Re: a comment on Middle-Aged White Woman by Dovina	Goad 80.132.205.98	24-Apr-05/6:36 AM
Kim Campbell
Re: a comment on Butterfly Plague by zodiac	zodiac 213.186.180.94	24-Apr-05/4:55 AM
Thanks! Interestingly, that's really the only image in this poem, and I used it about 10 times in 20 lines. I'd have liked to have included more, but I just don't know that much about moths.
Re: a comment on Middle-Aged White Woman by Dovina	zodiac 213.186.180.94	24-Apr-05/4:52 AM
Oh. I guess it's a marvel of computer programming then. My wife says that as an undergraduate she got a mild preference for blacks on the Harvard test. Should I worry?
Re: a comment on Middle-Aged White Woman by Dovina	zodiac 213.186.180.94	24-Apr-05/4:35 AM
Only a few decades ago, it was considered perfectly enlightened to say things like, "I love blacks; they're such great athletes and dancers. They've such gleaming white smiles! And they're always very polite and docile." What's changed since then? I doubt very much Americans' biases have changed very much. And besides, the speaker of the quote above might easily have scored a bias FOR blacks on -=Dark_Angel=-'s test. Still, I doubt even Dovina would feel very comfortable about saying something like the above today. What's changed is the vocabulary for talking about blacks, women, or groups of any kind of people. Someone decades ago realized that despite the above's seeming pro-black bias, it was still mildly offensive or denigrating to blacks, especially ones who, I don't know, fly fighter jets or own small stores of some kind, and the word got around. Most of us probably didn't hear it expressly in school or whatever. And I'd go even further and say our current aversion to saying such things doesn't come naturally to most people. However we learned it, we did have to learn it somewhere, even if just from TV or casual conversation. There are still tons of things that are slightly denigrating to blacks, though most people don't see how until they're told. Perfectly unbiased people accidentally say them all the time without realizing it. Most of what I'm trying to say is that, with all the best intentions in the world, Dovina has. Mostly, like you said, from naivete. I don't think she's really a racist.
Re: a comment on Middle-Aged White Woman by Dovina	zodiac 213.186.180.94	24-Apr-05/4:10 AM
I don't think it's fair to criticize my country for lacking female leaders. All you've done is borrowed some other country's aging queen.
Re: a comment on Middle-Aged White Woman by Dovina	zodiac 213.186.180.94	24-Apr-05/4:05 AM
And I'm ashamed to have repeated it all. You just didn't seem to have gotten it before.
Re: a comment on Middle-Aged White Woman by Dovina	zodiac 213.186.180.94	24-Apr-05/4:04 AM
1) The verb go in "go ahead" is in what's called the mandative tense. That comes from the same root as command and mandatory. "Go ahead, make my day" is a perfect example of what I'm talking about. The guy obviously can't really make Clint Eastwood's day, except by Clint's express permission. 2) I don't see how the poem implies that retribution isn't in order. Out of curiosity, what part do you think implies that?
Re: This one the love by thepinkbunnyofdoom	Dovina 204.250.12.246	24-Apr-05/4:00 AM
Many have fought the concept of love and ended up loveless or love torn or unlovable. Love always wins, somewhere else maybe, but it always wins. Bow down to it.
Re: a comment on Middle-Aged White Woman by Dovina	Dovina 204.250.12.246	24-Apr-05/3:41 AM
All this is true and applicable to the poem except the assumption of my naivity for writing a whining poem from the position of middle-aged american white woman who is far less oppressed than most people in the world. I recognize my privilaged position, but it does not prevent me from expressing an instance of racism against me. I thought it would come accrss as a case of what's called reverse dicrimination, but instead it aroused the old racially based passions. That's enlightening. It should be possible to write passionately about racial issues without causing everyone to think I live in a prejudiced box. It should be, but maybe it isn't.
Re: a comment on Prickly Pear by Dovina	Dovina 204.250.12.246	24-Apr-05/3:28 AM
Although it is somewhat about a cactus, I am happy that someone noticed it might also be about more. Yeah, the thorns could be described in terms of the violent struggle for life in nature and society; I chose to downplay them.
Re: Prickly Pear by Dovina	thepinkbunnyofdoom 4.224.24.116	23-Apr-05/11:45 PM
Simple, but good. Athough you description of the defense is a little lite for my taste. It's a struggle for life, via conservative nature. If this isn't about a Cactus(at least somewhat), sorry for being stupid. <3 Jason
Re: All You Need Is Gloves by -=DIABETES=-	thepinkbunnyofdoom 4.224.24.116	23-Apr-05/11:29 PM
No glove, no love. This needs some sex. I mean good, hard, 30 minute(because the hooker charges by the hour and it took about 25 minutes to get there) sex. Seriously though, "manufacturer", just doesn't work with how I'm reading this. Not to mention the fact that I was a little bored, and hoping either more lewd, or better writing from a -=_=-, even minus the _.
