The General Commentary Thread

[Ambient4190]

If you haven't read @puddle_girl , WTF are you waiting for???

Lol! Wat - this is the Poetry Forum! TIME moves differently here - patience, patience Poems are so personal! Probably a gazillion books out there on 'How to Read Poetry'......

love your passion

 

[Wat_Tyler]

Lol! Wat - this is the Poetry Forum! TIME moves differently here - patience, patience Poems are so personal! Probably a gazillion books out there on 'How to Read Poetry'......

love your passion

And then one day we wake up and we're dead. And it's her passion to which I refer. Me? I'm just kinda pushy.

 

[Angeline]

If you haven't read @puddle_girl , WTF are you waiting for???

I'll second that recommendation. Her gift for poetry in all but jumping off the screen and grabbing me by the throat! Such strong, vivid writing. Wow!

 

[Wat_Tyler]

I'll second that recommendation. Her gift for poetry in all but jumping off the screen and grabbing me by the throat! Such strong, vivid writing. Wow!

She has want-to. She's working at it. It shows. I wish her the best.

 

[HarryHill]

I'll second that recommendation. Her gift for poetry in all but jumping off the screen and grabbing me by the throat! Such strong, vivid writing. Wow!

It grabbed something, not my throat though.

 

[Angeline]

Thanks to all who've participated in the June challenges. Ambient's poem-a-week challenge has been especially successful and both challenges have yielded some great reading. So yes thank you all and good on you all.

Tomorrow will bring new challenges (well sometime between tomorrow and July 5th will), but don't forget:

~ You can write in any of the old challenge threads if the spirit moves you. There's really no expiration date on any of them.

~ The ongoing challenge threads (Five Senses, Writing Live, Everyday Erotica, etc) are open 24/7, 365, don't take a number, no waiting!

~ You can always start your own challenge thread or create a thread for your poems anytime. Just do it!

 

[Wonderer67]

Thanks to all who've participated in the June challenges. Ambient's poem-a-week challenge has been especially successful and both challenges have yielded some great reading. So yes thank you all and good on you all.

I was so looking forward to it, but only got two poems in. Life took over. And…I had no inspiration…

 

[Angeline]

I was so looking forward to it, but only got two poems in. Life took over. And…I had no inspiration…

It happens. Life gets in the way and the muse goes on vacation. You'll make time when you can and you're ready to write.

 

[Angeline]

Thank you, thank you MomTabu for picking up the B Challenge for July. Thanks to you and 42Below we have two excellent prompts this month.

 

[melimelissa]

Online Love,

She grunted out her last orgasm,
Lying on her tummy, hand between her legs.
She arched her back and turned her head toward the phone.
The sight of her round ass, backlit by the nightstand lamp,
All I could think was...wow.
Both of us lack intimacy at home, yet fully expose ourselves to each other online.
"You, should get to work," she says.
"You, should probably get out of bed."
She laughs, and at that moment, I want her to be mine.
But, she won't be. It won't last.
Life invades our oasis of raw intimacy and virtual sex.
Soon, it's over. Love bloomed and faded inside a couple months.
LIfe's memories live on. We can remember the bad or, we can see the good.
Regret what never was, or relish in what we had.
I choose relish.
Her laugh, her quirky humor.
Oh, and that sound she made when she came.
Mmmmmm

Grunts empathetically but it comes out more like a giggle-snort

 

[melimelissa]

Grunts empathetically but it comes out more like a giggle-snort

apparently they are not poetry though and have to be general threaded

giggle giggle giggle snort snort snort
snort giggle snort snort snort snort giggle

&c

 

[melimelissa]

OMG sorry! I meant "taut"! I usually check my posts but I got a phone call and y'know...mea culpa.

ETA: I had to look taur up too. And I suppose it could also work in that line. Taunt, taut, taur...what the heck. Who knew?

the Canadians of course

 

[melimelissa]

Generally, I'm moved in the general direction. Thx for the giggle snorts.

you are the welcome one, Sir

 

[melimelissa]

I'm generally filled with a warm general feeling from your generosity.

The pleasure is all mine - now call me a good girl - and unmute - giggles:

https://imgur.com/ZhlObuY

 

[melimelissa]

Are you a good girl? Woof!

Think of me as a cute Capybara buddy - look at my dive!!!

https://imgur.com/jiPOyCZ

(sound on)

 

[HarryHill]

Wow, @Angeline is going to be so sad when she deletes y'all. Rhyme something quick!

 

[melimelissa]

Wow, @Angeline is going to be so sad when she deletes y'all. Rhyme something quick!

I try not to choke on the three pires of smoke
As you fill me to fuck me, you hairy old goat;
Treat me and eat me until you're replete; I'm still,
As your hand makes me saucy, Monsieur Harry Hill!

Méli

View attachment 2365267

 

[butters]

you're giving him something of a reputation, there

 

[HarryHill]

I try not to choke on the three pires of smoke
As you fill me to fuck me, you hairy old goat;
Treat me and eat me until you're replete; I'm still,
As your hand makes me saucy, Monsieur Harry Hill!

Méli

View attachment 2365267

Oh, you are a good girl.

 

[HarryHill]

you're giving him something of a reputation, there

I got lost on the three pyres of smoke though

 

[Angeline]

Hi BigTitsBitch. Your poem today in the fantasy challenge thread is lovely, so beautifully simple and direct. Is it your translation from Catalan? I noticed the Catalan because my kids' great grandfather was from Barcelona so I have a little (very little) familiarity with the language.

 

[Bigtitsbitch1000x]

I know a woman more beautiful than any other;
But she remains faithful to her husband.

For her I have written my best verses;
To her I sent gifts of gold and rare garments;
But she remains faithful to her husband.

I pray for her always,
And she is my only consolation;
But she remains faithful to her husband.

To her husband she remains faithful:
But at night, when she sleeps,
Her face is turned toward mine.


Jo em conec una dona mès bella que totes altres;
Mes ella es romà leal al seu marit.

Per a ella m’havia escrit els millors versos meus;
A ella m’havia enviat coses d’or i mantes precioses;
Mes ella es romà leal al seu marit.

Sempre jo em reç per a ella,
Quina es l’ ùnica consolació meva;
Mes ella es romà leal al seu marit.

Al seu marit es romà leal;
Mes en sa nit quan es dormà,
Sa cara seva es tornà per a sa meva.

– After Meshullam da Piera
1980-99

( O )( O )

The poem is Kabbalistic.

The husband is Hashem.

The woman is the Shekinah.

Kabbalists and Islamic Sufis are dedicated to prayer at night.

The trope of "the dark night of the soul" refers to the inevitable coming of dawn.

The version is in the Mallorcan variant of Catalan.

When my Big Domme read this she thought it referred to an extramarital affair. Filthy minds think alike.

Thank you for the compliments.

( O )( O )

 

[Bigtitsbitch1000x]

Hi BigTitsBitch. Your poem today in the fantasy challenge thread is lovely, so beautifully simple and direct. Is it your translation from Catalan? I noticed the Catalan because my kids' great grandfather was from Barcelona so I have a little (very little) familiarity with the language.

I didn't notice this. Sorry! Yes, the text is Catalan, in the Mallorcan variant. I was in Mallorca.

I am a Catalanophile. I know Catalan literature pretty well. I consider Ausiàs March, who wrote in the Valencian variant, to be the single greatest influence on me as a writer.

I'll see if there's a suitable translation of March on line. It's work to do a new version.

Do you like Catalan food? That's a topic.

Of recent Catalan poets, I have a couple of anecdotes.

Salvador Espriu has a poem with a ref to Franco. The worst enemy the Catalans ever faced.
In the poem Espriu quotes the alleged New Testament judgment on Jesus by the Sanhedrin of Jerusalem: "at times it is fitting and proper for a man to die for the people, but the whole people must not die for one man."

The ref was also employed by the Cuban exile writer Heberto Padilla to refer to Castro.

A young San Francisco aspiring poet came to a mag I edited with some translations from Spanish, including the Padilla poem.

