My Little Me Thread

I've concluded that for whatever weird reason, I do my best writing here on the Lit poetry forum. Therefore I'll be rehabbing some of my older poems in this thread. I'd appreciate any comments and/or feedback if you are moved to provide any. If you'd like to edit some of your poems here, too, feel free. I'll gladly comment on yours if you do the same for me.

Oh and if you just want to lurk or post about whatever, I don't mind that either. I'll just be over here by the corner with the thesaurus and the rhyme dictionary.

Angeline said:

I've concluded that for whatever weird reason, I do my best writing here on the Lit poetry forum. Therefore I'll be rehabbing some of my older poems in this thread. I'd appreciate any comments and/or feedback if you are moved to provide any. If you'd like to edit some of your poems here, too, feel free. I'll gladly comment on yours if you do the same for me.

Oh and if you just want to lurk or post about whatever, I don't mind that either. I'll just be over here by the corner with the thesaurus and the rhyme dictionary.

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I love this idea because I'm a "compulsive" editor of my poetry. I've posted some edited poems on the "poem a week" challenge, but only those those that have been substantially modified, and most of those edits have taken as much time as the original.

I came to this website years ago because I saw it as a way to improve one's writing. This seems to me to be a thread where serious poets who know how to express their opinions in a constructively critical way may help others.

Winter Harbor (new new version revised 9/4/13)

Sea roses big as saucers
nudge our gray bench overlooking
the harbor.

We are on that rocky finger
pointed north, beside broken-toothed
graves leaning on the blue expanse,
islands diving hump-backed
toward Cadillac Mountain.

We are sentient among
upturned faces of mossy crags,
pink Yankee granite. Stunted cedars,
naked, beseech the sky.
Crowds of giant spruce stand
straight amid the weeds and shell.
Wind bears down hard here,
boats and bushes sway buoys
dance on wavelets.

You put your arm around me,
point There's Europe baby, but I
look back to rusted traps
piled on the dock. The Sun splashes
red past the Schoodic and fades
into to the sea.

I kept that tiny cedar cone. I hold it
in my palm, barely there, but my finger
tips remember rough stony leaves,
my mouth remembers the soft corner
of yours, the salty taste of you.

The moon silvered that night.
Pine trees hissed. You breathed
your secret night whispers.
I tucked a quilt around you.

greenmountaineer said:

I love this idea because I'm a "compulsive" editor of my poetry. I've posted some edited poems on the "poem a week" challenge, but only those those that have been substantially modified, and most of those edits have taken as much time as the original.

I came to this website years ago because I saw it as a way to improve one's writing. This seems to me to be a thread where serious poets who know how to express their opinions in a constructively critical way may help others.

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GM, if the thread can serve that purpose, I'd be thrilled. I'm open to constructive feedback and will return the favor when I know that's what another poet wants. Please come work in here, too.

Winter Harbor

I liked this very much, Angeline, particularly the way things come together in S4.

I'm familiar with that part of Maine. I have fond memories of Donna from a different lifetime out on Schoodic Point, (although my memories of the outhouse in the middle of the night 100 feet from our tent aren't so fond).

Because I had a vivid recollection of the place (Cadillac Mt., Frenchmen's Bay, the little peninsulas jutting out from Mt. Desert Island) I began wondering if the poem would have a similar affect on someone like Tzara or Tess2 out on the west coast or Lit friends like bogus and butters across the pond. That's not an implied criticism of the poem. Reading it, however, raised a question for me because I've situated many of my poems in the NYC metropolitan area. Does a writer sometimes make hasty about an image so familar to him or her when it's included in the work?

Angeline said:

Winter Harbor (new version)

Sea roses with stout green leaves
nudge our gray bench overlooking
the harbor.

We are on that rocky finger
pointed north, beside broken-toothed
old graves leaning on the blue
expanse, islands diving hump-backed
toward Cadillac Mountain.

We are sentient among
upturned faces of mossy crags,
pink Yankee granite. Stunted cedars,
naked, beseech the sky. Crowds
of giant spruce stand straight
amid the weeds and shell. Wind
bears down hard here, boats
and bushes sway, buoys dance
on wavelets.

You put your arm around me, point
There's Europe baby, but I look
behind us to rusted traps beyond
the dock where the red Sun splashes
past the Schoodic to the sea.

I kept that tiny cedar cone. I hold
it in my palm, barely there, but my finger
tips remember rough stony leaves,
my mouth remembers the soft corner
of yours, the salty taste of you.

The moon silvered that night.
Pine trees hissed. You breathed
your secret night whispers.
I tucked a quilt around you.

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OK. You wanted feedback Ange. I have a real problem with 'stout' leaves. Stout just sounds lazy or you can't find a better word. Stout is just begging for a metaphor. I can't quite explain why this bit of description jarred with me, the poem is good but that first line is like a doorstep you trip over when entering a mighty fine house.

greenmountaineer said:

I liked this very much, Angeline, particularly the way things come together in S4.

