Happy now???? I shan'tdo this again. I will down-rate any post I don't like without explanation -- this one time, I have wasted perhaps an hour in explicating a horror of a poem in order to justify a downrate. Bad poems don't deserve that time.

Dear Inkberrow,

I will preface this by saying that I know quite well that Artemesia and her posse will immediately take exception to what I say here. They will growl, hiss and spit and crap in the floor in protest. They will take the sacred art of poetry and fashion slings and arrows of it to launch at me, their latest Iraq.

This is why I simply downrate rather than explain to Artemesia. She does not take criticism or differing viewpoints well. This has been exhibited again and again on Pfray in her dealings with MaryAnn, Ted, and countless others, including myself. I long ago stopped trying to comment in her threads.

So Zeus-Boy and Galatea and you have pressed me for commentary and here you shall have it this one time. If you begin to rant, you are evidencing to everyone on this board that you asked only in order to have a reason to launch another assault on me. And you are most likely also forcing poor Artemesia to cobble together a hasty sonnet of attack, and I’m sure she must have better things to do on a Sunday.

After this, please know that I will continue to downrate each and every post that does not please me aesthetically as long as the misbegotten ratings system exists. I will do so without commentary because I am brutally honest in my commentaries – ask Jim Reiss – who, incidentally does accept commentary with grace because he is a secure professional. He would not have whimpered if I’d given him a thumbs down without commentary.

The following is my commentary on Artemesia’s poem Rhapsody. That was the only other one I found in the first few pages of the Pfray mini-archive. Fortunately or not, I wrote that one first.

I had intended to address both poems – the Buddhist one and the hawk one. However, going through this dreadful Rhapsody poem has exhausted my patience.

As to this particular poem, the Buddhist poem, I will only say that when the oxymorons began to dance, I knew I had my job cut out for me, and it is Sunday, and I will waste no more time on bad imagery and exhausting rime today.

The commentary you see below should make my point that I do, indeed, read that which I downrate. I do not downrate “automatically”. Although, I must say that Artemesia and her posse – all of whom downrate my posts as a group – have never been called into question for their reasons, nor would I do so. I do not care about their reasons because not one of them has written a poem that gives me reason to respect their opinions of my work. And their constant rants against me on this board have given me every reason to know that their collective downrates are simply more of the same.

I will address the rest of this to the poet, since it is unfair to comment to you on her poem. However, I invite you to read in:


Artemesia,

I apologise for doing this. I’d far prefer to give you a wordless thumbs down and spare you the kind of criticism you see me give to the Pinsky poems when they are terrible. You know that I don’t mince words when it comes to bad poems. I am not writing this to hurt you or be vindictive in any way. You can thank your friends for this. They have pressed and pressed for comments from me and accused me of blindly dowrating you. I have not done so, and this should prove it.

Rhapsody
..For Pale Male, hawk of legend-

What would it feel like to be made of wind
And grappling hooks to fasten stairs of air..
With five rudders each to steer my wings
Above the earth that spins like falling hair..

How can the earth spin like falling hair??? Could you find nothing else to rime with air? This is what happens when you force a rime – this has resulted in a ridiculous image. This alone would justify my thumbs down.

Bronzed like a soaring bell that sings in flight

We have here a bronzed bell that sings AND flies – interesting phenomenon. It’s not well thought out and the malformed image takes away from a worthy subject – this citydwelling hawk.

Instead of seeing this magnificent bird, a thinking indivdual is struggling with an image of a bronze bell that flies and sings. Also, have you ever heard the “song” of a hawk? It’s not something to poeticise. The hawk is a bird of prey – I love them – there are many where I live. But they do not have a song as such. Pale Male is a red-tailed hawk. You will find the “song” of the red-tailed hawk documented at this link from the Cornell website: <link>
It takes a second to load, but be patient, and you will have it. Next time, you need to do some research before writing.
My mouth is pursed to whistle with my tongue..

A hawk purses its LIPS – fascinating.And it whistles with its tongue. A hawk does not whistle. There is more of a screech. As you heard at the link above. You need to know your animals before you write about them. And if you’re taking on the hawk’s persona in this poem, what an unattractive picture this makes of you with pursed lips and cupped tongue to whistle.

Take a step back and visualise this – you reader will. I did. You’re now a like a bronze bell flying and singing with pursed lips and your tongue ready to whistle – while you sing.

I am an angel singing for the sun..
My tail the pages of a spreading fan

An angel with a tail. And a fan with pages. A fan might have blades – but I don’t see “pages”. This absolutely does not work as an image.

If you wanted to use a fan as an image, once again, a little research would have served you well. In Junior High, I became close friends with the curator of a university museum. He allowed me to watch as he unpacked artifacts and he often showed me the mummies when he was performing maintenance.

The South American indigenous peoples used fans made of bird feathers in some religious rites or as religious symbols. That could have tied into flying/ heaven, etc. There were also the “pankhas” or “bird’s wing” fans among Hindi.

But not a “page” in the lot.

Your instincts were good in using the word “fan” – a little research might have made this a usable image.

That plumes my body upward as I climb..

An angel with a tail that is a fan that has pages – and this plumes the body upward????

Unless you make it clear that the “fan” is feathered – in other words, unless you get rid of the odious pages and make them the feathers they are, or make it clear in some manner that they are feathers, this makes no sense whatsoever.

Soulless to the stars no baggage mine..
No ransom in my name for future claim.

Terrible use of rime – the long AAAAA sound rankles the ear, especially with “embrace” below, another long AAAA so nearby.

All that I am I am as I embrace
What holds me is the voice behind all words..

That could have been a wonderful line, Artemesia. A fine moment, had you not bombed it with a bad image below. I was all ready to know what that voice was behind all words, and suddenly I get this convoluted image . . .

Soundless as the wings of heaven’s face.

Heaven has not only a face, but a face with WINGS – right up there with the horrid malformation described in Kilmer’s Tree poem.

Kilmer describes a tree that has its lips on earth, suckling it, while it looks at god all day, all the while lifting its arms to pray, but the arms are not arms at all because they are also hair filled with birds’ nests. Perhaps the birds are hawks.

God may be the only one who can make a tree, but only Kilmer could have come up with that anatomy. And, unfortunately, the poor imagery in Rhapsody puts it in the same class.

When we create images that don’t work and also force rimes and squeeze it all into a form, we open ourselves to justifiable criticism from those who believe that form, when used, should be a thing of flawless beauty, flow easily, and impart indelible images.

This poem fails for the reasons I’ve covered above. If you wrote this poem and concentrated on the images, free of the constraints of form and rime, you would have been able to create something really special.

My best advice is to think through your images, Artemesia. Make them logical and clear FIRST. Then, if you can make those work within a form, while keeping a subtle pattern of rime, you’ll have something truly extraordinary. If you can’t do both, I’d suggest staying with the images. This subject is something worth writing about, but it got lost in the morass created of illogical images and forced rime.

And, finally, read Shelley’s “To a Skylark” for an example of how birds may be written about in form and still soar.

This is the one and only time I will write a commentary on your work to justify my thumbs-down. I am doing it because so many have asked. I am sure you don’t want me to do this to everything you write, though I could do so. I always have a reason. The Buddhist poem had dancing oxymorons – enough said. I’m stopping there because I have a life to run, and dissecting more poetry is not on my agenda.

Once again, Artemesia, you have my apologies for this. Had I not been nagged repeatedly, I would not have done.

Angel