replying on The Incubation by oneglove
7 Dec 2005, 12:46 AM
The second, I believe. The real point is that people who whine about things whine about American culture becoming a hodgepodge of unoriginal sound bites, used poorly. I don't whine myself, but I think they have good some good points occasionally.
replying on Irish Holliday by Dovina
7 Dec 2005, 12:43 AM
They are happy, but whatever.
replying on Jesus, you I see by amanda_dcosta
7 Dec 2005, 12:42 AM
Just what I read in college. It's where St Francis Xavier is buried, right? How did you end up there?
replying on FIVE LOAVES AND TWO FISH by amanda_dcosta
7 Dec 2005, 12:38 AM
Religiously and metaphorically, yes. But, from a literary standpoint, a metaphor needs to work in the literal sense before you can worry about making it work in the metaphorical sense. Consider comparisons like
"He was intolerably stupid, Alex Trebek with a better moustache",
or
"his hands so tenderly caressing the piano keys were miniature David Beckhams sprinting across the cricket pitch".
Sure, the guy's stupid, and sure someone playing well is like David Beckham, but the metaphors fall apart, because Alex Trebek isn't stupid and has a great moustache, or because David Beckham is a good soccer player, not a good cricketer.
I'm not disputing your actual meaning, which is a good one. But if you have to get a Christian message across by changing the literal events in the Bible -well, that can't happen, can it?
Cheers
-zodiac
"He was intolerably stupid, Alex Trebek with a better moustache",
or
"his hands so tenderly caressing the piano keys were miniature David Beckhams sprinting across the cricket pitch".
Sure, the guy's stupid, and sure someone playing well is like David Beckham, but the metaphors fall apart, because Alex Trebek isn't stupid and has a great moustache, or because David Beckham is a good soccer player, not a good cricketer.
I'm not disputing your actual meaning, which is a good one. But if you have to get a Christian message across by changing the literal events in the Bible -well, that can't happen, can it?
Cheers
-zodiac
replying on YOUR OWN PLEASURE by Zoe
6 Dec 2005, 6:05 AM
PS-Are you still in Mexico? Do you know the carved church at Tonantzintla, near Cholula, Puebla?
http://tinyurl.com/aunyl
http://tinyurl.com/8k3g6
http://tinyurl.com/aunyl
http://tinyurl.com/8k3g6
replying on YOUR OWN PLEASURE by Zoe
6 Dec 2005, 5:54 AM
Several parts of your poem remind me of the time I tried to do this:
http://www.poemranker.com/poem-details.j
http://www.poemranker.com/poem-details.j
replying on YOUR OWN PLEASURE by Zoe
6 Dec 2005, 5:44 AM
We're used to things being messy. I blame nentwined's fixed-width font fixation for most of poemranker's intrinsic messiness. Yours was the third all-caps title I'd read in as many poems; that's why I asked.
replying on YOUR OWN PLEASURE by Zoe
6 Dec 2005, 5:42 AM
Nothing. We're easily distracted.
Does it bother you that the form you're taking seriously was invented as a mockery of serious form? I mean, I don't see why it would, I'm just curious. I think you're a better writer than Billy Collins, by the way.
Does it bother you that the form you're taking seriously was invented as a mockery of serious form? I mean, I don't see why it would, I'm just curious. I think you're a better writer than Billy Collins, by the way.
replying on Jesus, you I see by amanda_dcosta
6 Dec 2005, 2:29 AM
Poor girl. You're gonna scare her to death. I can promise you they don't have people like you in Goa.
on YOUR OWN PLEASURE by Zoe
6 Dec 2005, 2:06 AM
What's up with all these capitalized titles?
on The Incubation by oneglove
6 Dec 2005, 2:01 AM
on Irish Holliday by Dovina
6 Dec 2005, 1:46 AM
Sad.
on Irish Holliday by Dovina
6 Dec 2005, 1:45 AM
Bad.
replying on Snake in the Grass by thepinkbunnyofdoom
6 Dec 2005, 1:44 AM
By way of Jimmy Buffet's "Margaritaville".
This is simply awful. Between this and Dovina's Hollidday poem, I'm wondering if there's any America left to come home to.
