XPost: alt.arts.poetry.comments
It's "Jerk store!" time, again. George Dance re-responds to a post I
made almost two years ago (because he thinks I'm no longer here to smack
him around).
On Sat, 21 Jan 2023 4:13:51 +0000, Michael Pendragon wrote:
On Friday, January 20, 2023 at 7:04:55 PM UTC-5, george...@yahoo.ca
wrote:
On Friday, January 20, 2023 at 6:16:50 PM UTC-5, blackpo...@aol.com
wrote:
On Friday, January 20, 2023 at 6:11:40 PM UTC-5, george...@yahoo.ca
wrote:
On Friday, January 20, 2023 at 5:49:29 PM UTC-5, blackpo...@aol.com
wrote:
On Friday, January 20, 2023 at 5:30:25 PM UTC-5, george...@yahoo.ca
wrote:
On 2023-01-20 4:47 p.m., Edward Rochester Esq. wrote:
So many possibilities
Begin with every baby’s birth,
But years conspire to decrease.
The above passage demonstrates why so-so poets should avoid
predetermined formats at all costs. The "sentence" is incomplete.
GD: That's because it wasn't a "sentence" until "Edward" added the full
stop. Which demonstrates only that so-so poets should avoid
repunctuating their betters' poetry.
MMP: GD is now aping PJR (because PJR is no longer here to slap him
around).
"Years conspire to decrease" what?
As the actual sentence in the actual poem says: "So many possibilities /
begin with every baby's birth, / But years conspire to decrease / So
many possibilities."
Years conspire to decrease possibilities.
GD: Exactly what the poem says, which Michael would have discovered if
he
had bothered to look it up. He didn't even need to look it up on line;
he could have found it in his own "literary journal" (AYOS 2021, 10).
MMP: My literary journal was created to highlight the best examples of
poetry from AAPC's various members. The best poetry by Member G does
not necessarily measure up to the best poetry of Member J.
As Mr. Dance has so ably demonstrated above, his own poem left no traces
on my memory.
The correct sentence should read: "So many possibilities begin with
every baby's birth, but years conspire to decrease their number."
So many possibilities.
Yet still we have our families.
These too lines don't form a coherent sentence.
GD: I think you mean those *two* lines. They are not a sentence, even in Edward's edit, and neither of them are a sentence in the actual poem.
Once again, Edward added a full stop that's not in the original (as
Michael would have known, if he'd bothered to read the original).
MMP: It seems that Mr. Dance's purpose in reopening this thread is to
re-state that Mr. Rochester mistakenly added end punctuation to his
lines, thereby making his poem appear to be more illiterate than it
actually is.
The fact that Mr. Dance feels compelled to do so nearly two years after
both the original post *and* after his original refutation demonstrates
an alarming degree of obsessive pettiness on his part.
"Yet" implies that
ideas addressed in each of the lines are contrapuntal: specifically that
the latter serves to either mitigate or compensate for the former. But
how? How do families compensate for possibilities? How do they
mitigate possibilities (which would not work with "Yet still")?
GD: Having children restores the lost possibilities; you no longer have
them, but your children do.
MMP: No, they don't. If the poem is expressing a universal principle,
then the children's possibilities will necessarily be decreased as they
mature as well.
To justify our time on earth:
So many possibilities
Begin with every baby’s birth.
This, again, is not a coherent sentence.
GD: Once again, that is solely due to Edward's editing.
MMP: "Once again,..." Quite. And one supposes that will be repeating it
yet a third time two years from now.
You really spend way too much
time interacting with the Donkey; his illiteracy is rubbing off.
GD: It figures that you'd try to blame Will; but I don't see how you can
blame him for Edward's sloppy editing.
MMP: Mr. Donkey serves as proof of the old adage concerning the "one bad apple."
In this case, the presence of one illiterate member of a group causes
the other members to relax their standards.
Or, in the words of another adage, any group will inevitably settle to
the level of its lowest participant.
How do the possibilities justify our lives if they are decreased to irrelevancy by years?
GD: As I already explained: they're restored in the next generation.
MMP: And as I've already explained, the next generation's possibilities
are as limited as those of their forebears. Since time and circumstance
will *always* conspire to decrease their possibilities by the time they
reach adulthood, the seemingly unlimited possibilities at birth are
necessarily an illusion.
Roughly speaking (i.e., ignoring the incoherent pseudo-sentences),
GD: I do hope we've spent enough time on Edward's pseudo-sentences.
MMP: LOL! If Mr. Dance actually meant what he said, he wouldn't have
reopened a two-year old thread in order to bitch about Mr. Rochester's
"edits" to his poem a second time.
your
poem is saying that we are all born with unlimited potential, but that
the years conspire (with circumstance) to undercut our ability to
achieve it. As compensation for our wasted lives, we can always take
solace in our families (ignoring the fact that our children's potential
will be as unrealized as our own.
GD: Nothing in the poem about "compensation" - the word I used was "justification". A person who has children has not completely wasted his
or her own life, no matter how much he or she hasn't done.
MMP: Sentimental hogwash. I point to the example of "Joey" who inspired
this thread. IMHO, the world would have been better off without the
existence of a man who, upon reaching adulthood, was imprisoned for the sexually exploitation of a minor.
That's a good (if downbeat) topic for a poem. Unfortunately, your
attempt to force it into triolet form at the sake of clarity undermines
any possibilities ;-) it might have had.
GD: It's sad that Michael's opinion of the poem (which, as noted, he
previously published in his "literary journal") has fallen so much since
he put me on his enemy's list. I'm sure that was just a coincidence,
though.
MMP: Again, Mr. Dance is confusing the purpose of The Sunday Sampler,
and A Year of Sundays which is its current incarnation.
A Year of Sundays was created to provide a showcase for the best poetry
of each of AAPC's members. My opinion regarding Mr. Dance's poem has not changed: it is without doubt one of Mr. Dance's better works.
Nor is Mr. Dance on my imaginary "enemies list."
*****Speaking of A Year of Sundays... I'm currently compiling our 2024
print volume, which features the work of such (usenet) AAPC favorites as
J.D. Senetto, NancyGene, Ash Wurthing, Kevin Fries, Bob Burrows,
Hieronymous Corey, Karen Tellefsen, Richard Oakley, Wenceslas Kabeba,
and my oh-so-humble self; along with FB AAPC favorites, Louise Charlton Webster, Scott Thomas, Bruce Boston, Robert Payne Cabeen, Paul Cordeiro,
ruth housman, Trinity-memyandi Venter, Jefferson Carter, Joseph Danoski, Stephen Brooke, & Devin Anderson.*****
But I digress.
(backthread snipped)
WTF is wrong with you, George?
You didn't mention any book in this thread.
And no one is talking about a book that may or may not have happened (whatever that is supposed to mean).
1) There is nothing particularly difficult about writing a poem in any
given form. One doesn't even have to memorize the structure of a
triolet. All one has to do is use a triolet for a model and copy the
format.
GD: It certainly seems to be too hard for some people.
MMP: What a childish and petty thing to say!
2) As previously noted, I don't like writing in pre-fabricated forms.
See above.
If I write a sonnet, it's because my Muse dictated a 14-line poem to me.
Poets who write from inspiration rather than formula don't limit
themselves to someone else's rules.
GD: The "Muse" is a charming idea, which I've heard of; but I don't
remember
ever seeing Her invoked to evade responsibility for one's writing until
now.
MMP: Why do you lie so much, Mr. Dance?
There is not even a hint of evading poetic responsibility in my
statement. Quite the contrary, it stresses the importance of *not*
sacrificing inspiration by forcing it into a preconceived format.
3) Jim is a far better poet than you. Jim's poems strike the reader as
being real -- powerfully, emotionally raw, unadulterated reality. Your poems, otoh, express time-worn, mundane thoughts in imitative formats.
GD: Interestingly, Michael concludes by once again praising the work of
an
ally Jim ("Edward") while insulting the work of an adversary. If he were
still here, I'm sure he'd shrug that off as just a coincidence.
MMP: J.D. Senetto is an exceptionally talented poet. In fact, my
greatest difficulty in selecting which poems to include in AYoS' year
end print journal, is in deciding which of Jim's poems to leave out.
That's childish.
That's even more childish.
Actually, it's the readers who will make that decision, George.
GD: Well, we can ask the readers who won this round: Michael's
adversary,
whose poem was edited by an illiterate; or Michael's ally, the
illiterate who did the editing.
MMP: I think it abundantly clear that Mr. Rochester is the winner, since
his "edit" of your poem has weighed so heavily on your consciousness
that you felt compelled to address it a second time... nearly two years
after the fact.
OTOH, I doubt Jim has given it a single thought.
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