Private - See? [Edit 2]

[dukealien]

Private - See?

Edit2

From altitude, each new-built suburb looks
Quite different.  In vistas of its streets,
Viewed from the ground, McMansions crowd like books
On bookshelf-roads, beyond which eyesight meets
Brick walls, a man-made lake or leafy wood.
Developments seem closed, each one a cell
Which no one’s gated yet, but surely could
Self-seal hermetically if darkness fell.
Yet, bird’s-eye viewed, stark borders that concealed -
Walls climbable, lakes raftable, thin belts
Of trees that seemed deep forest - lie revealed
As social follies:  separation melts.
    How simple, if all trust in what they see,
    To slake the house-proud lust for privacy.

Edit1

From altitude, each new-built suburb looks
Quite different.  In the vistas of its streets,
Viewed from the ground, McMansions crowd like books
On bookshelf-roads, beyond which eyesight meets
Brick walls, a man-made lake or leafy wood.
Developments seem closed, each one a cell
Which no one’s gated yet, but surely could
Self-seal hermetically if darkness fell.
Yet, bird’s-eye viewed, stark borders that concealed -
Walls climbable, lakes raftable, thin belts
Of trees that seemed deep forest - lie revealed
As social follies:  separation melts.
    How simple, if all trust in what they see,
    To slake the house-proud lust for privacy.

Original version

From altitude, each new-built suburb looks
Quite different.  In the vistas of its streets,
Viewed from the ground, McMansions crowd like books
On bookshelf-roads, beyond which eyesight meets
Brick walls, a man-made lake or leafy wood.
Developments seem closed, each one a cell
Which no one’s gated yet, but surely could
Be sealed hermetically if darkness fell.
Yet viewed from high up, borders that concealed -
Walls climbable, lakes raftable, thin belts
Of trees that seemed deep forest - stand revealed
As artful follies:  separation melts.
    How simple, if all trust in what they see,
    To slake the house-proud lust for privacy.

---

Another one about houses   .

[REW]

Private - See?

From altitude, each new-built suburb looks
Quite different.  In the vistas of its streets,
Viewed from the ground, McMansions crowd like books
On bookshelf-roads, beyond which eyesight meets
Brick walls, a man-made lake or leafy wood.
Developments seem closed, each one a cell
Which no one’s gated yet, but surely could
Be sealed hermetically if darkness fell.
Yet viewed from high up, borders that concealed -
Walls climbable, lakes raftable, thin belts
Of trees that seemed deep forest - stand revealed
As artful follies:  separation melts.
    How simple, if all trust in what they see,
    To slake the house-proud lust for privacy.

---

Another one about houses   .

I tend to agree with you (although you are not exactly saying this here) that houses have a spirit.  I like this because it is surprising with its modern theme.  It is so true that people think that they have a certain amount of privacy.  Then you have something scary like Google Earth and you can even zoom in on a property to check out the cars in the driveway!  It kind of makes you wonder to what extent we are all watched.  It is so much worse because of all those crazy drones now and lord knows what the government has cooked up to watch us...I do like this piece and I like the little sing that your last line, "To slake the house-proud lust for privacy" brings to it.  I suppose I disagree a little because I do not feel people who procure McMansions are after privacy.  Then again I have not surveyed people.  I hate McMansions (no offense to anyone).  I feel that they are sterile and lacking in charm or architecture of any merit.  Private?  Well most seem to me to be seriously lacking in real trees; although, the yards are manicured.  I tend to feel as though those buying McMansions are after status and keeping up with the Jones-es.  But I do not really know and I do really like what your piece reveals about privacy.  It is all just for show.  At least we have roofs.  Oh my!  I thought solar panels were encouraged for privacy!  Satellites and drones can peek through those.

I like your comparison of the houses and the roads to books on a shelf.  I also like the thought of the cells...The title is cute too.  

[polesofie]

I enjoy this poem, as the detail really speaks to me. I like the way your voice comes out through the poem and shows a true connection to the subject of the poem.
I do falter a little at some of the rhymes and sentence structure, as it occasionally messes with the flow of the verse.
The title is a very nice play on words, and I like the creativity behind it, particularly as the subject matter of the poem- the house- is such a common every day object in peoples' lives. You make it known that a house is a home, because anybody can see it, yet it is private on the inside. The idea of privacy being kept in such an open thing as a house is quite profound and it is so true in many ways.
I enjoy this poem the more I think about the meaning behind it, the creativity you have put into it and the effort. Although reading it the first couple of times did not do much for me, the meaning behind it is genius and I believe that you have a powerful idea here for more great poems to come about houses being private and seen at the same time.

