Weirdness Evaluation Engine

October 11

2006-10-11T11:01:00.000-07:00

Harlot by Jill Alexander Essbaum

Hot damn. Okay, I still wasn't thrilled with the rhyming. But otherwise, this is a cascade of alternating wit and power and I love it.

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Amazon Parable by Jeffrey Thomson

I quite liked this, with its handful of to-die-for lines. But it's frustrating at the same time because it could be spectacular and isn't. It's good. It pleases me. I read it yesterday and went to the fair instead of reviewing it, so today I write a review like a penitent.

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Horse Madness by David Baker

Some wonderfully strong images held down by ruminations on Vergil. I'm not that big a fan of first-degree Vergiling, let alone second-degree Vergilation.

Is poetry reviewing worth the time?

2006-10-09T12:14:00.000-07:00

I asked over on my blog and have posed a challenge to review some poetry. So far, a few people have joined in. Please join the conversation. I want to know.

October 9

2006-10-09T07:18:00.000-07:00

Post— by Jill Alexander Essbaum

I love rhymes in poems, both subtle and overt. But generally in free verse, rhyme seems self-conscious, as if the poet wants to be able to distance herself from the idea of rhyme while using the chime of rhyme. I liked quite a bit about this poem, but the rhymes struck my ear as very contrived and clunky, not extravagant, elegant, or playful--all potential attributes of good rhyming.

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Spittoono Lily by Thorpe Moeckel

No one could accuse Moeckel of treading too-well-worn ground here. There are a few turns of phrase that I appreciate, but. Well. I've been saying that a lot lately, respecting a few lines out of a poem but not really appreciating the whole. That isn't how I want to be.

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Prayer by Joanie Mackowski

A pretty poem with some quite attractive images, but the sum of the parts doesn't resonate with me. For once, I think the poem could afford to be longer, could afford a plot instead of a précis, something to bind these images into something more significant than a list in a poem.

If you like the WEE reviews

2006-10-05T09:06:00.000-07:00

Check out Greg Perry's g r a p e z. He did it first and he does it better.

October 5

2006-10-05T08:57:00.000-07:00

Note to a Pine Ridge Girl Who Can No Longer Read by Adrian C Louis

That's an intriguing title, but I found myself drifting throughout the poem. Nothing really captured me, anchored me. A few striking moments.

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Why We Took the Coastal Evacuation Route by Eleanor Lerman

Though I like repetition, I found the incantory "we tooks" to be annoying. Still, I liked this poem, especially the strange, opaque ending and the matter-of-fact reportage.

October 4

2006-10-04T10:51:00.000-07:00

Crows by Deborah Bogen

Oh, I do like that. I tend to resist poems with such short lines, but this one works for me, with its short quick ideas and repetition repetition repetition. So happy.

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Experience by Christine Scanlon

I think Scanlon is simply working with a completely different asthetic than mine. I like very strong images, and I like them organic. I'm not much of a philosophizer. Strike that. I'm not a philosophizer at all. So abstract poems rarely spark anything in my noggin.

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Eidolon by Elaine Terranova

This is a poem with some prettiness, but it felt empty to me. I felt unconnected and irrelevant as a reader. I had nothing to bring to the table.

October 3

2006-10-03T10:42:00.000-07:00

The Italics are Mine! by Dara Wier

This poem comes out in such a rush it's a bit breathless by the end. The voice here is young and intense and definitely supported by the emphasis of italics, the passion of the exclamation point.

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A Wife Explains Why She Likes Country by Barbara Ras

The funny thing is, I'm from the country, and everything in this poem is another reason why I don't like the country. I hate big hair and double-wides and that old-time religion. Yet, I love the poem. Who'da thunk?

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As far from the moon by Christine Scanlon

I can't claim to understand this odd little poem. My first read was a shruggy one, but when I came back to it to get my link ready, I reread and found something tickling at the back of my brain, something that made me say, "Hey, that's different than I thought I remembered." Can I be changed in the span of a few minutes? What will I think tomorrow?

October 2

2006-10-02T13:26:00.000-07:00

Deposition by Peg Boyers

When I got to

The sword
that I have always known would pierce my heart

I pretty much gave up. Poems have a finite opportunity to grab me, which I sometimes power through because of this project. But I just lacked the will.

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That Hiccup was Optimism by Christine Scanlon

I'm not sold on this poem. Disappointing because I think the title is divine. I'm too in love with images to embrace this.

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This Is How It Is by Neil Shepard

If the last 8 lines were hacked off of this, I think I'd love it. It's hard to tell, since they lurk there despite my attempts to ignore them. I do wonder why people (including my husband) like the horrible, awful, clingy smell of lilacs. I shall put it down to insanity.

September 27

2006-09-27T09:26:00.000-07:00

The Nearest Simile is Respiration by Ashley Capps

I don't particularly like this poem, but at least there's an energy there, a real feeling of passion and fervency. So many poems lately seem to be too cool for school. Maybe it's just that I'm so uncool that I feel inadequate when things are cool. Dunno. I did feel this poem worked rather like smelling salts on me.

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[is that all you do] by Jon Woodward

There isn't much here here, no real images or charged language. Breaking things into lines doesn't make things poetry, and neither does just taking out punctuation.

September 26

2006-09-26T12:40:00.000-07:00

At His House by Stephen Dunn

Someone could write a poem about this topic and make it so appealing, but Dunn hasn't done that here. So much in poetry has nothing to do with what is written about, but how, and this poem is a prime example of the what being unexceptionable and the how being unexceptional.

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distances by William Allegrezza

There's a different personality between, say, Poetry Daily poems and No Tell Motel poems. The latter take more risks, generally, and the former are more polished. This poem, though, didn't strike me as risky or particularly polished. It feels unfinished, and unfocused as well. Of course, editors picking something aside from their usual is also a risk. I don't think this one panned out, but I'm always interested to see what tomorrow brings.

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Osmosis by Lauren Goodwin Slaughter

In the risk v. polish sweepstakes, Verse Daily is often drawing a middle line. For some reason, being in the middle poetry-wise is rarely a good place to be. This poem, oh, I don't know. I can't put my finger on anything in particular that throws me, and I rather like the egg line, but the poem as a whole just leaves me cold. Three poems, three shrugs means it's generally me.

September 21

2006-09-21T12:45:00.000-07:00

Elegy: Airport by Kevin Prufer

I didn't much like anything in this poem beyond the first strophe, but I did like that first strophe quite a lot. That's why reviewing isn't really about finding an average, but about reading and then trying to figure out what you're feeling about what you just read. No numbers, no objectivity, no rules.

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Paraphrase of the Parable of the Prodigal Son by Stanley Plumly

I don't even know what to say other than that didn't work for me at all.

September 20

2006-09-20T08:22:00.000-07:00

Smaller Dog by Stephen Cushman

The whole poem for me is in the final two strophes. Until then, it wasn't a painful read, but had nothing particularly sparkly about it. The end is lovely, but too little too late for me. Still, I'd read more by this poet with interest.

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Excavation of the John Alden House and Notes on the Riverbank by David Roderick

The first poem is ponderous, with few word choices to elevate it above dense prose. The second poem, though it isn't exactly to my taste, has some transformative language, some very important phrasing. It sings and settles. A quarter of the words, and five times the meaning for this reviewer.

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Tennessee by Alison Stine

It's hard sometimes to read a poem that connects so well without hearing a tiny voice saying "if it were miiine I would..." Just a little nip, a little tuck, but I like it as it stands and don't you doubt it.

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Feeder Lamb by Robin Yim

Oh, lambs in poems are certainly fraught with all sorts of complicated symbology, but this one grabbed me hard with the second line. I cared, though this isn't a surprising poem, or remotely cutting-edge. Oh dear. It's a dead animal poem again. I should seek therapy.

Please read more from the reviewed poets

2006-09-19T16:10:00.000-07:00

Links to right are to some of the reviewed poets' websites. Please check them out and show them you're out there, reading. The internet can be like shouting into a well at times, and lord knows poetry has few enough rewards.

If I have reviewed your work and you would like a link, just ask. I'd be happy to put one on the sidebar. I can't guarantee a lot of traffic, but I'm happy to do it anyway.

September 19

2006-09-19T07:14:00.000-07:00

Big Fun by Alison Stine

Julie: A line can make a poem, or overshadow it, or destroy it, or change it. And there are times when I can't say what a specific line is doing, which of these transformative motions it's causing. I can only say that it's happening. Something is happening.

In the blood, in the body, I am hard little
stars.

Awwww yeah.

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Blue Visits by Rane Arroyo

Julie: First, the name "Rane Arroyo"? Rocks. In any case, this poem starts with a real bang, and I was really impressed with the first strophe, but then things sort of slip away from me, like the drowned circling a drain.

A tentative toe back in the water

2006-09-14T12:25:00.000-07:00

I might be relaunching some WEE reviews, but I think I might go with a different model. If readers would like to suggest specific published poems, available online, for review, that might be a neat way to keep me a little more focused.

So, if you're reading this and would like to suggest a poem for review, something that you thought was interesting or wonderful or you just ended up curious to hear another reaction on, please do. And please always feel free to comment on any reviews. I have a bit of a soapbox here, but I would prefer a town meeting.

Suggest poems via email or in the comment section.

On hiatus

2006-08-31T09:47:00.000-07:00

I've fallen so far behind and haven't found the inspiration to keep up with the daily reviews.

Someday, I'll have energy.

2006-08-18T10:29:00.000-07:00

How to Be Cruel by Sandra Beasley

Julie: Damn. Just damn. Read this one.

August 16

2006-08-16T15:58:00.000-07:00

Allergy Girl VII by Sandra Beasley

Julie: This poem impressed me with its clever comparison and sneaky imagery. I love when poets link two things that weren't obvious, bringing depth to both, and Beasley does that here.

August 5

2006-08-05T09:58:00.000-07:00

Lyrical by Joseph Millar

Julie: I love this poem for its simplicity, its sense of humor, and the sadness of its almost commonplace ending. There are poems that are great for their extravagance, for bringing me to worlds I could never have imagined on my own. And then there are those that capture something about the world I do live in, but didn't notice. I am the neighbor of a yappy dog, but never thought to write a poem about it, to ask myself why.

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At the Fish Hatchery by Claire Whitenack

Julie: I felt suspended by the first line. Expectant. Waiting for something to come around to make a case for that interesting assertion. And nothing did. I enjoyed the sound of this poem, but I wanted more.

August 2

2006-08-02T05:31:00.000-07:00

And I'm Sorry You're Being Such a Pain by Jessy Randall

Julie: Snerk. Okay, so my mother isn't really like this, but if you combine all of my female relatives, you get something pretty darned close. Except my cat is bigger. My cat is always bigger. Randall obviously has a skill for this sly sort of voice, and I enjoyed.

