Hi,

Your play was useful in that it allowed me to expose a little of my
history to the list, so I tips me hat to you, whoever you are!

Glad to be of service! I hope my bit-part fitted well in your theatre
</bows to rapturous applause>.

I've  thought of taking a Poetry for Dummies course because I've
sometime felt that I've been missing something, something that when I
write goes astray. Of course, books and courses are never the answer.
When I was speaking to Alison Croggon the other night, I mentioned
that I volunteered to review a couple of books for John Tranter. I
said that I needed to learn the rules, get some tools etc, but she
replied, quite rightly, that you should make the rules/tools up if you
don't have them to hand. She is totally spot-on in this assessment.
What was/is missing is my self-confidence. This knocked-on to the fact
that I was reviewing a book by a "Cambridge" poet and in this burg,
calling down judgement on a "cambridge" poet seemed to me to have
consequences and these consequences, imagined I have to say, came,
eventually to weigh heavily on me and so apologies to John, but, what
with the divorce and such, and this crisis in my self-confidence, the
reviews remain unfinished. I will do them one day if only to satisfy
myself that I can make the neccessary judgments.

Roger

On 6/21/05, judy prince <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> My dear Petcies:
> 
> Now I know better the nature of deceit---not thoroughly, but from the role of a deceiver, a role I've always held in the cruelest contempt.  Some of you, unknowingly, have participated today in an (originally unintended by me) interactive play.
> 
> It began with my wanting to be playful, so I bothered dear friend Ken, asking him in ValleyGirlSpeak to explain his latest poem.  He surprised me by answering completely seriously!  I figured he was being "tongue in cheek," and I also thought how wonderful if some student Petcies were "hearing" his explanation, so I continued my role, at last asking for his sympathy by making up the story of my getting an F on a poem in class.  I had, by that time, thoroughly taken on the role of a gutsy "underdog"---a misunderstood Goth Girl.
> 
> Once again, a surprise:   so many of you registered your compassion with "my" situation!  I kept relishing that, and thanking each of you---and not wanting it to stop!
> 
> But now it has stopped, although at every step of the unfolding drama I had hoped that some students could  know your emailed kindnesses and explanations---and I still wish that they could.  I'm a recently retired teacher of English to adults of various ages and ethnicities, in the City Colleges of Chicago.  I know, therefore, something of plagiarism---sometimes realizing it "after the fact" and sometimes coming down too hard on the student---but seldom understanding the subtleties of the situations, unfortunately.
> 
> I don't have purple hair or wear nose rings, I'm not taking a POMES FER DUMMIES course, and I don't stack stock in the aisles at Best Buy.  And now I can return to my mainest obsession:   writing my play on Shakespear the woman.
> 
> I want to thank you for your warm, patient, instinctively generous responses---and for your being clear channels from the Source of greatest compassion.
> 
> Judy Prince
> 


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