The Tangled Branch Discussion Forums

Some poets get so caught up in dissecting a poem they can't see the forest for the trees. Critiques like that frequently make me feel as if I'd been beaten with a stick. So I'm always cautious about giving someone feedback on word choice, clarity, flow, pacing, imagery, meter, rhyme or reason. Inste...

Thanks for the feedback everyone. Good comments. I'll try some of your suggestions. My cats must have seen me as a friend because all I had to do was say "Let's go for a walk." and they'd jump out of their cubby holes and follow me around our property. Not quite like dogs, of course, because cats do...

Everyday,
my feline friends and I
go outside to roll in dirt.

There on backs and butts,
that common ground receives
domestic fur and indoor skin.

Briefly,
we are one—
a tribal quorum of man and cats
joined in holy, rolling ritual.

Everyday,
this sacred moment comes,
then goes
to birds 
and words.

You are so right about ambiguity and trusting your reader. Those were two of the many things my tutor shared with me. I remember her trying to explain how those two facets of a poem work together. I'm paraphrasing her, of course, but basically she said I should trust my readers to see ambiguity as a...

Despite the heavy nature of the accident, your poem was light and therefore fun to read. I especially appreciated the discussion of differentiating the poet and the persona, or as you folks say, the N. More than a few times, one or more of my friends will assume that the persona is me. It ain't nece...

Fine example of what my tutor tried to teach me about the difference between prose and poetry. Instead of explaining the meaning of the poem, you painted word pictures of it, pointed to it. I'm still trying to get that into my poems. As a friend of mine once said, "Your poem should show the moon orb...

Your poem went right to the heart of my thoughts and feelings about cats and my experience with them. I grew up with dogs and cats but spent more time with the dogs than with the cats. My favorite canine friends were those who went on runs with me in the woods. Later in life, after having to say goo...

Colm and Tracy > Thanks for the welcome. I'll give some feedback before I post anything. And yes, my tutor helped me understand the difference between poetry and the writing I did as a tech writer. She told me... "Prose is about something, whereas poetry is something." My career taught me to be very...

I look forward to meeting everyone on Tangled Branch. My career as a technical writer helped me to publish articles, essays and short stories with on-line magazines and e-book distributors but hindered my ability to compose traditional, structured, end-rhyme poetry. My poetry tutor introduced me to ...