"To keep the review thread clean..."

[UnderYourSpell]

Thankyou to simply_me, lorencino, zack_constantine, twelveoone and anon for taking the time to comment on 'Come to me' and to twelveoone for his kind mention in NPR
simply_me I have used a line break as a mere pause where a comma would be too strong but your suggestions are noted thanks

 

[twelveoone]

Thankyou to simply_me, lorencino, zack_constantine, twelveoone and anon for taking the time to comment on 'Come to me' and to twelveoone for his kind mention in NPR
simply_me I have used a line break as a mere pause where a comma would be too strong but your suggestions are noted thanks

OOOOOh thank you for that kind adjective. Can you rewrite that and kind of throw a few more kinds in. My kindness image image is rather low in certain kinds of low corners.

I'm tempted to say to my newfoundfriend, they are not rat turds, they are


goobers and raisinettes

chocolate just looks that way

Now, if I may be excused.
Mumsie has made some tea and some spot on crumpettes, and we shall sit around and discuss Edith and Osbert Sitwell.

If the tea sits well.

 

[UnderYourSpell]

OOOOOh thank you for that kind adjective. Can you rewrite that and kind of throw a few more kinds in. My kindness image image is rather low in certain kinds of low corners.

I'm tempted to say to my newfoundfriend, they are not rat turds, they are


goobers and raisinettes

chocolate just looks that way

Now, if I may be excused.
Mumsie has made some tea and some spot on crumpettes, and we shall sit around and discuss Edith and Osbert Sitwell.

If the tea sits well.

Oh belt up ratbag (I may call you ratbag mayn't I? we've known each other long enough and it's meant as a friendly insult! ) I was being polite something we English are good at whilst gritting out teeth, smiling and poisoning your tea

 

[twelveoone]

Oh belt up ratbag (I may call you ratbag mayn't I? we've known each other long enough and it's meant as a friendly insult! ) I was being polite something we English are good at whilst gritting out teeth, smiling and poisoning your tea

Now, now, Madame. Did your macrame implode?

 

[butters]

Now, now, Madame. Did your macrame implode?

*splutters*

 

[UnderYourSpell]

Now, now, Madame. Did your macrame implode?

tut tut I've never got knotted in my life!

 

[butters]

tut tut I've never got knotted in my life!

aw bless. lol. haven't you ever macraméd before annie?
it was all the rage in the 70's

 

[UnderYourSpell]

aw bless. lol. haven't you ever macraméd before annie?
it was all the rage in the 70's

my dear I had faaaaaaaaar more interesting things to do in the 70s ..... jumping from helicopters, balloons and paratroopers !!!

 

[twelveoone]

my dear I had faaaaaaaaar more interesting things to do in the 70s ..... jumping from helicopters, balloons and paratroopers !!!

from or on... paratroopers?

Bad idea to knit your own chute, Canute

 

[greenmountaineer]

While I appreciate it whenever anyone takes the time to comment on one of my poems, in the case of "St. Mary's Amateur Minstrel Show," I particularly appreciate chipbutty's and twelveoone's comments about the last stanza.

I had intended that the narrator be viewed as a snob, as twelveoone noted, but only as a springboard to the larger matter of how we sometimes, and with some many times, foolishly deprecate others to elevate ourselves. It's apparent from their comments I didn't accomplish that due to the brevity of the stanza.

Comments like those are as helpful as ones where the reader acknowledges he or she appreciated a poem's nuances and certainly more helpful than an "attaboy."

 

[twelveoone]

While I appreciate it whenever anyone takes the time to comment on one of my poems, in the case of "St. Mary's Amateur Minstrel Show," I particularly appreciate chipbutty's and twelveoone's comments about the last stanza.

I had intended that the narrator be viewed as a snob, as twelveoone noted, but only as a springboard to the larger matter of how we sometimes, and with some many times, foolishly deprecate others to elevate ourselves. It's apparent from their comments I didn't accomplish that due to the brevity of the stanza.

Comments like those are as helpful as ones where the reader acknowledges he or she appreciated a poem's nuances and certainly more helpful than an "attaboy."

well also consider it an well deserved "attaboy." You probably know more than most how complex this game is and how difficult it is to cover all the bases.
Why I almost feel a flannel poem coming on. "the perils of being peewee reese"

 

[twelveoone]

While I appreciate it whenever anyone takes the time to comment on one of my poems, in the case of "St. Mary's Amateur Minstrel Show," I particularly appreciate chipbutty's and twelveoone's comments about the last stanza.

