Hi there Mike, 

Your comments and suggestions are right on the money, and I'm very glad
you took the time to share them with me. I've printed them out to use in
my final revision of the poem. 

Thanks again, Mike, I really do appreciate it. Cheerwell, Mary :O)

--- Mike Horwood <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> > Hello Mary,
>              My first comment concerns punctuation. It´s a choice the
> poet has, of course, whether to use it or not but I notice that despite
> dispensing with it you nevertheless use capital letters to indicate the
> start of a new sentence and this seems inconsistent to me. I feel that
> if the poet feels sentence structures are important enough to be
> indicated in this way then full punctuation should be used. In addition,
> I think that by leaving punctuation out you have created some
> unclearness in how you want lines to be read. For example, you begin
> line 3 with a capital `H´ indicating a new sentence. That would have to
> mean the imperative voice, yet such an exhortation to the reader seems
> out of place here. I believe the line should really be read as a
> subordinate clause, as if there was a comma at the end of line 2. That
> would mean that `hear´ should be written with a lower case `h´. The same
> applies to the start of line 19. Would it be a good idea to punctuate
> throughout?
> There were some aspects of diction that I wondered about: `cinematheque´
> seems an unnessarily `odd´ word and the phrase `the force of blade´
> sounds a bit awkward to my ear. The word `sod´ may be used as an
> uncountable but in this context I think countable would be more usual
> and in either case I want to put the article before it when I read. I
> wonder if including the word `coffin´ is overworking the idea a little.
> In the last line you have `a its´ and I guess this was where you hadn´t
> decided which to use and then forgot to erase the reject. I think I´d
> favour `a´. The final stanza was definitely my favourite part of the
> poem. 
> I hope these comments are useful. I would like to add the usual
> disclaimer that these are just my own opinions and I could have missed
> your point and be quite wrong, so please bin any of this that seems wide
> of the mark.
> 
> 
> 
> Best wishes,   Mike
> 
> 
> 
> > Lähettäjä: Maryann Hazen Stearns <[log in to unmask]>
> > Päiväys: 2004/02/02 ma PM 04:59:16 GMT+02:00
> > Vastaanottaja: [log in to unmask]
> > Aihe: The Poem With No Title
> > 
> > Hello there friends,
> > 
> > here's a new one for c&c:
> > 
> > ~*~
> > 
> > The Poem With No Title
> > 
> > I see the curved edge of the shovel
> > as if memory were a personal cinematheque
> > Hear the dry ground protest against
> > the force of blade
> > the metallic snack of shale
> > that jars arms
> > sets teeth on edge
> > 
> > I can still feel the spine protest
> > as foot levers sod
> > over and over until the hole opens
> > wide enough and the thought
> > that it would never
> > could never
> > be deep enough never deep enough
> > to hold this pain
> > 
> > I see feet walk the path
> > toward a crooked gray house
> > with porch steps worn down in the center
> > See the hand pull the screen door
> > hear the screech of hinges
> > like the lid of a coffin
> > reluctant to open
> > 
> > The feet plod up stairs
> > enter a bedroom
> > The back feels a quilted mattress
> > The bones fall into place
> > Through the open window
> > the song of an oriole
> > shares the holes of my ears
> > with the tears
> > creeping from my eyes
> > and the sound of the bird
> > changes to the ocean
> > trapped inside a its shell
> > 
> > 
> > ~*~
> > 
> > Cheerwell, Mary :O)
> > 
> > 
> > =====
> > Good Cheer & Be Well,
> >      Maryann Hazen Stearns
> > 
> > "Under The Limbo Stick" http://www.geocities.com/Faerhart/
> > 
> > __________________________________
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> > 


=====
Good Cheer & Be Well, 
     Maryann Hazen Stearns

"Under The Limbo Stick" http://www.geocities.com/Faerhart/

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