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Either/Or by Gail Segal

Julie: I hate when I can't figure out at least what a poet is trying to do, and I couldn't here. Which means that the poem can't do much for me. It's like going to Lowe's and looking at all the tools. They may be neat, but they just sit there and stare at me.

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Danielle Suite by Albert Goldbarth

Julie: This is a dense, quicksilver poem, with beautiful lines butting up against staid, flashing images struggling with nondescript reportage. If I poked at it, separating the sheep from the goats, I don't think I'd end up with a better poem (two poems). The prosaic lines anchor the lofty ones. Everything is pulling its own weight.

Poetry commentary on Surroundings

2006-08-01T12:08:00.000-07:00

Rob of Surroundings is commenting on each of the poets in an anthology. I've been meaning to link to him, but I have the brain of a very stupid rice pudding.

In any case, please give a read. It's worth your while.

Rob comments on:

1. Guy Birchard
2. Richard Caddel
3. David Chaloner
4. Peter Dent
5. Andrew Duncan
6. Roy Fisher
7. Harry Guest
8. Lee Harwood
9. Philip Jenkins
10. Grace Lake (Part 1?)
11. Tom Lowenstein

Writing Blind reviews Dorianne Laux

2006-08-01T11:06:00.000-07:00

Rebecca of Writing Blind continues her reviews with a review of Dorianne Laux's Awake.

August 1, 2006

2006-08-01T10:48:00.000-07:00

Your Future Spouse by Jessy Randall

Julie: There's something inherently depressing about destiny. As Gabriel says somewhere on WEE, if one of us is destined, we're all destined. The idea of the poem is wonderful. The execution falls a little flat for me, but I'm not in a very good mood and that definitely colors my reads.

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Poetry Daily is a repeat

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Dead Soldier by Kevin Prufer

Julie: I knew I wasn't going to like this poem. And then I did. Oh, I did. This poem is both spare and rambling, with a beautifully prosaic rhyme. Oh, yes I did.

July 31, 2006

2006-07-31T09:47:00.000-07:00

Where has my July gone, long time passing?

Night by Eamon Grennan

Julie: It's been too long, so I'm starting off slowly. This poem is a little boxy and unwelcoming on the page, but had me hooked from "caul of stars." The only misstep is the terribly abstract "swallow their ambition" which throws me right out of the mood. Still, is this lovely or what?

July 8 (belated)

2006-07-09T20:27:00.000-07:00

Alone with the Artichokes by Stephen Murabito

Julie: Even ordinary or mundane things can occasionally surprise you with their beauty, and often the beauty seems so much more beautiful because of its surroundings. So it is with this poem, where plain language is occasionally enlivened by a striking image: pumpkin-gutted men, quartered hearts. I appreciated the images more because their surroundings were low-key.

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Song for Sampson by T. Alan Broughton

Julie: I didn't think I was going to like this poem, and then suddenly I did very much. I think it was

spreading musk
of Sampson over the surface of earth

Oh, I'm a sucker for a dead animal poem, I cannot tell a lie.

Writing Blind reviews Rita Dove

2006-07-07T10:02:00.000-07:00

Rebecca of Writing Blind continues her reviews with a review of Rita Dove's Grace Notes.

July 7

2006-07-07T08:25:00.001-07:00

Little Gossip by Sonja James

Julie: This poem isn't incompetent or anything, I just didn't much like it. It doesn't resonate with me.

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Blackberries by Mathias Svalina

Julie: Gosh there's a lot to love, here. Dense sonics and imagery, repetition, intrigue. It might be a little too long. A shorter poem can dazzle and meaning isn't as important. But I enjoyed it.

July 6

2006-07-06T09:14:00.000-07:00

The Moose by Mathias Svalina

Julie: At the end of this poem, the poet writes:

You’re going to like it.
Did you like it?

Honestly, I have no idea. I can't figure out my own reaction.

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Chases in Arras by Karl Kirchwey

Julie: I really have to give this poem credit for tackling something a little different, but the execution does little for me. Even the slant rhymes are clunkier than they should be.

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Rock Singer Dies Onstage After Acrobatic Leap Gone Wrong by Christine DeSimone

Julie: Wow.

July 3

2006-07-03T20:16:00.000-07:00

Wedding Bells for Me by Mathias Svalina

Julie: Well, that zoomed right over my head, but not before I ogled

She's calm as a mango
& warmer than hair.

Gosh. I like that. It's weird, yet I get it. I didn't really get the poem as a whole, but one line's enough today.

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My Psychic by James Kimbrell

Julie: This poem is over-the-top, and I bet Kimbrell would be the first to admit it. But though it isn't a poem that would seem to reward close study, it is entertaining and boisterous. It's not a poem I've read before. So few poems can say that.

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Missive in an Icelandic Room 3 by Jesse Ball

Julie: Huh. Well, I like short poems, but this one is either too short or way too long. It's flat and telly. Yeah, like my comments.

July 2

2006-07-02T17:19:00.000-07:00

Biochemically Speaking, People Are Close Relatives of Soy by Charles Harper Webb

Julie: I'm going to drop that into conversation someday. "You know, Steve, biochemically speaking..." This poem lives up to its title rather marvelously, from that first great line to this later one:

Ghosts may live
in old toupees.

Do they ever! I really enjoyed the read, though I wouldn't like to read another written in this winky-winky style right away.

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Sacrament by Michelle Bitting

Julie: You know how someone might say, "I am offering an apology" instead of actually offering the apology? They talk about it as if talking about it is the same thing as actually doing. This poem struck me the same way, as if the author is telling me what she would be telling me, if she chose. And now I am telling you that I would be telling you more if I could figure out how to explain it. I would. I guess I'm pulling a show don't tell out of my rucksack, and I apologize for its dingy nature.

Writing Blind's poetry reviews

2006-06-30T16:56:00.000-07:00

Rebecca of Writing Blind has started posting wonderful poetry reviews. This week's review was of Sandra Cisneros's Loose Woman.

Rebecca hopes to make this a weekly adventure in reviewing, which is fantastic. I'll be trying to link to each of her reviews as she posts them.

June 30

2006-06-30T07:27:00.000-07:00

Retirement by Jason Fraley

Julie: Another of those poems where I would have guessed a woman wrote it but a man (or at least someone with a "male" name) did. That always makes me question my own biases, but that's the subject for another day. I found this poem competent and pleasant, and I had the feeling that this person has written much better poems than this.

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There will be a changing of the cabinet by Deborah Wardlaw Pattillo

Julie: I seem to have to be in a certain mood to appreciate Pattillo's poetry. Earlier in the week, I think I would have liked this more, or perhaps I simply like her only in very small doses, which is true for many things, especially feta cheese, which I adore.

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Take Comfort Where You Can by Michael Chitwood

Julie: I like the idea of not speaking goose, though I disagree with the notion that a goose doesn't have body language. I have been chased by geese, and I knew precisely what murder lurked in their black black hearts.

June 29

2006-06-29T11:03:00.000-07:00

Three Poems by Tryfon Tolides

Julie: The first poem is fine, the second appealing but not terribly exciting, and the third, "I Will Sleep," just pleased the pants off me. Figuratively. Just a lovely read.

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There is no need for truth now that we have autopsy by Deborah Wardlaw Pattillo

Julie: This misses the mark for me. I feel very unconnected from it, passive.

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Neighborhood Light by Theodore Worozbyt

Julie: As this poem progresses, from the big to the little, it gains in intensity, in density. Makes sense, given the topic. So my read started a bit languorous and then started rolling like a tumblin' tumbleweed. I think, in the end, that it's not an entirely successful poem. It doesn't really force me to keep reading. I forced me to keep reading. It did reward the read, but could have been a bit tidier about it.

June 28

2006-06-28T13:45:00.000-07:00

Later, People Took On Qualities That Planets Usually Have by Rebecca Wadlinger

Julie: The other day, I kinda dismissed a poem because of its title. But I confessed to it! This time, I was inclined to like a poem for its title, and that inclination has held up. I like essentially everything about this poem, with two tiny question marks. Why ampersands? Why those short little lines at the ends of strophes? I'm not criticizing, mind you, they were just choices that I didn't understand in the context of this poem.

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They are taking their celebrity into their own hands by Deborah Wardlaw Pattillo

Julie: I like this though I would be hard-pressed to explain why. And when I read it over, I think that I like only the last sentence, that I'm treading water until then, waiting for something special to happen. The last sentence is the poem. It could be clipped that far.

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Olives by AE Stallings

Julie: Nice. Everything about this shows control, and a sense of how rhyme can support a poem rather than hiding it (or even worse, creating it). The tendency amongst so many bad formalists to build nothing into a poem and defend it with its own rhymes is ghastly. Stallings doesn't fall prey.

June 27

2006-06-27T13:57:00.000-07:00

People did not ask you to sign a release form by Deborah Wardlaw Pattillo

Julie: I'm sorry, but is it possible to have a better line of poetry than:

These panties are not your panties; all panties belong to the silent majority

I didn't think so. Though I'll admit I kinda read "moral" instead of "silent" and then had a picture of Jerry Falwell with a hot red thong on and then I kinda had to lie down.

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Scout by Jamie Ross

Julie: Inexplicable thing, poetry. There are times when I like it best when I understand it least. That odd tilt to the known world that also makes me enjoy fantasy fiction makes this poem a real pleasure. Good language, both descriptive and open. It's the right poem to follow Pattillo's, above. Start out giddy, move into strange. What will the next poem bring?

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Autopsy by Virginia M. Heatter

Julie: Though I like how this sits on the page, and I love repetition (as those who come here often would know because I am banging that drum not-so-slowly. Sorry), I wasn't truly sold on this poem until the end

is the dead space, the rift
behind the gums, that hollow.

That's lovely, and a good way to close out a very weird day.

June 25

2006-06-25T18:24:00.000-07:00

The Mortgaging of Self is Done by Aimée Sands

Julie: Only one today since Poetry Daily's is a repeat. I'll be honest. As soon as I saw the title I was turned against this poem. I don't think I can explain why, really, just a bad first impression that the poem couldn't lift. I did like these lines

The miner that comes with a light, knees,
questions, gunpowder

but nothing else clicked. And the end just made me disappointed and strangely tired. Because I don't have another fresh poem, it's hard for me to judge my own read. Perhaps someone with a better feel will comment.

June 23

2006-06-23T09:47:00.000-07:00

The New New Instinctivism by Dean Gorman

Julie: This one misses the mark for me entirely today. Me? The poem? Hard to say. I reread yesterday's and still like it. Today's isn't terrible or anything, just a little flat.

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Proof by David Hernandez

Julie: Meh. Maybe it is just me. The sparkles feel contrived, as did the reflected stories.

