Thank you, All. I was moonstruck last night, and felt as though I were born with the universe. I'm pretty sure George B. Shaw used 'snigger' in Pygmalion (certainly in My Fair Lady); so, I'm following the suggestion given as the two words are very close. 'Chocolate' never crossed my mind; and even now, my spellcheck is trying to kick out 'sniggers'. I guess I always thought 'snigger' was even meaner than 'snicker' which is mean enough as a covered laugh behind a hand, very derogatory. 'ashen' stays as the perfect word I want with all its connotations of sight, touch, taste and smell, plus the acidic residue of burning.
Comment is about The moon weeps (blog)
Original item by Cynthia Buell Thomas
<Deleted User> (8753)
Thu 20th Jan 2011 19:00
interesting piece Charlene
Comment is about Thieves can be good (blog)
<Deleted User> (8753)
Thu 20th Jan 2011 18:58
Cynthia?snikers?, liked the piece but don't get snickers
Comment is about The moon weeps (blog)
Original item by Cynthia Buell Thomas
<Deleted User> (8753)
Thu 20th Jan 2011 18:50
liked this mate, good stuff
Comment is about Wrong Road Roun' - An Urban Villanelle (blog)
Original item by John Coopey
Thanks for your thoughts on Night Mail, Greg.
Auden's really was a rocker, wasn't it? I keep watching it over and over again on YouTube.
Comment is about Greg Freeman (poet profile)
Original item by Greg Freeman
Prior to the mechanisation of coalmining, most coal was hand-got. This was often done on a 3-shift cycle with Shift 1 boring and stemming the shot-holes and then firing it off. This would leave a quantity of loose coal in front of the coalface for Shift 2 to fill.
Shift 2’s job was to shovel this coal behind them onto a conveyor which ran in front of the gob (the area behind the working face where the roof was allowed to fall). The conveyor took the coal away down the face into the roadway system and on out of the mine.
Shift 3 would then dismantle the props and reset them on the newly claimed ground, thus advancing the face. Finally they would ram over the conveyor to its new position. Face teams would be paid on the weight of coal produced.
This poem concerns Shift 2 – the hand-fillers.
In a narrow seam, having crawled into position on the face in file, a filler would lie on his side and shovel the coal over his shoulder onto the belt behind. He had a pog (or stint) of about 10 yards so a 200 yard face accommodated about 20 men.
Space was so tight that a filler could not pass another filler – everyone had to crawl in and out in crocodile. Space was so tight that a cardinal sin which embarrassed many a novice, was to take his shovel in “wrong road round”. You didn’t do it twice!
This villanelle is a conversation (a rant!) by a collier at my dad as we sat drinking In the Welfare. The language is real despite it never having happened.
Comment is about Wrong Road Roun' - An Urban Villanelle (blog)
Original item by John Coopey
i like this. certain lines stand out,
'entering shallows where boats were tombs.'
'and she did fill, every emotion of my own free will'
'her voice...like volcanoes erupt, like a knife cuts.'
best bit for me, 'thinking about someone i dont know [is] there. thinking of her no one else cares,
im laft bare and im staring her out.'
i like the idea of explaining the dream of someone shouting out. often we wake up from these kind of dreams and forget their significance. i like that the dreamer is aware that the angel is not really there but cant help the emotion.
criticism would be that there are a few spelling errors. im not keen on this kind of rhyming and would prefer if it focussed on the strangeness of the situation, less narrative..but just my opinion.
thinking about someone i dont know is there...friends can be shallow/transparent in life dont you think?
is it an actual dream your telling?
Comment is about Dream (blog)
Original item by Burns
I get the sense that you're more of a mainliner rather than a branch line man ... loved "the sight of a Jubilee steaming up Shap / Replace by pantechnicons at Watford Gap", and "the junk and the dross, discarded and tossed" which very much recaptures the rattling rhythm of Auden's original. Keep stoking the flames, John!
Comment is about Night Mail (blog)
Original item by John Coopey
Elaine, thanks for your comments on The Fairies. Very much appreciated!
Comment is about Elaine (poet profile)
Original item by Elaine
Hello Elaine,
Thanks for your comments on Night Mail. It's certainly a bugger to recite - you need lungs like a blue whale to get it all out.
John
Comment is about Elaine (poet profile)
Original item by Elaine
<Deleted User> (6895)
Thu 20th Jan 2011 17:46
Welcome Mr. B-hope you enjoy your time on WOL-best regards-Stefan.ps love your bio!
