08-06-2021, 10:12 PM
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Hi TqB,
like the idea, the execution, not so much.
As far back as I go is the Tar Baby story.
- I think this is a rather problematic line, Tar Baby opens up a world of sticky unpleasantness that I don't think this poem needs. Also, the analogy fails at the end. Tar Babies (as I understand it) are traps, not escapes (in the story the escape is the 'briar patches' combined with 'cleverness').
It isn't a very conversational or engaging opening. Close though
Third graders like me
Not interested in the 'like me'.
..................................heard Miss Sanko read
'heard' is very passive, and doesn't work well with the apparent revelation of the experience.
The Wheel on the School. A switch was flipped
OK, which is it? Tar Baby or The Wheel on the School? Feels like you're starting twice. Why?
Also you've got 'wheel' why then go for 'switch'?
I haven't read (nor heard until now) of this book, it would have been nice to know what the appeal was. This is all rather dry. A happened then B.
and I no longer knelt to change TV channels
a switch was flipped an so you stopped flipping switches?
but to run fingers along lettered spines.
feels (linguistically) like it's from a different poem. It's trying too hard.
S2.
L4 is a great line, the others are all rather dry. Nothing about how the stories affected you (and that's seems to be the case for the rest of the poem. It feels too much like a list, where's the 'phile' of the 'bibliophile'? And, out of absolutely nowhere, you end with Beowulf! (which, arguably is further back that where you began with the Tar Baby (at least in the West)).
Lastly, what are you confessing to? It isn't clear to me from the piece.
Just a thought.
Aesop is about as far back as I go.
But if you were to twist my arm
I say Miss Sanko reading aloud
from The Wheel on the School
one Tuesday in the third grade
is where it all started.
If you made the whole thing about this experience/moment, forget everything else, I think you'd likely achieve the same effect (the rest would follow naturally as implication).
Best, Knot
.
Hi TqB,
like the idea, the execution, not so much.
As far back as I go is the Tar Baby story.
- I think this is a rather problematic line, Tar Baby opens up a world of sticky unpleasantness that I don't think this poem needs. Also, the analogy fails at the end. Tar Babies (as I understand it) are traps, not escapes (in the story the escape is the 'briar patches' combined with 'cleverness').
It isn't a very conversational or engaging opening. Close though
Third graders like me
Not interested in the 'like me'.
..................................heard Miss Sanko read
'heard' is very passive, and doesn't work well with the apparent revelation of the experience.
The Wheel on the School. A switch was flipped
OK, which is it? Tar Baby or The Wheel on the School? Feels like you're starting twice. Why?
Also you've got 'wheel' why then go for 'switch'?
I haven't read (nor heard until now) of this book, it would have been nice to know what the appeal was. This is all rather dry. A happened then B.
and I no longer knelt to change TV channels
a switch was flipped an so you stopped flipping switches?
but to run fingers along lettered spines.
feels (linguistically) like it's from a different poem. It's trying too hard.
S2.
L4 is a great line, the others are all rather dry. Nothing about how the stories affected you (and that's seems to be the case for the rest of the poem. It feels too much like a list, where's the 'phile' of the 'bibliophile'? And, out of absolutely nowhere, you end with Beowulf! (which, arguably is further back that where you began with the Tar Baby (at least in the West)).
Lastly, what are you confessing to? It isn't clear to me from the piece.
Just a thought.
Aesop is about as far back as I go.
But if you were to twist my arm
I say Miss Sanko reading aloud
from The Wheel on the School
one Tuesday in the third grade
is where it all started.
If you made the whole thing about this experience/moment, forget everything else, I think you'd likely achieve the same effect (the rest would follow naturally as implication).
Best, Knot
.