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All Things End in Fragrance and Starlings by James Hoch

Julie: Well, it might still just be me, but I loved these poems, the first somewhat more than the second, but both. I wonder if I would have preferred the second not bang up against the first. I do like reading how poets approach a topic, or even a word, in multiple ways, so I'm guessing no.

June 22

2006-06-22T06:37:00.000-07:00

Trouble by Melissa Stein

Julie: This poem takes a while to get going. It starts prettily enough, but doesn't come into its own until better than halfway through. I seem to have a thing for incantations, repetition. It's all that Catholic upbringing bubbling up, I expect.

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The evolving landscape by Bob Hicok

Julie: It's interesting how these things fall in patterns. This poem goes with, and goes against, the Stein poem. Not pretty. Tough and vigorous, with the sort of observation that is both obsessive and important, no matter how gruesome. I've become quite a fan of Bob Hicok.

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Everything Everything by Dean Gorman

Julie: And another. This is immediate, taking risks and paying off admirably. Unlike yesterday's poem, the lineation feels anything but arbitrary here, the meaning gets pushed through deftly. And how creepy is it that I like poems about dead things? I apologize.

June 21

2006-06-21T13:46:00.000-07:00

How I Learned to Float Away From Windows by Dean Gorman

Julie: Like a bad penny, I return. But I don't look like Lincoln unless I've having a really bad day. There's a lot to like in this poem, especially

our eyes
holding onto smoke rings

but I think the lineation and lack of punctuation is making it a little harder than it has to be. The diction isn't so strong that the ambiguities set up neat little possibilities. Instead, it feels a little irksome to me.

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Turtle and Two Girls by Eamon Grennan

Julie: There's a good poem in there, but it feels very cluttered, like lots of phrases need trimmed down, punched up. The back and forth between fragment and complete sentences felt awkward, like the trimming started and stopped. I didn't dislike the poem, but it felt lethargic, too explanatory.

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Semaphore by Sarah Murphy

Julie: This poem will steamroll you if you're not careful. It's playful, thick, and loaded with sonics that scream to be read aloud. In the end, I enjoyed its play but was left a little cold.

June 16

2006-06-16T12:44:00.000-07:00

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.

June 15

2006-06-15T19:44:00.000-07:00

Bones Hurt When They Have Flesh on Them by Gary L. McDowell

Julie: Holy mackerel. Okay, anyone who knows me would know that this poem is simply going to be one of those poems that I adore with all of my shriveled little heart. I could give some people 100 poems and say, "Pick which one you think I'd like the best" and I can guarantee you those people would pick this poem. That means I'm predictable, but sometimes I'm predictable in a really good way. And sometimes, dammit, I get to fall in love with a poem. Bones, birds, God, death, you can't beat that with a stick.

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Fall by Bob Hicok

Julie: I still can't tell if it's me or the poems. Somedays, I like all of them. Other days, none. This poem just delights me, and that final line is perfect. I love the repetition in this, the off-balance imagery. I didn't even notice the quotation marks at first, which usually toss me out of a poem. (I just tried writing a poem with dialogue. It was... not good.) But this is. Good. Excellent example of poetry being as much in the how as the what.

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My Name Is Donald by Donald Revell

Julie: After two poems that felt almost designed for me, I'll end with one that is aiming at a different audience altogether. I like individual lines, but the whole never came together for me, though it tries, and the end is strong.

That is the end of my hayride with oblivion.

I dunno.

June 12, 2006

2006-06-12T05:52:00.000-07:00

Yellow Jackets by Gary L. McDowell

Julie: Hot diggity but I like that. (Tiny oddness in using "paper" instead of "papier" plus "mâché," but perhaps that's a typo, or hell a stylistic choice.) Like all good prose poetry, this one uses the form to advantage, sending out a cascade of words that rush by, as thick as bees. Oh, I guess that's a quibble. Yellow jackets are a variety of wasp so they wouldn't have honey in their hives. But I could be missing that point.

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June 9, 2006

2006-06-09T09:47:00.000-07:00

After the sex by Salwa C. Jabado

Julie: An enjoyably surreal series of descriptions makes this poem interesting. Though it takes the poet saying

Happily disbelieving
transformations,

for me to get that the images are positive ones. I've got no quarrel with that.

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http://poems.com/elainjoh.htm by Amaud Jamaul Johnson

Julie: I can't claim to be getting all of this. The first section in particular left me befuddled. I knew that it was bad, but precisely who was doing what to whom confused me. The rest of the poem is much less opaque (or I was less stupid by then), and I really loved the varied voices Johnson uses, from the lyricism of 2, to the intense sonic density of 3, to the matter-of-factness of 4. 3 is almost too much, too densely alliterated and thick as hell on the tongue, but that density caused me to slow, to ponder.

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Bird Call, Wave by Laurie Lamon

Julie: Well now, that's pretty, though again I'm not completely confident I'm getting the whole plot, since I came away from it thinking something quite bad had just happened, then a reread told me I was wrong, and a rereread went back to the original.

Better to hear the waves.

The husband moved to the window-side better to hear the waves? Or the wife thinks it would have been better to hear the waves than to have turned toward the window? Both? The ambiguity is a pleasing one.

June 5, 2006

2006-06-05T17:24:00.000-07:00

Mi barrio by Salwa C. Jabado

Julie: I'm not 100% certain how to read this poem or, rather, I'm not 100% certain I'm catching all of the nuances of the Greek chorus this one is lobbing at me. But I very much enjoyed the read, the little telling details, and that close. Two years ago, I don't think I would have liked this poem. The older I get, the broader my tastes become. I like things. I think it's supposed to work the other way around. I'm supposed to become refined. I'm supposed to be a snob. Perhaps I'll become a snob at 40. No, that's too soon. 45. Of course, it's easy to get broader tastes when you were a prig in a previous life. Someone should have smothered me.

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9/9, Thinking of My Brothers East of the Mountains by Wang Wei, trans. David Hinton

Julie: So I'm getting all psychologically comfy, thinking this one was going to be one of those gentle set pieces that seem to wax and wane in popularity but are waxing. In any case, it's like a lullaby with a mean streak. Lull lull lull slap. Very enjoyable. Huh. What does that analogy say about me?

June 3, 2006

2006-06-03T15:18:00.000-07:00

Granite from Sugar Water by Richard Lyons

Julie: For the first strophe and a half, I was twiddling my mental thumbs, which is a bad habit because the whole purpose of the WEE reviews is to give attention and the benefit of the doubt to all comers. But twiddle I did. From the mention of "sax" to the "small brown birds" I twiddled. And then I perked up. The twiddling stopped. Did the poem change? Did I? I can't tell you. But from there on I was reading too fast, sped along by the rhythms and the drive and when I went back to read again, savoring, I still didn't like the first strophe and a half, but now it might just be plain old contrariness.

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The Customary Mysteries by Aleda Shirley

Julie: I think there's a great poem here, but I don't think Aleda Shirley has quite found it yet. There's a story, I don't know how true, that Michaelangelo said that he didn't carve a shape into marble, he released the form that was already there. This poem strikes me as a block of marble, with some of the shape showing, but with a little bit hidden. The ampersands did start to pester me after a while. Damn, that's a lot of ampersands.

June 2, 2006

2006-06-02T12:30:00.000-07:00

[When You Asked, I Thought At First] by Boyer Rickel

Julie: For the first ten lines of this, I was delighted. And then the delight turned into a rather grudging acceptance. It transforms from image and detail into abstraction and blah. Someday I might read a poem that can afford

A fact
explicit and exegetical

but this isn't it.

WEE reviews June 1, 2006

2006-06-01T20:01:00.000-07:00

The Power Plant by Julianne Buchsbaum

Damn, I'm a slacker. This poem strikes me as intentionally difficult, but I like it despite that. I like it because of that. A scattering of great lines, mixed with a scattering of lines that are almost Charlie Brown teacher-ish in their lack of concrete meaning for me. It helps when you're in the right mood, and I'm in the right mood.

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Feast of the Ascension, 2004. Planting Hibiscus by Jay Hopler

Julie: If you thought I looked confused before, you should see me now! I thought when this poem began that it was going to be one of those very dense sonically aware poems. This line

Look at the garden: dew-swooned and with fat blooms swollen

pointed me in that direction. A little over the top, but hey, I like an enthusiastically extravagant poem. But then we seem to be in a morass of corporate speak and while that might be the point, it was also a disappointment. If I never hear someone say "X is the new Y" again in my life, I'll be thankful. On my deathbed, I'll say, "I thought that shrimp tasted funny," and then I'll say, "Thank you for not saying 'Shrimp is the new hemlock.' That's why you're still in my will."

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Fall Aubade, with Window and Buzz by Molly Tenenbaum

Julie: Someone on a workshop said, I think recently, that everyone has written an Aubade. That person is a liar, as I have never written an Aubade and have never actually wanted to use that title for anything. You know what this means? Tomorrow I'll suddenly be struck by the urge to write an Aubade. And it will suck. But this Aubade is rather clever, though it's jumpy, like a string of jokes by a stand-up instead of a coherent routine. (Yesterday's Tenebaum was also an Aubade, and I should have reviewed it but instead I actually did work. I gotta stop doing that.) Tenenbaum is striking a mood in my brain even if I don't walk away thinking deep thoughts. I get a sense of eating poetry candy while I'm reading her, as if I'm going to eventually need some broccoli or something to stay fit.

WEE reviews May 30, 2006

2006-05-30T17:28:00.000-07:00

Providence by Christian Barter

Julie: Strange read. Out of five strophes, two were wonderful (3,5), two fine (2,4), and one pretty dreadful (1). Adding that up should mean I like it, but the whole is less than the sum of its parts and I am unenthused. Still:

That architecture is a lukewarm ribcage
woven together with tiny songs.

That is just fab. I don't know what it means. I don't care. I love it.

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My Dress by Molly Tenenbaum

Julie: This poem was too much fun to read aloud. I didn't get much in the way of Deep Meaning, but perhaps I wasn't looking. Perhaps it isn't there. I mention it yet wonder if I really want it. Is it enough that this poem is a joy to speak?

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The Nod/A Clip by Seamus Heaney

Julie: And if you want to talk about poems that are a joy to read aloud, look no further. "The Nod" is quite nice, but "A Clip"? Really something special. There's something very satisfying, fat, about these two poems. Of course, I have a fondness for rhyme and the older I get the more I like 'em slant.

WEE reviews May 29, 2006

2006-05-29T08:44:00.000-07:00

Quail by Dore Kiesselbach

Julie: Apostrophed heads! I haven't read a descriptor that I like more than that in ages. This poem does everything right, condensing a long story into short lines, allusive and simple. I like everything about it, though I'm generally not a fan of linebreaks through words. Devastation in a single line of quail. Really well done.

