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Simpson was one of those guys who got ignored in the Seventies, I never had to worry over him, so I did not. This can be reversed. I am looking for MODELS, not to copy from, but as sources of ways to resolve technical issues. I wrote far more effectively about my old cat Pushkin who I had put down in 2006. The workshop leader, Adele Kenny, gave us a prompt: write about what is not there. She then took a call from HER vet about one of her Yorkshire terriers who was quite ill. I'd not written about this cat, who really was my best friend for 9 years, and if what came out was imperfect, the reversals of What Is Not strengthened it. CAT ELEGY: YOU ARE NOT HERE (September 9, 2006) While you were dying I stroked your coat. It was not beautiful, it never was, but I stroked your coat because it was yours as years before I healed my de-married self by stroking that same coat, crying then as I cried this morning, by loving you not because you were my perfect magical healer, but because you loved me and wanted me now not to hold you close as I’d held you close, but to let you go to Outside Over There, but you were not there and now you are here. Maybe a better expression..... -------------- Ken Wolman http://awfulrowing.wordpress.com/ "All writers are hunters, and parents are the most available prey." --Francine du Plessix Gray On Jun 2, 2010, at 8:46 PM, andrew burke wrote: > Maybe a Louis Simpson treatment. One of his narrative poems with objective > scenes and much ellipsis. Do you know a poem of his entitled The Eleventh > Commandment? Like that (but shorter). The feelings still come through but > they are triggered in the reader and not stated by the writer. > > Andrew > > On 3 June 2010 06:49, Ken Wolman <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > >> I have a bad habit of doing reasonable endings but getting there can be a >> horror. We both nailed the weaknesses. It seems to thump along, as much as I >> tried to get flow and emphasize the emotional core rather than physical >> detail. Maybe a drawing board poem, or maybe, as I suggested, chalk it up to >> experience. >> >> k >> -------------- >> Ken Wolman http://awfulrowing.wordpress.com/ >> >> "All writers are hunters, and parents are the most available prey." >> --Francine du Plessix Gray >> >> On Jun 2, 2010, at 5:21 PM, Douglas Barbour wrote: >> >>> You point to the flaws you feel might be there, Ken, & I feel somewhat >> the same way: it's a strong story, but it seems too much story to me; & I >> dont know what would work for you to break that sense of prose movement, but >> something of a fragmenting might help. >>> >>> The ending you lead to is powerful: >>> >>> but Miles was surprised by a terrible grace, >>> entry into a world without pain, his thread cut not too soon but in a >> moment of accident. >>> >>> >>> maybe shorter lines would power it a bit more? & was it 'accident'? >>> >>> Doug >>> On 2-Jun-10, at 9:29 AM, Kenneth Wolman wrote: >>> >>>> VETERINARY (June 25, 2002) >>> >>> Douglas Barbour >>> [log in to unmask] >>> >>> http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/ <http://www.ualberta.ca/%7Edbarbour/> >>> >>> Latest books: >>> Continuations (with Sheila E Murphy) >>> http://www.uap.ualberta.ca/UAP.asp?LID=41&bookID=664 >>> Wednesdays' >>> >> http://abovegroundpress.blogspot.com/2008/03/new-from-aboveground-press_10.html >>> >>> because I want to die >>> >>> writing Haiku >>> >>> or, better, >>> >>> long lines, clean and syllabic as knotted bamboo. Yes! >>> >>> Phyllis Webb >> > > > > -- > Andrew > http://hispirits.blogspot.com/ > 'Mother Waits for Father Late' republished available at > http://www.picaropress.com/ > http://www.qlrs.com/poem.asp?id=766 > http://frankshome.org/AndrewBurke.html