I'm familiar with that part of Maine. I have fond memories of Donna from a different lifetime out on Schoodic Point, (although my memories of the outhouse in the middle of the night 100 feet from our tent aren't so fond).

Because I had a vivid recollection of the place (Cadillac Mt., Frenchmen's Bay, the little peninsulas jutting out from Mt. Desert Island) I began wondering if the poem would have a similar affect on someone like Tzara or Tess2 out on the west coast or Lit friends like bogus and butters across the pond. That's not an implied criticism of the poem. Reading it, however, raised a question for me because I've situated many of my poems in the NYC metropolitan area. Does a writer sometimes make hasty about an image so familar to him or her when it's included in the work?

Click to expand...

bogusagain said:

OK. You wanted feedback Ange. I have a real problem with 'stout' leaves. Stout just sounds lazy or you can't find a better word. Stout is just begging for a metaphor. I can't quite explain why this bit of description jarred with me, the poem is good but that first line is like a doorstep you trip over when entering a mighty fine house.

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First thank you both for the comments. I really appreciate them.

I figured I'd answer you together because the answers are kind of related.

When I first wrote this poem, the start line was "Sea roses big as saucers." There was nothing about the leaves: the "stout green leaves" was an addition I made yesterday. I did it because sea roses don't really look like regular roses and they're on bushes, they don't climb (I don't think), and they do have these kind of fat spade-shaped leaves. Also I think that to say something is "big as saucers" is a cliche, if a rather archaic one. So I was actually trying to be more authentic in describing how they look by adding the stuff about the leaves. But you are right, Bogus, "stout" has too many other associations to really work. Yesterday it sounded good. Today, not so much. I'm not sure whether to say "fat" or maybe take out that phrase altogether.

So I think being authentic is important to me, especially in a poem about a real place. What I find funny (both haha and ironic) is that in trying to be more authentic I took a misstep.

I also think there is still a piece missing from this poem. It feels more about a description of a place than about the relationship and I want it to be more balanced. So I may try to add a few more strophes.

Oh and I think the outhouses are mostly gone now GM. When we went there, we'd stay in these little cabins a local rents out. They did have bathrooms. Outhouse would have been a dealbreaker for me lol.

I like this. Firstly I do not know the area at all but I got a good impression of the atmosphere of the place.

However, it seems that the relationship you want to illustrate is brought in with the verbs, "We are, We are, You put, I kept." I thought perhaps that possibly, all those verbs were a tiny bit clunky and if you could maintain a more impressionistic approach using metaphor and similes to meld the relationship with the place it might be helpful.

I dunno - I got the image of an impressionist painting in my mind and can't shake it off.

ishtat said:

I like this. Firstly I do not know the area at all but I got a good impression of the atmosphere of the place.

However, it seems that the relationship you want to illustrate is brought in with the verbs, "We are, We are, You put, I kept." I thought perhaps that possibly, all those verbs were a tiny bit clunky and if you could maintain a more impressionistic approach using metaphor and similes to meld the relationship with the place it might be helpful.

I dunno - I got the image of an impressionist painting in my mind and can't shake it off.

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Hi you. Good to see you posting here.

Good point about the verbs. Maybe there is another way to get at it. I need to think on it. Diving Into the Wreck is, to me, a great relationship poem although Rich does keep it pretty open, so it could be any relationship, even one with herself. I think I need to study more modern relationship poems and see what other poets have done.

I like that you got impressionist painting from my poem. I was trying really hard to recreate that place for readers. It's so lovely and wild there.

I have to write at least three more sonnets to try this experiment. I'm trying to replicate what Ted Berrigan did with his sonnets, which was to write a group of relatively normal sonnets. By normal I mean he kept to 14 lines and sometime paid attention to meter and rhyme, sometimes not. And then from that group of sonnets he culled 14 lines to make one new sonnet. If you've read his sonnets they feel disjunctive but also conversational and thematic. It's strange how well his "method" worked for him.

I don't know if my experiment will work, that is, result in good poetry. But it will work insofar as pushing me in a new direction. That's always a win for me.

Anyway I've written three in the poem a week thread. Anyone got any ideas for the next three? I'm feeling a mite dry.

Angeline said:

Hi you. Good to see you posting here.

Good point about the verbs. Maybe there is another way to get at it. I need to think on it. Diving Into the Wreck is, to me, a great relationship poem although Rich does keep it pretty open, so it could be any relationship, even one with herself. I think I need to study more modern relationship poems and see what other poets have done.

I like that you got impressionist painting from my poem. I was trying really hard to recreate that place for readers. It's so lovely and wild there.