Comment is about Burns (poet profile)
Original item by Burns
<Deleted User> (6895)
Thu 20th Jan 2011 17:42
cheers very much for your very warming comments on'Episode'will check out Kathryn Rantala-look forward very much to reading her work-but for now all your poems will more than suffice-many many thanks to you Marianne.x
Comment is about Marianne Daniels (poet profile)
Original item by Marianne Daniels
I liked this a lot. These lines are top stuff:
a playground painted like a paramedic’s jacket,
I stood with the cold that wouldn’t stay still, that would follow me,
Don't know that you need "to be" before November or the bar of soap line but the rest was great.
Comment is about I cannot write. (blog)
Original item by Marianne Daniels
certainly a fair few interesting lines in this and i like november coloured i think perhaps it would have more impact with the subsequent damp grey though ?
i just wish i had been more careful yesterday though because now i feel like a whore...
Comment is about I cannot write. (blog)
Original item by Marianne Daniels
thanks for your comments and my re-education Win ;-)
Comment is about Winston Plowes (poet profile)
Original item by Winston Plowes
Hi Dave, thanks for your comment... I think Postman Pat's more of a man of the world than we might imagine... I'm sure he'd be fine with it. Not so sure about Jess the cat though... can cat's blush?! Kate x
Comment is about Dave Dunn (poet profile)
Original item by Dave Dunn
Thanks, Steve.God knows what it's about. It was a crap old poem that I've turned into a crap new poem. There was a hospital and a torture chamber and a love affair in there at various times. There's one line I like
Memories coagulate, stick in my throat.
That's it.I agree about evanescent and its ilk.
Comment is about Evanescent (blog)
Hi Winston, thanks for yours... just had website re-done - wasn't sure if pics were a bit twee - so glad you liked them! Love Nearly Nine... my memory is often re-seeded with little flashes of my children. What does IOHAT stand for? Kate
Comment is about Winston Plowes (poet profile)
Original item by Winston Plowes
I like the idea and the first verse is pretty. However, "using" various ailments is quite the wrong word. relieving various ailments might do.
Comment is about Thieves can be good (blog)
Hi Alan. Really liked this, It has lots of elements of the persian ghazal like the 5 syllables per line. The rhyme and repetition of refrain but it is not quite in the right format. If you want to know more I have provided a template and some simplified rules in the discussions area here - http://www.writeoutloud.net/public/newsgroupview.php?NewsThreadsID=1127
still an interesting piece, ghazal or not. Thanks also for tagging it, readers can now look at all the ghazals of all different styles (inc yours) all in one place. Win x
Comment is about Flambe (blog)
Original item by alan barlow
I like the first 4 lines, very nice. ashen tears, though? To me, it seems both unlikely and cliched. Work that out.
I'd prefer sniggers at the end. Snickers sounds American and chocolatey.
Comment is about The moon weeps (blog)
Original item by Cynthia Buell Thomas
<Deleted User> (8692)
Thu 20th Jan 2011 12:13
This poem frightened me. I get very nervous when I think something bad might happen to a dog; I think it's leftover anxiety from Old Yeller. Entrancing narrative though. I'm just glad the pup was OK!
Comment is about Heat Wave (blog)
Original item by Cynthia Buell Thomas
...or Charlene, on a philosophical note, in Dialectical Materialism there is a term-'an interpenetration of opposites'. I think you have achieved poetically what some philosophers would term 'a negation of the negation'.
Tommy :o)
Comment is about Thieves can be good (blog)
Cynthia - if Roald Dahl and Philip Pullman can do it, so can Dave! They both wrote dark and subversive tales for children, and kids loved them (and adults). Can work two ways I reckon.
Comment is about Beyond the Garden #3 (blog)
Original item by Dave Bradley
This is wonderful! you are inspiring. Wish I was able to write so much in so few words. Lovely personification of the moon and the cruel night.
Thank you for your kind feedback! glad you like it. :o) take care.
Comment is about The moon weeps (blog)
Original item by Cynthia Buell Thomas
Mornin Cynthia
If you do look at it again, be sure to let me know what happens. Thanks for telling me about it - wow, feel kinda privileged! Makes me feel less of an anorak too, knowing you have also done this ;)
Laura x
Comment is about Cynthia Buell Thomas (poet profile)
Original item by Cynthia Buell Thomas
<Deleted User> (8730)
Thu 20th Jan 2011 09:13
Fantastic story, fantastic ending
Comment is about Beyond the Garden #3 (blog)
Original item by Dave Bradley
good fun, dave.. cynthia raises a interesting point about marketing thou as i felt the first two were crossover material, this is a little darker, but i still enjoyed it!
