Poetry Forum

Mr. Sea,
------
I was working on this as the last two posts were going up. I'll leave it up, but I didn't mean it to be discouraging I could do this w just about any poem, but I did it w yours bc I thought you might actually find it helpful . . . I was intending to ctrl+v this into a proper word processor and clean it up before posting, but if you're scrapping it, I won't bother . . .
------
If this kind of edit isn't helpful, please let me know I still feel pretty new at this.

Close-read edit
Note: this edit deals with the relation between the macro and the micro on a line-by-line basis, so it's ridiculously long and involved. Please don't think I'm trying to beat up on this poem. Truth is, I like it a great deal, and wouldn't be doing this otw.

Frankenstein’s Mistress
--the title lays out your raw material
----it suggests a // between F's monster and F's mistress, and signals an innovation on the Shelley story
----F's monster was a comment on science. It was assembled from large cuts of various corpses and brought to life through lightning, a common metaphor for God's wrath, judgment, or cruelty. Frankenstein usurped God by using His power to do His work, of giving life, but not according to His will. The violence done by the monster is, then, both ironic *and* due. That is, the perversion of God's will leads to bad things happening.
----TF, the monster embodies a specific anxiety: that scientific progress might anger God/it would lead to disaster
----the // in regards to love is clear. Love is often regarded as God's gift. Modern e-matchmaking allows us to rely on science for love, obviating God's role. We can assemble, by selecting certain personality traits, the love object of our dreams, and then find someone like that online.
----Many commentators have articulated the fear of that pursuit leading to bad outcomes.
------if this poem doesn't deal with those issues, I feel the title is both a miscue and a missed opportunity.
------if this poem isn't terrifying, ditto

I did not fabricate the monster;
--boom. immediately, we're on thin ice. Unless SOMEONE fabricated the monster, the entire errand of this poem is at hazard. That's not to say doomed, but it becomes really tricky

it crept into my life
wearing your skin.
--so . . . see if you can follow me, here, bc it's a tricky point. but it gets to the heart of what's going on, here.
----(1) "your skin" is a metonym for identity.
----(2) "crept into my life / wearing your skin" is tf chronologically ambiguous in an important way:
------the favored construction would be: "a monster, wearing your skin, crept into my life," and I assume most readers will understand it that way. BUT, that reading is nonsensical, given the poetic nature if the work. That is, if the monster usurped the mistress's identity *before* you met the mistress, then she would just be a monsterous mistress, not a monster in mistress's skin. So, we kick the favored construction.
------the disfavored construction is: "you were in my life, and the monster, by creeping into your skin, crept into my life." But this doesn't work, either, bc it betrays the title. suddenly, the metaphor is pod-people, not Frankenstein's monster. [See CONT'D2 for more on this]

I witnessed
the final throes of trust,
knifed on an evening stroll.
--major note: this is a setup for an explication. If it were left without a follow-up "and here's how that happened," it would be like a set-up w no punch line. [this note continues at CONT'D1, below]
--minor note: there are three constructions of the above:
----"trust's final throes were knifed,"
----"I witnessed trust in its final throes, its having been knifed on an evening stroll," and
----"myself having been knifed on an evening stroll, I witnessed the final throes of trust"
------that final reading seems, somewhat counter-intuitively, to work best, but it's so non-obvious that I doubt a reader would get there

I couldn’t stem the glut
of denial spilling on the walkway
through my fingers.
--CONT'D1: this can be the explication only if trust were knifed *while you were ministering to its bleeding out." I'll make it easy to understand that with a short //, "I saw someone get murdered the other night. I was field dressing a knife-wound."
----Here's another way to see what I mean: swap this line with the above and see if it still makes sense. If so, the current version prolly needs revising. Here's that swap:
------"I couldn’t stem the glut of denial spilling on the walkway
through my fingers. I witnessed the final throes of trust, knifed on an evening stroll."
--------I would argue that the second version makes more sense (even though neither makes perfect sense) and that, tf, you've got a problem.

My suspicions were amassing
with each trip into town.
--note: the first two notes are skippable micro notes:
----quick micros: "my suspicions" makes you seem paranoid in contrast to "evidence," "were amassing" seems like a lot of syllables when there are 1-syllable ways to say much the same thing
----a longer micro: "amassing" doesn't work. Caveat: I've found NO AUTHORITY to support this, but I'm right nevertheless Here's the argument: amassing anticipates a pile, stack, or other amorphous accumulation. You can amass bricks into a heap, but not into a wall. Likewise, you can't amass clues into a case; by the same token, you can't amass clues into a bunch of clues. SO, bc "a mass of suspicions" is, here, amounting to a specific narrative of events, "amass" is amiss
--another chronology issue:
----suspicions of what? If you suspected trust was in trouble, throw this line above "I witnessed"
------if you did that flip-flop, together with the other chronology edit, you'd have this story:
--------"I got suspicious that trust was in trouble, then trust bled out, and I witnessed its final throes."
--if there's no chronology issue, then there's a narrative embodiment issue. That is, if the chronology is *right*, then the story as written doesn't match the story that happened--unless I supply an event to the narrative sequence, the narrative doesn't make sense:
----as is, it would read as follows, "trust was bleeding of a knife wound, then it died, then I got suspicious"
------It needs an "of what". So, the makes-sense version would be something like, "trust was bleeding of a knife wound, then it died, then I found a bloody knife in your purse, and so I got suspicious that you'd knifed trust."
--CONT'D2: in the space of a few lines, we were doing Frankenstein, then pod-people, and now Jack the Ripper? Below, with the baked goods, we're doing Sweeney Todd. It's fine to go from one monster trope to the next, but not if the title proposes to stick w one, only

