New Poetry Recommendations

[lorencino]

Submissions appearing on Wednesday, October 14

New Poems Here

Besides the freak4candy poems which I mentioned in an earlier posting, today's crop of new submissions provided the following poems I thought had merit and interested me:

love and beauty by jammomotown —Another very interesting newcomer to Literotica and a polished poet to boot.

What Will The Neighbors Think? by Cal Y. Pygia —Delicious

Woodlander Sacrifice by UnderYourSpell —I'm certainly under the spell of the telling of these ancient rituals

 

[butters]

Claudette's 'Meeting Buddha at the Clinic'

I agree with the hang-up over that first line, feeling it requires a small tweak to smooth the trip. I'm wondering if her wording was completely intentional, though, to create that same trip for the reader to stumble over, like shock at bad news, and how it makes the narrator become totally self-aware; of course, this might be more about the embarrassment of an exam and the attempt to mentally remove themself from the situation, or, with the further references to K, some crisis situation, life and death. Whatever the medical connotaions, I still feel it could work better if phrased perhaps using speech-marks (something I'm not a huge fan of in poetry to be honest), and more along these lines:

I just need to breathe said me to myself
Just breathe like the Buddha and be.

becomes

"just breathe" said I to me
just breathe like the Buddha and be.

The Kerouac reference with its specific Buddha connotations is more than a simple name-drop here, and 'safe in heaven dead' springs to mind, lending this line further dimension.


I did enjoy this piece. Bigger on the inside than the out.

 

[butters]

Woodlander Sacrifice - by Under Your Spell

I've read a fair bit of this talented lady's work, and was looking forward to this unreservedly. I'm sorry to say I found it disappointing as a poem. For me, it quite simply fits into prose format. While it was concise, and visual, I am really sad to say it fell short of my estimations of her talent as formed by reading her other material.

 

[EroticOrogeny]

Thursday, Sep. 24 recommendations

There are 9 new poems today

seannelson provides some interesting speculation on the previous inhabitants of Flores in An Ode to the Indonesian Hobbits, giving their lief substance and speculating on these little people coming across the ruins of our civilization later.

Cal Y. Pygia offers us a collection of poems in Anything At All and Other Poems, strange stuff focused on transsexuality.

Tragedy, by freak4candy is a rather graphic telling of another's last day

4degrees 11:57 for me seems to deal with acceptance of disappointment

The others poems didn't strike me so much - some good parts here and there (and one which may exceed literotica's guidelines) .

 

[lorencino]

Friday, October 16 Recommendations

Of the 16 new poems today, I liked the following:

greenmountaineer offers a poem that leaves me struggling with all my own meanings that I read into the lines. The title Soweto Rising seems to be a significant qualifier to all that follows. It seems to be about someone called Bandele interacting with the Zulu primary god. (Or is it about the reality that this god has created and left humanity to struggle with?) Worth wrestling with.

Does the Moon Have a Problem? by freak4candy is a poem that I hesitated to recommend but must because the elements are well-crafted, the imagery is interesting and the writing is highly skilled, but my personal reaction is that the content holds very little interest to me. I am captivated by how the poet says what they say but am not really interested in what is said. The poem personifies the moon into a relationship with the person of the poem but fails to show that person fully. It is as though the poet's person is hiding behind the words in the same way that the moon hides behind clouds.

Freak4candy's second poem today, I Recall a Sunday Morning, on the other hand, comes vividly to life as she describes the mad delight of fresh romantic love. The poem is so good I am oblivious to the form as I read.

UnderYourSpell's Funeral Shoes is her latest in the Poetry Survivor series she has been so devoted to lately. It's likable enough but I can't help feeling that it's an exercise in form and not really stretching this writer's poetic skills. OK for a light-hearted interlude. but I want more from this writer.

UnderYourSpell's Feast of the Dead, (also a continuation of this Poetry Survivor marathon) for some reason I have difficulty explaining, drew far more enthusiasm from me than Funeral Shoes. I think I'm susceptible to that repeating line form that's used. A perfect Halloween piece.

Sweet Oblivion's Written Words speaks to the writer in me and I identified closely with the sense of the poem.

