looks like it. )

Here's the second sonnet I wrote (10/02). It's sort of trite but you reminded me of it and my first attempt to stretch a form.

Sonnet 2

Be not afraid to write in verses free,
To chance in words upon disfavor’s way,
To take a stand upon which none agree.
Fear not the maxims others might inveigh.
True freedom lets imagination soar.
Uncensored thought does honest work create.
Avert your senses from the critics’ roar.
Make art whilst those of little vision prate.
In all things life anew is born of change
In art, too, difference lets new forms arise.
Revere the old, move on, then rearrange.
To not evolve condemns one’s words to lies.
In verses of persuasion rhymed or free,
Experiment and give rise to poetry.

 

[lorencino]

Brilliant

Here's the second sonnet I wrote (10/02). It's sort of trite but you reminded me of it and my first attempt to stretch a form.

Sonnet 2

Be not afraid to write in verses free,
To chance in words upon disfavor’s way,
To take a stand upon which none agree.
Fear not the maxims others might inveigh.
True freedom lets imagination soar.
Uncensored thought does honest work create.
Avert your senses from the critics’ roar.
Make art whilst those of little vision prate.
In all things life anew is born of change
In art, too, difference lets new forms arise.
Revere the old, move on, then rearrange.
To not evolve condemns one’s words to lies.
In verses of persuasion rhymed or free,
Experiment and give rise to poetry.

You straddle the old and the new magnificently using a sonnet to argue against the use of the sonnet; you have written an excellent sonnet containing an abundance of substance.

Ah the thrill of being proved wrong so cleverly is rapturous.

 

[champagne1982]

Why don't you, lorencino, send sens a private message asking to have a copy of those limericks? She sent me a note expressing thanks for an honest review. I emphasized that this was my opinion only, perhaps, when you read the verses the first time through, you should have sent her a note or left a comment. Join with me to let her know that all thoughts are valid and most of the time there are always those which counterpoint another.

 

[Angeline]

You straddle the old and the new magnificently using a sonnet to argue against the use of the sonnet; you have written an excellent sonnet containing an abundance of substance.

Ah the thrill of being proved wrong so cleverly is rapturous.

Thank you. I sort of got hooked on form poetry after I wrote that, and in a few other forms. I'm thinking of doing an instructional series with The_Fool called Hooked on Sonnets.

 

[UnderYourSpell]

What and where are online poetry journals please?

 

[champagne1982]

What and where are online poetry journals please?

There's a couple of links at the bottom of this post (It's message #5 in the sticky thread at the top of the forum) to ezines that are literary and well respected in the web community. You can also Google search for poetry ezines on the net and I'm sure you'll surface with a couple of resources.
Another good way to research places that may like your poetry enough to publish it is to check the "Call for Submissions" and the "patting the backs..." threads. Most of the published people link to the pages where their submissions appear.
Good Luck!

 

[LeBroz]

What and where are online poetry journals please?

Take a look at the Patting the backs and tooting each others horns thread. You can find tons of links to journals there, enough to quench any thirst.

.
.

 

[Angeline]

What and where are online poetry journals please?

There are tons of them out there. The Google Directory alone will link you to a bunch of them and you can find more by checking the links at individual poetry sites. I also like the list at White Owl Web. There are many, many other sites, too. It's really just a matter of searching around until you find sites that seem to fit your style of writing.

I read submissions guidelines and try to figure out what my chances are of having poems accepted before I submit. I won't submit unless I think I have a halfway decent shot at being accepted because most journals do not want simultaneous submissions. They want your poem(s) to be submitted only to them, and your stuff can be tied up for months while you wait to hear about acceptance. It's a judgment call.

I also find a book called Poet's Market to be an excellent resource. It lists journals (print and online), and gives a short blurb for each. Tells you how to submit, whether they pay (usually payment is in copies of the journal), how hard it is to be accepted, etc. Poet's Market mostly lists American journals. I don't know if there's a UK counterpart to it. I'll bet there is.

And if you want to start here, check out annaswirls Submission Calls thread. Anna knows her way around poetry publishing and she always has good suggestions.

These are just my suggestions. Others here may have other resources they find more helpful.

 

[Angeline]

Here's another resource

from the sticky "useful links" thread. It has 300 resources.

(Aha! Same one Champ recommended.)