Men fixated
on you, their eyes incensed,
faces inanimate, as if stricken by
an unnamable malady. I realize now
they were reliving the scourge
before your exile.
--this is a mess I have some sense of your meaning, but let me write out the literal version:
----"men obsessed about you, their eyes angry, faces lifeless, as if sick with a malady incapable of being named"
----so, first, you want "fixated" to mean "stared at," I think . It does and it doesn't, but here, "stared at" means what you want and "fixated" doesn't
----second, where is "angry"/ "incensed " coming from?
----third, lifeless faces with enraged eyes is really hard for me to picture/understand the reasons why for?
----fourth, "as if stricken by an unnamable malady" is pure frosting. I don't get any cake out of this. Specifically, the alternative to this simile might be, "stricken by an unnamable malady," in which case I might ask myself, "like what? what would be an unnamable malady?" I might get some ideas and move on. as is, I think, "like what? what would be an unnamable malady AND if I could figure that out, would I be able to use the meaning to modify either "men," "eyes incensed," or "faces inanimate"? And the answer is *no*. An inanimate face with an unnamable malady is a largely empty lexical unit, imho.

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If you want me to keep going, I'd be happy to, but I'm worried it's all way too much to absorb. All the best,

crow


The original thread can be found here

chris, i completely agree with you (chris x 2 = )

crow did the same recently with one of my posts
and it made me rethink the entire poem as well.

this is EXACTLY why i sought out a site like this
where i could get more feedback than "i like it"
which, while ego-boosting, does little
to help me hone my craft.

i want to learn. i want to grow. i want to take cliches
and turn them on their head, make them new.
detailed critique like the above example is essential for that to happen, imho.

awwwww--thanks guys! It'll take me at least a couple years to be able to edit this intensely in a useful way; as is, I feel like my edits require a few meters of red yarn and and handful of tacks. I feel like it's just bombardment right now, but I'm slowly improving.

--I pasted the edit of cjchaffin's "Diana" below

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I'm thinking about using this reply post as a place to house my thinking about good crit. It's a selfish thing to do in this way: I'm not sure how else to get smarter about crit, which is something I'd very much like to be. I hope that, despite it being selfish, it isn't narcissistic.
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Thoughts on Crit, first draft September 21, 2014

-- This isn't as long as it seems! It just looks long in comparison to most forum posts. But it's only a five-minute read! Tell you what: As a thank-you, I'm putting an amazing one-liner at the end.--

I. Rambling Intro Statement

Crit is hard to do well, and I'm not great at it. My process delivers good feedback only by substituting brute force for wisdom, and I certainly wouldn't recommend it as "The Way Crit Should Be Done."

The rest of this document is much more about why I'm doing crit this way, given the fact that I see it as sub-ideal. (Mainly, it's because I get a lot out of it, and not because the author does.)

That's all to say, while I wouldn't recommend this approach to everyone, I would forcefully recommend it to anyone who wants to benefit from critiquing the way that I do. If you read this instructional and think, "Man! That sounds fun!," then (1) you're unusual, and (2) do it. Here's why you shouldn't be scared to:

On PigPen, the author's reward is the fact of receiving crit, and the critiquors are assumed to be gracious, self-sacrificing saints. That means the critiquor is an Almighty King. You might get dinged for being too dinky, but never for being too muscular. If you want to write a 2,000-word critique of an 8-line poem, the author won't say, "knock it off w the overkill, jerk,"--*they'll say thank you*!!! Bizarre, I know, but welcome to PigPen, a place where the oinks are expensive but the mud is free.

II. Incoherent Assertive Claims Drafted in Something Resembling English

A. This is the Crow-verkill Format (or, said more candidly, this is the stuff I think I probably do when I go to edit).

I'll walk stepwise through the sequence, and then I'll say what I like about it.

(Step 1) Read every new poem that gets posted in Serious and Miscellaneous.