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Ahhh, literally an impressionist-like painting.

Did you paint that? It's beautiful. And it looks like the island in Frenchman's Bay. It's somewhere on Mt Desert Island, no?

I'm happy to see you here. Write some poems or something.

Angeline said:

Did you paint that? It's beautiful. And it looks like the island in Frenchman's Bay. It's somewhere on Mt Desert Island, no?

I'm happy to see you here. Write some poems or something.

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Nope, I am no visual artist, and I wrote d'maas a Sophie skin poemie thingy. I found this on http://magiccolourpencil.blogspot.ca/2010/07/hot-summer-days-in-maine.html when I googled "sea rose" images since I wanted to see what they look like. They are lovely as is this poem of yours. Give me some time to stretch my poetry muscles and maybe I'll be back to offer some constructive insight here.

champagne1982 said:

Nope, I am no visual artist, and I wrote d'maas a Sophie skin poemie thingy. I found this on http://magiccolourpencil.blogspot.ca/2010/07/hot-summer-days-in-maine.html when I googled "sea rose" images since I wanted to see what they look like. They are lovely as is this poem of yours. Give me some time to stretch my poetry muscles and maybe I'll be back to offer some constructive insight here.

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That would make me happy and be good for the whole forum.

And either way I love the watercolor. And you see why I was trying to get more of the image across--sea roses don't look like a standard rose. But maybe I am being too OCD about it lol.

Well, primroses (or wild roses -- the provincial flower of Alberta) do not fit our modern image of a rose but they are the true genetic ancestor of all the cross-pollinated and spliced roses that are so showy in our present day gardens.

They are like the sea roses, beautiful in their simplicity.

Oops.

i'm not exactly here, but wanted to ask you, Angie, to describe what the leaves really look like. i can't really offer an opinion on that word 'stout' without knowing. this, however, seems to offer a different feel to the leaves - could be due to location, prevailing winds, whatever: http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88v/hd-sea-rose.html

butters said:

i'm not exactly here, but wanted to ask you, Angie, to describe what the leaves really look like. i can't really offer an opinion on that word 'stout' without knowing. this, however, seems to offer a different feel to the leaves - could be due to location, prevailing winds, whatever: http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88v/hd-sea-rose.html

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Here is a photo of a sea rose on the Maine coast, which is exactly what I was writing about. And looking at it now, I think I should go back to "sea roses big as saucers" because, to me, that is more defining of what they really look like.

Angeline said:

Here is a photo of a sea rose on the Maine coast, which is exactly what I was writing about. And looking at it now, I think I should go back to "sea roses big as saucers" because, to me, that is more defining of what they really look like.

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hmmmn. it might suggest the size, but it doesn't do its shape any favour. saucers conjures for me a flatter, sturdier (unless of the finest bone-china) disc, even if the size is right. the rose petals you've linked look almost tissue-thin and less flat, more gently fluted. soooooooo, without belabouring it, if you want to keep as true to the image as possible, perhaps you can get away with something along the lines of 'delicately fluted saucers'. i dunno. the size of the flowers is robust, shrinking the leaves by comparison.

if you use the word 'saucers', you'd probably not need 'the size of' since it's already suggested, isn't it?


edit: fluted silk saucers?

Sea roses as big as tea cups?

Tristesse2 said:

Sea roses as big as tea cups?

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^ and it suggests the more bowl-like shape *nods* ANd has associations with fragrance/perfume you'd not get from saucer alone

butters said:

^ and it suggests the more bowl-like shape *nods* ANd has associations with fragrance/perfume you'd not get from saucer alone

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unless you drink your tea from a saucer....pinkie raised of course.

Tristesse2 said:

unless you drink your tea from a saucer....pinkie raised of course.

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how etiquette's changed

but with dainty china, my pinkie would get in the way, or dangle in an unsightly fashion below the raised cup, so it just lifts to an elegant elevation all by itself as par for the course.

The saucer dilemna

I'm leaving it that way for now because that is what those roses look like to me. They are as big as saucers and they are usually blown open by the wind so they look flattish. The Maine coast can be a very windy place. There may be a better choice but it hasn't come to me, so that poem is going on the back burner again for a while.

Newly revised from a May, 2004 original draft

Invent a number for not quite yet.
When you're ready place it on a line,
move it forward, back. Don't look away.

Don't keep a thing under changing skies,
nothing fancied nothing damp with smears
of rain, incidents of tears. Don't count
sounds but blur concordant notes, twine
them twice with blaring condemnation.

Make an echo's impression. Ignore
the sum of falling leaves. Conceive what
can't be counted, crumble it to dust--
infinite not by loss but absent
of whim wherein wind totals nothing.

Now stand in the center of zero
and bend to the curve of circumstance.


Thank you, smithpeter for giving me that first line.