The Killer Inside by AshiraDatya just breaks my heart.

And finally, a little dizzy with reading and rereading so many poems, I came to the last poem in today's submission, Emergent Realities, and didn't like it much on first reading. But persevering, because I usually like Cal Y. Pygia for his radical detours from the norm and the consequent expansion of consciousness that he provides, I read it again and found that it is worth recommending because there are still lines there that make me stop and think. Many of the stanzas, though, would be better appreciated as poems on their own, I suspect.

If you like any of the other submissions from today's new poems, please post a recommendation. The above is all my subjective response to poems I read. I always fear that there is a good poem sitting there that I am not recommending because it simply didn't mesh with my distinct psychi.

 

[PandoraGlitters]

Saturday, October 17 Recommendations

When I first checked, there was only one poem posted, but back for more, I see that there were 11 new poems for Saturday. Of these, Hmmnmm's Horrendous County #1 made interesting reading. I was a little confused as to why a policeman would be canned for writing poetry until I got fairly far down into the poem. Still, an interesting idea. Horrendous County #2 was more ambiguous until the end of the poem and I began to get impatient with it. Hideous County is apparrently a place/time where art is criminal (sounds like the town I grew up in). Read it and drop Hmmnmm a line about what you think, maybe.

Cal Y. Pygia's Spelling Lesson and Other Poems offers some interesting lines

The night is pregnant
With a litter of snakes

though the title poem wasn't as engaging for me as the first poem in the series.

Tristesse2's Neighbours is nicely ironic and makes use of an unreliable narrator. I like that in a poem.

I hope everyone is having a great weekend.

 

[Epmd607]

Is WriterDom responding to the BDSM poetry battle from last spring with his "Not Another BDSM Poem"?

Some may fear but not the girl
Euphorically testing the knots

It's a good poem, maybe a little more story would work.

I also recommend Hmmnmm's "Horrendous County".

 

[butters]

New poems at Lit submitted yesterday, the 20th October

It's Wednesday morning, cold and grey, and about to pour with rain so a good time to be sitting indoors reading poetry

Here are the new poems from the 20th and I'll be back with comments about each as I read them:

Thai Haiku by sean nelson

This took a few read-throughs before its flavour developed more for me because of tripping up on the language he has used and the punctuation choices. Then, as the poem's own gentle, sparse oriental voice came through to me I began to enjoy the small yet vivid set of pictures here like postcards of memories. It's a deceptively 'bare' piece, but one of sean's habits seems to be the offering of stark branches that - if you are patient - develop blossoms along its length. His opening verse, with is 'foreign' twist on a familiar phrase, speaks to me of youth's bright hope alongside the horrors of other experiences underlined in v.2, which continues the use of contrasting imagery, using its butterflies and colours as metaphors for the students compared to the grey garb of Chinese militia. At least, this is my interpretation of it. He does something many poets are scared to do - he sketches the briefest outlines, like oriental brushwork, allowing the reader to fill in the pictures for themselves. He uses the familiar to facilitate this, as in 'A stout old woman' 'I can see her face'. How easy is it for any reader to fill in with our own memories of stout women's faces?
In all, the understated nature of this piece makes it too easily overlooked. As for it being called Haiku, well that's a debate in itself; yes, it holds to a 5,7,5 - but then that's more a westernised bastardisation of the form and this piece doesn't hold to the true nature of a haiku as far as I understand it. Perhaps I read more into this than exists, or missed stuff meant to be seen. All I can say is that, as readers, we each bring to the table making every pair of eyes see something slightly different to the next person.

and his piece Art Reign

Having read and discovered more behind the scenes in his first piece than appeared initially, I viewed Sean's second with a more open mind. The 3-4 beats per line, the capitalisation of each, creates what amounts to the sound of learning by rote - like times tables - a mantra's chant. It contrasts with the content of each verse in a way that gives this poem an edge. In v-1 there's almost a tone of mockery - how much is self-mockery and how much a dig at uni life is moot. V-2 and we hear of the battles - the battles for minds, the grapple with knowledge and student v lecturer, the struggles, sweat and tears that is the lot of the student. I appreciate the restrained word choices; Sean yet again allows us to fill in the background with the history that each word 'Trafalgar' 'Calvary' and 'Amistad' evoke. It's an admirable trait. For me that word 'dubiously' speaks volumes.

