Jerry's comments (member since Dec 19, 2007)

Jerry's comments from the ¡ POETRY ! group.

lol. no.

thank you. its a good poem.

I really like it, however, I think the first line and last stanza should go. by taking out the first line, you really get into the "working" aspect of the poem. while ending w/ the dad is much stronger, plus the last stanza is more show than tell, the 2nd to last stanza shows us you took part in bowing, sweating, harvesting...

what do you think?

Raking Blueberries
-------------------------

bare backs bent toward
an August sun—
half way to prostration.

Bodies browned each day,
as their sweat dripped down to
earth.

Rows, rows, rows
berries
backs and sweeping arms
gathering little blue fruits
into buckets: sweep, sweep, sweep.

I raked once.
Daddy humored me,
letting me scoop with my small hands—
as his nourished, encouraged growth.

how about

Unhappy with its concrete mediums:
building happiness, seperating truth
from walking barefoot through wrecked streets.

Emotionally stumbling, shouting
at unseen shadows.

His alone to bear.

tighten, definitely tighten. don't worry about limiting to just adjectives or adverbs though. I've made some changes to show you some thoughts, or ways of tightening.

Lyric Fragment

shark-like scene ruined, harkened,
shells in a white kissed hand.
Still
plugged into that ripe dream
with woozy logic.
returned
to the Hotel Awake
with California no longer a theory
about surfaces,

and love only

obliging with a multiplied
banana (night) or
swathed in white.

I would never
use that word without
wearing gloves and a mask.
Which explains your urgent fecundity?
Dripping static
I wonder
wonder if the architecture
could bear
the wrong paint job.
Could we
marshal the effect
of so many stupid nights.


Aren't these indolent days?
Or tedious like
flux white.
Tree asunder and folly
tract -filled but no
coordination in the tongue.

Soul got kindled
backwards through a foxhole.
From Sweden on this is called
common agency.

I
cannot stop
kissing this book
nor Take it all
to the ocean

Love Rearranged

And that is how I consider Mother,
our drag-length driveway calling me
home with the sputtering of truck back-
fire, rocks clanking metal of auto-
mobile, rocks spurting from the balding tires.

Rocks, the decadent gray loosely gathered,
always called gravel, are making those occuring
cadences, sometime during a golden August afternoon,
sometime after the convecting winds
die, sometime before the evening
blue settles into dust.

However, I prefer the rhyming... the way it moves the poem. I would suggest gutting out some of the non-rhyming parts or add some non "or" rhymes.

I like it, Irene.

Dude, its Ammons. Its all the same, or whatever.

Julia,

Everyone and there Mom says that.

Jerry.

I did not think of you as insensitive, Irene. I just prefer to, as C.A. does, have a dialogue on poetry. The favorite workshop I had, rarely had a direct editing or workshop for that poem. The workshop did discuss many ideas on poetry, ideas that the poem up for workshop possessed or maybe ideas that it should possess. Sometimes, we joked and used a saturday night live line, "It needs more cowbell."

I was just hoping to find out where you got your "synthesis of collective interpretation" from. You mentioned you have read endlessly, who have you read? Who are your favorite poets?

I am hoping to glean anything from you that I can.

I agree with you, a lot of education standards or off. One of my favorite teachers of poetry, Phillip Levine (also a poet), taught at several universities. Some of them were Ivy league, others were lower end state universities. He said his best workshops were at Fresno State, because the students had failed at so much in life, they wre able to reach into that essence of poetry. While the ivy league workshops just alluded to greek mythology... or something like that.

anyhow, thanks for the comments.

Jerry.

Irene,

I am curious, what makes you feel those two parts are the entire poem, that I should celebrate the coyote? What is wrong/not right about the other parts that I should be rid of them or tear them down and rebuild them again?

What is so right about the coyote and 6 roads b, that they should be the essence of this poem?

I ask, because I read your comments on C.A.'s poem, "Stacking..." I notice you make your comments but don't support them. I am just hoping you would do so, as it would benefit the both of us more than the way your comments benefit us now.

As an example and as support of my statemnt of suppporting statements are beneficial, I used to have the same gut feelings like you. I used to know I like certain poems. I used to know I liked certain poets. Then I spent a year studying the art of poetry, wanting to know why I liked what I liked. And by studying, I mean, that is almost all I read about. I am slowly learning how to explain that, and it has helped my poetry more than anything in the world.

Jerry.

Julia,

I don't know. I believe it has become so different from what I normally do, as it is one of two poems where most of it has been gutted apart.

The only failed poem, within this sequence, that is recognizable from its original entity is "2. Fishing Rites." And I believe it is the weakest of the six parts.

I want to think that this is what I am trying to make my poetry, not necessarily the product, but the process. A consistent tear down and rebuild.

As for your poetry, don't worry if you feel your poetry is not adding up to anything lasting. I often feel that way about my own, but when I read other peoples poetry, I feel it. I do however get that feeling in the process of my writing, then I feel it agin in that process of tearing down and rebuilding. I guess that's why I want all of my poems to be like this, to be nearly completely tore down and then rebuilt. To not rest on those laurels of first inspirations.

As an example, this poem in its entirety is almost a year old. There are parts of the poem that have been in my creative collective for over two years. The parts failed, or seemed to fail, according to my experiences as a poet and as a reader. I am slowly changing them, and enjoy that process more than the product.

Jerry.

I noticed one post on the list was, as he stated, "literature" in film, and I have tons of those.

Conspiracy Theory, starring Julia Roberts and Mel Gibson, gives a splendid take on "The Catcher in The Rye."

"Balzac and The Little Chinese Seamstress" has some wonderful recounts of Balzac.

"Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind"

is the only movie not on your other list that pops up. It stars Jim Carey, co-starring Kirstin Dunst, who quotes an Alexander Pope poem, which one of the lines is the title of the movie.

... or a group of failures.

NO really.

They were originally part an extended series of poems that used that li-young lee phrase, "your voice the lasting echoe of my voice calling me home."

those poems didn't work and instead of discarding them completely, I used some of the stronger lines and started this poem.

let me know of any suggestions you have.

Questions more than suggestions.

What is the title to the poem?

Do you have a system of line breaks, as to when and why you break a line and start anew one? Do you have a system in place for stanzas?

I like the poem, but suggest taking out the stanza,

I too am a
painter of
reactions

that way the poem will read like this:

...
geology and
atmoshpere
composing
a long opera

to what?

To these iron cities?

overall, its good.

Jerry.

I first want to echoe Ruth and Malcom to scratch out any and all adverbs/ly-words. I am very glad you are willing to work within the cliche, if you weren't, we'd all be a bunch of boring descriptionists. My instructor, David Biespiel, once mentioned the idea of "saving the cliche". That we as writer's would use a cliche within our writing, but need to 'give it a breath of fresh of air' so to speak (pun intended).

I made some changes to it, but have added nothing that wasn't your own words. I made some line breaks different as they helped me guide my vocal pauses. I have however taken something out that I couldn't find a replacement for:

Her heart overflows
Filling the box with
Flowers.

***

I thought those lines were too cliche, and couldn't be saved. Since I don't want to add any of my "own words" I left a "_______" space for you to fill it in if you decided to go with any of my own ideas.

In general, I liked it, though the middle part of the poem loses some of its tension, its beauty.

here are my suggestions.

“The box, is memory, is oblivion, the image of the secret"
BACHELARD

“We must fill the box”
LANGEVELDE

She rations the day in boxes;
Like the moon, or Her dreams,
and the Buds about To bloom.

Arranges them On a shelf, lines them Up,
not letting One touch the other,
everything In its place.

The boxes sit there Like faithful Percival,
Until it is their turn to Be opened.
She sits In the middle of the Floor,
opens a box. ______________________

When she is Finished, she seals the box
And stacks it In its place,
till the Next time.

She rations her days in boxes,
“this is how it has to be.”

The boxes sit there Like seagulls at dawn,
The wind lifting the Smaller feathers,
Until it is their turn to Be opened.

One day she comes Home, pulls down A box.
Her heart An overflowing field Of windblown wheat.

She opens the box Labeled

“Lover”

surprised by her eyes
reflecting a sheetless bed.

No. its not an AIDs poem.

I am open, which is why I told Ruth that its not that I disagree or don't understand what she's saying. i am just trying to create a "nuts and bolts" approach to writing, somewhat like Richard Hugo did.

Sometime's suggestions that are made for my poems are made immediately, other times they are mulled to death over a period of months or even years only to be revived. occasionally, they aren't used or the poem was abandoned.

I was somewhat aware of the "pronoun problem", but wasn't sure how to solve it, because of my own "attempted doctrine" and inexperience. Attempting to stay to true to the, "I want to perfect my craft so I won't have to tell lies."

again, as for the readers, I don't mind leaving them somewhat bereft. I am not worried if they "don't get it," but am worried if they don't leave the poem, after reading it, without the intended feeling -- as you mentioned; love, passion, lonliness.

If they didn't leave with those feelings, then I either I failed as a writer, or they -- you -- failed as a reader. I remember reading David Biespiel when I first started REALLY reading and writing. I didn't get it. I didn't like his poems. I thought he was horrible. Then, about a year ago, I read his poetry again, and it was amazing. He didn't change anything in his already published book. He wasn't a bad writer. I was a bad reader.

Again, I am not disagreeing with you folks. I am definitely not saying you are bad readers. I just wasn't sure how to make those changes while staying within that set doctrine. After reading Julia's comments though, dwelling on them, I think I have found a solution to meet both criteriums. I have made some changes, and have set an additional poem next to it, that is somewhat what related.


Breaking Confidentiality

It wasn't their names I wanted to know,
but how your favorite lover
gripped the loose skin
behind your shoulder blades
and pulled it taut, why was it that
you felt sorry for the man
who pushed his nose against yours
and listened to you wheeze,
how long will you miss him,
the one who placed his chin
on your collar bone, and wept softly?




Love

Is how I am still wanting you
to be close, not sexin'
but skin-to-skin --
that all body and breathing,
my giving you breath
a return of your breath.
Tears to come when they come.

I have only submitted to a handful of places.

I was told, to submit close, geographically. Then work your name out in gradually bigger circles. I live in the NW, near Portland, OR. So, I mainly submit to Poetry Northwest, and a handful of other P-town magazines. I also submit to some other Northwest and West Coast Magazines. Slowly working my name out further and further.

After seeing so many of you submit to Rattle, I have done so as well. It seems like an amazing magazine.

My cover letters vary, depending on the relationship with the editor. The more personal relationship I have with the editor, the more personal the letter. The closest one learned how I prefer to cook my eggs in the morning, and how my preference differs in the evening.

I don't really keep track of what I've sent out, but am going to give it a try.

I collect my rejection letters, and have come to enjoy those with a personal touch to it.

Jerry.

A lot of it has to do with "too self-involved", or should I say that it sounds off the horn that I am "too self-involved."

In situations like this, where the poem is well-written, I often change the subject, which is poetry

so instead of poetry... let's use the word, "Sex." and how it changes the poem... for better or worse...

or maybe change poetry into "patriotism" or whatever is personal in your life.

I kind of already know poetry is a part of your personal life, that it is important, and that if it doesn't burst out of you, then it probably pinches, pokes, and prodes you, or gropes you in the dark.

what else does all that to you?