Magnetic Beasts (Edit 2)

[tectak]

Hi Dan,
I'm glad to hear you enjoyed the poem.
I completely agree with you, there are just too many gerunds in there. I will work on them and also the other things you pointed out.
Thanks a lot for your feedback and your kind words.
Best,
Louise

not to be a pedant, but there are no gerunds in this poem, I think he meant participles. i will return later with a more proper critique if I have time.

...I have no idea who said this first but if you stick the words "in the act of" in front of the -ing word, and it still makes sense, you do not have a gerund.
For example:
"Tony was washing the car". "Tony was in the act of washing the car"... not gerund.
"Washing the car was Tony's job". "In the act of washing the car was Tony's job"... a gerund.
Not foolproof but there are many fools. -ing words and -ion words drive me nuts but that is mainly because they are insidious...once you (or I) start it is hard not to keep (in the act of) going!
-ing endings in general do tend to cluster and that has happened here. The gerund-generic makes for over-excited reading and should be avoided in all but the most frantic poetry. This is far from being a hard and fast rule...as most rules.
Best,
tectak