The rest of the piece speaks of the arts, from writing to dance, amongst a sea of denim-clad students washing around the halls and rooms of residence. V-4 is one of my favourites here. I would suppose 'Ariam' is a nod to french orchestral music, tying in with REM, arias and opera, though it also makes me smile to think it could be a sideways (and very indirect) reference to something to do with lawyers. In v-3, looking back, I'm considering that 'This coffee's really tea' line; could this be an Englishman who has found himself in many countries over time (the voice of the actual poet sneaking through) or is it more a reference to being immersed in the works of English writers or even a comment about the ability the pen has to persuade the reader to believe whatever it writes - like telling us blue is black and getting us to believe it is so? Jury's out on that one. Just me and my musings.

edit: I missed the importance of the sandpaintings reference earlier. An implication of the mandala - the student/focusing/planning and charting all the better to understand spiritual completeness. It wasn't until I went on to read Cal Y. Pygia's Bait and other Poems, the first of which is titled Mandala, that it struck me. apologies.

His nod to absinthe, that little green fairy who toyed with the minds of many great writers, is an interesting one. The 'abstain' comment sounds like an english joke (absinthe makes the fart go Honda - don't worry, it's a brit thing) but ties in wih the addictive nature of absinthe and colours all previous verses with tints of hallucinogenics, but the 'Penn' thing - is this Sean Penn we're being asked to consider here? His overindulgences? His artistic nature? Ties in sweetly with the writers' image too, the barrels of fountain pens, bottoms of barrels and so on. His title ties the whole thing up so neatly - the reign of art.
All in all a piece worth looking into way beyond the narrow aperture it first appears to present. In fact, I was beginning to wonder if I'd not read far too much into his first work when I saw this. But time has taught me to look deeper - we're often rewarded for doing so.

Bait and other Poems by Cal Y. Pygia

MANDALA

in search of discovery, seeking the understanding, completeness. A personalised mandala. I love how this starts -

In the secret chamber
Among the trees,
A revelation is at hand:


FREAK SHOW

If the other poems in this series didn't all start lines with capitalisation, I'd have called its choice here as a point of interest since it contrasts with the rest of the 'name' of each 'freak', thereby emphasising something more about the naming per se than the name attributed, making those bearing the name seem somehow less unusual, more human, less-freakish.. However, any possible intention on the part of the author to utilise this has been waylaid by the continuation of start-caps throughout. A missed opportunity, imo. Having said that, it's important not to get off-track because the message is there plain and simple, with all its religious allusions and a strong sideways glance towards Frankenstein and his monster.

ANTEDILUVIAN COMPLAINT

More examination of the human condition, though slanted more towards those suffering the outrageous slings and arrows. If we tie this in with the former pieces, the hermaphrodite more likely to have felt the 'sideshow' in dr. freak'n'stein's feel godless show, and the search for personal awareness and acceptance, then once again the hermaphrodite (as I'm reading it) is represented here as the duality and having to keep up a tough exterior even while rock boils beneath the surface. I suppose it also creates a parallel with the human condition in general, whereby any of us can empathise with that outer skin/inner tempestuousness as laid bare here. So much duality with such economy of languge again. I can't help but approve.

THE NINETEENTH CONUNDRUM

More of the dual-aspects and questioning - who knows the answers? maybe a dead god?

BAIT

the penis as the bait. hmmm - and an interesting choice of words when we get to 'an injured cunt or a sickly anus', as though what's desired and being lured is, in fact, somehow distasteful and inferior and in keeping with the duality theme througout this entire set of work. A self-judgement? Apart from that, the imagery stands well and the phrase 'following the trail of semen pearls' is a graphic delight.

his pieces The Male Gaze and Other Poems and Erotic Footage: Frame by Frame
I'll leave you to discover for yourselves since that's about all my eyes can take right now. But from what I've already read, this writer bears reading for sure.

