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This Poem was Submitted By: Mark Andrew Hislop On Date: 2006-01-17 18:19:41 . . . Click Here To Mail this Poem to a Friend!

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Gunning, dying.

On detour some six hundred-odd kilometres north of Melbourne, you can stop dead, fuel-less, buried by lost time in a town long by- passed. Macks no longer blanket Gunning in their amphetamined scree of diesel dust. Now shoulders grow heavier with weeds along the much less travelled road which still skewers as it locates the place, now ghosted by the meal that progress made of what all steady residents long took to be a settled fate, their hat-trick of traffic, commerce and pulse stolen. The new highway will never give it back.

This Poem was Critiqued By: Thomas H. Smihula On Date: 2006-02-07 08:27:43
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 9.60526
How the landscape changes as more find the hidden valleys. Each year a little less freedom, each year a little less space untamed. As progress moves so often left behind areas once traveled now desolate with only weeds left. We are nomads in a sense moving from one place to another. This is what I thought about as I read your poem. The highway runs over that which one thought couldn't be changed. Thanks for sharing a thought provoking piece.

This Poem was Critiqued By: Mark Steven Scheffer On Date: 2006-01-21 23:34:33
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 10.00000
MAH, Welcome back. As with Wright, the life you live flowers into poetry. Which is odd to me. My thoughts, and sometimes my lusts, flower into poetry, but not my life. Well, my "pulse" is in it, but not my "traffic" and "commerce." No hat-trick here. Why? Food for thought. Perplexed by the title. You took an APPARENT insignificant detail from the poem, the "gunning" Macks, and put that detail in the title. I take it the point of the title is the dichotomy, the object full of life, rushing forward and it's opposite, the dying. Guess I'm not so perplexed after all. Amazing what stopping and thinking about something a bit will do. :) Ok, here's a grand Schefferian observation that I hope is helpful and - if you give it any credence - I hope it postiviely moves you forward: the threat behind giving advice, when you don't know your lee shore from your windward, is that you can founder the other vessel. But here goes. You have called yourself lazy, repeatedly. Which is ironic. You are the most painstaking writer among us. Which, probably because I AM LAZY, appears to me a fault at times. Like "amphetamined scree." When I read some of Wright's clever formulations, they never strike me as too clever - even though they are immensely so - because I can almost see them jumping out of his brain before my eyes. When I encounter your "amphetamined screes" I get the sense of a guy whose been crossing out, erasing, writing, rewriting, working and reworking on paper. Which is ok, even laudable in most circles. But I am suspicious of the mind that doesn't directly intuit. A personal bias, I guess. So this may not be of much value. And probably 'cause you'll respond by telling me the phrase DID just jump out of your mind. In which case . . . Drink another bottle of wine. Read some Blake. Don't worry about me. I'll be alright. One can hope. MSS

This Poem was Critiqued By: James C. Horak On Date: 2006-01-21 18:40:25
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 10.00000
"Gunning, dying,"...ghosting. Capturing well the "progress" of a town lost to progress in the creation of imagery alone is quite a feat. The well crafted syntactical phrase, "their hat- trick of traffic," followed by the excellent, "commerce and pulse stolen." well justifies the emphatic last line. And, no, this ramrod called progress gives nothing back. Who of all, have not been "buried by lost time"?, this elevation of poem to universality and the placing of one concern into the "meal" that progress brings to all, what Thomas Wolfe so well broached in, You Can't Go Home Again and what we all must face with the forces of change, is inspired. In this poem, Mark, you demonstrate the ability to observe poetics both in craft and theme delivery that would, if revisited among so many of your other poems, produce the success many of them deserve. Place you as an exceptional poet and gifted imagist. It is not lost that your wrap-around lines are an enhancement to the imagery of a road now more meandered by out-of-the-way-ness as a stream to the eroding of its banks. You are abreast of the modern poeming of today with these faculties. You are going to where form is fashioned organically, used not of itself, for itself, but towards goals the poet elects. You elect well. The purpose carries a structure of its own and that is creativity. In this way, I see this poem very significant to discussions and considerations helpful to all poetic effort here. What you've exampled here can improve any excursion into free verse to prove that free verse is not always so "free". To be successful, the poet must have an even better idea of what he wants to accomplish than in more structured verse. This poem IS successful and shows a remarkable poetic intent on your part. It is one of the four best poems so far submitted this month and is the most interesting in the aspect of analysis. Don't forget the maturity you've displayed. JCH

This Poem was Critiqued By: Thomas Edward Wright On Date: 2006-01-20 07:43:48
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 9.62500
The double-edged sword of progress. I heard an NPR story the other day of a bridge in Venezuela that has begun to sink into the canyon over which it carried the daily traffic from the airport at Caracas into the city. The detour takes you out around the geographics into the hinterlands adding 3 hours to what was a half hour trip. I cancelled my trip to see Mr. Chavez. My son was in love with a lassie from down under; he was an airline ticket away from moving down. She suggested that he reconsider. He did, and we're seeing amazing things from him here in the states. But he had a chance to visit for a few weeks, and loved it. Should I ever muster the courage to make the flight, or rent a boat in San Diego and sail, I shall look for Melbourne. Perhaps a glass of your fine shiraz on the banks of your Mississippi. We are beginning to see sunlight on the far side of five o'clock. The waning winter, moons over freshly fallen snow, and not one pressing crowd crushing in on a minaret. Go figure. TEW

This Poem was Critiqued By: marilyn terwilleger On Date: 2006-01-19 09:03:00
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 8.00000
Hi Mark, Thought I would pop in to see what is happening on TPL and found this little gem. There are so many little towns in Wyoming such as you describe here. They have long since by-passed by four lane highways...but it is odd how those little towns never seem to die. They are not dead but still viable. I like the metaphors you have used here and also the enjambments...'ghosted by the meal that progress made' is a stunning line. Great poem! Please don't give me a score of 10! Best to you....Mazza

This Poem was Critiqued By: Terry A On Date: 2006-01-18 19:34:13
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 10.00000
A portrait, very well done. So many of those towns persist, yawning out the remains of their existence; attracting new-comers because of real-estate prices and some desire to vacant the rat-race. Quaint hamlets, some call them; others, dead-ends. "Pulse stolen", a very effective metaphor; as are the others you use in this poem. The language chosen for its deadening qualities set the tone. And the extended metaphor, highly effective; having parallels with many other things. A successful poem. But, leaving the reader much inclined towards the "new highway". Humans, almost instinctively, prefer what is living. Terry

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