The SF poet, a graduate of Taquería Menu College of Gringo-Hispanic Dictionary-Lottery Translation, with millions of alumni in the U.S., had rendered "pueblo" as "town," so that the verse read "at times it is fitting and proper that a man should die in a town, but a whole town must not die in one man."

Which is catchy, but less so than Chomsky's "colorless green ideas sleep furiously."

I corrected the translation, published it, and paid the young writer a handsome fee. He came roaring into my office complaining that I changed his translation!

Which doesn't bear much on Catalan literature. I have a more lachrymose anecdote about the Espriu quote from the NT but am keeping that to myself for now.

J.V. Foix was a very great Catalan modernist -- as an art critic he discovered Dalí, Miró, and Tapies. He translated Breton into Catalan.

But Foix was also the only Surrealist aside from Dalí to embrace active fascism in the 1930s. That was a strange development in Catalan politics: Catalan nationalism split between a very large and leftwing (not anarchist) majority and a very tiny fascist group. The fascists sided with the left in the Spanish war

A similar development occurred in the Irish Republican movement. W.B. Yeats sided with the fascist Blue Shirts.

I was in Barcelona when Foix died. The weather was terrible: heavy rain. I was alone and depressed. The Catalan media had giant headlines about Foix's death.

I mentioned the death to my authorial partner, the Catalan historian Victor Alba. His reply? "Fucking fascist! Fuck him!"

I am grateful to you for the opportunity to write on this. These are my favorite topics in general literary affairs. I recently had a fruitful discussion with another SF poet about the Marchian tradition. And I once had wild sex with a lovely man from Valencia, to whom I quoted March while in flagrante delicto.

I do not grasp why this site is run as it is. It makes no sense to me that a comment on a poem would be moved somewhere other than the poem. But my complaints here are legion and there's nothing I can do about anything except libel and threats.

Again, thanks.

( O )( O )

 

[Angeline]

I didn't notice this. Sorry! Yes, the text is Catalan, in the Mallorcan variant. I was in Mallorca.

I am a Catalanophile. I know Catalan literature pretty well. I consider Ausiàs March, who wrote in the Valencian variant, to be the single greatest influence on me as a writer.

I'll see if there's a suitable translation of March on line. It's work to do a new version.

Do you like Catalan food? That's a topic.

Of recent Catalan poets, I have a couple of anecdotes.

Salvador Espriu has a poem with a ref to Franco. The worst enemy the Catalans ever faced.
In the poem Espriu quotes the alleged New Testament judgment on Jesus by the Sanhedrin of Jerusalem: "at times it is fitting and proper for a man to die for the people, but the whole people must not die for one man."

The ref was also employed by the Cuban exile writer Heberto Padilla to refer to Castro.

A young San Francisco aspiring poet came to a mag I edited with some translations from Spanish, including the Padilla poem.

The SF poet, a graduate of Taquería Menu College of Gringo-Hispanic Dictionary-Lottery Translation, with millions of alumni in the U.S., had rendered "pueblo" as "town," so that the verse read "at times it is fitting and proper that a man should die in a town, but a whole town must not die in one man."

Which is catchy, but less so than Chomsky's "colorless green ideas sleep furiously."

I corrected the translation, published it, and paid the young writer a handsome fee. He came roaring into my office complaining that I changed his translation!

Which doesn't bear much on Catalan literature. I have a more lachrymose anecdote about the Espriu quote from the NT but am keeping that to myself for now.

J.V. Foix was a very great Catalan modernist -- as an art critic he discovered Dalí, Miró, and Tapies. He translated Breton into Catalan.

But Foix was also the only Surrealist aside from Dalí to embrace active fascism in the 1930s. That was a strange development in Catalan politics: Catalan nationalism split between a very large and leftwing (not anarchist) majority and a very tiny fascist group. The fascists sided with the left in the Spanish war

A similar development occurred in the Irish Republican movement. W.B. Yeats sided with the fascist Blue Shirts.

I was in Barcelona when Foix died. The weather was terrible: heavy rain. I was alone and depressed. The Catalan media had giant headlines about Foix's death.

I mentioned the death to my authorial partner, the Catalan historian Victor Alba. His reply? "Fucking fascist! Fuck him!"