----
Overly Long Insider Tip: The difference between Serious and Misc is vanishingly small. Broadly speaking, (1) Misc is available to things like short stories, lyrics, monologues, etc., whereas Serious isn't, and (2) Serious encourages a beat-'em-up kind of cowboyism that's more criticism than critique. Nothing wrong with that, and my only point is: you can offer the same kind of crit in both forums. The forum labels are much more about governing author receptivity than they are about controlling critiquor behavior.
----

(Step 2) As soon as you decide you like a given poem, move to Step 3. Don't finish reading. (This early move to crit is justified below.)

(Step 3) Paste the poem into a word processor that isn't glitchy. (Losing over a thousand words of crit sucks about as much as losing a poem, and sometimes more.)

(Step 4) Write "Proofer's Edit," "Copy Edit," and "Macro Comment" on separate lines and paste a copy of the poem under the Proofer's Edit and Copy Edit headers.

(Step 5) Save your file.

(Step 6) Provide *corrections* under the Proofer's Edit header. (Remember: Editorial insertions into quoted or excerpted writing goes in brackets! E.g., the proofer's edit of "Its going to be fine," should be "It[']s going to be fine.") Where called for, provide notes to your edits on the line below those edits. Imho, below-line edits are superior to beside-line edits.

(Step 7) Provide line-by-line suggestions and other comments under the Copy Edit header. (The reason this is a copy edit and not just a line-by-line is explained below.)

(Step 8) Provide general feedback under the Macro Comment header.

(Step 9) Ponder life, death, and coffee while you spend a few minutes doing something else. I usually spend about fifteen minutes playing Candy Crush.

(Step 10) Read back through what you wrote, revising as you go. As stated below, revise freely, but only delete feedback that was given wrongly. That is, keep errata, kill errors.

(Step 11) Write a courteous one-line thank-you for the author's having posted their work.

(Step 12) Accept the fact that the author is unlikely to post a revision based on your crit, and remember that such a revision would be entirely beside the point anyway. This whole thing is about mastering and learning to enjoy processes, not generating outputs.

(Step 14) Go looking for (Step 13). Assure yourself that it's around here somewhere . . .

(Step 15) Save and post.

(Step 16) Check back on the thread for the author's feedback to your feedback. It's usually just thank yous, but not infrequently, it will include a note that the author didn't understand what you were saying. If so, reply with a comment clarifying your thoughts bc they were probably unfocused and unclear.

(Step 17) Daydream about one day owning a slow loris.

B. This is What You'll Get Out of Doing It This Way
[to be elaborated later]
(1) The Proofread

A deeper understanding; a list of ambiguities; potentially a clearer text from which to work

(2) The Copy Edit

A sense of what the poem is doing

(3) The Macro

An initial point if view

(4) The Re-reading

A fulsome point of view.

Authority and the ability to speak with conviction. If you work the poem this way, there's a strong chance you'll understand the poem better than its author. This allows you to make confident suggestions about revision that

crow is the reason i don't post poetry anymore (just kidding)

it's about as in-depth as feedback can be and if the poet only used a small part of it the poem will be better for it. good job crow.

I just saw there was a new revision, so I'll treat that instead, and I'll do so within the original thread.

Leanne, if you see this, could you put this note above the initial post above?

"Every crit that I've spent over two hours on is pasted as a reply to this thread. Thanks! crow"

Tiger the Lion

Susie's Song


we were playing a card game
sat in those awful plastic chairs
you kept leaning forward in yours
splashing all that Japanese milky wonder
in my eyes

I'd put some Beatles on a loop
figuring they were universal
you clapped  
and bobbed your head
shouting 'Ob-la-di-ob-la-da'
in perfect English
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Even with all this, I forgot something  Billy--we know they're not in Japan (or, at least, probably are not) bc her name is Susie. Or else I'm missing something . . .


Tiger the Lion,

Below are a proofer's edit (mainly that the song title needs a comma in the middle), and a copy edit (mainly that your verb tenses create a kind of constructive gridlock), and normally I'd put the macro beneath those, but I think here the macro should go up top. Why? Because I'm super mad at you! (hahaha) 

From here to forever, I'm adopting this as a new top-five rule: names in poems should be handled with all the caution of uranium in a teacup. 

I have this wonderful breakdown of the narrative of the poem, but it's going to fail at the discussion if the name Susie, which is both this poem's Achilles heel and its biggest missed opportunity.

So. Here goes.

Macro:
More than any poem I've read on pigpen, this one has unrealized emotional kaboom. I don't think any other crits caught it (which makes me think maybe you didn't either?). And to explain what "it" is, I'm going to have to define love itself!

You know . . . kinda.

This poem may be the most compact, idiosyncratic, and potent meet cute I've ever read. A meet cute is a (largely American) screenwriting term of art. It's the moment in a a story where the guy and the girl realize their romantic chemistry. 

To me, the best meet cutes encompass all aspects of Sternberg's triangular theory of love. What the hell am I talking about? Sternberg's definition of romantic love, to me, remains the most useful model that's ever been proposed.

The triangular theory says love has three parts: passion, intimacy, and commitment. I think the chronological iteration is the easiest entry point. 

