Fly

[Caleb Murdock]

Afaik i did not comment on meter.

You didn't comment specifically on the meter, but you did mention the "very fluid speaking style" which I didn't maintain throughout -- isn't that meter?

In regards to your final chapbook idea, nothing has merit in and of itself. Ideally, you should have a rigorous vision for a poem and settle on the poem that nearest attains that.

That's my point:  I DO have a rigorous vision for a poem.  I post my poems on critique forums only when they are finished to my satisfaction -- I never post drafts.  But the people who critique, like you, often don't like what they read.  This is the second forum where I have posted "Fly" and NO ONE on the first forum liked the ending, which is why I posted it here, to see if I could find someone who liked the ending.  When I talk about publishing two versions of a poem, I'm not talking about publishing the final and then one of the drafts.  I'm talking about publishing the poem that reflects my purest vision, and the poem which was revised in response to critiques.  (Yes, I do care what people think about my poems.)

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Donald Q., thank you for your comments. I don't see the shifts in tone that you are seeing, but I'll examine the poem to try to figure out what you mean.

CRNDLSM, you're the only person who likes my revelatory ending. It saddens me, though, that you don't like the poem that builds up to it. The original ending had the exclamation point after the Oh, but I changed that in response to comments. The whole idea of the poem was to show a person battling against a minor opponent, only to realize right at the end that he has a great deal in common with the opponent -- but every one else was telling me that the ending could be inferred from the rest of the poem and was therefore redundant. They said that the ending -- Oh! I am also a fly -- was "obvious" and didn't need to be stated. You are the only one who sees my vision, but then, you don't like the rest of it.