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My Tender Heart by Molly Tenenbaum

Julie: This poem started well, very well. I was especially happy with the sneaky slant rhymes and the "hot bun's inner butter." But strophe 4 seems to go awry, with a rhyme that calls huge attention to itself without enough justification. Then we're headed in a different direction, and I felt disillusioned. The end leaves me feeling dusty and confounded. Still, I want to read more by this poet.

WEE reviews May 28, 2006

2006-05-28T20:12:00.000-07:00

The Sacrifice by Richard Jones

Julie: Hum. I don't feel adequate to say much about this poem, being a person who tended to dose a bit through the two required philosophy semesters at ND. Hey, don't judge! At least one was at 8 am, and my brain, such as it is, only starts functioning around 2:30. The line "the heart's a grave, a poor burial plot" really intruigued me, but the poem is rather staid both before and after this line. Sure, I might be looking for something too emo for a poem about Kierkegaard, and I make no excuses. It's after 2:30. I'm just unsubtle.

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The Wide World by Steve Kronen

Julie: Certain words are pretty much owned by certain poets, and gyre is Yeats's. So a poem that uses it is going to reference him, even if unintentionally. The pre-First Coming, I guess. Dammit, I dozed in theology, too! In any case, I found myself trying to reconcile the two poems, knowing that I was missing something. The language here is fine, occasionally pretty, but a few places (daughter of a despot dressed) get a little out of hand. The strength of the end and the beginning's great whirligigs can't quite buoy the sagging middle. This is a short poem, but it feels a little soft, a little overexpanded, like a dough that needs punched down.

Just a few notes

2006-05-28T20:03:00.000-07:00

One of the reviewed poets, Bryan Penberthy, came to the review, and it inspired me to put links in the sidebar to the poets I've reviewed. If I've reviewed a poem of yours and you'd like a link, please drop me an email (jsgoddess@gmail.com) or comment with your site info.

That way you might get a tiny bit more exposure for your work, and I'll get to repay you in a tiny way for poking at you in public.

Also feel free to comment to smack me around, defend a poem, or taunt the Happy Fun Ball.

WEE reviews May 26, 2006

2006-05-26T12:24:00.000-07:00

5 by 7 by Max Winter

Julie: Well gosh, I'm behind. I could say that I'll be sure to catch up, to review the poems I skipped. But I'd be lying, or at least promising something I'm not likely to deliver. The word "slacker" is tattooed across the bridge of my nose. It's occasionally hidden by my very prim glasses. Winter's poem interested me, but didn't delight. I really wanted something with more wonder to it, though the description of the man is filled with nice touches. It made me picture Terry-Thomas, though, which is unfortunate but entirely my fault.

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III. Handkerchiefs on the Lawn, from From A Burbank Catalogue by David Barber

Julie: The picture this poem paints is an appealing one, but the language so often slips into such tired diction that I just can't enjoy it. "Wildest intentions" is the big offender. I don't spend my days shouting "Cliche!" at every passing poem, but some really do need to embrace fresher language.

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Let This World Endure by Yves Bonnefoy, trans. Hoyt Rogers

Julie: I don't read French, so I can't pin the biggest flaw of this poem on the author or the translator. I do notice that translated poems seem to suffer from vagueness, abstraction, limpness, languor more than English language poems. This poem doesn't have much in the way of vibrance, motion, or energy. I was just at a distance, watching a not-terribly-interesting play unfold.

WEE reviews May 24, 2006

2006-05-24T10:37:00.000-07:00

Gym Dance With the Doors Wide Open/The Smell of Rat Rubs Off by J. Allyn Rosser

Julie: "Gym Dance" is a bit overwrought, though I liked the playful use of rhyme. I never understand things like "its hue a very huelessness." Five words that say absolutely nothing. Their meaning a very meaninglessness. The plot of the poem escapes me entirely. "Rat" is an interesting, clever sonnet, but the entire effect is destroyed by a horrible inversion in the final line. Yow.

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Lovetown by Bryan Penberthy

Julie: Here we have a great example of a poem that I only discovered because of this exercise. I might have bailed early because it wasn't catching me. But then it got its hooks into me and didn't let go. Not the greatest imagery in the world, and a little heavy on the adjectives, but this poem explored a perspective I found compelling, and it worked for me in a quiet, understated way.

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No Tell Motel won't load for me today. I'll take a look when I can.

WEE reviews May 23, 2006

2006-05-23T17:54:00.000-07:00

Pliers by Robert Pinsky

Julie: There might be a decent poem underneath the gimmick, but I can't see it for the trees.

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The Ant by Max Winter

Julie: This poem is good, almost great, with a compelling analytical style that made me very interested in the narrator. I wanted to keep reading because I wanted to learn about who was speaking, as well as the plot going on in the poem itself. I also have a fondness for insect poems. Ants are just neat, okay? Geez.

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The Poetry of Bad Weather by Debora Greger

Julie: Very enjoyable poem, though I found myself feeling awfully nitpicky about the lack of a comma after "snow" in the final strophe, which leaves snow going blue with cold and while I grant that the narrator is in Florida and may not be aware of this, snow is already cold! Yes, I am reading it wrong, but it keeps poking at me. Take the comma away after "way." Put it after "snow." I am happy. See how easy it is to make me happy? I am a cheap date.

Only the dull roar of air forced to spend its life indoors
could be heard

I've heard that air. Only it's between my ears.

WEE reviews May 22, 2006

2006-05-22T10:58:00.000-07:00

A Crosstown Breeze by Henry Taylor

Julie: I did the reviews so late last night that Poetry Daily had actually put up a fresh poem before I saw it. So this review is actually for yesterday's poem. I'm glad it worked out the way it did, since this poem would not have inspired me to get off my unreviewing duff. The rhymes feel forced and a bit childish, which isn't helped by the naivete of the poem.

now gray concrete
and electric light
wear on my feet
and dull my sight.

This is just not what I want from rhyming poetry.

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For the Sake by Max Winter

Julie: I can't accuse this poem of lacking movement, though I do think it goes on a bit too long. I think repetition is one of the most valuable tools a poet has, and this uses it to good effect, though I didn't feel that the poem, in the end, had enough surprises in store for me.

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= by Lightsey Darst

Julie: To be honest, I couldn't follow this poem's meaning. A few of the lines intrigued me, especially the last, but the poem as a whole is choppy, disoriented. The linebreaks, symbol title, even the poet's name adds to the effect. Interesting that two poems in a row reference a symbol of a white animal. Are the editors doing that apurpose?

WEE reviews May 21, 2006

2006-05-21T20:27:00.000-07:00

Human Terms by Kathleen Lynch

Julie: A week or so back, I commented that I find themes of alienation incredibly depressing. They also frighten me. In this poem, it's an albino calf, and I spent the poem waiting for the horrible thing to happen to the misfit. In a way, my relief when I finished the poem makes me delighted to recommend it. By the same token, I recognize my own freaky paranoia, that I'm the one who brought those nasty expectations to the table. Normal people might read this and never feel the enormous tension and release that I felt. In any case, despite my barely restrained fear, I enjoyed the poem. I can't unread it, or partially unread it to tell you if I liked it halfway through. I also can't believe I'm attempting to explain the stupidity of my own brain.

We can't help
wanting to be the story.

I am so busted.

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A Thrush by Utamaro by Eamon Grennan

Julie: Strangely, today's poems remind me of each other, despite very different sensibilities coming into play. This poem brings the pressure of prose to bear. Something about prose lineation forces a poem to be read in a chunk rather than slowly. I don't savor prose poems, at least on the first read. I consume them whole. Then, like the thrush, I wait until the dust settles before deciding anything. Yes, I am mixing metaphors like mad. Sue me. There is an urgency to this poem, borne by the structure--a chunkiness and a heft that pleases me. It didn't involve the tension of the first poem, but both deal with alienation, with waiting for a great change. Fitting that I was feeling alienated and now feel that something was waiting for me.

WEE reviews May 19, 2006

2006-05-19T11:44:00.000-07:00

The Elgin Marbles by Davis McCombs

Julie: I would feel guilty if I just said "I hated this poem." But really, what more can I say?

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Trouble by Ron Wallace

Ehh. I think this poem never really had much potential, based primarily on the abstract subject matter.

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12. Across, from Life As A Crossword Puzzle by Noah Falck

This ended well, but didn't do much to interest me before that. When I look at today's poems, I see that I had a general sense of malaise, which could just mean that I was cross and tired when reading them. My mood does affect my reading. Perhaps it shouldn't.

WEE reviews May 18, 2006

2006-05-18T05:52:00.000-07:00

Plat à Décor by Michael White

The first half of this poem is rather like a catalog of art. And the thing about art is that it's pretty hard to describe to any great purpose, even in a poem. That left me feeling distant and bored. The poem ends well, once it moves past individual works and onto the artist as a person. A more visual person might find it more rewarding than I did.

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Funeral, Mineral, Vegetable by Jibade-Khalil Huffman

I was completely disconnected from this poem (which is beginning to look like a pattern today). I didn't come away with any sense of meaning or any joy in the wordplay. Just nothing. Might not be the poem's fault.

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11. Across, from Life As A Crossword Puzzle by Noah Falck

I'm disappointed in this poem after yesterday's. I think Falck has a lot of talent, mind you, but I don't think he's as ruthless as he needs to be with his editing. This didn't need to be flat, but it was. And the ending is especially easy.

WEE reviews May 17, 2006

2006-05-17T17:24:00.000-07:00

Fog on Skyline Drive by Alison Apothecker

Julie: When I got to the end of this poem, I read:

I give you the chance, curve by curve
to practice what is necessary
to say

And I thought, "I gave you that chance, too. Why don't you say it?" I'll admit that I didn't get a huge amount of sleep (2 hours) last night, and I'll admit that I've spent the whole day in doctors' offices and am groggy and should be either asleep or watching baseball (if there's a discernible difference), but this poem felt coy and dammit, I'm not in the mood for coy. Just say it. SAY IT.

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Without a Compass by Luciano Erba, trans. Ann Snodgrass

Julie: Nothing coy about this one. Nothing coy about my review. I like it. There.

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5. Across, from Life As A Crossword Puzzle by Noah Falck

Julie: I love this. I simply love it. Sure, some of it is fatigue, and the way the surreal becomes hilarious when your brain is starved of oxygen. But I simply adored this poem, its dry tone, its absurdities. Thank you, Noah Falck. You've made my day.

WEE reviews May 16, 2006

2006-05-16T10:20:00.000-07:00

Two Poems by Robert Creeley

Julie: Frankly, the second poem leaves me so cold I'm not going to say anything more about it. But the first, "Talking," is more interesting. I think it successfully captures the awkwardness of feeling out of place and struggling to join in. The language is a little flat, but that probably serves the purpose of this particular narrator. I never understand breaking a line mid-word, unless it's for humorous effect. This is, at least in my projections, a depressing poem. I find issues of alienation to be some of the most upsetting. I'm not sobbing over my Diet Coke or anything, but it touched a nerve.