Intimacy is secrets; it's personal revelation, shared experiences, and confessions; it's the past. Passion is sensation; it's the increasing intensity of a moment, the visceral feeling of falling, and everything sexual; it's the present. Commitment is consensual trajectory; it's stated and unstated agreement, hopes and dreams, and differential role assumption; it's the future. 

This poem is nothing but those three things. Every word of every line. But to get there, the reader has to dig and dig and dig. My challenge to you is this: surface the triangular elements while maintaining the almost rugged narrative you've established. 

So, here's the narrative.

The pin in this wonderful grenade is line 3: "you kept leaning forward". The word "milky" on the next line is more than enough to credence the obvious: the woman is leaning forward so the man can look down her shirt. Without this line, it's just a guy gawking. But this line establishes mutual passion. She's seducing him.

The second most important part of the poem is the possessive apostrophe in the title. For a song to be "her song" (yes, yes--Susie's) means there's a future here. This is the narrator's commitment.

The third most important part of the poem is the word "those". Given the colloquial register of the poem, plus the word "you" starting the next line, we know that the poem is actually *narrated by the guy to the girl about their formative moments.* This is intimacy.

Cool. So far, we have all the elements of a solid meet cute AND the knowledge that the meet cute precipitates a long-term relationship. 

That's an AMAZING first four lines.

BUT the elements that get us there are so subtle that everybody missed them. 

So this is my first suggestion: Make them more legible.

But then there are these extra facts that really slap the thing out of the park. Because the girl who keeps leaning forward isn't Italian or Brazilian or French--she's Japanese. She's from a reserved culture. For her to be making these seductive moves will almost certainly create in her a strong feeling of sensual vulnerability.

And she's not just Japanese, she's native Japanese. And he's not. He's almost certainly a Westerner. That's a committal vulnerability given the classically insular mainland Japanese social structure. How much would she have to give up to make a go of it with this guy?

And he's not just a Westerner. He's a Westerner who doesn't speak Japanese. There's no guarantee that he'll ever learn it. There's no guarantee that she'll become fluent in English. There's no guarantee of shared secrets. That's an intimate vulnerability.

This girl is risking wounds on all three romantic fronts. 

And why?

Seriously. 

Why?

--The poem doesn't say!-- Somehow, the Japanese expat and the local boy have ended up falling in love over an everyday card game, despite the social, cultural, and language barriers, while sitting in awful chairs.

PLUS there's a Beatles song! Wtf else do you want from a poem??? It's perfect--needs to be goosed up some, but that's all in a day's work for a poet, right?

Then, the whole thing falls apart.

Because however long they've been together, he still doesn't know her name. It's Mikoto or Amaterasu or Noriko. "Susie" is her assumed Western name. Maybe there's a Suzume. But there's no "Susie," so there's no Susie's song.

The poem resolves with a chauvinistic note that Susie speaks gibberish in perfect English. And that's why I'm mad. She goes from a complex character with lots at stake to some girl-looking parrot. And the "you" may as well be the narrator talking to himself. 

You gotta fix it! I can't live in a world where it ends like that! Just one more line where he learns her real name or something! 

So, the macro challenges are these: (1) foreground the narrative such that it's more apparent and (2) change the ending so that it makes me happy 

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Note: some of the marks below clash with the notes above. That's because, if you reject the notes above, the marks below become imoortant.
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Proofer's edit:

Susie's Song

[delete the extra space]
we were playing a card game
[sitting] in those awful plastic chairs
--for parallelism. optional, given the style, here
you kept leaning forward in yours
splashing all that Japanese milky wonder
in[to] my eyes
--unless you say "into," you've declared your narrator to be Japanese
----as written, the clause reads, "splashing all that Japanese milky wonder that is in my eyes"
------this wouldn't be a problem EXCEPT "milky wonder" is either Susie's body part or the narrator's. May as well be the narrator's for all I know

I'd put some Beatles on a loop
--I'd highly recommend against the contraction, here. It's unclear if you mean "I could," "I would," "I should," or "I had," and that lack of clarity slows the read way down. I think just say "I put"
--you can get away with "on a loop," but it's inferior to "on loop" or "on repeat"
figuring they were universal
--"were" is inferior to "are"
you clapped
--consider "and you clapped"
and bobbed your head
shouting ["][o]b-la-di[, ]ob-la-da["]
in perfect English

Copy edit:
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First, a note on tenses.

Because your first verb is imperfect, you end up with verb-parsing problems throughout. 

Compare the following, which uses the same tenses in the same sequence as you do in "Susie's Song":

Susie's Song Verbs

We were walking. 
Ran over. 
You kept jumping
pushing away.

I'd trip, 
looking up. 
You skipped and 
turned around, 
sticking out your foot.

See how that's hard to parse? It has a disorienting effect which is hostile to your narrative, in which the narrator's clear orientation seems to drive events. And here's the question: was the narrator tripped by the other person? In this rendition, it's undetermined.