I had intended that the narrator be viewed as a snob, as twelveoone noted, but only as a springboard to the larger matter of how we sometimes, and with some many times, foolishly deprecate others to elevate ourselves. It's apparent from their comments I didn't accomplish that due to the brevity of the stanza.

Comments like those are as helpful as ones where the reader acknowledges he or she appreciated a poem's nuances and certainly more helpful than an "attaboy."

well also consider it an well deserved "attaboy." You probably know more than most how complex this game is and how difficult it is to cover all the bases.
Why I almost feel a flannel poem coming on. "the perils of being peewee reese"

May an H come your way.

 

[UnderYourSpell]

from or on... paratroopers?

Bad idea to knit your own chute, Canute

Moi! Jump on paratroopers? Never! Didn't have to, lots of Cherry Berets to go round on Salisbury Plains But no I was a one guy girl ..... wonder what ever happened to him, such a handsome guy

 

[greenmountaineer]

well also consider it an well deserved "attaboy." You probably know more than most how complex this game is and how difficult it is to cover all the bases.
Why I almost feel a flannel poem coming on. "the perils of being peewee reese"

May an H come your way.

I almost fell off my chair laughing when I read this. I just may do that, perhaps "the little colonel" telling dirty jokes in the clubhouse to the boys of summer.

For the folks across the pond and down under, in the remote chance they would be at all interested, Pee Wee Reese, a diminutive player on the Brooklyn Dodgers and captain of the baseball team, was known as "the little colonel."

 

[twelveoone]

I almost fell off my chair laughing when I read this. I just may do that, perhaps "the little colonel" telling dirty jokes in the clubhouse to the boys of summer.

For the folks across the pond and down under, in the remote chance they would be at all interested, Pee Wee Reese, a diminutive player on the Brooklyn Dodgers and captain of the baseball team, was known as "the little colonel."

the good ol days, nowadays you call a short guy Pee Wee, the whole team has to take sensitivity training.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pee_Wee_Reese

Reese's nickname originated in his childhood, as he was a champion marbles player (a little "pee wee" is a small marble).

In high school, Reese was so small that he did not play baseball until senior year, at which time he weighed only 120 pounds

(if he had weighed 250 lbs, he would have been called "Tiny" according to that era's nickname nomenclature)

 

[lorencino]

Thankyou to simply_me, lorencino, zack_constantine, twelveoone and anon for taking the time to comment on 'Come to me' and to twelveoone for his kind mention in NPR
simply_me I have used a line break as a mere pause where a comma would be too strong but your suggestions are noted thanks

I want to remark on simply_me’s commentary on the grammar and punctuation of the poem Come to Me and in so doing explore a little of what poetry means to me. This is a very personal exploration of how my mind is working as I read and reread the poem and is not to suggest that some other way is not equally as valid.

The corrected version of the poem is as valid as UnderYourSpell's original submission—it is neither better nor worse; only different. My opinion relies on that theory of poetry which holds that a poem's sense of the words acts mainly upon the intellect of the listener, while the rhythm and sounds (alliteration, assonance, consonantal qualities, etc.) act on the physical body. All of the above, along with things like connotation will affect the emotions of the reader.

Now while I identify three parts of our being that perceives the poem, I am not suggesting that the three are distinct nor that they are equal in perceiving the totality of a poem. For me there is a kind of dance between the three wherein distinctions blur or combine to create different results depending on my mood, state of health, level of emotional security, whatever.

When grammar and punctuation rules are broken, it will sometimes open up a new level of understanding that strict adherence to grammar would not allow. In the first three lines of the poem (the first full sentence)

In the night she thought she heard him,
a drawn out cry, the voice echoed
in her head called her name.

the first line is relatively diffused, slow and longer than the others with “drawn out” pause created by the line-break as well as the comma, and echoed by the next three words that follow only to be interrupted by the more sharply sounding “cry” which is softened by the comma-occasioned pause. Lulled by what preceded “cry” our focus suddenly perks up expectantly waiting for something new that has been heralded by the subtle shift in rhythm. Then, following the soft flow of “the voice” we have the double whammy of the two hard consonantal sounds in “echoed;” the first exploding across our tongue from the back of the mouth while the second lands more softly with tongue on the teeth at the front of the mouth so that it flows easily into the line-break pause.

