David Bircumshaw wrote:

>Thank you, Doug, Mark, Judy.
>
>The focus, or the seed, of the several slightly different versions of this
>that exist certainly language: the starting pointw as quite simply thinking
>about the pharse 'it's raining cats and dogs' and thinking about what that
>phrase meant. There are several other expanded cliches present - like
>'blinding flash' for instance.
>
>
"Blinding flash" actually is easier, especially in a post-Alamagordo
universe. I have no idea where "cats & dogs" came from (I know, their
mothers). There is a perhaps "rural legend" that in the middle ages the
household beasts might congregate on the thatch roofing of the houses.
When the rain because intense enough, you had a Jersey Shore effect and
the roof fell in. Cats and dogs fell in with them. There are other
explanations, meaning that none of them are worth very much. A poet's
reflections are worth as much if not more than an etymologist's,
entomyolygist's, veterinarian's, or member of the cast of Six Feet Under.

>Its form, Judy, is still emerging, although the long lines in the e-mail
>version are longer than they should be (this is an accident of e-mail
>settings).
>
Consider that CK Williams did rather nicely for years writing a
fifteen-beat (?) line that bent and twisted all over the page. He like
Sam Alito, is from Jersey. Unlike Sam Alito he is a genius. Some
people hate Alito. Some people hate Williams' poetry. That's nice.

> Of the two other versions, one has less, one has more material,
>though I must confess I'd resist such a stripping down as Judy suggests.
>Interesting your observation about the last line, Mark, no-one's suggested
>that yet and its the same in all versions. I'll think about it altho' I did
>want a pointedly terse finish.
>
>
The question is what you are left with after you strip it down. Answer
from ME who has no standing whatsoever for now is that you are left with
someone else's poem. This is like the graduate student bewhoring him-
or herself to write the Director's dissertation for a quick kill and job
reference.

I do not believe my role here is to offer anyone a "close reading,"
explicacion de texte, or any of that. Nor is it necessarily anyone's
job to do that with me. Vague generalities that hint at more are fine.
"It basically [basically!!!!!] works"or "It is flawed enough for me to
send you private email" also can be sufficient public comments. Private
comments may be reserved for the person to whom they are addressed. I
have one person who lives a great distance away who periodically shreds
my writing because--key phrase coming--I ask her to. Shredding 'r'
She. She is a MUCH better craftsman than I can hope to be. Her ear, if
not better, is different enough so I have to hear the new resonances and
see if they are valid. I would rather do my small-town disk jockey and
say "Play it or break it" rather than "I yam the greatest star, I yam I
yam" and rewrite someone else's work in public. I've done it. It is
supremely vain.

DISCLAIMER: This is not the "policy" of Poetryetc nor of the Academy of
American Poets. In this dangerous neighborhood, the rules of engagement
seem to be based on a fistfight between William Holden & John Wayne in
"The Horse Soldiers": "What are the rules?" "Make up your own."

Ken

--
Kenneth Wolman
Proposal Development Department
Room SW334
Sarnoff Corporation
609-734-2538
            Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd:
            Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard.
W.H. Auden