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Oracle by Michael Spence

Julie: I read somewhere recently, on a forum or a blog, where someone wondered if the bulk of us could pick out a "male" poet from a "female" poet, and whether that would affect our impressions of a poem if we found ourselves to be wrong. It's an interesting question, and one that should be tested someday. Well, I just tested it in myself. I would have guessed this poem was written by a woman. I try to read the Verse Daily and Poetry Daily poems before looking at the authors (that doesn't work with No Tell), but I've never actually been surprised before. It's a weird sensation. I don't know if the author's name changed my opinion of the poem. I liked it, and especially liked the last line, but I wasn't and still am not really taken with it. I am curious what Michael Spence would think of my supposition, but I'll probably never know.

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4. Down, from Life As A Crossword Puzzle by Noah Falck

Julie: Much more engaging poem than yesterday's though this poet does tend to slip into some lazy writing. Nothing devastatingly bad, but a little ill-thought. This for example:

I think [dying] would be a lot like a day when everything goes blank.

Well, maybe it would, but what is that like? When something is described as being like something else, shouldn't the something else be a thing the reader can relate to, without being obvious? Yes, it would be exactly like a day when everything goes blank because that's what dying is, and I don't know what it's like! "I think skydiving would be a lot like falling from a really high place." "I think drowning would be a lot like choking to death on a hot dog." That said, this is a pleasant read and the idea of a pet rock named Gomer makes me very happy.

WEE reviews May 15, 2006

2006-05-15T08:10:00.000-07:00

2. Down, from Life As A Crossword Puzzle by Noah Falck

Julie: I'm stumbling out of the gate. I took the weekend off and it was a mistake. Apparently, if you let your guard down for two days, your momentum goes all to hell and all poems seem to be written in foreign languages and grunts. So these lines:

She speaks a single sentence a day,
waits for those perfect words
to gather at the base of her throat.

Really struck me. How many reviews would I write if I had to wait for the perfect words? I could count them on my nonexistent third hand.

This poem doesn't live up to its opening, I think. It's a nice poem, but nothing vivid or daring. I enjoyed the read, but though I read it first thing this morning, I didn't really have anything to say. And when I reread it 30 minutes ago, I found I had forgotten it. Worrisome.

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Forgiveness by Ioanna Carlsen

Julie: Abstract, deliberately vague, and without much to sink my teeth into. I do like the juxtaposition of:

I deny you three times

The cock crows.
We marry.

Unexpected. But that tension and surprise didn't last long. Scattered, disjointed, no. This one isn't working for me.

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Starling by Dorianne Laux

Julie: A very attractive poem to read aloud. Does it sacrifice sense for sound? Youbetcha. Am I okay with that? Today.

WEE reviews May 12, 2006

2006-05-12T09:13:00.000-07:00

If My Love For You Were an Animal by Jennifer L Knox

Julie: And we end the week with a bang, not a whimper. This is Knox's most accessible and most powerful poem for the week. Not demonstrating the same vivid wordplay or cleverness of the week's earlier poems, but building, building, building to a great close that elevates the entire poem to something more than a little special.

Being able to read a sequence of poems from a single poet is a gift, and I want to drop a specific thanks to the folks at No Tell Motel for choosing to publish in this way. Poems are social creatures, and do their best when surrounded by other poems to gain context.

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Ontology of the Miniature Room by Rebecca Dunham

Julie: Rebecca Dunham uses one of my favorite words to end her poem, thereby guaranteeing that I'll regard it favorably. I can also be bribed with ice cream and shiny new books. This is a pleasant, pretty poem rather than a punchy, powerful poem, but I am pleased as punch, or perhaps merely punchy as punch, about it.

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Tu Fu Watches the Spring Festival Across Serpentine Lake by Frank Bidart

Julie: Some poems for some readers will always be less than the sum of their parts. This poem has some beautiful lines, but they are beautiful to me in the same way that a woman can be beautiful. I can see it, but I don't really care. There are beauties that hold no attraction, and Bidart's poem seems to be one of them.

WEE reviews May 11, 2006

2006-05-11T11:15:00.000-07:00

Proof by Victoria Chang

Julie: This poem delights me. The straightforward diction, open formatting, solid imagery, and a punchy close. The poem never descends to gimmickry, cutesyness, fake cleverness, or bathos. The "perpendicular" lines are chilling. Good stuff.

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Waiting by Brad Davis

Julie: This felt like more than one poem, all struggling for dominance. I kept thinking, "Here is where the poem really starts," and then a few lines later, "No, here is where the poem really starts. No, here. No, here." I don't think that's because the poem is that bad, just that it doesn't build on itself, despite the repetition of the word, or idea of, "beauty."

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I Am My Own Elephant Gun, by Jennifer L Knox

Julie: Really enjoyable, quickfire rockpiles of words that she manages to keep from tumbling on her head. I think a whole book of Knox at once would eventually have me screaming for respite, but one a day is working. And how. Gabriel pointed out an editing error in the first line that I didn't see. I see only what I wish to see! So there.

Gabriel: Of the poems today, I thought this one had the most interesting and inventive language. That said, it is language that can't come to terms with itself. The constructions which are either for sonic effect or to set up a chain of alternate readings, i.e.:

dogged by silent phones, by one ringing
phone in which of the unlit windows,
by all the slits in the meat to be filled
with slivered garlic, by the garlic to be

didn't hold together for me. At the end of my reading I didn't come away with a sense of purposeful disruption but simple cacophony. While it had plenty of sound and fury, it also signified nothing.

WEE reviews May 10, 2006

2006-05-10T04:19:00.000-07:00

Day 4: Somewhere in the Everglades, Ranger Dan Continues to Feign Unconsciousness by Jennifer L Knox

Julie: Now back to the same laugh-out-loud joy I felt when I read Monday's poem. Knox is fun and playful and takes risks. I'm appreciative. I'm also late for a doctor's appointment. Crap.

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Riding Westward by Carl Phillips

Julie: It took me a few tries to read this one, and it never manages to move beyond the dull and trite for me. The ending is too poetic in tone to follow the rest of the poem. This is a poem that would have benefited from a lot of trimming and tightening. I can't say how much benefit, but some.

WEE reviews May 9, 2006

2006-05-09T09:47:00.000-07:00

I Am a Girl by Jennifer L Knox

Julie: Well, that felt pointless, as if Knox wanted to shock me or prove she can say words like "dick" and "pussy" in a poem. Yes. You can. No, I wouldn't actually claim that was her intent, but there didn't seem to be anything else going on. For the record, real ladies say dick in poems, at the opera, and most especially to the umpire behind home plate.

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Hat of Many Goldfinches by Susan Meyer

Julie: Certain images are brilliant and beautiful when surrounded by other strong images, but turn dull when they are the focus of a poem. A hat made of goldfinches is a striking idea, but not enough to bear the weight of a poem, especially a poem of this length. Some nice lines, definitely, but the image needs surrounded by stronger ideas.

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Barometric by Janet Sylvester

Julie: This? I like. I like the breathless rush of its sentences, its matter-of-fact diction, the observations that didn't feel artificial or too elevated. Good stuff.

WEE reviews May 8, 2006

2006-05-08T18:03:00.000-07:00

Cow Song by Susan B.A. Somers-Willett

Julie: Well that was an interesting read. I liked the slanting rhymes, though the loosey-goosey meter made the rhymes seem sloppy instead of crisp. I'm not sure what the "cow song" is that's filling the pail, though it gives me the most horrific image, which doesn't fit the loosening of the young shoulder. Or does it? The shotgun sitting rather than being in use throws me. In any case, I was willing to work hard enough to end up with questions, which is probably a Good Sign. I'd like to see this poet demonstrate something with meter to show that she meant what she did. Right now, I don't see it.

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Thighs by CK Williams

Julie: I'll be honest. I didn't give this poem much of a chance. I hated it from the moment I opened the page. It's squatty. And if there's an uglier word in English than "squatty," I've never heard it. The poem tries to use ugly and flat language to tell and ugly and flat story and it pretty much stays ugly and flat. I don't need pretty language, but I don't need the Swede from NOAA, either.

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13 Stages of Grief by Jennifer L Knox

Julie: I know it says "grief" right there in the title, but this made me laugh. And then I read it aloud and, because of the title, could temper my voice into something a little hysterical and bereft. It could have a hundred titles and thereby evoke a hundred moods. That's probably not a good sign, though I enjoyed the read.

WEE reviews May 7, 2006

2006-05-07T16:45:00.000-07:00

Starr Farm Beach by Timothy Steele

Julie: This poem doesn't do much for me until the final stanza, and even there I can only say that it's rather pretty but seems safe and, well, safe. Competent, but workmanlike.

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Dear Beekeeper, by Julianne Buchsbaum

Julie: There are times when meaning is overrated, and perhaps poetry is the best example of one of those times. This poem doesn't mean anything to me directly.

I want to witness all the red
economies of venom in the first bee

Say wha? But still, I enjoyed the read very much. I enjoyed the language, the transmuting colors, red to yellow to brown, and I think I must really like bees in poems nearly as much as I hate pregnancy in them. Mmm. Bees.

WEE reviews May 5, 2006

2006-05-05T19:33:00.000-07:00

Coyotes in Greenwich! by Julie Sheehan

Julie: I like the line

Coyotes invade. They claim to be the truth.

and

Our wives keep turning in our beds
like roasting meat

But the rest of the poem leaves me pretty cold. I see coyotes occasionally on my drive to work. The ones I see don't seem to be claiming anything, except perhaps "I am smaller than you expected."

WEE reviews May 4, 2006

2006-05-04T15:43:00.000-07:00

Tell Me by Maggie Nelson

Julie: I can't say there's something specifically wrong with this poem. It's not that I think the poet made a mistake anywhere, except perhaps in choosing a subject she couldn't really make pop from the page. The poem ends up workmanlike instead of wow.

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Three Poems by Robin Robertson

Julie: The first of the three poems is the only one that really drew me. The second one felt pat, the third too attempted-clever. The first, especially with the unexpected image of the butterfly, was not spectacular, but it showed some nice attention to sound and image.

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Chora by Josh Hanson

Julie: I said yesterday that I thought Hanson's poems were improving as the week went on. I still think so, though this poem is perhaps a little less well-realized than yesterday's. I appreciate the spacing, the deliberation in this poem, the quiet voice:

When the ground still holds,
Though shut up, something of the sun.

WEE reviews May 3, 2006

2006-05-03T15:03:00.000-07:00

Nettles by AE Stallings

Julie: I was beginning to despair. Before Monday, I thought that my WEE reviews were just going to end up sounding bitter and dismissive. I wanted some poems I could shout about from the rooftops. And today? Today delivered. And how. This poem by Alicia Stallings is delicate and striking, with wonderful use of slant rhymes to keep things from getting too chime-y.

