Gary,

Thanks for filling me in,
Colin


----- Original Message -----
From: "Gary Blankenship" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, January 14, 2004 3:39 PM
Subject: Re: Once Upon a Time in Mexico Colin, Mike


What's "now a pho shop"? Something
local? Or is it a misprint? It's a bit of a mouthful anyway. I felt the last
two lines of the stanza had too much in them for two lines. I might be
tempted to say something like, "with antique stores and goods made in the
90's". As for the rest of the poem, I have some difficulty grasping the
significance of the different combinations of places and colours, but that's
very much my limitation ( because I don't know them, rather than a
limitation of the poem).

Colin, pho is a Viet noodle soup shop, now being franchised around the
States.

The later place names:  Jalisco is a Mexican state, Banderas Bay it's main
link to the Pacific.  Wash-a-Way Beach is a stretch of road on the
Washington coast that has had to be moved several times as it is lost to
winter storms.  Mukilteo is a large tide flat about 50 NE of this spot.
Fargo is a town in North Dakota and a vg movie, almost a cliché for Northern
bungling.  Tacoma is a town 25 miles South of here recently labeled the most
stressful city in the States, but famous for other things most not
complimentary.

*

 Hello Gary,
             I like the general tone and movement of this poem a lot. I
didn´t get all of the references to places but I think I could follow the
argument. I liked the way the language and phrasing flows along, the poem
feels full of things and images and that works very well, IMHO. I
understand, also, that the `I´ in the poem who is `as grey as the sand at
Wash-Away-Beach´ is not the same `I´ that wrote the poem ;-)

Best wishes,    Mike

Mike, grin, or he may be.

Thanks for the read and comments.

Gary



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