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This Poem was Submitted By: Mark Andrew Hislop On Date: 2009-09-09 11:49:57 . . . Click Here To Mail this Poem to a Friend!

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The Flame

It can't be hidden this olympic flame I'm asked to carry through the years to you. It can't be quenched and though I see no light I'll carry it, not knowing why I do this penance. Perhaps it's just a lesson whose value I am yet to recognise, perhaps this flame's already passed to you: if so, then I am done with its disguise.

This Poem was Critiqued By: DeniMari Z. On Date: 2009-09-23 14:58:40
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 9.93333
Acceptance, this poem brings out the person accepting what is, yet still leaning towards getting rid of it somehow. Enjoyed your poem, like the idea of carrying an Olympic torch, not just any torch - yet when does the torch burn out? blessings, Deni

This Poem was Critiqued By: James C. Horak On Date: 2009-09-13 22:50:00
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 10.00000
The concept of lingeage is, at best, a homage paid progenitors, at worst, a disguise (as you may have suggested)to hide unearned credit by resting on the laurels of the past. At present, the best and most significant example is in the American psyche to rely that all the freedoms we have have been earned by our forefathers. Without maintainance. Nothing is further from the truth. For, if the "flame" requires a vigilance to tend, it must impact upon what it symbolizes and that is light...light to see. As in the Statue of L-I-B-E-R-T-Y. Maybe you need something that imposing in Aussieland. Let me know and I'll wire the French. It's the least I can do for all the brave Aussies that have fought with us, never against us. I have known a few. (I still think you blokes should get together and throw the NSA out of your country.) Maybe we could do the same here and they would end up in Antarctica. A great manifestation of "keeping them on ice." JCH

This Poem was Critiqued By: Mark Steven Scheffer On Date: 2009-09-09 13:15:36
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 10.00000
MAH, One of the things I read in my readings of Harold Bloom. He said he was taught by one of his teachers to ask, upon reading a poem, "what is the person trying to do for himself or herself, as a person, by writing this poem?" Bloom altered that to, "what is the person trying to do for himself or herself as a poet by writing the poem?" I haven't paid attention to those guidelines in either reading or writing, but I think I should. In your poetry you are often trying to do something for yourself as a person by writing your poems. This is very commendable, and something I think we can all profit from by watching you do it. I don't know the answer as to what you are trying to do for yourself in this poem, but it's palpable that you are doing something. I just wanted to make that observation, and I'm not going to hazard any comments on exactly what you're trying to do for yourself, but I will think about that question as I think about your poem. You make poetry alive and very, very meaningful. Almost belying, yes, in fact belying, your lament of "what's the significance of this poeming stuff" by your own example. As to Bloom's variation of the question, this is where I think you get confused or lost. It's as if you are so preoccupied with your demons that you forget that you are a poet and that each poem is more than you doing something for yourself as a person, it's also you doing something for yourself as a poet. Approach each poem as an opportunity for yourself as A POET as well as as a person. What do you want this adventure into this particular poem to do for you as a poet? Perhaps you are trying to do something for yourself as a poet here: strip language down into a direct simplicity. Well, that's fine, but in my view the language is too direct and simple. The "olympic flame" metaphor and the "disguise" metaphor - as with the idea of "penance" - does not create the artifice necessary to sustain this as a poem worth handling and taking possession of, for me as a reader. Plainness and passion, simplicity, are all virtues. But a poem has to create enough illusion, has to have enough artifice, to give it a distinction that makes it art, something different than the passion itself, a sublimation of it into that beautiful thing called a poem. To me this one doesn't do that. One can err both ways: too much artifice, or too much stripping away of NECESSARY artifice. The latter is a fault I fall victim to often. Hey, as you remarked, it ain't easy, this trying to make good poems. And that's one of the reasons why we're here, trying to help each other make good poems. So, you're a shining example to me and a model as to a vital question which I should keep in my mind as a poet: what do I want the writing of this poem to do for me as a person? You excel at this. But don't lose the jewel of artifice, the things that makes the art different from the raw inspiration and passion. Don't lose sight of the body that the soul must take. For a poet, it is that body which they will be judged by ultimately: the poem they create. And of course, if it's all artifice, then you have a body without soul, just a shell. Let's drink to, and pursue and ultimately find, the vital balance, my friend. MSS

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