June 16

How Small Pains by Molly Bendall

Julie: This poem never gels for me. I spent much of last week in various places railing against the idea that poetry has to be 100% comprehensible to just anyone, but the major action in the poem is escaping me while the imagery and diction isn't elevating it to a place where I don't mind if I'm baffled. I'm not captured. Perhaps that's simply the best way to put it. I'm not sucked in.

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A house at a crossroad, beside a grove, composes another house to take as a husband by Nina Lindsay

Julie: And again I've managed to review the wrong poem the wrong day. Perhaps my mood yesterday would have made this poem fly, but today it just didn't do much for me. The central metaphor seems awkward, without resonance for me. And that title is nearly as long as the poem itself (but I like it)! Hmm.

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Anatomy of a Comet by Gary L. McDowell

Julie: Well, there was zero chance, essentially, that I was going to like this poem as much as yesterdays. I simply don't like poems that much all the time. But this was a good read. I feel that I can understand where McDowell is coming from; there's a sense of recognition that I feel while reading his work that I don't often get.