[billy]

i tried hard to find repetition and all i got was seem/seemed the end rhymes go unnoticed. the meter seems spot on and the images are perfect for the city. macmansions is now my favourite word. the title weighs on the poem and adds to the open closed castle meme. i'm not capable of find anything constructive to say that could improve the poem. wish i could have been more help

Private - See?

From altitude, each new-built suburb looks
Quite different.  In the vistas of its streets,
Viewed from the ground, McMansions crowd like books
On bookshelf-roads, beyond which eyesight meets
Brick walls, a man-made lake or leafy wood.
Developments seem closed, each one a cell
Which no one’s gated yet, but surely could
Be sealed hermetically if darkness fell.
Yet viewed from high up, borders that concealed -
Walls climbable, lakes raftable, thin belts
Of trees that seemed deep forest - stand revealed
As artful follies:  separation melts.
    How simple, if all trust in what they see,
    To slake the house-proud lust for privacy.

---

Another one about houses   .

[dukealien]

Now this is an unexpected development [ow!] .  This sonnet had been through only a couple of revisions before posting, and I *know*  there are things wrong with it  (for example, the sentence spanning from S1 to S2).  There are also things I wish I could have figured out how to do, such as working in "rubber-raftable" and making it clearer(er) that "if darkness fell" refers to social disorder.

But I'll take what I can get, which is apparently a poem that puts its program across without its mechanics getting in the way.  [Cut!  Print!]

@Casey Renee - I got the idea for the poem very much as you do from it. I was looking at nearby housing developments in RAIDS (a police activity database which includes overhead imagery) and realized that these seemingly stand-alone townlets, through which I bike regularly, were all wrapped around each other very compactly, separated by almost nonexistent barriers.  In other words, looking down through RAIDS, I was the intrusive viewer you picture (and worry about).  (For what it's worth, though, rooftop photovoltaic cells are probably barriers rather than skylight-windows to aerial spies:  they're made to catch and process all available light into elecricity.  They probably also interfere with infrared imaging through normal roof materials, too.)  Thanks for the read.

@polesofie - Glad the poem worked for you after several reads.  The structure does need revision to make it flow better - thanks for that observation, as well as the reads.

@billy - I scratch my head and get sawdust.  Should perhaps submit it for serious workshopping, but it's such a light work that, if it's working, I hate to try improving the flow for fear of bunging it up in the process.  Thanks very much for the read and comments.

[Akira]

There's much here I like, as others have noted, the theme, combining a very modern/timely issue with an old form in a playful way, etc.

These are picks, but you asked for them, so:

I am not sure the 3rd quatrain turn goes someplace consistent. This reflects a little confusion on the theme itself. What privacy are you exploring? That the walls are climbable doesn't necessarily mean the house isn't private, it just means it isn't secure from criminals: that wall still does separate me from my neighbors who aren't spies or mobsters (which I assume is most of my neighbors), so I don't see the separation melting.

The "view from high up" also temporarily lead me to think you were making a more political comment about privacy in the post-Snowden era -- I thought it was a reference to surveillance, which made the next couple of lines throw me for a second.

It also made me go back and question the first line. You say from altitude they all look different, then explain how they look different from a ground-eye perspective, then say but from high up they don't look different. So what is it, do they look the same or different from above?

L9: I think "up high" would maintain the iambic better than "high up".

Fun sonnet, though.

[Erthona]

Paul,

Hmm, a sonnet? Not on L2 

Quite dif-fer-ent.  In the vis-tas of its streets,

However the rest is fine, although the "As artful follies:  separation melts." Comes off as a bit difficult, although technically correct.

L9 " concealed"  there seems no justification for past tense here.

Personally I thought that L8 was a very good line:

"Be sealed hermetically if darkness fell."

and that darkness could refer to a number of things and although you may not have meant it, hermetically sealed alludes to the Egyptians and the jars that accompanied the important dead (mummies) on their journey in the heaven boat to the after life. So to me it connotes that these people are sealing themselves inside their homes(?) in a death-like state.