Finally, longing by pavel pasha

More than shades of narcissism here however, I feel some more attention to the metric pattern adopted for this write and care taken not to slightly force a line to create an end-rhyme would benefit this work by smoothing out the minor stumbling blocks. There's also some small issue about tense with the small middle section that irritates me as I read it which nagged at the back of my thoughts even as another part of my thinking was appreciating how the 'story' to this links so well with the history of the Narscissi tale across both greek and roman mythology, perhaps even as far back as the famous egyptian poppy fields of 1300 BC, introducing the drug/halluncigen elements of opium/heroin/cocaine. If you enjoy a fairly clever little tale written in tetrameter with a bunch of mythological references to boot, then you'll probably enjoy this one.



so, that about wraps up my recommendations/reviews for this Wednesday. I hope some of you get to reading and commenting on these poems, and if not commenting, at least discovering some of their pleasures as I have.

over and out,

la butty

 

[geogexavier]

Hey Syndra Lynn.
I think either you are poetess or you are crazy for poetry.
Great poems you share with us. I'm sure you have a big collection of poems so please keep carry on to share with us.
Thanks.

 

[EroticOrogeny]

Thusrday, Oct 22 Recommendations

There are several new poems today

Really none struck me as outstanding - but maybe that's just me - a bit tired and run down now.
My favorite is Mowing a Rural Oregon Lawn
by seannelson.

Cal Y Pyglia has a couple I liked in his collection Poseur and Other Poesies

 

[lorencino]

Friday's wet and gloomy morning

New Poems Here


Remec begins todays listings with two poems, Storm's Wake and Missed. For me these were by far the best of today's submissions.

I may have totally misunderstood “Storm's Wake,” but it strikes me as saying that art—in this particular case, writing as suggested by “ink” in the third stanza— is the wake of life's stormy events. It all depends on whether the double hyphen is intended after “ink” or if it is meant to be a single hyphen as in the opening of the previous two stanzas. The paper and the ink are all jumbled up with life and memories to suggest the level of complexity in the life of the artist that words can only imply and not describe exactly. I like this poem for its disarming simple appearance that initially hides the depth of its meaning.

“Missed” has a quiet understated tone that describes the memories of someone missed. This poem, too, is a little more complex than it first appears to be and on reflection one is able to build an understanding of what is going on in both people's reaction to a relationship that has ended.

x

Cal Y. Pygia's Mammary Lane is a celebration of both the mammaries and the intersex identity. I like Pygia work for his efforts to make the intersex as normal as male or female, that is to say to transform our perceptions of gender as a binary reality to one that sees gender as part of a continuum between the extreme male and female poles. The result is that he often uses intensely erotic imagery in poetry that is ultimately political in nature. As a response to the injustices perpetrated by the medical profession's practice of gender assignment surgery soon after birth (begun during the last century), Pygia's erotic poetry is eroticism in the cause of human justice. The combination tickles my body and my mind which makes me keep coming back to Pygia. However, while most of the poem is a delightful romp, the opening jarred me with the suggestion that a curtsy is a bow which allows the breasts to be put "on show." It is probably precisely that possibility that led to the convention of men bowing before their superiors while women did a curtsy and thus avoided putting their breasts on show.

Pygia's second submission today is Balancing Act and other short poems, a group of which the first, “MÉNAGE A TRIOS,” is written in an archaic style of language that suggests the faux ruins of the Romantic period, and the imposed alien meanings that that practice implied is evident in this poem. The second of the short poems, “FIFTY CENTS,” focuses on the contrasts between appearances and reality while the rest of the poems return to the issue of gender more overtly. All of the poems in this collection seem, to me, to be unified by the theme of shifting perceptions and the tug of war between different perceptions struggling towards truth. Each short poem is a facet of the overall arguement. I think you have to spend time with these poems to open to their potential which is not always apparent on first reading. His poems often seem trite on first reading, as though he is deliberately filtering out the Philistines while allowing those who persevere to become conscious of the art in what he does.

x

There are two submissions from sandyb today, fish camp and Kong. These should be read along with her two submissions from last Sunday (No review was done for Sunday's submissions so I'm including them in this Friday's recommendations.), a dog in the garden and intimations in my mouth.

