Many thanks, everyone, for reading and commenting. I'm pleased you liked
it, mostly.
Barbara, I'm grateful for the detailed suggestions, which I've printed off
to study. The form's a villanelle, so I can't really change the repeating
lines (in fact I've already taken more liberties than some purists would
allow). I don't think we've spoken before: I'm fairly new on the Brit
poetry scene, although I have a lot of contacts in America.
Richard, Gary, thank you for those heartening comments.
Mick, that's OK, mate, chacun a son gout: I think you and I are at
opposite ends of the spectrum. I read a lot of stuff on the boards that's
so bad I wouldn't dream of commenting; also poems I quite like, sometimes,
but don't comment on because I have nothing constructive to say.
Sally, interesting suggestion about the triolet, although what I have to
say here could never be compressed into that form. I do incline towards
understatement, I know, and have been told off for it often enough before.
Sudden death of close friends generates a lot of conflicting emotions, of
course, but the strangest of all, to me, is the way we somehow seem to
blame the dead for dying. Guilt transference, I suppose.
Best regards,
David
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