Contrast the following, which opens in the present progressive:

Susie's Song Verbs

We are walking. 
Running over. 
You keep jumping,
pushing away.

I've tripped, 
looking up. 
You've skipped and 
turned around and 
are sticking out your foot.

Notice that this second version is still confusing, but it's much more coherent. Was the narrator tripped by the second person? No. (Note: that answer is true for "I have," "I could have," "I would have," and "I should have.")

In your original, "I had" seems right at first, BUT if it's "I had," then the Beatles song started before the card game. That seems goofy. So now "had" is out, and I'm left with "should," "could," or "would," all of which seem like bad fits, too. 

See the problem? 

If the initial verb tense had been present, none of these construction issues would pop up.
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On w the copy edit:

Susie's Song

we were [playing cards]
--"a" is understood; "game" is redundant
sat in those awful plastic chairs
--big missed opportunity, here
----"those" is flaccid. First, "those" isn't necessarily understood, but it's damn close. Second, if it were "my," "your," "his," etc., it would advance the narrative. Third, it's confusing bc "those" implies a "these." We sat in *those* crummy chairs because *these* were even worse. Otw, you'd just say "the." 
------now, "those" does contribute to the casual tone, but it does so EXACTLY BECAUSE it's a throw-away word. Hit harder!
you kept leaning forward in yours
splashing all that Japanese milky wonder
in my eyes

I'd put some Beatles on a loop
figuring they were universal
you clapped 
and bobbed your head
shouting 'Ob-la-di-ob-la-da'
in perfect English

--Sorry I ran out of steam for the micro copy-edit of your second stanza  I know I've already said lots of stuff about everything, but I hate leaving a thing unfinished. Let me know if you need me to finish, and after I've had some sleep, I'll do it 

Great work! 

crow


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This was a later follow-up:

I was really shooting for it to not be such a booger to figure out. Let me try to say it quick.


Macro: this poem appears to be about a guy having a pleasant night with an attractive foreigner. It's not. It's actually the story of a woman opening herself up to love and a man discovering her availability. More importantly, her availability and his perception of it are surprising. Severe language, cultural, and social barriers appear at every step. Nevertheless, for reasons mysterious and profound, they end up together.

At least, that would be the story if it weren't for the fact that the title character, Susie, isn't named Susie. And even that wouldn't defeat the love story on its own. But coupled with the "perfect English" ending, the notion of some mysterious and profound connection evaporates.

To illustrate this point by contrast, I'll give two hypothetical revisions. In the first, the poem closes with the couple ordering shots. Such an ending, I assume you'd agree, would be antagonistic to any thought that their connection was meaningful.

In the second, the poem would end with her telling the narrator her birth name. An ending like that would deepen their bond rather than undermining it.

That's all I meant to say in the macro, but in order to say it, I had to justify with evidence my understanding that the couple was, in fact, "falling in love" and did, in fact, end up as a couple.

Lastly, the macro was trying to say that both the process of their falling in love AND the rather severe obstacles to it should be foregrounded.
The proofread and copy edit are both technical, so I won't try to write a quicker, better version of those 

So, look at the macro above if you want, but the points I'm making here are intended to be complete.

cjchaffin

I paint her in summer sun,
the midday breeze caressing
Diana’s proud breasts,
warm fingers of August heat
tracing circles over taut flesh.

Brushstrokes mimic alabaster skin
dimpled with shades of barest pink;
her cheeks flush, fires stoked within—
she is aroused, and I am nervous.

The model’s eyes narrow in mischief.
I ask her not to smile

but she does anyway.

[Note: the title, "Diana," was not included in the body of the post above]
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This is mostly amplifying billy's comments, which have a back-to-basics flavor to my mind. I'll proofread it first, then I'll give a line-by, but the macro is what I'm most interested in.

Proofer's edit:

[Diana]
--please put the title above the poem in the actual post. Otw, it gets missed.

I paint [Diana] in summer sun,
the midday breeze caressing
[her] proud breasts,
warm fingers of August heat
tracing circles over taut flesh.
--IMPORTANT: you've got an ambiguity that runs throughout this poem, and I'd bet a dollar it's intentional. Heresit: you want the act of painting and the act of touching to merge. Problematically, this works as a simile, but confuses as a metaphor. That is, if the brush "like warm fingers" traces, I understand. But if the "warm fingers" that trace are, by metaphor, the brush, I get super lost.
--On a personal note, this might be the first time I've ever understood the utility of similes. Cool.