Of course there is a simply way to avoid needing all of this protection, just do like I do, possess nothing worth taking. 

Anyway enough frivolity, I scanned your poem and except where noted it is technically sound, but there are myriad places that lack smoothness. I would point them out, but I think you know them already, and I have no solutions to offer. Overall the writing is clear and so is the writer's intent.

Best,

dale

[dukealien]

Edit1

From altitude, each new-built suburb looks
Quite different.  In the vistas of its streets,
Viewed from the ground, McMansions crowd like books
On bookshelf-roads, beyond which eyesight meets
Brick walls, a man-made lake or leafy wood.
Developments seem closed, each one a cell
Which no one’s gated yet, but surely could
Self-seal hermetically if darkness fell.
Yet, bird’s-eye viewed, stark borders that concealed -
Walls climbable, lakes raftable, thin belts
Of trees that seemed deep forest - lie revealed
As social follies:  separation melts.
    How simple, if all trust in what they see,
    To slake the house-proud lust for privacy.

Many thanks to @Erthona and @Akira for their good critiques.

@Akira - I've altered "from high up" to make the flight level and non-political nature apparent - good catch.  The confusion you mention results, I think, from conflating privacy with security:  my project is the illusion of both.

@Erthona -  Taking your valuable critiques more or less in order...

"[D]ifferent" as two syllables is how I pronounce it, so I plead dialect.  For a while I was using apostrophes to command-and-control readers' pronunciation, but the work ends up looking as if it had been shotgunned.  Besides, the reader must be trusted... and you didn't complain about "hermetically" as two iambs   .

I've done some smoothing (including your favorite line, sharpening the sense a bit).  Your take from it is deeper than mine when I wrote it.

Defense of "concealed:"  What's prologue is past - as you're reading this line, the grammatic clock has ticked since you thought about the concealment.   (Changed the cliche ("stand revealed") to something more supine since viewed from above, but couldn't manage to change the A rhyme.)

Oliver Cromwell was against giving the vote to such as have no possessions to lose ("one who has nought but that hee can carry on his backe" [Putney Debates]), ignoring the fact that this described most of his own New Model Army.  I think you should have a vote anway, particularly in matters poetic, and thank you for yours. ><

Paul,

Hmm, a sonnet? Not on L2 

Quite dif-fer-ent.  In the vis-tas of its streets,

However the rest is fine, although the "As artful follies:  separation melts." Comes off as a bit difficult, although technically correct.

L9 " concealed"  there seems no justification for past tense here.

Personally I thought that L8 was a very good line:

"Be sealed hermetically if darkness fell."

and that darkness could refer to a number of things and although you may not have meant it, hermetically sealed alludes to the Egyptians and the jars that accompanied the important dead (mummies) on their journey in the heaven boat to the after life. So to me it connotes that these people are sealing themselves inside their homes(?) in a death-like state.

Of course there is a simply way to avoid needing all of this protection, just do like I do, possess nothing worth taking. 

Anyway enough frivolity, I scanned your poem and except where noted it is technically sound, but there are myriad places that lack smoothness. I would point them out, but I think you know them already, and I have no solutions to offer. Overall the writing is clear and so is the writer's intent.

Best,

dale

[Erthona]

Paul wrote: " ...you didn't complain about "hermetically" as two iambs"

hur-met-ik-lee          http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/hermetically?s=t


By the "rule of three", I allowed "hermetically". If you are unfamiliar with this (milo taught it to me) when writing IP, if there are three unaccented syllables together the middle one gets the accent, so...

hur-met-ik-lee

Thus nothing to complain about, which is why I said nothing, notwithstanding that I liked the line.