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Plague Year by Josh Hanson

Julie: And it's not just AE who delivered. Nope. This poem by Josh Hanson is brisk and sharp, with a fine ambigous ending. He's getting better and better as the week progresses.

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Two Poems by Christian Wiman

Julie: And then comes my favorite of the day, the nonce rhymed "The Secret" by Christian Wiman that uses rhyme to keep the poem unexpected, but with the resolution of a door slamming shut. When I whine about cutesy rhymes, it's because writers like Stallings and Wiman can get overshadowed. This is what rhyme can do. This is its power.

WEE reviews May 2, 2006

2006-05-02T08:14:00.000-07:00

Gravity by Josh Hanson

Julie: Yesterday's Josh Hanson poem was too short for itself. Today's is fine, though I don't make a connection between the first three lines and the last two. I'm okay with that because the last two are really nice, but perhaps I would have thought them really really nice if I got the connection.

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Prose, I say, Plasma by Susanna Childress

Julie: This poem is an absolute delight on the tongue. I mean, just say these lines out loud:

Here we glee in paronomasia,

our forms of humor slowly colliding until the wide sun settles

That's just lovely. Lovely.

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Day-lily by Susan Stewart

Julie: I dislike most formal poetry that relies on repetition--pantoums, villanelles, triolets, and the like--but I love me some rhetorical repetition in verse both free and formal. This poem benefits from it. What hurts it is the spiky ugliness flinging me down the page. These lines are so short I have nothing to savor. Hurry, hurry, hurry. That goes against the effective tolling of a repetition.

WEE reviews May 1, 2006

2006-05-01T10:14:00.000-07:00

Invitation by WD Snodgrass

Julie: The thing about reviewing anything is that you bring your own biases to the table. There's no denying it. So when I say that this poem was okay but that I wish it hadn't been published, I'm sitting here as someone who writes a lot in rhyme and who hates when rhyme is used to cutesy affect. Because then readers decide that's all rhyme is, and then, well, I don't want to be seen as cutesy. It's not fair, but at least I'll be up front about it and tell you where my biases are, when I'm aware of them. And I'm aware of this one.

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When Dylan Left Hibbing, Minnesota, August 1959 by John Hodgen

Julie: And then we get more rhyme only I'm having a tough time being charitable about this one at all. Yes, if all rhymed poems were like this, we'd all deserve to be smothered in our bed, bed, bed, bed. The rhymes are pasted on; I don't get the point. But hey, "Don't criticize what you can't understand," right? Bah.

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Map (Rimbaud) by Josh Hanson

Julie: I love short poems. I think they are hard to write, and refreshing to read. I love those rabbity punches. But this one is too short. I don't know enough about Rimbaud to tie anything to the title, and while I grasp the idea behind the inverted bowl, the close leaves me baffled. Still, I guess it's better to be baffled in five lines than fifty.

WEE reviews April 30, 2006

2006-04-30T08:29:00.000-07:00

Getting Kicked by a Fetus by Martha Silano

Julie: There is no subject for a poem less likely to get me enthused than pregnancy. I'd rather read about anything else. I'd rather read a poem about the ingredient list on a package of beef jerky. That said, this poem had some intriguing lines and the consistency of image helped keep me wondering what was going to come next.

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When Red Becomes the Wolf by Jeannine Hall Gailey

Julie: I think there is a typo in the first line, "fired" for "fried" which bothered me. It's not fair to hold it against the poem, but it made my eyes twitch. I don't think this poem works, though it has some effective juxtapositions and I enjoyed the ending. The tone is inconsistent. It also made me want a fried bologna sandwich, a staple of my childhood in Appalachia, but only if it has the wedge cut in to make it fry flat.

WEE reviews April 28, 2006

2006-04-28T07:13:00.000-07:00

Haircut by Henri Cole

Julie: I should hate this poem. I should. But I don't. I like everything about it, from the diction to the images to the spacing to the linebreaks. No, this isn't earth-shattering, but it's simply perfect for a sunny Friday in April when my sinuses are the size of Gibraltar and my week has been just short of entirely crappy. Some poems catch you at just the right time, and this one caught me today when I needed it. I'm not going to reread it soon, perhaps in a month or two, when it won't hurt me if I don't like it any longer. Today, though, it makes me happy.

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The Professor's Lover by Victoria Chang

Julie: This poem nearly gets away from Chang a few times, but she reins it in and brings it to a satisfying close. The voice is a good one, though some of the questions it posed didn't really interest me. No, if you offered your eyes to me I'd shriek and run away. Fast. The two forces in the poem action/imagery and contemplation are at odds. I preferred the imagery side, which is par for my course, and I thought the structure of the poem really helped make this worth reading. The choppy sentences nestled in more-than-bitesized strophe gave a feeling both of directness and of expansion. I was tugged along, knowing this narrator had more to say.

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Special by James Grinwis

Julie: After yesterday, this poem is nothing but disappointment for me. I'd be interested to learn from the editors at No Tell what their method is for deciding which poems come where in the week. Not that I'm quibbling. This is a Friday poem, in a way, a getaway day poem. But something in me got a little smushed.

WEE reviews April 27, 2006

2006-04-27T07:53:00.000-07:00

Woofer (When I Consider the African-American) by Terrance Hayes

Julie: This is a flat poem on occasionally enlivened by some unusual and vivid plot:

making love among the fresh blood and axe
and chicken feathers left after the Thanksgiving slaughter
executed by a 3-D witchdoctor houseguest

It was enough to keep me reading, but not enough to inspire me to seek out more by Terrance Hayes.

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Mini Buildingsroman by James Grinwis

Julie: By far my favorite of the Grinwis poems this week, though the constant end-stopped lines trudged very heavily down the page.

A messianic squaw bit into a raspberry and said ow.

Did she ever!

WEE reviews April 26, 2006

2006-04-26T07:15:00.000-07:00

Pangur Bán trans. by Seamus Heaney

Julie: It's a charming but slight traditional Irish poem. I like how this translated poem seems to be about translating something. Not much else to say.

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Terracotta by James Grinwis

Julie: I have to say that while I'm not blown away by James Grinwis, dude is never boring. Today's poem is very appealing to me with its piling up of off images, though I think the final simile of a siren twirling "like a kicked fruitcake" is just terrible.

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Testament by Megan Gannon

Julie: The first 8 lines are throat-clearing. I don't want to suggest rewrites for these poems. They are done, complete, not posted in a workshop, but damn. I'd cut those lines and start in with

You are learning

backwards. There's hardly time.

Those lines would have pulled me in. The current opening pushed me away.

WEE reviews April 25, 2006

2006-04-25T10:04:00.000-07:00

Corsons Inlet by AR Ammons

Julie: I don't have anything against prose. Write it myself. I give a hearty thumbs up to prose poetry, generally, and have no issue with blurring lines between various art forms. But I dislike prose with linebreaks being sold as a poem. And this work by AR Ammons is prose with linebreaks and fancy pants indentations. It can't disguise the flat language and the lack of affect.

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Nerve Sequence by James Grinwis

Julie: Ever have someone tell you that if you didn't like a poem, you just didn't get it? Well, I thought this poem was okay, but the getting it? Not so much. Which means that my "okay" is a highly provisional one and that it's worth, well, nothing.

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Undid in the Land of Undone by Lee Upton

Julie: More prose, but this time at least the words weren't boring. There's cleverness here, perhaps the wrong kind, summed up by the final lines:

What I didn't do took
an eternity —
and it wasn't for lack of trying.

Yeah, that's cute.

WEE reviews April 24, 2006

2006-04-24T08:44:00.000-07:00

Aubade by Idra Novey

Julie: Enjoyed the first four lines and then, er, no idea whatsoever.

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Wrapped in Dust Mites by James Grinwis

Julie: My read early this morning disappointed me. But since Blogger wouldn't let me post, I didn't bother writing a review. My reread a while ago pleased me strangely. There are a lot of things going on in this poem, lots of disjointed images that I pretty much liked without reservation. So, this morning boo. This evening yay. You be the judge.

WEE reviews April 23, 2006

2006-04-23T07:54:00.000-07:00

We Argue about Regret by Laura McCullough

Julie: I was charmed by this poem, though it took a while to hook me. To be honest, I would only have skimmed it were it not for my new review shoes. Something about the way it sat on the page made me think of rigidity and I spied quotation marks (my nemeses!) right off the bat. But I did read it and was happy to have done so. Not a big flashy poem for certain, but one that captures something real. And it has a linebreak I love:

tell, the best truth includes one
lie.

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Keel of Earth's Axis by Mong-Lan

Julie: This poem has some lines I admire, but the whole ends up not striking me. Granted, I haven't had my caffeine yet today, and it's Sunday which my brain has claimed as a day of rest (along with the majority of the rest of the week). Strangely, I didn't get the sense the poem would reward further reads.

WEE reviews April 22, 2006

2006-04-22T09:58:00.000-07:00

Hoops by Major Jackson

Julie: You can't unread a line in a poem, so if you encounter something amazing, it will irrevocably change the poem. I was pleased with this poem, and then I encountered:

the rusted

base of pole where life
snakes an open cut
up to center court, there lay
Radar enfolding his heart.

And I was blown away.

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Adoration is Not Irrelevant by Hayden Carruth

Julie: I can't say that I really thought this was a good poem, but I did enjoy the read, the over-the-topness of it. It was affective, effective, infective, even.

WEE reviews April 21, 2006

2006-04-21T07:24:00.000-07:00

Day two at WEE reviews.

Hotel Narrative (06 APR 1996) by Eileen R Tabios

Julie: For the second day, this poet ends a sexually charged piece with a bit of very "poetic" diction just sort of tacked on. It puzzles me. This poem puzzles me. Certain sections (2, 4) aren't pulling their weight. The airy formatting is trying to give it space, but it seems that the poem is equally about distance and shut-innedness. Like yesterday's poem, it has a violence to it that sours me.

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Tale by Emily Moore

Julie: Romancing a pony leaves me with a very discombobulated feeling. I assume from the ending pun that this is supposed to be taken lightly, and as such I think it works. If it went on longer, I would have become very bored but I wasn't yet.

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X at Sea by Tom Hansen

Julie: I've read this poem before. Not this exact one by this author, but very similar poems. I'm not really complaining about that. Lord knows I've walked on very well-trod ground myself. But reviewing it is hard. My exact reaction: "Okay." The same way if my husband said we needed to go to the store. "Okay."

WEE reviews April 20, 2006

2006-04-20T08:17:00.000-07:00

This is our inaugural edition, so we're still working out our format.

The Segregation of the Senses by WR Weinstein.

Julie: I think the poet had an ending line and wanted to get to it. Unfortunately, the poem ends up treading water until then. It doesn't have any emotional pull for me. Flat language, blanket statements, few images. Not my cup of tea.

