I agree

by abcrystcats

Posted to Poetry on 2004-07-02 17:17:00

Parent message is 672659
with most of the above. The poem starts out awkwardly. I would eliminate the first line alogether and perhaps choose your title from some of the images at the very end of the poem. The “neighborhood” statement sort of announces the intention of irony, while at the same time the image is not consistent with the rest of the poem.

As for the second line, aren’t you swiping that line from Robert Frost? I’d pull that, too

I’d start it at “The high road through the thick leaves …” build a little on the beauty of nature (maybe a line or two more), then throw in the “But I had to pee …” line. Cut the “Damn braces …” line. I don’t know what you mean, here. “All that lives is holy.” (no caps, no exclamation point) or something like that, segues perfectly into your “bits and pieces of discarded lives …”

The rest of the poem is perfect. I like it very much except I’d change the caps to italics and throw in the correct punctuation in the ads (but no quotation marks). You could even cut the first eight lines entirely and start the poem from “Bits and pieces …” but I like the progression you tried to show — that you were going on a walk, and think it ought to remain in some form.