12-01-2013, 03:54 PM
OK, newb, here goes.
I like the idea a lot. I have a ... visceral antipathy to some words; always have. Like 'laundry' and 'spectacular.' Your poem ebbs and flows into and out of a variety of moods, and just when I'm starting to flow with your thought, a word will intrude and jerk me up short. (A pebble in a horse's hoof will throw a general.) A word can be as critical as a line. I'd almost rather see 'linen' than 'laundry' even though not many use linen anymore. I'd rather use a 'wrong' word the reader will pass by than the 'right' one that will stop him.
"Not for me the sea-tangled curls of Ariadne" is a jarring grammatical structure that rushes in from another century just when I was in the present moment with your writing. I'd suggest making it all this color, or change the structure.
Finally, as my elderly parents said recently, "Write shorter emails." This says more about their interpersonal sensibilities than it does about the fact that they're retired and have nowhere to be that MY emails are keeping them from, but think about length. I said to my daughter this summer as she waded in Trillium Lake, speaking carelessly out loud to her friend nearby while parents sat quietly on the shore, "Since water carries sound, if you're going to verbalize every thought that comes into your head, you have a duty to make them interesting." Shore-based applause followed. Can you say what you mean with less? Is there any fat to trim here...? Asking, not saying.
I love this:
"I will wander in the wide palm of some unnamed lake,
fishing with neither bait nor hook. Let there be a light wind."
Then I read 'spectacular...' : )
A chair in which you're rocking is probably a rocking chair -- no need to call it one and use the word twice.
"and in winter watch the snow cover all sign
of my most mild efforts." Efforts at what...? Winter is harsh; whay are your efforts mild? Gardening efforts...?
You are certainly free to ignore all this. It takes a lot of courage to offer up your work -- your Isaac -- and I am not Everyman, so my opinions are... necessarily narrowed by my experience. Keep writing.
I like the idea a lot. I have a ... visceral antipathy to some words; always have. Like 'laundry' and 'spectacular.' Your poem ebbs and flows into and out of a variety of moods, and just when I'm starting to flow with your thought, a word will intrude and jerk me up short. (A pebble in a horse's hoof will throw a general.) A word can be as critical as a line. I'd almost rather see 'linen' than 'laundry' even though not many use linen anymore. I'd rather use a 'wrong' word the reader will pass by than the 'right' one that will stop him.
"Not for me the sea-tangled curls of Ariadne" is a jarring grammatical structure that rushes in from another century just when I was in the present moment with your writing. I'd suggest making it all this color, or change the structure.
Finally, as my elderly parents said recently, "Write shorter emails." This says more about their interpersonal sensibilities than it does about the fact that they're retired and have nowhere to be that MY emails are keeping them from, but think about length. I said to my daughter this summer as she waded in Trillium Lake, speaking carelessly out loud to her friend nearby while parents sat quietly on the shore, "Since water carries sound, if you're going to verbalize every thought that comes into your head, you have a duty to make them interesting." Shore-based applause followed. Can you say what you mean with less? Is there any fat to trim here...? Asking, not saying.
I love this:
"I will wander in the wide palm of some unnamed lake,
fishing with neither bait nor hook. Let there be a light wind."
Then I read 'spectacular...' : )
A chair in which you're rocking is probably a rocking chair -- no need to call it one and use the word twice.
"and in winter watch the snow cover all sign
of my most mild efforts." Efforts at what...? Winter is harsh; whay are your efforts mild? Gardening efforts...?
You are certainly free to ignore all this. It takes a lot of courage to offer up your work -- your Isaac -- and I am not Everyman, so my opinions are... necessarily narrowed by my experience. Keep writing.