Sandyb is lusty fun to read. She provides a refreshing intellect to accompany her consummate pursuit of sensual pleasure and somehow she manages to blur the boundary between the carnal and the spiritual. “Intimations in my mouth” gives a taste of how she extends her physicality into a consciousness and awareness beyond the immediacy of the carnal act she is indulging in. “Fish camp” illustrates that the enjoyment of a sexual act involving being degraded does not necessarily mean acceptance of degradation in general. “Kong” employs a wonderfully sustained metaphor to celebrate the power of infidelity as a tool against control. I leave you to explore the nuances of her writing that suggest to me that wanton pursuit of pleasure is not necessarily a symptom of mindlessness or moral turpitude.


Don't accept everything I say; I'm the king of subjectivity; explore the new poetry for yourself

 

[PandoraGlitters]

New Poems for Saturday, October 24

There are six New Poems for today. I found Levitating Bed's Surface Tension really intriguing in this very scientific approach to a love poem. Absolutely delicious.

 

[DeepGreenEyes]

Sandyb is lusty fun to read. She provides a refreshing intellect to accompany her consummate pursuit of sensual pleasure and somehow she manages to blur the boundary between the carnal and the spiritual. “Intimations in my mouth” gives a taste of how she extends her physicality into a consciousness and awareness beyond the immediacy of the carnal act she is indulging in. “Fish camp” illustrates that the enjoyment of a sexual act involving being degraded does not necessarily mean acceptance of degradation in general. “Kong” employs a wonderfully sustained metaphor to celebrate the power of infidelity as a tool against control. I leave you to explore the nuances of her writing that suggest to me that wanton pursuit of pleasure is not necessarily a symptom of mindlessness or moral turpitude.

I was blown away by Sandyb's poems. They're fresh, smart and often funny takes on erotic scenarios.

(any comments to this post should go on the "To keep the review thread clean" thread)

 

[seannelson]

Hello everybody,

You know, Chipbutty, now and again(as far back as S.O.U. days) people would tell me they'd reviewed this or that poem on these forums but nobody ever gave me a link.
I have to confess that in the case of "Art Reign" I'm far more able to supply facts than address its exact artistic purpose. In some ways, for example your focus on college life, satire and the arts, you explained the poem better than I could. Looking back, those college days seem utopian, but...
British literature has been a large part of my life but very far from being a brit, I was raised in rural Klamath Falls, Oregon, a poor and honestly rather barbaric place. And so the artistic community in Ashland for me held a fascination that might seem unusual to someone from a more cosmopolitan background.
I can tell you that I wrote the poem during an attempt to abstain from all mind-altering substances- and that I was fixated to an unusual extent on the beat and the sound of the words. The protest in question was against the Iraq war and was remarkable for size and police cooperation(the Ashland city council had long since passed a resolution against the war,) but not for planning or oration.
"This raquetball's a sand-painting" See I would bounce raquetball's quite habitually and, aside from annoying my friends and neighbors, it helped me think and relieved stress. Similarly, a sand-painting is an activity that might appear meaningless or useless but is important as part of a personal voyage.
I'd had a couple positive absinthe experiences and it was quite illegal at the time. Being a tennis player, I had a Penn cylinder that balls came in, and I don't remember the meaning of the words.

As for "Thai Haiku," I appreciate you appreciating precisely this poem-set. It's a frustration to me that what I feel to be my finest work often doesn't get the notice that some lesser pieces do.
Obviously, the sparsity was intentional because I recently wrote "the sparrows of Thailand," a long and detailed account. Honestly, my poetic method is rather sub-conscious and my personality is complex, neurotic, and amnesiac. So, any intelligent interpretation of my poems is as valid as mine.
My fascinations can also be a little eccentric. The butterflies and geckos of Thailand fascinated me to no end. But of course it was students and professors who made that campus memorable for me.
To conclude, I have to tell you about the "stout old woman." She ran the restaurant, which was very cheap and of good quality. I did become friends of the family. She was cheerful and very respectful.
Now, since then I've had some challenging experiences: a couple stays in psych wards for example. I've also associated with many diverse people: German tourists American professors painters, etc. I'm of a social nature, but a face that I can clearly see in my mind is a rarity. Of all the Thais I knew(over three years ago,) hers is the face I remember best.