Brushstrokes mimic alabaster skin[,]
--"mimic" is wrong. Either the depositions of the strokes mimic the color of skin or else, as above, the strokes are mimicking touching the skin.
dimpled with shades of barest pink;
--"dimpled" is wrong. You want either "mottled" or one of its synonyms.
--the semi is wrong. You want a period. Why? The sentences are not twin in any way. Rather, the sentence following the semi carries through with the notion of increasing arousal.
her cheeks flush, fires stoked within—
--needs a color word to carry the sequence. the move from alabaster to pink to "fires" doesn't work.
she is aroused, and I am nervous.
--the ", and" is wrong. It doesn't seem so at first, but look again. Building the sentence in this way attributes your nervousness to her blushing. That is, she is blushing both because she is aroused and you are nervous.
----There are ways of parsing the sentence that invalidate this comment, BUT here again, we're into the problem of the artist painting. That is, it is plausible that your nervousness alone is causing you to paint the blush where none exists.
----NOTE: that latter possibility is a FAR MORE INTERESTING read. If you were to look up from the aroused, blushing portrait to see your model remaining pale--that'd be cool.

The model’s eyes narrow in mischief.
--prefer "with" to "in"
I ask her not to smile[,]

but she does anyway.
--sequence problem here. Does she smile because you ask her not to--that is, after the request--or was I supposed to understand that the narrowed eyes imply smiling?


Copyedit [line-by substantive edit]

[Diana]
--Names in poem's contribute to the poem's depth. This name will reference to the huntress to most readers. But the nothing follows through. The name is, tf, a miscue.

I paint her in summer sun,
--from a proofer's point of view, the problem is the pronoun-antecedent flip. A copyeditor's problem is more serious.
----previous readers understood that there was a painter, a model, and a painting. But there's nothing to suggest that. As written, you're painting on a person. SPECIFICALLY: there is NO EVIDENCE that this scene contains (1) a canvas or (2) paint. That might be cool, EXCEPT it contains a brush. That's maddeningly confusing to me.

the midday breeze caressing
Diana’s proud breasts,
warm fingers of August heat
tracing circles over taut flesh.
--recast all of the above in active verb tenses. Gerunds=bad.
----most problematically, the lines "warm fingers of August heat / tracing circles over taut flesh" are almost indecipherable. Is the heat tracing? Is August heating tracing circles? It's intuitive that warm fingers are tracing circles, but that's impossible, because they're doing it "over" and not "on" or "upon," and, more to the point
------there's a rule of construction that commands a reader to assume the author had all possible versions of a writing available. That means, here, I must assume that you decided against the "plainspoken" version of the thought. That is, you can't have meant "warm fingers trace circles on taut flesh," because that version was available to you, and you opted against it.
--------That means I'm absolutely at a loss as to your meaning here.

Brushstrokes mimic alabaster skin
--as stated in the proofer's marks, gestures (which is what brushstrokes are) can't mimic colors. At least, it is hard to imagine them doing so here.
dimpled with shades of barest pink;
--the phrase "barest pink" is nonsensical
--again, the gesture (here, "dimpled") can't be done with a color
her cheeks flush, fires stoked within—
--the literal construction here is that she had something burning in her mouth
she is aroused, and I am nervous.
--I can't understand what your nerves have to do with anything. How do they connect?

The model’s eyes narrow in mischief.
--"The model's" is what Bernstein called, sarcastically, "elegant variation." There seems to be no reason to use "The model's" instead of "her." The fact that you did confuses me. I start wondering if there are two women.
----THIS IS A SERIOUS ISSUE here, given the fact that most readers will believe there is (1) a model and (2) a painting of that model.
I ask her not to smile
--SUPER IMPORTANT. WHY?

but she does anyway.
--Again, WHY?


MACRO on "Diana"

cjchaffin,

There's a helluva poem here, but you have to make some decisions.

Actors
First, is there a painting? If so, is that painting personified? In sum, is this a poem about something erotic or about eroticism? Second, are there brushes and paint? If so, what role do they play? Are they mimicking? Are they standing in for hands and fingers? Are they physical or imagined? Third, is the model aware of you? Nothing in the poem suggests that she is. In fact, the final stanza suggests THE OPPOSITE. If your model doesn't do what you asked, that makes it more likely that she didn't hear you than that she is defying you. The fact that your request isn't quoted reinforces the idea that you thought "don't smile" but did not say it.

Effect
What effect are you trying to achieve? I'm going to convey the facts of your poem in as few words as possible.

"I paint her. She blushes. I get nervous. She smiles even though I asked her not to." In any revision, you get 17 words that you can use for something besides generating an effect.

What effect is it that you want? Surprise? Delight? Embarrassment? Disgust? Bemusement? Right now, it is entirely unclear.

Shape
What are your events and in what order do you want them? Should she be right-away naked? When should you get nervous? Should you start in the field or somewhere else? There's a summer in the poem, and there's the barest suggestion of winter (alabaster skin is a wintertime characteristic). Would the poem be better served by a winter? If so, does it come first or last? Right now, you end with her disobeying you. Why is it important for that to go last? Was she under your sway earlier? What changed? When did it change?

Really go for it with this one. There's something truly magnificent in it, if you can shake it free.