dale

PS You must read more carefully. I did not say I had nothing, I said I had nothing no one would want to take. I have a car, but it is very old and looks like a piece of shit. I own a house which cosmetically looks like a mess (also helps to keep taxes down). There is nothing in my house one could take to the pawn shop and get more than thirty dollars for, if that. All my electronics are very old (I still use a flip phone). I buy used and update them myself until I can't then buy used... There are a few quality items in my house, but they would be of no value to a thief who would be looking for a quick turnaround.
  There is only money in them if the right buyer/collector is found. As E.A.P. once wrote the best place to hide something is right out in the open, or something to that effect. I follow that by leaving my most valuable things stuffed haphazardly here and there, next to things that would appear to have more value, although still not worth taking the time to do anything with. I am also nobody of import like Oliver North who had to invest tens of thousands according to the congressional hearings for home security due to his antagonistic relationship with some guy no one had heard of (at the time) by the name of Ben Laden. So it is fortunate I am not famous, I lack the wealth to provide the necessary security measures one needs, if one is. Besides I think so highly of myself, I don't need other people to think highly of me

[dukealien]

Thanks for the explanation, but I remain confused (please excuse my poor wooden head).

Your reference (below) actually gives

hur-met-ik-lee, which is how I used it (two iambs).  I might, under durress, use it as hur-met-ik-ah-lee, but most likely with humorous intent.

Incidentally, your handy reference gives

dif-er-uh nt, dif-ruh nt   http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/different?s=t

that is, the effectively two-syllable iamb as accepted though not preferred pronunciation.

However, particularly in the case of "different," I recognize a spot at which a reader will either have to read ahead or force the meter on spec to get my desired pronunciation, which is undesirable.  Still want to avoid the apostrophe, though, it seems dictatorial.  A different word will be sought.

[We'd better stop here lest mods accuse us of badinage in a proper criticism thread.  Be assured, your critique is taken seriously!]

Paul wrote: " ...you didn't complain about "hermetically" as two iambs"

hur-met-ik-lee          http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/hermetically?s=t


By the "rule of three", I allowed "hermetically". If you are unfamiliar with this (milo taught it to me) when writing IP, if there are three unaccented syllables together the middle one gets the accent, so...

hur-met-ik-lee

Thus nothing to complain about, which is why I said nothing, notwithstanding that I liked the line.


dale

(snip)

[Erthona]

In terms of IP, I always think one should go with the choice that works best when critiquing, preferred or not.

Paul wrote: "Thanks for the explanation, but I remain confused (please excuse my poor wooden head). Your reference (below) actually gives hur-met-ik-lee, which is how I used it (two iambs)."

Which is why I said nothing about it, so why the confusion?

Oh, I see, you are correct, it should be scanned:

"Quite different.  In the vistas of its streets,"

Which is quite acceptable IP. Sorry about that. I guess I thought I pronounced it as two syllables, the second as a diphthong, but that's just because I'm from Texas and it is three syllables and never looked it up in the dictionary. Of course the British folks would probably say that three syllables is the correct and only way to pronounce it. Nice to have the dictionary on our side. Wonder what the OED says about it? Use to have an unabridged copy but got tired of lugging it around during my days when I was moving all the time and living in small places.

Best,

dale

[ellajam]

dukealien wrote:
[We'd better stop here lest mods accuse us of badinage in a proper criticism thread. Be assured, your critique is taken seriously!]

Discussing the finer points of meter and pronunciation that come up while working on a poem certainly belongs in our workshops. Gotta have some fun.

[Erthona]

Websters only gives the three syllable version.

dale

[dukealien]

Edit2

From altitude, each new-built suburb looks
Quite different.  In vistas of its streets,
Viewed from the ground, McMansions crowd like books
On bookshelf-roads, beyond which eyesight meets
Brick walls, a man-made lake or leafy wood.
Developments seem closed, each one a cell
Which no one’s gated yet, but surely could
Self-seal hermetically if darkness fell.
Yet, bird’s-eye viewed, stark borders that concealed -
Walls climbable, lakes raftable, thin belts
Of trees that seemed deep forest - lie revealed
As social follies:  separation melts.
    How simple, if all trust in what they see,
    To slake the house-proud lust for privacy.

[Image: http://www.hostthenpost.org/uploads/b85a...5e7b63.gif]
Well, OK - can't argue with that Webster fella.

Seriously, it works at least as well this way, eliminates a "the," and we flyovers long ago learned to sigh and add a syllable to our real-world
pronunciation when some poet demands it to fill his frame.  Thanks for the persistent (and correct) critique!

Websters only gives the three syllable version.

dale

[Erthona]

Yeah, works just as well and now you won't be crosswise with Webster. Still I would like a gander at an unabridged OED.

dale

PS nice flag waving