 

[seannelson]

First Bombs On Baghdad

I hope you'll glance at my new: "FIRST BOMBS ON BAGHDAD," a poetic but not fictional account of my involvement with the anti-war protest at my university.

 

[butters]

I hope you'll glance at my new: "FIRST BOMBS ON BAGHDAD," a poetic but not fictional account of my involvement with the anti-war protest at my university.

I've replied in the Keep the Review Thread clean thread t.y

 

[butters]

here is a list of today's New Poems that caught my attention


Coffeehouse Haiku - by seannelson

taste, hearing, sight, and concept - although all tied together by the thread of sense and sensibility, of these the last is the one that strikes me most, the overall concept of the 'swan coffeehouse' as a summing up of the previous strophes. But, imo, it is capable of standing alone and still express more than the others. Perhaps it would be overworking it to add in lines connecting the senses of touch and smell, since they are perhaps less relevant - having said that, I wonder if they are in fact touched upon by their absence or it's left to us to fill those in: the rose that cannot be smelled or touched, the coffee that's known for its aroma ... hmmm, maybe. I still end up most enjoying the final lines as a stand alone piece.


Zig'n-n'Zag'n #4 - by hmmnmm


Zig'n-n'Zag'n #3 - by hmmnmm


The Sapphist's Bride - by Esperanza_Hidalgo
this comes across as heartfelt, and so has some merit there - more likely to move the person it was intended for than a wider reading audience, though

Lying in Wait - by lillygurl678

This had the potential to be something wonderful, particularly with it using those four lines by Oscar Wilde as a framework to hang its clothes on. Unfortunately it failed to work for me, though it may delight another reader. I found the form used for this created forced wording and rhyme that worked to its detriment. When done with finesse, this style offers elegance and a capacity to excel. If the author should choose to rewrite this with a little more attention to polishing its bright imagery by refining the wording, then it has the ability to dance.


Fuck You, Bill - by Levitating_Bed

A timely swipe at that omnipresent poem by Carlos - so much depends on the sense of frustration and layout. I'm not sure if this is intended as a political statement as well as a literary one, but it invites speculation just as the original still does.

Domes - Cal Y. Pygia

Among Blue Spruces - Cal Y. Pygia

Zig'n-n'Zag'n #5 - by hmmnmm


Will be back in and out with comments on some of these, though not in so much depth as before since I'm pretty sickly today. I will try to do them justice.

edit: I'll try and catch up with these tomorrow if I am well enough. Right now it's not fair to the poets to even try to comment. But those appearing here are all worth taking a look at.

 

[EroticOrogeny]

Thusrday, Oct 29 Recommendations

There are several new poems today

Maybe I'm tired, but didn't find much that struck my fancy today.

My favorite is Seven Short Poems About My Goddess by vrosej10

I found Go Get Some by Exakta66 amusing.

hmmnmm continues with his Zig'n-n'Zag'n #7 series, but I've only had a chance to look at earlier ones briefly.

Take a look, there aren't too many, and most are short

 

[lorencino]

Friday before Halloween

16 New Poems posted today. Below are eight that caught my fancy.

Seannelson has two postings:

• The Statue of Liberty continues a frequently found theme in this poet's work. The poem explains how the Statue of Liberty signifies hope for the community of humanity becoming more important than narrow patriotism or sectarian nationalism.
• THE FOUND GENERATION is another poem showing a sensitivity to universalist ideals. This poet has an important message running through all his poems that questions the arrogance, cynicism and violence that is a defining characteristic of those in power today, be they governments, corporations or religious leaders. I am glad to see that this poet is committed to writing poetry and that he continues to submit fresh work month after month.

Greenmountaineer's The Ghost of Guy Fawkes, is a well crafted poem that appears to place Guy Fawkes and the man who had him tortured, King James, on an equal moral footing. I'm not sure that North American readers will fully appreciate this poem without an understanding of the nature of festivities resulting from Guy Fawkes's attempt to blow up the entire government of England in 1605 that have completely sidelined Halloween in the UK and some of the Commonwealth countries. For me, this poem provoked some serious thought about the role that these two characters played in history and the political role that the burning of the "Guy" played in British political history over the past 400 years. This is definitely my favourite of today's submissions.

