[Critique Group 2] Leonard's comments re: Alice piece for May

[tuchyner5 at aol.com]

I love the message in this piece. Everything in this universe is a work inprocess. Your emotional reaction to this literary expert is interesteing. 




 


On the one hand, you give the personcredit where credit is due.  




 


On the other hand, there may be criticismfor him or her for stating the obvious.  



The assumption  she makes is that poems reach a static pointwhen  they become dead. 




 


Your poem is quite clear and strong indriving that home.  




 


The speaker may be famous, but why doesn’tshe know about a primary quality of poetry. 




 


You take umbridge  with her for implying that you, the writer,might assume that your poem might have reached the state of entombment.  




 


The poem is rellentless  in its sardonic humor.



To the Poem, Lying in State at the RhymingRotunda



 



by Alice Jane-Marie Massa



 



 



Abouta delicate, innocent, little poem of mine,



someonequite creatively knowledgeable



andwidely and wildly well-published



saidin passing at her presentation:



"Ilike her poem, by the way;



butI don't know if it is finished."



 



"Finished." Finished?



Isthat poem lying in state in the Rhyming Rotunda?



Isthe poem draped in the flag



ofthe Pickled Poets' Society?



Arethere Grammar Guards standing watch?



Arethere Punctuation Patrols ready to present the Colors?



No? No.  No!



Then,I assure you the poem is not finished.



Itis just at a stage in its poetic life



whenit can appear on a poetic platform.



I love this line. 




 


It defines this stage of a poem so well It makes a clear distinction between the status of finished and comingout.



 



DearLittle Poem of mine,



Atany time, each of your little words is not safe;



somewill be unceremoniously plucked away from you.



Someof your longer lines



maybe limited or lifted right off your page.



Someof your seemingly once vivacious verses



mayfall victim to the poet's carving knife.



Someof your stanzas may not stand the temporary test of time.



Evenyour precious title may be revised



whenre-read with later eyes.



Yoursweet, but weak little comma



maysoon be replaced with that stronger semicolon.



Watchout! That exclamation point



ofwhich you are so fond



maypromptly be deleted!



This stanza is great.  




 


In addition to being a useful list of some of the ways a poem can bechanged and with a variety of reasons, 




 


it is a warning to everyone of us. 



Either willingly or unwillingly, we may change at any moment.



 The forces of the worold can beseemingly capricious, 




 


and we never know when we are going to be struk by an epiphaney  that necessitates a change.



 



DearCritic, I assure you,



thepoem will never be completed!



Aslong as you now understand, I will not stress:



Poetryis now and forever more a work-in-progress.



Just  like everything else alive.Even rocks are in transmission .



 



* * *



(endof poetry submission)



 




 


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