Mark Steven Scheffer's E-Mail Address: msscheffer@mac.com
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Below you will see ALL of the Critiques that Mark Steven Scheffer has given on The Poetic Link.
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Poem Title	Poet Name	Critique Given by Mark Steven Scheffer	Critique Date
Ode To Illusions	Regis L Chapman	Regis, I sense a dramatic shift in the poem, appropriately after the rubicon is crossed. Their is clearly a Whitmanian illumination, an expansion of consciousness reminding me of "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry." But this expansion is not through time, but geography. Omnipresence to go with immortality. Neat. I still think you have to work on form, but I won't repeat my old sermon. I like what you're doing at the end of this poem, almost surrounding the poem with your soul, and yet "all I have is what is on this page." That may be what it comes down to after all. Which is why poetry is not child's play . . . unless you want to die in a sandbox. MSS	2009-01-20 18:02:46
From One Time Traveler to Another	James C. Horak	JCH, These lines reverberate for me personally, as I think you could imagine. :) I stand humbly before the universe in the sense that I now refuse, and may I forever refuse, to sacrifice it to my human limitations and psychic and social "needs" that would make it a toy to me. It may exist for me, in the sense that I (and you, and all our brothers and sisters) are its crown achievement, but that is something far different from its being my toy, which it most emphatically is not. Just as I am not the toy of my children - though I exist for them and gave them genesis from my loins, with more than a little help from my darling wife :) - and continue to give them life: and they are MY crown achievement. But they do not define me, nor I them. There are things I do not know, and I humbly await their revelation. And I have no preconceived idea as to what it (the blessed universe) will show me. I stand humbly and wait. Time travel? A higher, brother race that is kin and which watches us, or rather monitors us? I have no idea, and discount nothing. Let it (them) come. I do not understand taking the smile "damply." I feel like I should, but I don't. I hate when that happens. :) MSS	2009-01-19 10:09:46
i held my breath to hear	Mary J Coffman	Mary, I'll admit I have trouble connecting with your style. It's like concept painting. Poetry as collage, or mosaic. My deficiency. Sorry. You need to follow your muse, even if it leaves some of us lagging behind. Lead, always lead. Glad to see you back here. MSS	2009-01-06 16:55:31
The Comings and Goings	Dellena Rovito	Dellena, Great last line. Frameable. MSS	2009-01-06 16:50:23
Best of Friends	Rene L Bennett	Rene, Keep peeling, peeling, peeling. And you'll soon be pealing, pealing, pealing. MSS	2009-01-06 16:48:25
Among the Leaves	Kenneth R. Patton	Ken, You fall off her from last month. Ah, don't I know what flotsam surfaces in the wake of the Muse. ): MSS	2009-01-06 16:46:20
Wind Chimes	Dellena Rovito	Dellena, "I believe goodness will prevail." Bless you. This, and a good cup of joe, makes all the morning difference. MSS	2009-01-06 16:40:46
Pace of Grace In Life	DeniMari Z.	DeniMari, "Strictly prose." Well, mostly. Yet . . . I like the depth of thought. MSS	2009-01-06 16:36:51
My November Vote	James C. Horak	JCH, The way it should be, and will be. Amen. MSS	2008-12-30 11:43:22
Dellena's "November Vote"	James C. Horak	JCH, The obsession with numbers lost here. Because those of us with an alternative vision were the strongest. But that was inevitable, because our vision is stronger. Let them puff their powder elsewhere. Will the numbers ever come here? That is doubtful. Look at history. The most this place will remain as is an oasis, a hole to slake thirst, where only so many bodies can gather around. I hope this site never goes down. Should it, what we started here should not be abandoned - there are always new worlds. Thanks for remaining, and fighting, James. Both you and everyone here who remains - Dellena, Duane, Terry, Tony, Claire, Rene. MSS	2008-12-30 11:41:10
The Bridge of Tears Again	Michael Bird	Michael, For confessional poetry to have value - aesthetically speaking - it must have something in its imagery, form, voice . . . something to make it stand out. A reader - this one anyway - has little interest in "poetic" unburdenings which are only poetic in appearance, i.e, sharing in the nondescript common denominator of what is accounted for poetry - short lines in apparent poetic arrangement, some metaphor and imagery, rhythm, etc. Thus, I have little interest in this. Of course, the failing my be mine - granted. There may be something technical, some arrangement or formal innovation, that I totally miss. But since formal innovation without imaginative power - a formal innovation that