[Critique Group 2] Leonard's critiques for Nov. session

[Tuchyner5 at aol.com]

Val
 
The first thing I feel is that I really, really, really want to know the 
specifics. What is the calamity? But even without them, the poem clearly shows 
the state of mind and emotions.
 
Of course, when doing a poetic form that is so restrictive, I doubt that 
there would be any way that it would accommodate the whole story. 
 
It reminds me of a line from Leonard Cohen in which he says he wanted to 
write a poem of living with defeat.
 
I’ve made some suggestions as to other ways to say the same things, with 
some advantages.
 
Line 3. Life just tore a ragged rift (This has the alliteration of the r 
sounds without two words gap and hole that mean the same thing.)
 
Line 2: I like the alliteration of the ‘so sure’ phrase.
 
Line 4: I like the r sounds.
 
Line 5: sad ‘and’ sick at heart. the word,  ‘and’ makes the s 
alliteration more rhythmic.)
 
Lines 7 and 8: I like the ‘ARD’ internal rhyme.
 
 
 
 
Calamity, Acrostic
Valerie Moreno
 
1 Can this be happening
2 After I was so sure...
3 Life just punched a gaping hole
4 Along borders of resolve,
5 Making me sad, sick at heart,
6 Incredibly vulnerable.
7 This is hard, defeating,
8 Yet, I dare to hope regardless.
------
Abbie
Poignant, to the  point, and almost universal in sentiment. There is a 
matter-of-fact description,  nothing soliciting strong feelings by themselves, 
but so relatable to those of  similar experience that it is full of 
reminiscent emotion. I wonder how people  who did not have that kind of experience 
would react to this piece.   
That first phrase, ‘in  the good old days,’ comes up more and more these 
days. It means so many  different things to so many different people. A whole 
book can be written about  it.  
Lines 4 and 5 clearly  define one of the gender roles in the good-old-days. 
There is a sense of comfort  in seeing the man as carver and women as the 
cooks and servers, but I wonder  whether it is thought of in the same way by 
our culture.  Men often participate in the food  preparation, and women 
might feel put upon if they didn’t. So the piece brings  these questions to 
bear, but I’m not sure the author intended it as  such. 
I never heard of an  electric carving knife when I was a kid. Even today I 
have not seen one at the  dinner table.  
The division of the  sexes where the men sat around watching a football 
game and the women, who have  done all the work, clean up, put me off a little, 
even though I am a man and  would seem to be a beneficiary of this system.  
In my childhood days, I don’t remember  having football on TV. But the men 
would get together and talk about something  like cars while the women 
cleaned up after the feast.  
In the end it is just  what the title says it is, a reflection .  At first, 
it does not seem to want to make a statement.  But any good writing 
emotionally  involves the reader, and there are always going to be a variety of  
emotions.  I was involved with the  piece as I believe most people would be, 
and I think the author is making a very  strong and clear statement through 
showing rather than telling.   
line 3: There are two  incidences where the word ‘sometimes’ is used. Once 
for doing grace and the  other for the use of an electric carving knife. 
That would tend to indicate  grace and using a carving knife have as much or 
as little importance. Is that  what the author intends?It might be an 
important question, since the essence of  Thanksgiving is giving thanks. 
Lines 9 and 10 also  uses ‘sometimes’ to describe the children eating 
separately or together with the  family. Is the author making a strong statement 
about whether that is important  or not? In the Jewish Passover dinner, the 
children are made an integral part of  the ceremony. In fact, in many ways 
it is a way to teach children to be mindful  and grateful. so for this 
reader, it is an important  question. 
In lines 10 and 11 the  author says that the children were usually 
integrated into the family sitting  arrangement. I think she was saying that this 
was more reflective of the  closeness of the family than sitting separately. 
In the last paragraph,  she speaks of something lost. The essence is 
togetherness verses aloneness. the  loss of tradition and meaningfulness that 
family used to provide.  We look for a facsimile in our groups  and institu
tions, but they don’t quite do the job.  Nothing can replace the coming together  
of several generations of family. 
The poem says all this  as only a poem can do. 


THANKSGIVING  REFLECTION



1 In the good old days, we gathered at the table:  
2 parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins,
3 sometimes said grace,  sometimes didn't.

4 Dad, Granddad, or some other male carved the  turkey,
5 sometimes with an electric knife, sometimes not.

6 Platters  of food were passed around:
7 turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes,  yams,
8vegetables, rolls, cranberry sauce.
9Sometimes children sat at a  separate table.
10Most of the time, we all ate together
11like the big  happy family we were.

12 After we filled our bellies, pumpkin pie was  served.
13 When we’d eaten as much of that as we could,
14 men retreated  to a football game on TV
15 while women cleaned up.
16 Children played or  got into mischief.

17 Now, with parents and grandparents gone,
18  uncles, aunts, cousins scattered across the country,
19 I eat my Thanksgiving  meal
20 at the local senior center, then go home,
21 read a good book,  wish for the way things were.
-- 

Alice 
I found it very interesting how you  could make a complete poem in one 
sentence with a minimum of punctuation. It  gives a new and positive meaning to 
the run-on sentence.  I both enjoyed and found the description  of the house’
s and surrounding environs challenging.  I put myself on what I imagined to 
be a  veranda type porch where I could look out in three directions.  I 
thought the front of the house was  facing north, the drive way coming in from 
the west. I had difficulty when it  came to the pile of shale, because up to 
that point I was envisioning everything  from the vantage point of the 
porch. It took some time before I realized that I  had to leave the porch and 
climb to the top of that pile to get to the vantage  point of being able to 
look southward.  The overall picture was charming and beautiful. 
In the description of the locket, I  wondered whether there is a physical 
locket which is also kept in the heart  metaphorically speaking, or wither 
the locket was only in the heart. I don’t  find it to be a poetic problem, 
just that I had to think about it and still  would like to know the answer to 
the question. 
I found myself having some concern  for the safety of the house when I read 
about the sinking driveway.  I wonder whether that house is still  there, 
being so close to a sink hole. It would be over 100 years  old. 
My first impression of the mother  walking in circles was of someone who 
was in a panic and not totally in charge  of her senses. That was heart 
breaking. But then, it seemed to me, that in such  a wide expanse of property, the 
neighbors would have been at some distance and  potentially anywhere. So 
maybe she was purposefully walking in a very wide,  circle trying to spot or 
attract the notice of someone who could help. Both  images are compelling.  
The part which quickly mentions the  fact of the stroke begs a separate 
literary work to describe the details of the  episode. It would not work to go 
into those details in this poem to do so, where  it is handled effectively 
given the confines of the narrative  structure.. 
I loved the fading away ending. It  gave me the impression of a painting 
fading into the distance. Very effective.   
I find the poem absolutely  beautiful, despite my tedious analysis. 
Biography of  a House in the Heartland 

by Alice Jane-Marie  Massa 


1 In a locket 
2  in my  heart, 
3  I keep and  remember this 
4 precious place 
5 with clumps of lilies-of-the-valley clinging 
6 to  her  east side like pretty paint on toenails while 
7 the perennial porch swing, successful hummingbird  feeder, and wrought 
iron  
8 bedeck the large front porch from where 
9 three points of the compass can offer a view of  
10 the lawn, west of the white-rocked driveway,  sinking 
11  (due to  the abandoned underground coal shaft filling with water), 
along with  
12 the field of Christmas trees, the wheat fields and  corn fields and some 
cattle  
13 to the north until the east span is revealed  
14 between the blue spruce and the gob pile of  shale 
15 atop which is unveiled the southern vista  of 
16 the field that rolls back to the small woods from  where 
17 one can easily walk to the back door of the  house 
18 built by my grandfather in 1914 
19 (the year his youngest, my mother, was  born) 
20 and lived in by my parents from after 
21 my dad’s four and a half years in World War II until  his death at age 
84 when 
22 my mother walked circles in the snow until a neighbor  came to help at 
this house 
23 where a cerebral hemorrhage took away all 
24 but the memories  
25 and the heart  
26 of a house  
 
27 in the Hoosier  heartland.
I’ve been there; done  that. This poem describes a state of mind and a 
process that I totally relate to  and gives the message in such a way that only 
poetry can do. It is both a dark  and light piece of work. It speaks of the 
will to persist through emotional  adversity.  It describes the fight  
against despair and never giving up the belief that the storm will end, despite  
a lack of evidence.  
The title and concept  of racing the sun required a lot of thought on my 
part. I couldn’t just breeze  through them. I usually have to understand a 
poem in order to get satisfaction  from it, but I don’t mind having to work for 
an understanding.  To me, the poet is in a dreary place,  while he hears 
and is thrilled by the music of always being in the light and  warmth of the 
sun.  
Racing means never  having to be in darkness. If you can keep up with the 
sun, night will never  come. The poet cannot even be under the rays of the 
sun for a moment, let alone  being perpetually blessed by its influence.   
In line 6 he says he’s  been here before. That implies to me that he knows 
it is a potentially transient  condition which he has found his way out of 
before.  
Line 7 says attacking  the cold depression head on only accentuates the 
condition. But then the poem  gives beautiful examples of the kinds of things 
that can at least ameliorate the  cold darkness.   
lines 11 and 12 tells  how being able to reach out a hand to help someone 
else proved to him that  he was stronger than he thought  and gave him hope 
of returning, but  perhaps not yet. 
Line 17 reinforces an  earlier message that you can’t rule or work yourself 
into happiness. If one  endures the cold, with hope and openness to giving 
and receiving kindness, love,  etc. the circumstances will eventually bring 
you out of that dark, cold place.  Or at least, it is what we must believe 
for it ever to  happen. 
In the last line, he  takes the passive form of the action. He is lifted. 
He does not lift  himself.   
So the poem balances  the active and passive approaches to life.  The 
concept is controversial in philosophical and religious thinking.   
The most positive  statement I could make about this or any poem is that it 
is  real. 
Racing the sun
C by  Brad Corallo
Word count 140

1  At dawn, I heard a band of minstrels
2  whose madrigal told of racing the  sun.
3And though my heart thrilled to the sound,
4 the sun was out of  reach.
5 Restrained, in a cold and narrow place That is all too  familiar.
6   Yes, I've been  here before. 
7I know that struggling to escape only tightens the bonds.
8  Being enfolded in the arms of a friend
9 gave me back some footing.
A10 nd  being given a chance
11 to offer unexpected kindness to a deeply troubled  soul,
12 portended hope of returning.
13 But still the sun eludes  me.
14 Initially at a snail's pace, forward 
15 with resolution and  belief,
16 no matter that it feels like a fool's errand.
17 By virtue of  circumstance
18 I shall be lifted up once again
19 suspended in a shaft of  golden radiance. 


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