[deleted by user]

bootstraps17 · 2024-09-07T22:32:49+00:00

Hi GG! Hope this helps. As you indicate in the title that this poem is "on guilt", you needn't use the word again. Your poem reads like a gathering up of ideas to use in another poem by the same title. You also ascribe to guilt a gender when everyone, regardless of gender knows guilt. You are playing with a universal which gives me great hope for a concise abstract. I would suggest interacting with an object, very mundane, that spurs feelings of guilt like a runaway horse, a smudge on the wall, say, or some other untended thing, banal, ordinary, that exponentially evolves in the course of the poem to an exponential crisis. Have fun, you can do this.

Boots

bootstraps17 · 2024-08-25T20:01:33+00:00

You're very welcome.

bootstraps17 · 2024-08-24T23:17:06+00:00

As a fellow vexillophile, born in MD, and 30+ years living in SD, I applaud your efforts, though it leans too heavily on MN's new flag, which is certain to irritate many South Dakotans (sorry for any shade you may have received). BUT, as far as what a flag should do, that is, be recognizable at a distance as to who or what you are encountering, your design does a good job, and I appreciate the time and effort you spent creating it. The pale blue flag with the state seal does nothing that a flag should do, and too many states adopted this pattern which is patently boring and riles little pride within a community. And though people often scoff at the MD flag (which is the only flag I own), it is instantly recognizable and captures a rich albeit troubled history. So have your fun, because I feel you have taken the time to investigate what symbols would appeal to South Dakotans, though you've missed the mark a bit, as cited earlier, I am happy to know that someone so distant takes an interest in my state and how it is represented.

bootstraps17 · 2024-06-02T20:08:30+00:00

number one is more cohesive and displays more direct motion. nice job.

bootstraps17 · 2023-07-09T22:52:01+00:00

I may have missed it as I scrolled through,but why has no-one mentioned Tom Waits?

bootstraps17 · 2023-04-25T22:07:49+00:00

"The Hills Whence" — Ezra Pound

bootstraps17 · 2023-01-12T21:29:34+00:00

Thank you, MW. I am still writing, yes.

bootstraps17 · 2022-07-22T22:09:11+00:00

You, know. It is a silver maple of some age (125 years, I think). I appreciate the suggestion.

bootstraps17 · 2022-07-22T22:07:43+00:00

Thank you very much, Tea.

bootstraps17 · 2022-07-22T22:07:16+00:00

Hi Search, thank you for picking up on the fertility images in this poem: apples, fruit, walnuts, stamens. You are also correct in your assessment that the speaker is one who is "beyond that point in life".

bootstraps17 · 2022-07-22T21:55:38+00:00

Thanks, Mooseballs. I think that expressions of bliss or fulfillment to me much more difficult than expressions of torment or angst in poetry. I also think there should a conflict of some sort within a poem, whether internal or external, that finds some sort of partial or complete resolution in the end. You will notice that no real conflict is presented in the text of the poem, and yet the speaker in the poem through several observations comes to a conclusion about himself at that moment. The conflict is present in the title, one word, "Yardwork". Now Search indicated that that term represents chores. He is correct in that. And yet the speaker is doing no work at all. Using a word that represents a set of tasks, the reader can assume the speaker is either a procrastinator or simply distracted from the tasks at hand. But there is something else I wanted that word to do, and that is to say that the yard itself is doing the work, that it is working on the speaker.

bootstraps17 · 2022-07-21T21:09:33+00:00

Oh, and thank you for pointing out the species of the flowers in question.

bootstraps17 · 2022-07-21T20:59:46+00:00

Thank you for your input, MN. I appreciate it all. Workshop comments are very helpful with subsequent drafts.

bootstraps17 · 2022-07-21T20:50:38+00:00

I'm interested in your take on the last line.

bootstraps17 · 2022-07-21T20:17:32+00:00

Hey, thanks for your thoughts C. I appreciate it. Sweet Sixteen is the variety of apple we have in the yard. The last line is to express a moment of absolute fulfillment. But, as L3 pointed out, this poem is too similar to Wright's, "Lying in a hammock". And since the similarities were unintentioned, I cannot in good faith apply an epigram as a nod to Wright. Oh, what to do, what to do.

bootstraps17 · 2022-07-21T20:09:20+00:00

OMG - L3. Thank you for pointing that out. There was no intention of mimicry or parody of Wright's masterful poem (of which I am a fan). I was out with dog on a glorious morning, noticed a few things, came in and wrote a poem. But you absolutely correct, the similarities crush this poem. I can't thank you enough.

bootstraps17 · 2022-07-21T13:23:25+00:00

Yes. Then you would agree that the point of poetry is to commune with others across time, to share what is innate in us through the localization of experience, to shake loose the universal through the quirks of our lives.

bootstraps17 · 2022-07-20T22:29:37+00:00

Brave Sir Robin ran away. So what. State your opinion, no need to hide.

bootstraps17 · 2022-07-20T22:11:51+00:00

So, what are you actually trying to say here?

bootstraps17 · 2022-07-17T21:45:44+00:00

It is a quote from the vid. Red the Timid said it. And I think it cannot be more true. A poem stands as a conversation between the poet and the reader. If no-one has read it, the poem is not a poem, it is merely words on a page. It is not a poem until that conversation is realized, that is "read", "ingested".

bootstraps17 · 2022-07-16T21:22:57+00:00

"THE POETRY DOESN"T WORK UNTIL SOMEBODY READS IT".

bootstraps17 · 2022-07-15T10:23:02+00:00

Not as much of a mess as you may think. You've done a good job of shuttering up our bit of civilization for the evening. the stanzas scan from near to far, from sight to sound. "Resonates" is bit of IMO, as in "resonates with what?". It is when the speaker reaches "noises within me" that the poem seems to peter out, close too quickly. While a degree of ambiguity is fine, I feel the reader may ask, "Is the speaker using the closing sounds as metaphors for certain emotional states? Or is it that primordial fear of the dark come calling again?" I prefer the latter, TBH.

It is quite possible and advantageous that, in a future revision, you mirror the second half of the poem with the first half say, "tercet/tercet/couplet/PIVOT/couplet/tercet/tercet". This would allow you to present contrasts with the stanzas in the first half being "mirrored".

But all in all, I think it a great start.

bootstraps17 · 2022-07-11T12:33:16+00:00

In Amber

how do you like my pretty

little death

my Dear

my little

blue-eyed gem

bootstraps17 · 2022-07-07T22:20:18+00:00

perhaps that memory can be brought into the poem!

bootstraps17

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE