reverie

Good luck. My exams aren't for another month and half and mostly their not exams at all. Let's see: Portugues: a standard language exam: verbal and oral Comparative literature: an extended group research project w/ optional exam Imitation in Poetry: a paper comparing poets against their influences Promoting Change through the Non-profit sector: involves rewarding an actual grant to a local non-profit Comparative U.S. / Australian History: the continuation of a semester long project which involves creating a Sim-Sydney historical (1915-35) community online that ages every 5 years along with your own character/avatar. Basically it's amounts to doing the research and basic character sketch for a historic novel. Not really a hard semester, just one that sapping every single bit of my creativity. rev...

I've moved around a fair amount, so pretty much everything is replaceable. 1. Laptop and or external hardrive... probably the hard drive since it's smaller. 2. wallet 3. cell phone The combination of all three makes it much much easier to replace the rest. Now if I had a few hours notice for say a flood, I'd cart off my brother's library (basically a small bookshelf) and my old photo albums too.

Wrote this poem for a comparative history class I'm taking. I have to write a journal in the voice of a character from 1915 Sydney Australia and age him every 5 years for each journal entry. So, I figured I might as well have some fun with it and open up each entry with a poem. This is probably the first sonnet I've ever come close to pulling off, by the way. Also, I've hyperlinked some the more obscure Aussie references since not everyone is up to date on early 20th century Australia. To Sea Had old Simon Taylor’s cells been but full, Or The Island’s need of thimbled hands Made Parkhurst dad, their reluctant tool? Then Britain would not your William now demand. If then tailor had not forsaken thread To fossick too near a cockie’s cook Would Jenna have had her William wed, Or Joseph and Sarah upon to look? Do not dismay dear Jenna now my pride-- By you, the Empire sounds a hollow cry, And why redeem a father’s childish slide, When rain’s not falling and withered fields are dry. If there is a cause to rally to most true. Then Jenna darling, believe me it is you.

Shattered Breath A heartfelt whisper <---(Touch cliche. Why not describe the tone of the whisper instead of an abstraction) On a Shattered Breath--Why caps? Are you referring to a proper noun of some sort, and how does one exactly shatter a breath? Maybe you are referring the visible exhaustion of a breath from someone in cold weather. That could be kind of shattered well dispersed really. Or are you referring to someones dying breath A cheerful lullaby (from the lips of the dying person? If so why personify death in the next line?) From the jaws of Death... (again cliche sounding, plus it reminds me too much of "jaws of life," the tool used by EMT's to pry people out of car accidents. Also you've gone to the trouble to personify Death, but you haven't done much with him.) I flutter through a Crimson Sky (Oh, so the person that died is your persona, bit of an abrupt change.) On the broken wings of a butterfly (You ever seen a butterfly with broken wings fly successfully? "Broken Butterfly" could possibly work cause you be getting all figurative, but it's a stretch.) Inspiration flows, with a sparkle and gleam, Somehow from a forgotten dream. (Doesn't really make sense in the context of your preceding lines. The closest leap I can make is an allusion to entering the afterlife proper or reincarnation.) A single flower, on the grassless knolls; (okay, if put a flower on a knoll, you have to do something with it or it has to represent something. You can do this with metaphor or even better metonymy, but you should set it up before hand. E.G. If you're going call something a glacier, you can help the reader by talking about an igloo or arctic something earlier in the poem A child is born while a death bell tolls. (ah, the circle of life.) Of this bittersweet madness, ("Of" Poetic with a Capital "P" my friend.) I do not condone; (a semi-colon mainly separates two independent clauses. the "loving" clause is the dependant clause of the preceding line) Loving the presence of others While being alone... (ellipses, bad Internet habit. I broke mine, you should consider quiting while you're young) I soar across a Crimson Sky On the broken wings of a butterfly (Pretty, but hollow.)