translates into moving the reader where it matters, in their heart or soul - makes poetry merely an arid, higher level of crossword puzzle . . . any such formal innovation you achieve here is for naught, so I miss nothing in missing what may be there. Not that many that have come and gone take this to heart, but this is the matrix which gives life to this site: "The Main Goal of The Poetic Link is to provide something for poets that can be found nowhere else! A refuge for young and old, novice and professional alike. It is a meeting place for you to honestly and openly express yourself and derive meaningful feedback from your peers. Rest assured that you will find nothing like this anywhere! ...How can I be so sure of that, you ask? Because only after searching and finding nothing to satisfy me... I decided to create it. This site is not for the faint of heart. You will get honest and sometimes tough critiques of your Poetry; you will learn and you will grow. We have people from every level of achievement here so you will glean many different viewpoints on your work from your peers. You will be able to teach, and if you have an open mind, you will most certainly be taught. But most importantly... you will grow! The submission fee is a small price to pay for the invaluable knowledge you will gain from submitting your work here. The prizes are just the icing on the cake. Read some of our poems, taking note of their critiques, and you will see for yourself just how much you can gain from joining this community!" You will find this on the main page of this site. Take note. This is the best part: "You will get honest and sometimes tough critiques of your Poetry; you will learn and you will grow." Well, I gave you an honest and tough critique. The growth is up to you. MSS	2008-12-22 12:29:25
You Say You're Spiritual?!!	James C. Horak	JCH, Keep tearing. Form becoming a vehicle for meaning, living, sinuous. This type of play is close to the heart of your genius, I think. I bring you kudos, MSS	2008-12-22 12:14:11
Dire	James C. Horak	JCH, Wonderful rhythm and sparseness. I've found the same vein. Let's hope there's gold in them hills. MSS	2008-12-13 21:36:25
Unawakened	James C. Horak	JCH, Customary JCHian concept play. The line "[n]ot begun to end is solving" has particular resonance with me. Experience, numinous and vital, full of intellect without being ideological, is what poetry should be contain, and be about. Which that line (or rather component of the line) says to me. As does the poem. An exhibition of why the poetry here continues to strike a difference with me. Though my ears are apparently . . . somewhat odd, going by the sparsity of other ears in attendance. MSS	2008-12-04 10:30:42
Poeming and Sailing	James C. Horak	JCH, Another strong offering to the process of seeking poetic perfection. I love "the lean." A wonderful . . . metonymy? I think that's the word. The overarching metaphor, poeming as sailing, is that type of building upon a tradition of imagery and genius that i spoke of in my other critique of one of yours. It is indeed a voyage we are on. MSS	2008-12-01 10:18:25
The Society of Poets	James C. Horak	JCH, Indeed, striving for moments of perfection; that's what it is all about. One must live one's life - is one aspires to be a poet - in anticipation of those moments. Which is where the work comes in, a constant building toward readiness for those moments of visitation, vision. One of the poets who helps me get ready for such moments, Hart Crane, spoke wonderfully in one of his letters about the need to immerse one's self in words, to read, read, read the masters, so that when those moments come, they come to someone ready to shape them in the context of tradition and a universal imagery and genius that went before. To make something "new" in a meaningful way requires a departure from something, and the departure invests the newness with its own vitality and meaning - an informed and directed "newness." Perfection can come in many forms, and has many faces. Though we must be ready to meet it, we meet it in different ways. We can not meet it at all without the work of getting ready. A good pean to the eternal process, and to the society of seekers of perfection. MSS	2008-12-01 10:12:21