All the best,

crow

Just a point of interest, you might notice the incredibly profound role that the word "brushstrokes" has. It's really really interesting, that.

bena wrote:

need help with title preference, and all the usual bs


Blood Lust  or Draped Moon dons Maroon

Inhale her perfumed breath,
her wind that stokes your lashes--
sensuality boundless

touching, 
yet
detached.

Swallow her full reflection, 
arched back 
fading from crimson to obsidian shadows.


Her pull intensifies;
her distance eclipsed 
only 
by diminishing boundaries.


Catch a glimpse
of illumination
before all is lost.


Burn it to the pathways of
your brain,
this perception
 of her wonder.

Breathe.

Swallow. 
----------

Bena,

Damn there's some excellence here. I wish I knew what kind of edit you'd find useful

On one extreme, I'd say cut everything but these two stanzas--
----------
Her pull intensifies;
her distance eclipsed
only
by diminishing boundaries.


Catch a glimpse
of illumination
before all is lost.
----------
Start with those and build out from there.

On the other extreme, I want to flay this piece so as to point out the cool features of each stanza, as well as the weaknesses. I'll try to achieve a middle ground by just giving feedback on the two stanzas above. 

Keep it in mind that the feedback below is meant to say "great work." The proofer's edit is important, but feel free to disregard it.

Proofer's Edit:

Her pull intensifies[,]
--no semi because the clause that follows lacks a verb.
----*clearly* you intend the reader to supply "is," and that's legit, but the formality of the semi undercuts the informal nature of supplied verbs. That is, the semi is a tuxedo, whereas the supplied "is" is a pair of swim trunks.
her distance eclipsed
only
by diminishing boundaries.
--this is an everyday dilemma, and I think your solve is fine, but check the position of "only" above. Literally, it should be "by only diminishing" or "by diminishing boundaries only".
Catch a glimpse
--this is arguably not a proofer's comment, but it's tough to say what "catch a" is doing in the line above. Specifically, there MUST be a distinction between "glimpsing" and "catching a glimpse," but it is extremely difficult to determine what that distinction is.
----"catching a glimpse" feels more active than "glimpsing," more deliberate--is that what you're going for?
of illumination
--"illumination" is wrong, here, as it nullifies meaning. Compare the phrase "seeing a visible thing." See what I mean? What you want to say is "seeing a thing that is disappearing." So . . . change it
before all is lost.
--is this meant to mean "before it's dark"? The phrase "all is lost" usually means "all hope of good outcomes is lost." Is that what you mean instead?

Copy edit [after I do this copy edit, I'll go through these stanzas again with a line-by-line of why I think they're great]:
Her pull intensifies;
--"intensifies" is flabby
her distance eclipsed
--a thing cannot have distance. It can only be distant relative to something else. Here, it is unclear what the thing is that she is distant from
--the sense is that she's massively far away, but there's an even more extreme feature of her
--distance cannot be eclipsed. You can say "the magnitude of her distance
only
by diminishing boundaries.
--"diminishing boundaries" is nonsense. The enclosed territory can diminish, the boundary can shorten, or the boundary can fade.
--how are diminishing boundaries occluding the view of anything?
Catch a glimpse
of illumination
before all is lost.
--contrast: "Glimpsing her before she vanishes" to "catch a glimpse of illumination before all is lost." Which do you want?

Mmmmmk. Now, chuck all the above. They're routine edits, and I feel obliged to make them, but here's the part that matters.

(1) the varied spacing is great and works to good effect.

(2) without the odd uses of time and distance measures, this poem would be ordinary
--that is, if you fix the time and distance issues, the poem loses it's fun part

(3) the sudden 2nd-person imperative in the second stanza below is fantastic. The addressee shifts at the same time as the lines shorten and the diction gets sime and immediate. Pulls me right in.
----------
Her pull intensifies;
her distance eclipsed
only
by diminishing boundaries.

Catch a glimpse
of illumination
before all is lost.
----------
(4) "Diminishing boundaries" is such a menacing idea when describing the moon. Fantastic.

(5) Her "pull intensif[ying]" means one of three things (a) her draw upon some object is getting stronger, (b) her strength is increasing, or © the pulling maneuver that she's performing is climaxing.
--***importantly***, none of those constructions has anything to do with the next lines. That's disorienting in an excelsior way. Super cool.

(6) really and truly, the pun on "eclipsed" is trite BUT!, it's nearly perfect connotively (am I using that word correctly?)

On the title options, neither is good


Neither is good, imho, because neither interfaces with the poem. A "bloodlust" (so spelled, btw) is a lust for blood for bloodshed. That event never coalesces in your poem. As for the other, the moon "putting on" colors likewise doesn't occur.
Just to illustrate, the title "Moon Lust" would fit, as would "The Red Moon Pulls". I'm not saying either title is good, but just that they have some bearing.

(10-10-2014, 08:07 PM)crow Wrote: [ -> ]bena wrote:

need help with title preference, and all the usual bs


Blood Lust  or Draped Moon dons Maroon

Inhale her perfumed breath,
her wind that stokes your lashes--
sensuality boundless

touching, 
yet
detached.