All of this sets us up for the powerful beauty of the third line, achieved by the omission of the comma that normally belongs there. By omitting the comma, one is able to experience the two phrases “in her head” and ”called her name” as simultaneous (which they actually are) than as sequential events which the sequential flow of phrases incorrectly suggests. Thus the line is faster in contrast with the slowness of what has gone before and this change, along with the other changes I referred to earlier, begins to excite a perception in my being of the energy the poet has invested in what she is describing as well as the turmoil and confusion of unrequited longings buried deep in her subconscious, longings which travel through her dreams into her consciousness.

Without the comma the two phrases co-mingle in the speed of the line

There is also the tension between the meaning of the aforementioned two phrases of the third line and the sense of her “head called her name” so that there is ambiguity in the line that echoes the confusion over whether the cry is real or imagined.

Thus in trying to make sense of the piece I begin to feel tickled, excited, by the suggestion of a super-reality evoked by the contradictory possibilities of the line vying with each other and creating a third possibility out of the contradiction which words will not describe.

Putting a comma into the third line would destroy this effect the poem has on me.

 

[lorencino]

In brief

Here is a shortened version of my above post:

Good punctuation will serve to minimize ambiguity.

Ambiguity is an excellent poetic device to expand the range of poetic expression.

 

[UnderYourSpell]

Wow and gosh ........ I'm gobsmacked here. I fiddled for ages with the punctuation putting in commas then taking out. I didn't want too many of them and decided to try letting the line breaks do the pausing for me. This is really a new way for me but had seen it work for others so you must forgive me if I didn't get it exactly right first time. Thank you all so much for putting in the time and votes for me to get the H I haven't given the muse an outing in quite a while and the longer you go between submissions the harder it becomes to take the risk of a slating!

 

[serpentwrap]

A well deserved H too. And Lorencino is bang on the buck. Indeed, "a poem's sense of the words acts mainly upon the intellect of the listener, while the rhythm and sounds (alliteration, assonance, consonantal qualities, etc.) act on the physical body. All of the above, along with things like connotation will affect the emotions of the reader. Wiser words are seldom said.

 

[lorencino]

A well deserved H too. And Lorencino is bang on the buck. Indeed, "a poem's sense of the words acts mainly upon the intellect of the listener, while the rhythm and sounds (alliteration, assonance, consonantal qualities, etc.) act on the physical body. All of the above, along with things like connotation will affect the emotions of the reader. Wiser words are seldom said.

I'm not really into banging bucks, but your acknowledgement and praise is appreciated, even if a touch exaggerated.

By the way, why do you have comments turned of on your delightfully exuberant poems?

 

[lorencino]

What!!!!

Wow and gosh ........ I'm gobsmacked here. I fiddled for ages with the punctuation putting in commas then taking out. I didn't want too many of them and decided to try letting the line breaks do the pausing for me. This is really a new way for me but had seen it work for others so you must forgive me if I didn't get it exactly right first time. Thank you all so much for putting in the time and votes for me to get the H I haven't given the muse an outing in quite a while and the longer you go between submissions the harder it becomes to take the risk of a slating!

Fiddled, did you? Leaving out commas, are you? Gobsmacked, eh? And, well, for keeping the muse locked up in claustrophobic penury, Take this: :caning:

 

[UnderYourSpell]

A well deserved H too. And Lorencino is bang on the buck. Indeed, "a poem's sense of the words acts mainly upon the intellect of the listener, while the rhythm and sounds (alliteration, assonance, consonantal qualities, etc.) act on the physical body. All of the above, along with things like connotation will affect the emotions of the reader. Wiser words are seldom said.

Thanks but unless I'm doing some specific form I don't think about technicalities I just write

Fiddled, did you? Leaving out commas, are you? Gobsmacked, eh? And, well, for keeping the muse locked up in claustrophobic penury, Take this: :caning:

Ouchhhhhh!

 

[twelveoone]

Ouchhhhhh!

three anons JACKPOT wins prize.

 

[greenmountaineer]

Thanks for the mention, twelveoone, of "St. Mary's Minstrel Show" in NPR. You're absolutely right. I should have ended it after the 3rd stanza.

Live and learn.

 

[twelveoone]

Thanks for the mention, twelveoone, of "St. Mary's Minstrel Show" in NPR. You're absolutely right. I should have ended it after the 3rd stanza.

Live and learn.

Or continue, the then and now isn't a bad idea. My rule of thumb is if you say anything stupid, enclose it in quotes. i.e. let a character do the dirty work.
But as best as I can tell, you done a fine job in the character, probably an excellent job with the zeitgeist.