On Sun, Jul 20, 2008 at 2:19 PM, Frederick Pollack <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:

> Sorry --- "through THE window".


Damn, I thought I'd caught you out for a minute there, overdoing it.

I will revise this poem, but I'm going to try to forget your revision while
I do it, and just follow your guidelines -- to see what I do with that. Then
I'll come back and look. I doubt, though, that this piece has potential to
be among my best.

In the meantime, I've posted: Poetry, Personality & Design
http://www.sbpoet.com/2008/07/poetry-personality-design.html -- Thanks for
letting me quote you.

I didn't quote any of your critiques, mostly because I don't want my readers
(who presumably like my poetry) coming to my defense. But I may want to do
so, later, if that's permissable?

-- 


~ SB | http://www.sbpoet.com |




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> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Frederick Pollack" <
> [log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Sunday, July 20, 2008 4:18 PM
> Subject: Re: Thunder Moon
>
>
>  ----- Original Message ----- From: "sharon brogan" <[log in to unmask]>
>> To: <[log in to unmask]>
>> Sent: Sunday, July 20, 2008 1:53 PM
>> Subject: Thunder Moon
>>
>>
>>  It woke me at midnight. It's looking at me
>>> from the other side of the dark window.
>>> Who drummed it up? It touches everything,
>>> the photographs on the far wall, the chair
>>> that rocked me on my grandmother's lap,
>>> this bed in its summer whites. It's quiet,
>>> stealthy. If I sit still long enough,
>>>
>>> I can see it move. But the light in this room
>>> does not move. This light is a thin and silent
>>> blanket, like a dry mist, it silvers the dog's paws,
>>> twitching with dreams. What does she dream?
>>> Does she hear the drumming? Run, run
>>> little dog. Catch that hare, take its throat
>>> in your domesticated teeth.
>>>
>>> The moon is thinking about wildfire, it dreams
>>> of rain. Does it remember the sound, the shudder,
>>> of its many wounds? The moon is bruised with time.
>>> The moon pulls at my loosening flesh. It reminds me
>>> of my own pulse, my own blood, my own dryness.
>>> It conjures bolts of fire, it sets the mountains aflame.
>>> Lightening, this moon. Yes. Lightening.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>  I've left only the word "Thunder," in the title, to suggest impending
>> rain. That rain and the rejuvenation it symbolizes are what the speaker
>> hopes for, what the reader should be made to hope for.  But the reader
>> should be made to have that experience and feel that hope for h/hself - not
>> expected to feel pity or affection for the speaker.  "The chair that rocked
>> me on my grandmother's lap," besides being awkward, wanders pointlessly away
>> from the poem's major thread of imagery.  In Stanza 2: Are there blankets
>> that AREN'T "silent"?  Which metaphor for this particular moonlight, "a thin
>> and silent blanket" or "a dry mist", is effective and necessary?  The switch
>> to the dog and the details of its dream is, like the childhood rocking in
>> St. 1, undisciplined shapelessness.  St. 3: Is the moon "thinking" and
>> "dreaming" at the same time?  A double pathetic fallacy the reader will not
>> accept; like the preceding "blanket" and "mist," it shows only lack of
>> editing.  ---  There are a lot of "I"s and "me"s in this poem.  Use them
>> more sparingly; experiment with not using them at all.  Using them
>> excessively creates a "look at me" poem, inherently uninteresting.  MY
>> loosening flesh.  MY pulse. MY blood.  MY dryness.  An all too familiar
>> whiny rhetoric; all it says to me is "Oh, this body is such a pain" (and
>> occasionally "and therefore I'm oppressed"). --- The word is "lightning."
>>  "Lightening," getting brighter, used as a near-homonym for lightning, does
>> not strike me as clever but as heavy-handed and ineffective.  Imagery, not
>> wordplay, should be your sole tool in this poem.
>>
>> It wakes me at midnight. Stares
>> through the window, touches
>> everything, the photographs
>> on the far wall, grandmother's chair,
>> this bed in summer whites. It's stealthy.
>> If I sit long enough,
>> I see it move. But the light
>> in the room doesn't move; it's a dry mist,
>> silvering the paws of the dog,
>> who also dreams.  The moon dreams
>> of meteors.  It remembers the shudder
>> of many wounds.  It pulls
>> at my loosening flesh, affirms my own dryness.
>>
>>