nice rhyme scheme. Second stanza's a little inconsistent with the rest. Not sure if you're following a specific form here. It reminds me of a free verse version of a Ballad, but with something akin to an envoy from a ballade added in for fun. The best advice I can give you is the oldest there is: Show don't tell. Hmm, but you probably want more than that. You're a fiction writing right? Here's trick a few have tried to teach me with varying success. Inhabit your narrative using the free-indirect discourse style pioneered by Gustave Flaubert. I.E. Write in the 3rd person like you would in first person. Construct all your 3rd person actions and thoughts through the filter of a single character mindset/point of view/world out look etc. An example of this is Thomas Mann's character Auschenbach from the book Death in Venice, where the narrator weighs the protagonist's vacation and eventual death through the mind of the protagonist: an aging 19-century scholar whose point of view is colored by his familiarity with the mythology of the Classic world. Read it and you'll see what I mean. I recommend the either the critical edition edited by Naomi Ritter or Clayton Koelb's translation. Koelb is neat because he has footnotes pointing out where Mann seamlessly wrote sections of his prose in German dactylic hexameter in tribute to the Virgil's Aenied. How does this apply to your poem? Well, what are you really writing about? The Serpent or Eve. Or to take it step further the Serpent's reaction to Eve or Eve's reaction to the serpent. What you have now is kind of a loose mix. She sits on your shoulder, Hissing sweet words in your head Playing your emotions-- Corruption manifested. "Your" meaning Eve. Okay you have 3rd person subject pronouns mixed with 2nd person pronoun objects. Grammatically correct, but not very effective as a narrative style. You've adopted the voice so often found in personal love poems. Writing like this fine if the the object of your attention happens to be your reader. But if they're not, then it gets kind of silly because your narrator continues to speak as if they were. Which works for the person you intended the poem for because you are really only reaffirming in their mind what they expect you to say (or lampooning the opposite). They have a frame of reference already established by being aware of your narrator as a living human being, but everyone else that reads it isn't in on the joke. "We," the reader are not "Eve." I think it would work better if you switched to 3rd person entirely and then had an omnipotent narrator that could submerged itself wholly in either Eve, the Serpent and or both (if you want to make it longer), which you could then use to set up the dialogue or thoughts in the concluding stanzas. Or you could just write the whole thing in first person and or switch to 3rd halfway through or vice versa for dramatic effect. Also, (and you probably already know this)but writing strictly in italics limits what you can do with thoughts, dialogue, colloquial expressions, trade marks, sign posts, terms of endearment, indirect quotes etc. in a poem. But Mira does well enough with it. You might want to have a look at some of his stuff. rev...

Don't worry about it. If I was offended, believe me, you would know.

Inspiration, yes. Preparation affording wider opportunity to act on that inspiration, no. Life is give and take. Interestingly enough, I finally got the official nod from Cellar Door: Congratulations! Your poems "Pegs" and "Turning Twenty-Eight" have been selected for the Fall 2006 issue of the Cellar Door. This semester we chose 15 poems from 150 submitted-- a competitive pool indeed. Information about your standing in the Fall Issue poetry contest should be coming to you within the next week. Hmm, a contest. That could be interesting. Heh, anyway, I should probably print these out and create a "I love me" poetry scrapbook or something. The Army taught me to do that for important paperwork. It makes filling out job/college applications and security checks soooooo much easier.

MORE GOOD NEWS!!! Dear Poet~ Congratulations! You've been admitted to ENGL407- Advanced Poetry Writing for Spring 2007, which will be taught by Professor Shapiro on TR 12:30-1:45. The competition was keen and it should be a very strong workshop. I had to submit a portfolio of 10 (TEN!!!) poems in order to get in to this class. Thanks for all the help from the pennites that PM'd me and posted suggestions for me in the workshop. Now if I can just get my grade point average up (possible, but very hard to do when you are a Junior) then I might be able to qualify for the year long Senior Honor's Thesis. It's good to have goals. Sweet. In your face private-prep-school-kids with somewhat-externally-stable-family-situations. I'm catching up! rev...

Momento. True, literary devices are important. But you can only write what you know or aspire to. So I'd say draw from you influences, whoever that might me whether it's Keats, Cold Play, or whatever inspires you.. You might want to be a little more specific (to the work your are critiquing) with throwing out terms like literay devices/enhancements. It does cover a lot of ground: http://mrbraiman.home.att.net/lit.htm Literary devices refers to any specific aspect of literature, or a particular work, which we can recognize, identify, interpret and/or analyze. Both literary elements and literary techniques can rightly be called literary devices. Literary elements refers to aspects or characteristics of a whole text. They are not “used,” per se, by authors; we derive what they are from reading the text. Most literary elements can be derived from any and all texts; for example, every story has a theme, every story has a setting, every story has a conflict, every story is written from a particular point-of-view, etc. In order to be discussed legitimately, literary elements must be specifically identified for that text. Literary techniques refers to any specific, deliberate constructions of language which an author uses to convey meaning. An author’s use of a literary technique usually occurs with a single word or phrase, or a particular group of words or phrases, at one single point in a text. Unlike literary elements, literary techniques are not necessarily present in every text.

An Almost Contract? Nooooo!!!! heh. Thanks guys. As far a getting it out there. I just sent it in to them following their submission criteria. They've turned me down twice before. So either i'm making progress, or not as many people submitted this time Plus I had a lot of help. The two poems that made it in are "Turning Twenty-Eight" and "Pegs." Both of which benefited greatly from the input received from other poets I know in RL, and a few here at the pen. *Winks at Tzim* Um, but I've not exactly "arrived" sort of speak. I'm still a struggling Uni. student that's piling up the loan debt. And as far a my own skill, I've a long, long, loooooooong way to go. But if you really want to know how to get your stuff out there, then I recommend you do some good old fashioned research. I've currently doing an internship at a non-profit Writer's Network, and they're making me do this kind of research in order to answer their FAQ. One place that I've looked is the "Writer's Market 2006" and "Poet's Market 2004" Books. Another one that my school has recommended to me (still haven't looked at it yet) is poet's and writer's INC. http://www.pw.org/ Actually I have two of the questions I worked on handy: How do I publish my work in literary magazines? Literary magazines often publish for a specific genre of literature or subject that may interests their core set of readers. It is important to become familiar with any magazine that you may want to submit material too. Your science-fiction short story might not pan well if you send it to a publication that specializes in folk narratives of the Antebellum south. Magazines usually have their own set of guidelines for submissions. These are typically listed in first pages of publication itself. If no guidelines are listed, then you can send a query letter to the editor. This letter should be straight forward intending to show the editor why your piece fits with them. Do not discuss payment, offer rewrites, ask advice, or include any attention-getting devises such as photographs, elaborate stationary, or name dropping. What is self publishing? What are its benefits and pitfalls? An arrangement where the author keeps all income derived from his or her work, but pays for its manufacturing, production, and marketing. The major advantage of self publishing is that an author can avoid paying the cost of corporate overhead and retailer fees. However, start up costs for the first printing can run into the ten-thousands of dollars. Also finding a medium in which to sale the works outside of the corporate distribution chains can be daunting. Self publishers often rely on sales at speaking engagements, websites, phone or direct mail, and other personalized niches that they have found to remain profitable. Another draw back is that the books that they do sale are often not considered as “published” by the traditional publishing houses, so even if your individual books sales reach into the millions, you still might never receive recognition from the traditional “best sellers” list. Still, with reprints and bulk orders being much more affordable after the initial order, sales of successive prints can be highly profitable for the self publishing author. thanks again, Hope some of that helps.

fair enough, but this isn't an advice thread, it's stuff we've figured out like for instance: Books are expensive, even when free.

Hey guys, Just sharing some good news. I just found out two of my poems are going to be published. It's only UNC's literary Magazine, but hey you have to start some where. I am quite pleased.

ya know my brain can't remember if I writing to explain "washing" or "washes" now. At any rate I think 'ing' vs. 'es' would change the emphasis of the line as well. I do not know the technical terms for this. And it's hard to enough to discern a significant difference as is. Still. to me "washing" implies the action is somewhat removed and places more emphasis on "me." Where as using "washes," the action is more immediate and emphasis placed on the "the fallout." I think. Devil's in the details. rev...

Changing "washed" to "washing" changes the meaning slightly. If he says "washing," then he is implying that the same figurative fallout (of fear? or preparation for disaster???) is still occurring into the present. "washed" implies that these musing over the nuclear age is all reflection. And either variation works really. Hmm, but that's the tricky thing about english, the tenses are not as precise as compared with languages like latin or french. You have to rely on logic to feel it out some times, and if that's not a contradiction, I don't know what is. Very nice mira. Yeah, I get the burned out image of a world in the aftermath of a nuclear war, but as an imagined overlay of the actual reality that the speaker is living in. Love the last lines with about the fear hopping a train then coming back in another form. Great commentary. The only thing I have to suggest, which I already know you won't change, is that the phrase, "we're gonna kill us all" really should be in italics. However, since the rest of the poem is already in italics, the point is moot. Hmm, and quotes might be overkill...not sure. rev...

Reminds me of old Star Trek: The next Generation episode where we find: Young Wesley Crusher intent on passing his Start Fleet Academy exams. But these are not normal exams...nooo. Mr. Crusher must survive his greatest fear as acted out via Holodeck. He's teamed up with 4/5 other companions with one possible love interest. Ah young love amidst so much institutionalized fear, touching.

t-shirts?

Hmm, am a little perplexed by this one, but "Idioglossia" speech is perplexing by definition. I'll just mark a few little things first, then see if something more come's of it. Sitting in my bathtub all alone watching the shower-cap (In my dialect, we'd say "shower-head" instead of cap, which for me at least would clarify the next line.) spew down luke, (like luke-warm water? creative, but slightly confusing. Took a me a minute. I'm not saying change it, it just took me a minute. Again my confustion is probably due to the me taking "shower-cap" as something that is wore on one's head when taking a shower, but this may be due to just a slight disagreement of understanding between dialets.) seeing, but not seeing (my suggestion for this line and the next two lines in the next stanza could probably be handled better line-break wise, but I think this word order works better.) You, me Our mutual idioglossia in mute (might be able to drop the "in" before "mute" as well) (or is it?) (punctuation tricks could really help the flow/rhythm in this stanza, I suggested two, but I'm not the best at that sort of thing. Tzim, Alaeha, Mira, or Ayshela might be able to help you out.) Am I just seeing things? wishfully thinking (expound a little: wishfully thinking them true/real/into existance etc. /// a [insert noun/metaphore etc here] of [our] wishful thinking etc.) Heard your silent screams suppressed sobs years of cropping up emotions raging on Great stanza--solid, but again punctuation might help. Saw your every scar or probably not (not a big fan of 'probably' in poems--personal quirk.) but heard some nonetheless and felt some (aaaah, the you sooo need punctuation to pull this off, I know what you're trying to do, and it'd be so much easier with punctuation (well for the reader that is) rather than solely relying on a line-breaks) Are we really that much the same-- you and I that you would let me in through your drug-built wall? Could you trust me? Would you do the same tomorrow? "Ceea ce am fost, esti tu acum quod mille anni passi sunt" my voices drone on (that's 's' in "drones" is a little telling, maybe too much so. why not drop the "my" and just say "voices drone on.") Sitting in my bathtub all alone watching the water cascading down my leg tracing patterns of hair through my thoughts (nice recap: pretty too.) Time to get out (I see no reason why can't connect this with previous stanza. By leaving it out alone like this you place an insane amount of emphasis on it. And the words themselves are strong enough to do this without the help of the separated line.)

Life will go on. There is no substitute for life experience. To have survived and suffered is to have gained a new perspective. In the short term, it's easier to change someone's ideas via passionate appeal than logical argument. Actions may speak louder than words, but words last longer and cause deeper hurt. If you haven't questioned some aspect of your upbringing, then you are still an innocent. Books can't love you back. When backing up a car, always double check that no one or nothing is behind you. If given the choice between the accelerator and the brake when caught off guard in an intersection: Brake first. Better to be hit, then to hit. When in doubt: stall. Never underestimate the power of inspiration. Job interview = fresh shave and hair cut. You can learn a lot by playing dumb. You can get out of a lot awkward situations by playing dumb. Playing dumb doesn't work on everyone. Especially if they know you. Charm will only take you so far (though it's amazing how far that can be sometimes). Your memory and ability to improvise will only take you so far. Eventually you're going to have to work. Melatonin (often used as a sleep aid) should never be taken by those with a history of depression. The last thing a depressed person needs is a heighten desire to sleep more than they already do.

happy happy, rev...

They say the sense of smell is the most powerful trigger for memories. So, what's home or what you associate closest with it smell like to you. To me, it's a kind of dry metallic mix of unfinished concrete rooms with newly-hung sheet-rock, putty, and exposed wires. Heh, my dad and grandfather were both electricians. That and spackle was in heavy use in my house due to all the holes that mysteriously kept showing up in our walls. k, have fun, rev...

What can I do right now? That will teach me. What can I do right now? That will sustain me. I've been sitting here too long Wondering, what I'm supposed to be... So what can I do right? That will remake me try: I know, you know or Into the grace of God go I

don juan reference could be an allusion to ancient bird/sex poem of Catullus (84? B.C.–54? B.C.) http://rudy.negenborn.net/catullus/text2/e2.htm Lesbia’s Sparrow (Poem 2) Sparrow, favorite of my girl, with whom she is accustomed to play, whom she is accustomed to hold in her lap, for whom, seeking greedily, she is accustomed to give her index finger and to provoke sharp bites. When it is pleasing for my shining desire to make some kind of joke and a relief of her grief. I believe, so that her heavy passion may become quiet. If only I were able to play with you yourself, and to lighten the sad cares of your mind. (2b) It is as pleasing to me as they say The golden apple to have been to that swift girl, Which untied that long-bound girdle. (Poem 3) Mourn, oh Cupids and Venuses, and whatever there is of rather pleasing men: the sparrow of my girlfriend has died, the sparrow, delight of my girl, whom she loved more than her own eyes. For it was honey-sweet and it had known its mistress as well as a girl knew her mother, nor did it move itself from her lap, but jumping around now here now there he used to chirp continually to his mistress alone: who now goes through that gloomy journey from whence they denied anyone returns. But may it go badly for you, bad darkness of Orcus, you who devour all beautiful things: and so beautiful a bird you taken away from me o bad deed! o miserable sparrow! Now on account of your work my girl's slightly swollen little eyes are red from weeping.

seamless.

cottage-cheese

have you ever lost 8 pounds in one day only to gain it back the next?