Gabriel: The language is flat and the linebreaks largely arbitrary. The disjointedness of the language is ineffective because it is not a series of fractures related to the segregation of the senses, as the title might suggest, but instead is merely random.

In terms of structure, there was little to write home about. Why “neuroscientist” (Line 4) deserves its own line, for instance, is simply because the linebreak is being used as comma and to force a 5 line strophe. The gimmickry used is uninspired and doesn’t really go anywhere. The ana/epiphoric sense listing in the second strophe, for example, serves no function and is punctuated by a lame joke in Line 9. This gesture winds up emphasizing the absence of touch and taste, the two senses that the poem problematically neglects.

The poem has a sexual/political agenda that is both obvious and mundane. The poem brings nothing new to the table, nor does it do anything particularly interesting by poking at, with purposeful selectivity, tired discussions that are not adequately explored.

In the end, the work mistakes its own perception for profundity and hopes that presenting the language in the form of “being a poem” will somehow help the reader to forgive the fact that nothing significant is said.

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From Epitaphs by Abraham Sutzkever, trans. by Jacqueline Osherow.

Julie: It's hard to say if the distance in the poem is from the original or from the translation. In a way, it works as something "written on a salt of a railway car" which is a pretty distant sort of communication. The poem ends up slight and bland, but with an overarching heaviness. The biography at the bottom was more affecting.

Gabriel: Firstly, let me say that I am at best ambivalent about the translator’s note. I think it is interesting biographical material, but set up as a companion piece to be read in reflection immediate to the poem felt like emotional extortion. Ah well, moving on.

I think that the language maintains a pathos that is amenable to the tone throughout. I have mixed feelings about the use of the dash, I think that it is an interruption that is sometimes effective and sometimes stumbling. On the whole I thought that the language couldn’t quite decide if it wanted to be simple or sagacious and so tried to do a bit of both.

I felt the openness of the conclusion was interesting. Structurally it behaves as a conclusion should and creates a “closed” sort of feeling, but the avenues for interpretation are really quite wide open.

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Cancer by Eileen R Tabios.

Julie: I find myself definitely not wanting to know how nipples might curdle. I have a weird dislike of direct quotation in poetry. It always drags me out of the moment. Can't explain. Shouldn't try. I find myself flailing a bit for something to say about this poem.

Gabriel: How to tackle this? Well, the sexual politics are problematic to say the least, and the language brings this to a point of crisis frequently throughout the poem. Consider for example the subtext of “anxious thighs” (L 5), which suggests both expectation/longing and also fear.

The male sexuality in the poem is rapacious. The violence of the male gaze in the third strophe was particularly troubling, as well as the themes of domination, objectification, and rape that run through the poem. The male sexuality in the poem is literally murderous. Clearly destructive throughout, as seen by desire to “tear” the female mouth, and every interaction which involves the male identity, in lines 18-20 the rationale behind the title declares itself. L 20 “as if life-generating air still flowed, between our bodies” which is to say that life-generating air does not flow. The male identity pulls the speaker into the absence of air, ergo, murderous. The male sexuality in the poem wishes to possess sexually by domination and violence, and in the act of possession destroy the thing (let's not mistake the objectification here) possessed.

What struck me most about this poem, even more than its pornographic nature, was the profound naïveté of the speaker. Whether it borders on or goes well past idiocy is difficult to say. But the idiocy of the speaker is required by the poem, for the most part. In order for the horror of the poem to be communicated effectively, the speaker needs to not only dramatically fail in the role of person, but also romanticize her own failure of personhood. This comes through in passages like the “Master, you always let me be so innocent / I could offer fearlessly, ‘Whatever You Want.’ ” (L 21 - 22) demonstrating how the speaker perverts the meaning of “innocence” to apply to that which is passively, perpetually, and most disquieting appropriately/deservedly violated.

The speaker is never the sole possessor of action in the poem. The only instance where she could be said to be an instigator in the poem is in the final strophe, which presents the apotheosis of the male aggressor (which has a whole mess of implications on its own), however the speaker’s explicit destruction subverts any agency her action might have afforded her.

At first I had wanted the language to be tightened up in some places, but on further consideration I wonder if the campiness of the romanticized language communicates the abjectness of the speaker more completely than more condensed diction ever could.

Wile E. Coyote, Super Genius

2006-01-07T08:41:00.000-08:00

"Critics being critics - there has been, is, and will be attempts to impose rules on free verse that (in theory) assist in making judgments about them."--gabriel

Most other art forms get a daily dose of public opinion to keep them honest. A snob might bemoan some purer form falling by the wayside, and I might even be that snob on occasion. The rules that critics have applied to free verse are better seen as genres--it's easier to compare a mystery to another mystery than to a cookbook--and while I don't particularly want to read horror, we wouldn't even know that there is a market for it if it we refused to publish it in the first place. Why is poetry different? We can point and laugh at the Dan Browns of the world, safe in knowing we can't even be compared. We have no expectations of poetry being popular, so we can feel validated by the lack of popularity and our own misunderstood genius.

"Oh, we got both kinds. We got Country and Western."--Blues Brothers

There are huge chunks of the population that don't want Country or Western, but poetry critics don't seem to want them to have the choice. Yes, it's a chicken and egg question: Is the market for poetry so small that we have to limit publication, or is the market so small because we already have?

I can't answer that question. Come on, you knew I couldn't. Don't look at me that way. But I think the internet, the world of blogs, online publications, and similar outlets can find out. Right now, we're still operating under the principle that there isn't enough space for all of it, Country, Western, Swing, Hip-Hop, Rock. We have to squash one genre to allow our chosen one room to grow. But there is a near-infinite number of pixels available and we've got more elbow room than sense.

I want a pony!

2006-01-07T07:57:00.000-08:00

When I was a kid, my brother and I played innumerable rounds of Horse. Or Pig. Or even Superman which was a reversal of Horse and meant that a missed shot gave a letter to your opponent instead.

My brother Joe was a better shot than I was. Two years older, faster, stronger, better in every way. So we started employing trick shots instead of straight up shooting for the basket. No, now you had to spin around fifteen times or ricochet the ball off the planter or perform the layup with a blindfold on. These shots were less about skill and more about luck and abiding by the rules of the shot. And since anything can become easier with practice, we had to mix it up a lot, discarding old tricks that were no longer baffling our opponent, keeping them off-balance and always in danger of falling splat on the pavement.

Poetry is like that. Master a trick shot, even if it's the only one you can do, and keep dazzling your opponent with it. More importantly, if they can't make the shot, they get tagged with an H, even if the reason the shot involved bouncing the ball off her own head was just one person's way of keeping the game interesting, of preventing the Joes of the world from simply trouncing the Julies.

Freedom! Horrible, horrible freedom!

2006-01-04T08:44:00.000-08:00

Okie Oolie boolie, here's my two rupees:

The literary community at large has had a love-hate relationship with free verse for many years, despite it being the predominant form of contemporary poetry. Robert Frost had famously quipped that writing free verse was “playing tennis without a net.” I feel that this comment unwittingly hit upon why many authors and critics are skittish about free verse – namely that there are fewer established rules.

Although nearly all of the elements of formal poetry can occur within a free verse work, they don’t have to. Moreover, the author isn’t under an obligation to use tools such as meter or rhyme in an established format. This can be something of a problem for critics because it makes it more difficult to say where, when, and how a poem is succeeding or failing without the guidelines of formal structure to provide benchmarks.

Critics being critics - there has been, is, and will be attempts to impose rules on free verse that (in theory) assist in making judgments about them. However, at best these resolve as a set of generally accepted guidelines. For example, authors should: use concrete images, avoid clichés and abstractions, use diction that is evocative and aesthetically consistent with the poem, and so on. These guidelines, while not unhelpful, become problematic when there is disagreement among critics or authors about what exactly qualifies as a ‘concrete image’ or ‘appropriate diction’. The disagreement often evolves, (or devolves depending on your perspective), into that pinnacle of subjectivism, “Well, I don’t know art, but I know what I like.” It is hard for a critic to fess up and admit, “Okie, well, that’s really just what I think about it.” Partly because they have a professional need to be right, and partly (as a critic myself) because we have a pathological belief that we are right in a very absolute sort of way. Critics have a need for objectivity within the realm of criticism, because it allows an arena for them to be right. At a certain point, however, I feel that the pursuit of objectivity can be taken too far, to where critics are simply niggling over semantic minutiae that has little to no significant impact on the larger interpretation of a text.

Further complicating the issue of subjective assessment and free verse was that many budding authors, upon hearing that free verse “didn’t have any rules” per se, went into transports of delight and proceeded to submit their diaries as poetry. Needless to say, the critics felt very bad about this. Not nearly as bad as the editors who received said submissions, but we felt bad all the same.

The manner in which I have elected to address this issue, as a critic and reader, is to address poems (and art in general) as having objective criterion that can be subjectively defined. Yes, I know it sounds like cheating. I’ll try to explain. Just as with the interpretation of visual art, there are qualities of craft within literature that can be identified and examined. Use of active versus passive voice, tone, an assortment of literary devices (personification, metaphor, alliteration, rhyme, etc.) can be examined within their context and leveraged towards an interpretation of the text. The interpretation, ultimately, will be either subjectively defined or at the very least subjectively influenced. What is being interpreted, however, is objectively defined and can be likewise explained. The result of this approach is a subjective statement that is made with objective support. This sort of approach to literary criticism is necessarily an amalgam of several critical traditions, which is one of the reasons it appeals to me, though it does give dominance to the practices of the New Critics, even though they ain’t so new these days.

Even having a working system, however, doesn’t resolve the central issue – in order to say something about free verse, you generally have to come to a conclusion of your very own. You need to set out your opinion, the reasons behind your opinion, and let them stand on their own without having formulaic rules to make or break the argument.

You want easy? Write in received forms

2006-01-02T06:53:00.000-08:00

Inspired by a discussion on Stephen Burt's blog about the ubiquity of sestinas.

It's anti-intuitive for many readers, I think, to say that forms are easier poems to write than free verse. After all, in forms you have all those other things to worry about, repetends or meters or rhymes or envois or voltas or the dreaded couplet.

But when all is said and done, from my perspective, forms are easier. Why? A couple of reasons.

1. Fewer decisions. You know when a villanelle is done moving. You don't really have any choice about when to end a sestina. And while you can play with the expectations of your reader, you don't have to.

2. Language. Plunk the most plain-spoken prose into a dizain and it will sound like a poem. Rhyme and meter bolster language into something "poetic." In free verse, the word choice, the rhythms, they're out there on their own.

3. Expectation. Write a sonnet. Some people will dismiss you without reading it, but far more will praise you without caring about the quality of the poem. Writing in a received form is viewed by many as an accomplishment in itself.