This is simply awful. Between this and Dovina's Hollidday poem, I'm wondering if there's any America left to come home to.
on Irish Holliday by Dovina
6 Dec 2005, 1:42 AM
Holiday. One L.
replying on YOUR OWN PLEASURE by Zoe
6 Dec 2005, 1:40 AM
Paradelle?
'Billy Collins claimed that the paradelle was invented in eleventh century France, but he actually invented it himself to parody strict forms, particularly the villanelle. His sample paradelle, "Paradelle for Susan" (c1997), was intentionally terrible, completing the final stanza with the line "Darken the mountain, time and find was my into it was with to to".
When Collins first published the paradelle, it was with the footnote "The paradelle is one of the more demanding French fixed forms, first appearing in the langue d'oc love poetry of the eleventh century. It is a poem of four six-line stanzas in which the first and second lines, as well as the third and fourth lines of the first three stanzas, must be identical. The fifth and sixth lines, which traditionally resolve these stanzas, must use all the words from the preceding lines and only those words. Similarly, the final stanza must use every word from all the preceding stanzas and only these words."'
'Billy Collins claimed that the paradelle was invented in eleventh century France, but he actually invented it himself to parody strict forms, particularly the villanelle. His sample paradelle, "Paradelle for Susan" (c1997), was intentionally terrible, completing the final stanza with the line "Darken the mountain, time and find was my into it was with to to".
When Collins first published the paradelle, it was with the footnote "The paradelle is one of the more demanding French fixed forms, first appearing in the langue d'oc love poetry of the eleventh century. It is a poem of four six-line stanzas in which the first and second lines, as well as the third and fourth lines of the first three stanzas, must be identical. The fifth and sixth lines, which traditionally resolve these stanzas, must use all the words from the preceding lines and only those words. Similarly, the final stanza must use every word from all the preceding stanzas and only these words."'
on FIVE LOAVES AND TWO FISH by amanda_dcosta
6 Dec 2005, 1:36 AM
I had a problem with the first stanza, either because 1. it wasn't really desert then, 2. people are used to desert here (the place where this happened is about two hills over from where I'm sitting now), 3. although metaphorically it's cool, there's no biblical basis for them following him into the desert to the "extreme point of hunger", and/or 4. they're used to pretty extreme hunger. Odds are they were a couple hours walk from the next town (ie, no biggie in Middle Eastern terms) and didn't want to go back for food and miss the preacher. They surely knew they'd be back in their own houses by that night.
That said,
"The fringes of their deserts were strewn with broken faiths. It was significant that this wrack of fallen religions lay about the meeting of the desert and the sown. It pointed to the generation of all these creeds. They were assertions, not arguments; so they required a prophet to set them forth. The Arabs said there had been forty thousand prophets: we had record of at least some hundreds. None of them had been of the wilderness but their lives were after a pattern. Their birth set them in crowded places. An unintelligible passionate yearning drove them out into the desert. There they lived a greater or lesser time in meditation and physical abandonment; and thence they returned with their imagined message articulate, to preach it to their old, and now doubting, associates."
- T.E. Lawrence
That said,
"The fringes of their deserts were strewn with broken faiths. It was significant that this wrack of fallen religions lay about the meeting of the desert and the sown. It pointed to the generation of all these creeds. They were assertions, not arguments; so they required a prophet to set them forth. The Arabs said there had been forty thousand prophets: we had record of at least some hundreds. None of them had been of the wilderness but their lives were after a pattern. Their birth set them in crowded places. An unintelligible passionate yearning drove them out into the desert. There they lived a greater or lesser time in meditation and physical abandonment; and thence they returned with their imagined message articulate, to preach it to their old, and now doubting, associates."
- T.E. Lawrence
replying on Duff firs, Nawal by zodiac
5 Dec 2005, 3:50 AM
Of grammar, sound, meaning in Arabic, and meaning in English, something had to give. Turns out they all did a little.
I notice no one's asking what, to me, is the crucial question: "How correct is this?" (The answer: "about 92%, and the chorus is a total coup.")
I notice no one's asking what, to me, is the crucial question: "How correct is this?" (The answer: "about 92%, and the chorus is a total coup.")