Once again, this same message. I feel compelled to caution people against “peer” review. Perhaps I should not worry.

Now… just because you encourage “crit”, or perhaps anything else that with it might so rhyme, does not mean I must! However, in just this one case, I believe I will also “take the risk:” I must here state that–although it may well be true that “nobody is perfect”–I find your original to be far superior to the altered version suggested. And for two reasons which I will explain below.

Although Robert Browning suggested that it was the virtue of poetry to be obscure, and obfuscatory–and I am paraphrasing here, as is my wont in using grey matter rather than Google–it should be remembered that he was, in fact, joking when he made this assertion.

By this, I suggest that making ones meaning unascertainable is not an improvement, even if it improves, for example, the overall sound of a piece–which the suggested revision, also does not accomplish in any significant way.

I might have seen some reason in the suggestion perhaps of the removal of the indefinite article in the first line; however such would put the piece out of balance with the fourth line.

Also, the suggested revision does not trip as lightly off the tongue when read aloud, and, as well, causes the line breaks to become irrelevant, as a replacement for breath, punctuation, etc, and as an aid to reading–as well as mentation.

Also, as I’m fond of pointing out: Be careful what you encourage. If you are an aspiring writer, this logically implies that your peers have questionable credentials. (as well as intentions and motivations,though they may be genuine, the nature of which there are no ready means whereby you may easily ascertain these)

Qualified critics, include successful writers–successful in all ways–otherwise they engage in mere speculation, and–by virtue of the fact that they do write, and therefore, do read with an eye to writing–their view of what they read is necessarily, and predictably, skewed (and, I include myself in this category, as well)

But even more important–much much much more important–are readers who do not write, have no hidden aspirations to write, but just enjoy reading what one has written. Only they can give reliably unskewed information regarding what is clear (to them) or not, or what is beautiful (to them) or not; and, unless you intend your audience to be among aspiring writers alone, this is very, very important information.

You have, I feel, an enviable gift with words, Take great care, lest you allow it to be watered down, diluted by those whose intentions, and abilities, and in fact, identities, you cannot know.

via The slow pull of a whisper’s fade … « Flights of a Magical Bird.

via In The Barbwire Embrace Of A Wanton Muse | mishaburnett.

I believe the poem which inspired this comment of mine to have a very dark message. Perhaps deconstructionist, perhaps marxist, perhaps even nihilistic. [though its author assures me not]

Some things pain me to read; because I know such things, such realities, seem true–and perhaps are true for many, at least in the present. And, although they may seem so; still, one should not proclaim such conditions, such realities to be changeless. No such condition is set in stone. Quite often our prison is of our own making; not bars set by our circumstances, but by those we construct by virtue of the way we think about them–the way in which we frame them in our minds.

This, perhaps, is too dark for me, I’m not sure I understand its message; However, I do know that I cannot exist–not in the same way, or in the same universe–without my truest love.  I wonder, when I read such as this, if the author knows little else but hurt, and pain.

I would want to tell such a young man–or a young lady–that he should Know that it is not that way for everyone.  If one claims it is so, then one tells a lie, and a very evil one at that, though perhaps, not intentionally.

There is great joy everywhere; and great joy in our mothers and our fathers, our sisters and our brothers, our husbands and our wives, our sons and our daughters.  So very many of us, do not break them apart, but hold them together, keep them, as may many of them keep us, from breaking apart.

In this way am I kept.  In this way, does my life have all the more meaning.

via entangledinparadox.

I wrote the following. I think it’s long enough to copy here. I also encourage anyone reading this to follow the link to Bjorn’s blog to read the original piece that inspired the following:

I am very sentimental about such things. I have aways wondered why I should be so reluctant to part with a favored old item. It was so from when I was very young. I have learned to overcome it, however, I remember well the old feeling, not so covered up by age and experience. Of sadness, betrayal, loss, loneliness. It was as though the objects themselves had souls, I thought much later on in adulthood.

Now, even much, much later, I have come to think that, closer to the truth is this: That in these objects we invest part of our own soul, and feel the loss as the object is ripped from it–away from us, that part of our soul remaining, yet feeling the effect of the beloved object torn from us–ripped away. So we feel the loss as though the object were an old friend.

I was not sure what to think about this piece at first, because it changes mood swiftly, and more than once–sometimes seeming deadly serious, and sometimes whimsical. I think I wanted–because of these feelings of loss that are natural to me–It to be serious, or whimsical in its entirety. However… one doesn’t always get what one wants, and this, too, is a lesson which should be refreshed from time to time.

I believe I am starting to recognize your unique voice as it resonates within your poetry, such that I might recognize a poem to be yours, or at least reminiscent of one of yours, when encountering it randomly.

And Bjorn Answers:

David, first of all thank you for reading through my entries. I love your feedback.

On the difficulties in parting with an object I think you are 100 percent correct. If it has seen daily use it become a part of you, and it doesn’t matter if it’s a tractor or a teapot.

On the poem I think you are right. I changed my own mood while writing it, at first I almost wanted to do something “comical”, but the sadness of the old machine grew on me just like it would have done if I had grown up with “him”.

In such cases, does one not wrap a piece of tofu and a few bean sprouts in a jacket of rice and seaweed, and douse it, ever so slightly with urine? Having been a server the better part of a century ago, I seem to recall that was the perfect solution. “Win-win,” as I believe the saying goes.