4. Tradition. It's okay to write a derivative sonnet.

5. Validation. No one will say your villanelle isn't a poem. They might say it stinks, but not that it isn't a poem.

6. Solace. Poet you can't be too upset when a pantoum goes wrong. After all, you didn't expect it to be good in the first place.

All this is coming from someone who writes in received forms about 90% of the time. For some people, meter or rhyme or any other element of a form are too difficult to overcome. But for the majority of people, I think it's easier to write a "good"¹ sonnet than a "good" free verse poem.

¹"Good" is a poem that is received as good, not an attempt to define the quality of the poem itself.

Destiny and fantasy, do dah do dah

2005-12-21T08:37:00.000-08:00

Much in the same way that a feeling of complete control grants comfort and a sense of stability, so too does the complete lack of control. Moreover, it is easy to participate in. All you have to do is look down at the morass of troubles, complications, and burdens that life has set upon you, and fall in.--gabriel

And then suddenly we are come around to sex, like obedient little Freudians. There are more submissives than there are dominants, if internet discussions can be believed. Why? Because the lack of control is easy, and when you aren't in control, it isn't your fault.

Rape fantasies grow thick on the ground. What's interesting are the two common motivations:

1. It's my fantasy and I'm in complete control, and
2. It's my fantasy and I'm in complete submission.

Which leads me to one conclusion. Brains are neat. And I don't mean in a crunchy zombie way, either.

What's most fascinating is that with all of our ways of reinventing the world each time we look at it, we don't manage to reinvent our friends out of existence. Gabriel still puts up with me. Why? I haven't bribed him yet this year or anything.

Line by line critiques addressed

2005-12-20T08:40:00.001-08:00

Julie, I think your take on line-by-line critiques is a good one, though there are two points I’d like to address. The first point being that you’ve only considered the negative aspects of the process. Secondly, the assumption that the line-by-line method treats the poem as a series of parts rather than a “coherent whole” is, admittedly, implied by the structure of the critique but is not necessarily representative of the critic’s reading of the poem.

1. Line by line critiques encourage fault finding and nit picking.
· Fault finding and nitpicking may be exactly what the poem needs.

2. Poems are more than the sum of their parts and few poems can withstand such total deconstruction.
· The deconstruction happens whether or not the critique is presented as a line-by-line. The critic surely read the poem line by line, just as surely as they read the whole poem. The line-by-line format allows the critic to demonstrate to the author how, in the progress of the poem, their particular reading developed.

3. Poems should be approached as if they were complete and only when that author wants more specific information should the poem be dissected.
· Dissection is part of a critique, to remove it as a tool puts blinders on the critic that hinder her ability to fully consider the poem.

4. Line by line critiques inject too much of the critiquer and do not often benefit anyone but beginning writers.
· The same is true for any style of critique. At issue here is not the particular format of a critique (line-by-line or otherwise), but rather the ability of the critic to not dictate the poem to the author.

5. Line by line critiques take too much time and discourage workshop participation.
· Line-by-line critiques encourage close readings and careful consideration. Blurb, overview-type critiques encourage a “drive by” mentality that can foster laziness.

Re: Love is a many-splintered whatsawhosit

2005-12-20T06:42:00.000-08:00

Ultimately, destiny is about how we mean. Destiny looks for an external source of meaning, while a rejection of destiny looks internally for a source of meaning.--gabriel

But, mine leetle snowflakeski, you are forgetting something. Destiny isn't just about how we mean, but who's responsible.--julie

Who is responsible and where something originates is a part of its meaning. Take, for example, sacred texts. Consider what happens to a sacred text if authorship is ascribed solely to the individual (mortal vessel, human, prophet, what-have-you) who wrote it. While the text itself is unchanged, the meaning of the text is altered because the origin (perceived or otherwise) has changed. Sacred texts are treated with the divine sharing authorship to greater or lesser extent.

But, to get to the meat of the issue: “This is how we treat what meaning we've got. Love is meaning, and we paint it rosy colors and pawn it off as someone else's responsibility.”

This is, in my view, the primary danger of concepts of destiny and fate, and why I cited them as being potentially destructive. I was thinking about this concept the other day but it ties in nicely here. The issue at hand is the comfort of hopelessness. If something is destined or fated there is nothing to be done to stop it, so I can feel free to do nothing at all. Destiny allows an abdication of personal responsibility that is very dangerous, especially when taken to extremes.

The comfort of hopelessness is by no means limited to something as fuzzy as destiny. It can be applied, sadly, to nearly all aspects of life. i.e., I suffer from chronic health problem(s), the doctors can do nothing about them, no one can do anything about them. This situation is hopeless and insurmountable. I can delay participating in life because my health problems inhibit me. I blame my health concerns for my lack of ambition, accomplishment, and successes. The health concerns have ownership of my failures, will not go away, and nothing can be done about them. Therefore, I don’t have to try to do anything because I already know nothing will help.

The above circumstance and interpretation is not unique. It happens to all sorts of people, all the time, in lots of ways. It is a difficult scenario to deal with, because most of the time the concerns are not unwarranted. Do chronic health conditions inhibit a person? Yes, without question. The same is true of socio-economic disadvantage and so on.

It is a somewhat strange situation. Much in the same way that a feeling of complete control grants comfort and a sense of stability, so too does the complete lack of control. Moreover, it is easy to participate in. All you have to do is look down at the morass of troubles, complications, and burdens that life has set upon you, and fall in. Difficulties shift, pain changes from pain to pain, distinct and identifiable. This movement, sinking, can feel like progress, but only so long as you can keep your eyes screwed shut.

Line by line critiques

2005-12-19T10:13:00.000-08:00

(Originally posted at Gazebo.)

Different boards seem to have different expectations when it comes to line-by-lines. Recently, I joined an email group with some old friends, and I got a detailed lbl on a poem. My reaction was one of dismay. I thought "There is a forest here, not just trees."

Which made me start thinking about lbl critiques in general. And it made me realize that I don't like them. I don't like giving them (though I used to) and I don't like receiving them. I think the tendency toward giving them results in a habit of nitpickery instead of treating the poem as a choerent whole that should be judged as a coherent whole.

A few years ago someone said that her problem with workshops is they assumed the poem was broken instead of assuming the poem was finished. That observation really hit home with me, and changed my approach to workshopped poems. With that change came my change in attitude toward line by lines. I wouldn't read a novel and critique it that way. I wouldn't read a book of poems and critique each one that way. Only as an exercise would I break a poem down into its components in such a way. So why would I do so in a workshop?

So, here are my thoughts:

1. Line by line critiques encourage fault finding and nit picking.

2. Poems are more than the sum of their parts and few poems can withstand such total deconstruction.

3. Poems should be approached as if they were complete and only when that author wants more specific information should the poem be dissected.

4. Line by line critiques inject too much of the critiquer and do not often benefit anyone but beginning writers.

5. Line by line critiques take too much time and discourage workshop participation.

What say you?

Love is a many splendored thingamajig

2005-12-14T10:34:00.000-08:00

You are a beautiful and unique snowflake, melting on my windscreen

2005-12-13T13:09:00.000-08:00

So, I was stuck in traffic in this stupid snowy weather, and naturally I got to thinking about how and why stuff happens to clean and decent folks like you and me. Well, you at any rate. So, let’s just get this whole destiny, fate-plate thing out of the way. I had a chance to revisit the discussion of grand purpose and destiny recently. When asked if I believed in it, I said that I wasn’t convinced that it doesn’t exist. Not particularly, anyways. How’s that for non-committal? Certainly I’m not entirely chuffed at the idea of my actions being directed by forces beyond my control, but you know, the world is like that sometimes. That said, do I really want to risk cutting myself out of the great chain of fate or fortune by denying it outright?

See, part of the problem with the question “Do you believe in Destiny?” is that it uses words that cause inspirational string music to spring up in the brains of some people. Sad people mostly. People who live too much in their heads. People who have unrealistic notions of who they are and what they are capable of. People like me. On the plus side, however, my people can produce enough bitterness to power an electric train. But, I’m getting sidetracked. Destiny! The word evokes the pivotal players in the wacky game of historical checkers: Alexander the Great, Einstein, Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Michael Jordan (think about it), the list of luminaries goes on for ages and ages. And then, with help from a swell by the Brain Symphony Harmonic, we tack on: “Me!”

Yes. Picasso, Mozart, Coltrane, Frank Lloyd Wright, A. G. Bell, and Jon Plotnick, director of shipping for the Midwest.

Lesson number 1: Save hyperbole until you really need it.

But let it not be said that I was dead set on snatching the laurels of destiny of Mr. Plotnick’s sparsely covered brow. Sure, you can have a destiny. In fact, I’m of the opinion that it is quite easy to argue in favor of destiny. Don’t warm up the Brain cellos just yet though, because the universe has a little surprise in store for you.

The foundation of my argument for destiny does not ask, “Do you have a destiny,” it asks, “Does anyone have a destiny?” Because if even one person has a destiny, then everyone has a destiny. Namely, to make it possible for the other person’s destiny to occur. The completely destiny-free universe is certainly possible, but we might not want to rush too quickly away from the possibility of a creamy, destiny-filled universe.

Of course, this is a sad little swirl in the snowglobe of meaning my sorry companions. Because, while in this system of thought you do have a destiny, that destiny may have been to neatly and quietly pack the groceries for the nice young lady who (not troubled with bagging her own groceries) began thinking of a series of reactions that will eventually lead her to dramatically advancing energy-cell technology. Congratulations, Jon Plotnick! You have fulfilled your Destiny! We now return you to your regularly scheduled vacuous existence.

Destiny seems to me to be at best an irksome catch-22, or at worst self-destructive navel gazing. You fulfill your destiny, therefore what, you are put out to pasture? The rest of your existence is marked by failure or simple and complete inconsequence? Or alternately, you fail to find the cubby marked “In case of Destiny: Break Glass.” You stumble about uncertainly waiting for your destiny to kick in and hail your success. It doesn’t, you don’t. Destiny, despite how it suggests future happenings, is invariably rooted in the past.

Ultimately, destiny is about how we mean. Destiny looks for an external source of meaning, while a rejection of destiny looks internally for a source of meaning. Both retain the option of meaninglessness. The delegation of meaning is something I think I’ll bump up against a lot, in these long rides home, but I think I’m going to have to peel back another layer or two before I get down into the meat of it. For now I think I'll just pay attention to the road.

We like you, we really like you!

2005-12-13T09:02:00.000-08:00

The internet is a boon for the weird, as it allows like to find like. We here at the SCWEWEE are dedicated to finding like: things we like, things that like us, things that are like us but cost less to feed, and the like.

It's like our jobs, y'know? Like totally.

Welcome to

2005-12-09T11:44:00.000-08:00

The Standardized Carter-Westling Empirical Weirdness Evaluation Engine.

You'll probably be sorry you visited, but that's not our fault.