Levitating_Bed's Acrophobia is a delightful little gem.

Harper2's Soul mate tickles the intellect with it's eternity-staged convolutions and then one is never sure if it is about two souls or Narcissus gazing into the stream of eternal time echoing through the universe.

WriterDom's I love you is a sweet poem that's all warm and fuzzy and well written.

Tn_greeneyez's My "Kincaid" starts out sounding like a sweet little cutesy poem but then by the end one is left wondering about the nature of this relationship and the depths that the author was able to plumb as a result of knowing this person she alludes to.

Cal Y. Pygia's By the Numbers is a composite submission containing nine thought-provoking word-pictures.



There is no reason you can't jump in with a recommendation for any that I left out.

 

[PandoraGlitters]

Saturday October 31 New Poems

Cal Y. Pygia's Whistling Belles and Other Poems is an interesting series of short poems. Otherwise, the 8 new poems for today seemed mostly to have been written for a personal audience. Browse through if you have a moment and see if any of these ring your bell. Or Belle.

 

[butters]

Had to take a look at Sean Nelson's works. He's a writer I've discovered here well worth reading.

His Statue of Liberty encapsulates the 70's with all its references to the topics of the day, including punks and a cameo appearance by John Lennon in happier, what were - to us - more innocent days.

this verse is my favourite, and it contrasts so much with the attitude in America now:

German fashionistas making waves in France,
Saudis, Syrians and Iranians at American universities
discussing Shakespeare and Pushkin
teaching their culture to yankees
learning to dance

For a poem that reaches back in time, it works as a contrast with today's post- 9/11 paranoia to look as if we've regressed instead of progressed. His last line caught me up with a smile though; for anyone unfamiliar with Brit pop of the 70s, the Brotherhood of Man was a group that shot to fame after winning the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest. Once again, Sean brings so many meanings into each line, each phrase appearing to work simultaneously at about 4 levels or more. Can I be forgiven for seeing a holding up of the American Dream in the one hand and the Euro-vision in the other?

 

[butters]

today's new poems

well today's crop seems to be all about de lurve - in all its guises. sunny sub's poetry about love at the hands of another, vjrose's song about a past and still desired lover, sweet oblivion's more intense 'at his hands' kind of work, and lawrobbur's not exactly modest acknowledgment by the narrator of their indomitable sex appeal for a partner - oh, and the joys of self-love.

Then there's greenmountaineer's piece. so far, this is the one that has caught my attention.


Please -
Submitted by sunny_sub (Erotic Poetry)

November Still Life -
Submitted by greenmountaineer (Non-Erotic Poetry)

Forever Content -
Submitted by sunny_sub (Erotic Poetry)

Song For Him. -
Submitted by vrosej10 (Non-Erotic Poetry)

That's It -
Submitted by SweetOblivion (Erotic Poetry)

breakfast -
Submitted by lawrobbur (Erotic Poetry)

my recreation is masturbation -
Submitted by lawrobbur (Erotic Poetry)



I'll be back with recommendations and comments shorty.

la butty



back:

greenmountaineer's November still life is the one piece I highly recommend anyone read today. Here are my thoughts as I worked through the piece - as you'll see, it changes my first impression and grows with each read-through. The same poem was aways there, just took me a while to feel it out. I rate it highly.

first of all, I have to say this read better aloud than it first appeared when read it silently.
Does this narrate an actual painting, or does it create one here on the page? The more I read it, the more the second seems to fit the bill.

My initial quibbles with lines 3 and 4 lessen with each read-through, though I still wonder if rewriting this into present tense might not benefit the piece. If we're viewing a piece of art through the eyes of another, it's still a case of discovering it for the first time. If, in fact, this is more a reconstruction of a memory belonging to the narrator of the piece, then past tense might be appropriate. However, placing it in present tense allows me to enter into the piece more fully, as if actually viewing it through the eyes of the narrator themself.

