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This Poem was Submitted By: Thomas H. Smihula On Date: 2006-01-08 21:29:32 . . . Click Here To Mail this Poem to a Friend!

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The Quest

Her native American smile enticing her movement an art form rendering me helpless This spirit reaches to hold solid ground yet her soul demands fulfillment grasping, all I reach is air I retreat slipping back into her domain this spirit engulfed Conquered

This Poem was Critiqued By: arnie s WACHMAN On Date: 2006-02-02 11:58:18
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 9.05556
Metaphysical yet metaphorical...reaching into Native spirit world. I trust it was not your spirit engulfed for that would not be good. You would have to give back something to Mother Earth and what's usually given is tobacco. Who's quest? Nice short form with a title that bears some explanation.

This Poem was Critiqued By: Mark Andrew Hislop On Date: 2006-01-30 07:12:28
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 9.53846
Thomas I have come back to this so many times since you posted it. Perhaps that should be taken as a sign of its pulling power. While this is entirely about the kind of woozy leglessness that some encounters can make one feel, it is this very quality that, to me, weakens the poem itself, which I would guess is not what you would want. No, you would want this poem to conquer as its occasion for coming into being conquered you. And that's exactly the right aim. I know I am a bit painful, but bear with me. Personally, though I've dabbled myself, I'm not a fan of the physical change from just plain old fashioned left-justifying the text, UNLESS it has a clear relation to content, UNLESS is it enhancing or creating a effect. Here, it does neither, so I'd drop it. I guess the images and your treatment of them are what lets this down for me. "The native american smile" and "her soul" "her domain" are really not developed to any degree, to the point where one can see why they are chosen. In other words, there is nothing specific to them that occasions the swooning. I think there should be, because then I might see it too and join in with your intoxication. In all, it seems too personal and interior to you to allow other readers to really grasp the full impact of what you want to convey. Regards, Mark

This Poem was Critiqued By: James C. Horak On Date: 2006-01-15 18:01:59
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 10.00000
There is a descendant sprial winding quality to the language and declined line structure in each stanza. The push to the sky of the Indian prayer falling to resignation. Had I my own designs this would be the abandon of woman upon man in the act of love-making. Perhaps thought especially exotic due to her heritage and perhaps something you detect, embraced by that allure, as with all feminine mystique, supernal in some respect. As if you are bestowed with something from above, something more than the many metaphors we place upon sex otherwise lightly taken. And the I of the poem, whose spirit is conquered, as in quest, of something more than woman. Something domained by more added to the mystique than sex alone, than passion alone. Something for which to quest. In form, style and in delivery your poem is like a prayer, an Indian prayer for this. It is appropriately indefinite as in the "grasping", where, "all I reach is air". But where the spirit has transcended the physical, not left untouched and to beforgotten...but rather, somehow, taken. The Indian belief in manifestation of thought taking form is here. And in no better place. Very interesting poem, Thomas. JCH

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