I am grateful to you for the opportunity to write on this. These are my favorite topics in general literary affairs. I recently had a fruitful discussion with another SF poet about the Marchian tradition. And I once had wild sex with a lovely man from Valencia, to whom I quoted March while in flagrante delicto.

I do not grasp why this site is run as it is. It makes no sense to me that a comment on a poem would be moved somewhere other than the poem. But my complaints here are legion and there's nothing I can do about anything except libel and threats.

Again, thanks.

( O )( O )

And thank you BTB for this educational and entertaining post.

I don't know much about Catalan culture: my link to it came from my ex-husband's family. His father was a real sweetheart (unlike his son but that's another story!) and a fantastic cook. He did make a few Catalan dishes. There was always Pa amb tomàquet (chunks of good bread rubbed with garlic and tomato), he sometimes made fricando (a sort of Catalan beef stew with mushrooms and ground nuts), and in Spring he'd grill green onions and serve them with this delicious sauce...I think it was called Romescue? I'm probably butchering that spelling. Sorry!

I don't know March but now intend to read up on him. I am familiar with the Chomsky quote: first heard it in a uni course in transformational grammar. As I understand it, it illustrates that a line can be grammatically correct but meaningless. I also find it poetic. I know Chomsky wasn't writing it as poetry but, to me, it's an interesting idea that poetry can be good without explicit meaning. That's not the way I write nor want to but it could support some more sound-centered stuff I've read, for example.

I'll pass along some of the Catalan info to my kids. They'll appreciate it. They've connected with a few distant relatives in that region. My eldest has become good friend with a relative with connections to Pau.

 

[Bigtitsbitch1000x]

And thank you BTB for this educational and entertaining post.

I don't know much about Catalan culture: my link to it came from my ex-husband's family. His father was a real sweetheart (unlike his son but that's another story!) and a fantastic cook. He did make a few Catalan dishes. There was always Pa amb tomàquet (chunks of good bread rubbed with garlic and tomato), he sometimes made fricando (a sort of Catalan beef stew with mushrooms and ground nuts), and in Spring he'd grill green onions and serve them with this delicious sauce...I think it was called Romescue? I'm probably butchering that spelling. Sorry!

I don't know March but now intend to read up on him. I am familiar with the Chomsky quote: first heard it in a uni course in transformational grammar. As I understand it, it illustrates that a line can be grammatically correct but meaningless. I also find it poetic. I know Chomsky wasn't writing it as poetry but, to me, it's an interesting idea that poetry can be good without explicit meaning. That's not the way I write nor want to but it could support some more sound-centered stuff I've read, for example.

I'll pass along some of the Catalan info to my kids. They'll appreciate it. They've connected with a few distant relatives in that region. My eldest has become good friend with a relative with connections to Pau.

Pa amb tomaquet is the quintessential Catalan item.

How America works will always be defined for me by a visit to a Catalan restaurant in California. Pa amb tomaquet was on the menu. In Barcelona it would be rounds of bread with a thin layer of tomato, just fine for a tapa (top) perched on a flute of cava (Catalan sparkling wine.) In Cali it was a loaf of bread cut lengthwise and loaded with tomatoes.

Which is fine, but I prefer the simplicity of Catalan traditional food like butifarra amb mongetes (lamb sausage with white beans) and spinach with raisins and pine nuts.

Roasted leeks with romesco and aioli is a classic.

On my last visit to Barcelona in 2007 I was upset at the takeover of the restaurant scene by nouvelle.

This is my coauthored book on Catalan history:

Spanish Marxism Versus Soviet Communism: A History of the P.O.U.M. in the Spanish Civil War https://a.co/d/2JlgjDi

You should definitely look into March. This is the best translation:

https://a.co/d/7cIvhqc

When I first heard the Chomsky line in class I raised my hand and said "I'm a surrealist poet and the line is poetic."

I used it here to suggest that writing without obvious clear meaning is better than writing that undermines meaning, like thinking "pueblo' should be translated as "town."

I would now parse the Chomsky utterance to mean "ineffective ecological solutions are waiting urgently." Perfect sense; true; prophetic.

That's why I'm glad to say I No'am.

( O )( O )