In the first stanza, the narrator places the sun behind the head of the farmer; while enjoying the imagery of the sunlight as it's filtered through his beard (those red-gold tones), there's also a small biblical relevance there - almost a halo, but more earthy perhaps. Can't help but hear 'in the beginning ... and 'let there be light'.

In the second stanza, the visuals are cool as is the backdrop of sound; I question the use of mugged here, though. Yes, a small play on coffee mug, and we know Arabica beans produce dense aromatics - but is the word mugged just too heavy for the line? Is the aroma such a rude assault? perhaps so, to the senses of a tired farmer up all night with a calving heifer. edit: maybe more a rude awakening to a calved heifer - and that sense of 'red' that runs through this narrative. The spider mites (we know them to be red, at least here in the UK), the filtered light, the placenta/bood, perhaps even the reddish hide of the cow. Maybe the assault is the red of everything. Are arabica beans red? Arabica summons up heat, and colour... . edit: stood back for a better look and re-read the title. Penny drops with a clang! - 'still life' guess that title has its own deliberate ambiguity. A Tragedy - no wonder the sense of 'mugged'.

From line 5 on I have nothing but admiration for the wording and allusions. I'm digging the ambiguity created by the line-break between Old Testament and Leather, and Genesis and Praise. On the one hand I see the life-roughened farmer with his leather bible opened to Genesis in praise of another new life; on the other, the placenta and dead beast, reduced to just leather,'splayed' leather at that, and no calf - the bloodiness of the first Testament, the giver and taker of life, the patriarchal overtones ...did the farmer fail his heifer by not being there for the birth? What beast, what beast??? Cougar? Wolf? The Beast???

Oh my, this speaks of so many things to me. Was the fact he wasn't taking care of his animal well enough a comment on how we need tend our own responsibilities? To use a flock or a single sheep here would be too cliché.

Overall, I see this as the farmer looking at the scene of a loss of his heifer and a missing calf, but the richness woven into the wording has me thinking and thinking and thinking, and I probably missed something vital too - umm, like the live cow but the dead 'still-born calf'. But there you have it, the only piece today that got my brain into gear I'm afraid. Even if I lost a few cogs along the way!

 

[EroticOrogeny]

Thursday, Nov 5, new poems
There are just a few pomes today. Several were enjoyable to read, but not particularly notable.
Hoax, by Levitating_Bed is interesting but somewhat perplexing.

Computer eyes by Krenna Smart is interesting as well.

 

[lorencino]

A cold, wet Friday in November

New Poems Here

DeepGreenEyes: Creativity is a Small Brown Corgi is a good poem, but I would replace "try" with "struggle" in the last line or just take out "try to."

Curiouswife: Making the Call

seannelson: An Ode to Truck Drivers; Like a Moon to Her Venus is doubly interesting as a lead into Mental Illness. All three of seannelson's poems today are a shift from the global concerns that I've grown to expect from him. This is a pleasant new insight into the personal sensitivity of this poet.

live4passion: chasing rainbows

Cal Y. Pygia: The Man in Woman and Other Poems

Sorry I've had to be so brief today but there are undeniable demands on my time. I may come back later and provide a little more detail.

 

[PandoraGlitters]

Saturday, November 7th Recommendations

I only share what interests me and will leave the readers of this post to do the same. I think that the work of many reviewers here has been wonderful and beyond the call of duty and I applaud you. I warn you that this will not be an essay, though--just a travelogue pamphlet from some plausibly pest-mitigated hotel lobby.

Cal. Y. Pygia's Seven Angels and Other Poems was perhaps the best work I've read by that writer. It begins in an explosion

An aerial maelstrom of fruit,
Plates, candelabrum, and tablecloth,
Swirling against brown walls--

and while the poems occasionally become bogged down in abstraction, sometimes they carry weight gracefully as when Cal refers to hieroglyphics:

The image and the word,
Locked in combative embrace

--a lot of diversity in this pack of poems by Mr. Pygia.

Today's poem by SweetOblivion was brief as a Blush and as lovely.

Krenna Smart has two engaging poems today but the one I preferred was The Evening Tide.

There are some other new poems, too, that didn't work for me but might for you so please check out as many as you have time for.