Re: Esplanade by Wulf	sonawrote 205.188.116.72	23-Apr-05/8:55 PM
I rather loved this....I am not as experienced a writer and enjoyed the format and rhyme... tok me in for a great visual journey, Thanks...
Re: a comment on Middle-Aged White Woman by Dovina	-=Dark_Angel=-, P.I. 82.39.21.58	23-Apr-05/7:48 PM
If I may offer my enormous sagging tuppence: As you may know, I am the primary patron of the Reading Room at Wiltsbury. Therefore, as well as because of my degenerative condition, I am entitled to a certain... shall we say "leeway" in my behaviour. It does not shame me to say that I push this privelege as far as possible at all times. One morning I wheeled into the Belkin foyer, covered in jellied-eels and bellowing. Another time I flopped out of my chair and squirmed upon the carpet pitifully. When Mrs. Hedges hurried to the rescue, I beckoned her down to my buttocks, and parped on her handbag. On Christmas Eve of 19--, I suspended myself from the domed ceiling of the Chetwoad Room, using a horrifying system of hoists and reverse buckle-squats. I had instructed my manservant to dress me as "Mephistopheles, were he caked in faeces." It was a glorious, glorious moment when I descended, shrieking, onto the Nativity play below. A child was crushed in several places. There was a short-lived attempt to lynch me, which I countered by lifting the crushed child and rubbing it on myself. Or perhaps I only imagined that later, when I had been sedated. What has this to do with the matter at hand? Quite.
Re: Butterfly Plague by zodiac	bamf909 63.26.112.238	23-Apr-05/5:40 PM
i like the imagery of moth wings beating against a window.
Re: a comment on the solitary tree by bamf909	bamf909 63.26.112.238	23-Apr-05/5:35 PM
actually, the purple is an instance of somehtingt intentionally left out- purple mountain's majesty is the next line of the song alluded to and should be inferred by the reader.
Re: The Aftermath by darylchew	Dovina 204.250.12.246	23-Apr-05/12:05 PM
A rephrasing of a common theme, and not a very good one.
Re: a comment on Middle-Aged White Woman by Dovina	Dovina 204.250.12.246	23-Apr-05/10:29 AM
This comment is an example of what I mean by 30%. Everything in it has been said on this page before.
Re: Poets are dead! by Prince of Void	Goad 80.132.234.116	23-Apr-05/6:26 AM
Listen, this is how pathos works: exaggeration kills it. Big giant concepts kill it. Feel desolate? describing the world as a vast empire of desolation will not make us relate to your sense desolation. We can look around and see for ourselves that the world is not a stygian yard of nightmares; everything is not dead; nothingness does not have claws (how can nothingness have claws? nothingness is nothingness. Re-read Sartre and try to actually understand him this time instead of inanely using some of the words he uses). So when you describe the entire universe as somehow for some reason having as it's sole purpose the mirroring of your particular bad mood or bout of depression WE DON'T BUY IT. Little details create pathos. Describe the one little mournful detail in a generally indifferent world of sunny days and rainy days that occur at random; celebrations, wars, funerals, weddings, parties & columbus high school massacres that all occur at random with absolutely no regard for the psychological state of one teenager (I truly truly hope you are still a teenager) who's obsessed with darkness and paints his fingernails black. That one little detail that's personal is what will capture our attention, make us relate to your sense of desolation. You are not goth. Fear of Garbage is goth -- good goth. The difference between you and her is neatly captured in the difference in your nicknames. Yours: there's only one Prince of Darkness, or Prince of the Void. You are not him. You're a depressed teenager. A bazillion other depressed teenagers have already used your nickname in a bazillion dungeons & dragons game. It's so utterly non-original that you'd have seemed quirkier and more alienated if you nicknamed yourself Bob. Hers: Fear of Garbage, abbreviated to F.o.G. It's clever, and unique. It refers to the character of her writing on multiple levels -- both in its full & acronym form. And it manages to be at least as instantly recognizeable as goth as "Prince of Void" but without seeming pathetically absurd. If you intended this pome as a description of the last level of Diablo III then forgive me, I suppose it works reasonably well in that role. Though there's no mention of those things that eat corpses and then spit them at you. But it has absolutely nothing to do with the actual world that we actually live in. Not even metaphorically.
Re: a comment on Middle-Aged White Woman by Dovina	Dovina 204.250.12.246	23-Apr-05/5:47 AM
1) When I said "Go head . . . " it was not telling anyone to do anything, but on the order of "Go ahead, make my day." 2) The statement does not concern itself with current injustices to blacks. It only mentions past injustices and muses that retribution might be in order. The implication is that retribution is not in order.