Some thoughts on reading the " Confessions of Aubrey Beardsley"

[Philatone]

hey! just wanted to have a look

Painted sails of paper boats ..this opening drew me in
toss on horizons
where the kites of nostalgia
tug and struggle
with Bernoulli effects; ..these first five lines have a lot going on. without punctuation, the poem sped me up a little faster than I would have liked
you have to run as fast as you can
into the wind,
you see, ..yet here, I don't know if you need the comma
and let go.
This is best done..do you need the "done"...
near a cliff top ..and the "top" here? could you do without it, or maybe change the preposition "near" or "on"? again, just suggestions, but I do feel the poem works well, and may even be strengthened, without them.
but parallel to, not
towards the edge,..I understand the instructive nature of these two lines, but they detracted from the poem for me. Maybe they are too technical, too specific in a poem that has so many broader things happening.
where the winds swirl
and billow the legs
of white shorts
and splay the hair of girls
to curling mermaid tresses..after this line, I think some kind of breakup would be helpful. A space. a period. the focus of your images changes. of course, you may prefer the effect of everything blending together.
salt stings grazed knees..like the shift from /t/'s to /z/'s
and seagrass cuts bitter..played with moving "bitter" down to introduce the next line
as sherbet lemons
sucked until the tongie bleeds. ..I don't know why, but the violence of the scene really became clear to me with this "bleeds". It's the red image intermixed with the lemons that really stands out. It's strong, possibly even too strong for the piece

..overall, really enjoyed this half

Illustrations, some coloured-in
quite carefully really,..hmm
although lines are crossed
in places
imprints of nail-bitten fists,
white knuckles clamped
around Lakeland pencil-crayons
swept into the fantastic
world of fin de siecle storyland.
Who would have thought Aubrey
as dissolute a Decadent
as all the others who produced
the wonders encased
in delicious
inherited hardbacked volumes.
..I may need to come back to this stanza at another time. It lacked something for me that the first stanza had. the first half gave me a moment, this one seems a little more general. sorry I can't be more helpful right now


101 Things for Bright Young Poets to do No.3