Swallow her full reflection, 
arched back 
fading from crimson to obsidian shadows.


Her pull intensifies;
her distance eclipsed 
only 
by diminishing boundaries.


Catch a glimpse
of illumination
before all is lost.


Burn it to the pathways of
your brain,
this perception
 of her wonder.

Breathe.

Swallow. 
----------

Bena,

Damn there's some excellence here. I wish I knew what kind of edit you'd find useful

On one extreme, I'd say cut everything but these two stanzas--
----------
Her pull intensifies;
her distance eclipsed
only
by diminishing boundaries.


Catch a glimpse
of illumination
before all is lost.
----------
Start with those and build out from there.

On the other extreme, I want to flay this piece so as to point out the cool features of each stanza, as well as the weaknesses. I'll try to achieve a middle ground by just giving feedback on the two stanzas above. 

Keep it in mind that the feedback below is meant to say "great work." The proofer's edit is important, but feel free to disregard it.

Proofer's Edit:

Her pull intensifies[,]
--no semi because the clause that follows lacks a verb.
----*clearly* you intend the reader to supply "is," and that's legit, but the formality of the semi undercuts the informal nature of supplied verbs. That is, the semi is a tuxedo, whereas the supplied "is" is a pair of swim trunks.
her distance eclipsed
only
by diminishing boundaries.
--this is an everyday dilemma, and I think your solve is fine, but check the position of "only" above. Literally, it should be "by only diminishing" or "by diminishing boundaries only".
Catch a glimpse
--this is arguably not a proofer's comment, but it's tough to say what "catch a" is doing in the line above. Specifically, there MUST be a distinction between "glimpsing" and "catching a glimpse," but it is extremely difficult to determine what that distinction is.
----"catching a glimpse" feels more active than "glimpsing," more deliberate--is that what you're going for?
of illumination
--"illumination" is wrong, here, as it nullifies meaning. Compare the phrase "seeing a visible thing." See what I mean? What you want to say is "seeing a thing that is disappearing." So . . . change it
before all is lost.
--is this meant to mean "before it's dark"? The phrase "all is lost" usually means "all hope of good outcomes is lost." Is that what you mean instead?

Copy edit [after I do this copy edit, I'll go through these stanzas again with a line-by-line of why I think they're great]:
Her pull intensifies;
--"intensifies" is flabby
her distance eclipsed
--a thing cannot have distance. It can only be distant relative to something else. Here, it is unclear what the thing is that she is distant from
--the sense is that she's massively far away, but there's an even more extreme feature of her
--distance cannot be eclipsed. You can say "the magnitude of her distance
only
by diminishing boundaries.
--"diminishing boundaries" is nonsense. The enclosed territory can diminish, the boundary can shorten, or the boundary can fade.
--how are diminishing boundaries occluding the view of anything?
Catch a glimpse
of illumination
before all is lost.
--contrast: "Glimpsing her before she vanishes" to "catch a glimpse of illumination before all is lost." Which do you want?

Mmmmmk. Now, chuck all the above. They're routine edits, and I feel obliged to make them, but here's the part that matters.

(1) the varied spacing is great and works to good effect.

(2) without the odd uses of time and distance measures, this poem would be ordinary
--that is, if you fix the time and distance issues, the poem loses it's fun part

(3) the sudden 2nd-person imperative in the second stanza below is fantastic. The addressee shifts at the same time as the lines shorten and the diction gets sime and immediate. Pulls me right in.
----------
Her pull intensifies;
her distance eclipsed
only
by diminishing boundaries.

Catch a glimpse
of illumination
before all is lost.
----------
(4) "Diminishing boundaries" is such a menacing idea when describing the moon. Fantastic.

(5) Her "pull intensif[ying]" means one of three things (a) her draw upon some object is getting stronger, (b) her strength is increasing, or © the pulling maneuver that she's performing is climaxing.
--***importantly***, none of those constructions has anything to do with the next lines. That's disorienting in an excelsior way. Super cool.

(6) really and truly, the pun on "eclipsed" is trite BUT!, it's nearly perfect connotively (am I using that word correctly?)

On the title options, neither is good


Neither is good, imho, because neither interfaces with the poem. A "bloodlust" (so spelled, btw) is a lust for blood for bloodshed. That event never coalesces in your poem. As for the other, the moon "putting on" colors likewise doesn't occur.
Just to illustrate, the title "Moon Lust" would fit, as would "The Red Moon Pulls". I'm not saying either title is good, but just that they have some bearing.

Really interesting crit, I agree it should be spotlighted. Thanks for your gifts to the posters, they're gifts to us all.

thanks, ellajam

(10-10-2014, 09:10 PM)crow Wrote: [ -> ]thanks, ellajam

This is not even the critique for my poem! Ella can you clean up this thread. Thanks so much.