Double Blind Challenge, round 2 - starts May 15

I've loaded up the revolver with one bullet and spun the barrel hard like I was on the Price Is Right hoping for a new dishwasher.

Tomorrow we shall put it on a Lazy Susan and spin that hard too.

Cross your fingers and hope it doesn't end up pointing towards you.
 
Drumroll !! Everyone got their nibs filled and pens sharpened? Or is it t'other way round? Because of my being in the PST zone, poems may not be up till about 10 am Eastern.
 
For anyone who hasn't figured it out, poems and critiques have their own dedicated thread now.

We'll keep this one for the usual random comments and so forth...
 
The next poem goes up tomorrow morning. Last chance for comments on the first poem, folks.
 
We sure seem to be a lively and opinionated bunch!! This is a great home for me!
 
Mag's recent comments about The Turning, which I like very much, raised an interesting question for me. He suggested Minister Ryan was possibly the rapist, and the word, Witness, in the last stanza, because it was capitalized, may refer to Jehovah's Witnesses.

Is there a point at which in a poem the "my experience" is so unique that it's hard for the reader to identify with the experience? Almost everyone has a visceral response to sexual assault. This is not a critique of "The Turning." Some of its elements, however, made me think about writing in the first person or writing in the third person, and why a poet chooses one over the other in writing a poem.

As a further example, I'm not a big fan of the so-called "Confessional Poets." Lowell, Plath, and Sexton, in particular, wrote some real good poems, but many I could not relate to. In the end, I was saddened by two suicides and the other having had numerous hospitalizations because of bipolar disease, but it slanted their view of the world. One of the reasons I read poetry is to relate to the human experience. I acknowledge others may have different reasons for appreciating a particular poem.
 
I agree with your comments, gm, though I am guilty often of using poetry both for confession and for working out personal demons. I don't mind such poems but sometimes I simply can't relate. In other cases, I recognize experiences that are universal even if personal and am moved, or whatever.


I am holding back commenting on The Turning for reasons a bit related to this - not sure whether I understand it. But that would also be a comment.
 
I flip flop between 1st and 3rd.

Whichever the case, I rarely write about personal experiences. And if I do, it's mostly about people I've met on the Internets who pissed me off and it is cloaked in symbolism. Otherwise most of my stuff is the fictional fluff of a hyperactive mind.

But I also write from the vantage points of a minimum of 5 personalities who sometimes have minds of their own.
 
I am screwed when it comes to writing i struggle in anything orher that first person, comfessional poetry, is mt prime muse source, I dont know if that makes me a hack writer but I attempt the first person view to hit on a universal level, in some instances it will work, others not so much,

The odd piecw I write third person, or what I am attempting with Heintitam. But most writes are confessional. I should maybe look at attemping to fix that in the future.

As to the turning I should go look now me thinks, here "I" am blatherin on about me again :rolleyes:
 
I am screwed when it comes to writing i struggle in anything orher that first person, comfessional poetry, is mt prime muse source, I dont know if that makes me a hack writer but I attempt the first person view to hit on a universal level, in some instances it will work, others not so much,

The odd piecw I write third person, or what I am attempting with Heintitam. But most writes are confessional. I should maybe look at attemping to fix that in the future.

As to the turning I should go look now me thinks, here "I" am blatherin on about me again :rolleyes:

Eh, I find your blather interesting. :D

I think you find it hard to write outside your first-person, confessional bubble because you haven't done it much. The thing is--anything you choose to write about whether it happened to you or is just something you've observed or read about, whatever is still by you. So you are in that poem whether it's directly about you or not: it's your poem.

There are ways of practicing to get better at trying different approaches. For me it often helps to read someone else's poem--some famous poem or just whatever I read somewhere and like and try to write on the same subject or theme in the same voice (first, second or third person) as is in the poem I read. It's not plagiarizing because you are not going to try to publish it: you're just practicing. And like everything the more you do it the easier it gets. :rose:
 
May I make a suggestion? I would like to see the second, corrected version of the poem before guessing the author. I'd like to see whether there is a characteristic way that each author reassesses and upgrades his or her poem.
 
May I make a suggestion? I would like to see the second, corrected version of the poem before guessing the author. I'd like to see whether there is a characteristic way that each author reassesses and upgrades his or her poem.


Hmmm .... I don't see why not. Perhaps we'll have a day or two of looking at the revised versions, if any, before I announce the authors.
 
#7 is now on view.

One more to go after this one - poets, please get your revisions ready. I will post all revisions at the same time and give everyone two or three days to guess authorship before posting the authors' names, as AH suggested.
 
# 8 is up.

I'll post revisions Tuesday, and as they come in. I will not post poets' names till Friday - leaving time for guessing, more critiques, and other comments.
 
Revisions

I will post revisions as they arrive (hint, hint!)

Of course, it is up to the poets to decide whether to revise or not. Send me a PM either with your revision or telling me you decided not to revise.

I'll assign names to poems on Friday morning, unless y'all clamor for them sooner. Until then, have fun commenting on the revisions and guessing attributions.

Until then, the list of those who submitted to this one, in alphabetical order, is:



AlwaysHungry
greenmountaineer
GuiltyPleasure
HoneyAdored
Lyricalli
Magnetron
Remec
todski28
 
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