04-23-2014, 07:31 PM
tomoffing,
tectak did a tremendous job, here. I second everything in those edits, and am going to add a few points, but mine are mostly overarching. That said, I wanted to chime in on one micro edit:
You wrote:
I nick and strip it's sere brown skin,
There were edits, then you asked, "how would you more simply present the actions involved in slicing an onion?"
Tectak answered, "Slice onion through middle. Avoid nickstripcentresplit. Perhaps I should have said over-complicated....but sere brown?"
I'm going to say something very similar, if not identical: "sere" isn't a word. I mean, it is, and certain poets and pedants know it, but it's so far outside the modern lexicon that it might as well not exist. What you're trying to say is "I strip back the dry outer layer," right? So, find a way to express that such that we don't need to haul out reference libraries.
Now, my macro is, (besides noting that baseball is a dreadfully aggressive miscue early on), who cares?
Let me say that in a way, as best I can, that isn't baldly hostile: If this is a poem about cutting up an onion, you'd better do a better job bringing me in.
For instance, the choice to say "blurs the senses" instead of "blurs my senses" is an aggressive way to distance the reader and narrator from the dicing of the onion. I want a stronger way into the action, not out of it.
tectak did a tremendous job, here. I second everything in those edits, and am going to add a few points, but mine are mostly overarching. That said, I wanted to chime in on one micro edit:
You wrote:
I nick and strip it's sere brown skin,
There were edits, then you asked, "how would you more simply present the actions involved in slicing an onion?"
Tectak answered, "Slice onion through middle. Avoid nickstripcentresplit. Perhaps I should have said over-complicated....but sere brown?"
I'm going to say something very similar, if not identical: "sere" isn't a word. I mean, it is, and certain poets and pedants know it, but it's so far outside the modern lexicon that it might as well not exist. What you're trying to say is "I strip back the dry outer layer," right? So, find a way to express that such that we don't need to haul out reference libraries.
Now, my macro is, (besides noting that baseball is a dreadfully aggressive miscue early on), who cares?
Let me say that in a way, as best I can, that isn't baldly hostile: If this is a poem about cutting up an onion, you'd better do a better job bringing me in.
For instance, the choice to say "blurs the senses" instead of "blurs my senses" is an aggressive way to distance the reader and narrator from the dicing of the onion. I want a stronger way into the action, not out of it.