Comment is about Beyond the Garden #3 (blog)
Original item by Dave Bradley
lovely Cynthia, although I think with Dave on the last line... x
Comment is about The moon weeps (blog)
Original item by Cynthia Buell Thomas
Alan, thanks for your comment. The idea behind 'Aidez moi' was to get people to suggest ways in which anyone can improve how they write poetry. Somehow people ignored the proposition and posted all sorts - nothing to do with me Guv.
Comment is about alan barlow (poet profile)
Original item by alan barlow
Lovely stuff Cynthia. I've never written a poem about the moon or read as many as John seems to have read about it either.
I love the way the moon is personified but your feelings are projected onto the moon. Night time is the time when the ghosts of all our problems haunt us; I think you communicate that sadness beautifully. xx
Comment is about The moon weeps (blog)
Original item by Cynthia Buell Thomas
simply beautiful, struck a real chord with me :) x
Comment is about The moon weeps (blog)
Original item by Cynthia Buell Thomas
loved the sounds of the words in the first 4 lines. great stuff, Winston
Comment is about Thieves can be good (blog)
This is the poem of the week cynthia! wowser. Really hit home in its few words... The moon weeps on my windowsill . Brilliant, Win
Comment is about The moon weeps (blog)
Original item by Cynthia Buell Thomas
The moon, a dificult beast for the contemporary poet to play with...such an historic cliche...and yet, so evocative. Tonight's moon is extraordinary (have you seen it?) and yet...is just the billionth moon that has looked down upon us, and all that we are..
This reads to me like two and a half haikus...and it is wonderful.
It is a real gift and a real challenge to be able to wrest something 'more' from the moon.
Lovelystuff.
Jx
Comment is about The moon weeps (blog)
Original item by Cynthia Buell Thomas
Utterly, utterly lovely.
Thank you.
Jx
Comment is about kiss haiku (blog)
Original item by Ann Foxglove
Hi Kate, for no apparent reason I have been looking at you poems on your site (I shouldbe doing my book keeping!. Loved the child drawn icons and loved 'Street drinker', a double whamey of a poem. thank you. Winston
Comment is about Kate Tym (poet profile)
Original item by Kate Tym
<Deleted User> (6895)
Wed 19th Jan 2011 21:14
nicely simple/simply nice...don,t thank me-I,m only here for the beer.
Comment is about In memory (blog)
Original item by alan barlow
Tanks for your comment Dave, much appreciated
Comment is about Dave Bradley (poet profile)
Original item by Dave Bradley
Thanks for the comment Gus, I was slightly inspired by your intro on Sunday: 'You know when you go into a brothel...'
Comment is about Gus Jonsson (poet profile)
Original item by Gus Jonsson
Hi Laura, thanks (I think) for your comments on my prostitute poem.
As an ex-computer programmer I certainly have no problems with numbers neither am suffering from Low Latent Inhibition. I just like playing around with words and their placements.
The idea with 'Episodic' and putting it on it's own line is that it not only refers to viewing but also when one is in a pub one has 'episodes' of sitting, standing, going to bar, toilet etc; then maybe being involved in your own thoughts, conversations then occasionally becoming aware/viewing what's going on in pub.
Comment is about Laura Taylor (poet profile)
Original item by Laura Taylor
Thanks for your comments on the prostitute piece. It may well be that I unconsciously was echoing John's 'man' poem as I like it a lot. But what I actually had in mind were those jokes that begin with the cliché: 'A man went into a pub' or 'A parrot went into a pub' or 'An Irish man walked into a pub' etc - I thought I was playing around with that. I can't change it now as Banksy says he'd kill for those lines ;)
Comment is about Isobel (poet profile)
Original item by Isobel
Thanks for your comments. Although I was playing a little, it was an exercise in trying to take clichés and make them new/different.
Comment is about Ann Foxglove (poet profile)
Original item by Ann Foxglove
interesting slant on death never thought of it like that, food for thought thanks
Comment is about Thieves can be good (blog)
Cynthia Buell Thomas
Thu 20th Jan 2011 19:41
This is lovely, Marianne. I do like: 'Every day, you are' using the verb 'to be' as 'existence', and also 'Who knows what anybody does to another?' - among many lines. I enjoy the metaphysical feel of the whole poem.
Comment is about Untitled Bubble (blog)
Original item by Marianne Daniels