My October Vote	James C. Horak	JCH, I think I've grown to the point where I will not tolerate clearly inferior work when I've written it, and Lord knows I have and do. But that self development is only the first line of defense and safeguard, and is of course fallible, coming from a fallible source. The second line of defense, the astute critique and reader, is necessary to our development. Those are hard to find, and you are the prominent example here of a solid second line of defense. The second line of defense is only as good as its erudition and honesty, with the emphasis on honesty, which is never wasted, while erudition too sadly is, often placed at the service of some agenda or personal motive involving self-aggrandizement or deflation of others, either personally (because they are a challenge in various ways) or because they harbor a different agenda or creed. May you always have that uncompromising honesty to go with your vast erudition, which I and we all may benefit from. I hope i have come far enough along in my self-development that I will not offer for your perusal an unworthy poem. Though that day may well come, and i expect you to be there to tell me that. In the meantime, of course your approval keeps me on course, and hopeful as to tomorrow. Thank you. And replying to this gives me an easy 4 critiquer points so that I can gain some weight to award the best this month. :) MSS	2008-11-24 11:09:55
Sweet Symphony of Eternal Bliss	DeniMari Z.	DeniMari, My prior comments include this effort as well. Thrilled to read this and those. MSS	2008-11-24 10:12:37
Hu-Man	DeniMari Z.	DeniMari, You're poems command the top of my "new poems to critique' list. I reached down to register my thoughts on your last, which wasn't at the top of my list. But it still provided me with 4 critiquer points, so I picked that one, that notable one, first. This one reveals the turmoil in your soul that fed that notable effort. Turmoil is the human lot. Turing out real poetry, alas, is not - though poetry potential is also the human lot. I like your grapple, and your noble attempts to produce poetry out of it. Keep this up. MSS	2008-11-24 10:10:20
Can't Be Ripped Away	DeniMari Z.	DeniMari, Using up credits profitably I'd say. There is a sharpness here in imagery not hitherto seen from you. An advance in phrasing and thought. Though I did see such inklings of advance in one of your recent posts. I suggest a lesson to be learned from that: this growth comes from some recent jousting on the forum. Coincidence? No. It is the poet in you responding to a stringency she was being called to. I hope you see that. And I hope you have more credits here to "use up" so the advance can continue. Bravo. MSS	2008-11-24 10:04:55
Yesterday's Tomorrow	marilyn terwilleger	Marilyn, I have no problem with the first stanza, and like "sleep dust." Excellent. Stars (the "frayed ribbons" I presume) as "deception" is intriguing. The "variegated threads" is weak. The stars as "keyholes" is likewise excellent. The thought of tomorrows lived in yesterday is very fine, acknowledging the fact that the light we live in is old, very old, having travelled aeons of light years to reach us. Somewhat uneven, but some great concepts and images. In this desert of non-production this will stand out with its suggestions of real imaginative life, and will get some points from me in that contest that I thought defined this site. But it's been established that I know next to nothing about this site and what the contributors are here for. But I contribute and hope to throw some glow toward a bright tomorrow. MSS	2008-11-04 16:07:14
If I Had Known	Rene L Bennett	Rene, This has nothing to recommend it to me. Sorry. MSS	2008-11-04 15:59:00
MOUNTAIN OF OBSTACLES	Mark D. Kilburn	Mark, This is an example of when a formalism works. The religious overtones in this poem make the formal structure suitable, giving it a hymnal quality. Some nice phrasing, and not a piece without some quality. The poem has enough craft and vision to sustain the formalism, to grow into the borrowed form, and that is an achievement. Nice effort. I particularly like those "lies of sired love." However, the poem could use some cutting, having much extraneous motion. The bending of the legs, the warm up, will often appear in a first draft as the imagination makes its first tentative movements toward creating something complete in itself, but those preliminaries should not appear on the track during the course of the race, and should not be in the final product. MSS	2008-11-04 15:57:39
The Navajos of William Randolph Hearst	James C. Horak	JCH, Wonderful title. I need to know the background before I can fully appreciate what you're doing in this poem. Great last line,too. I know enough to know something very grand is happening in this poem. You and DeniMari at the front of my line this month. MSS	2008-10-17 11:23:30
He Loved the Hunt	marilyn terwilleger	Marlyn, I like this more. But the repetition lacks the power of your "She held me in her stare" in your "Mother" poem. It worked there because that iron repetition had the force of your mother's state, and grabbed the reader, holding him like a stare. I could almost feel the stare as I read the lines - staring at the lines about "her stare." This rep has the clunking of a bad strut, somewhat. Or is like you're working out with dumbbells - like me perhaps.:) MSS	2008-10-17 11:04:10
A Rose	marilyn terwilleger	Marilyn, Sorry, but this reminds me of the chains of Jacob Marley. But with the reception "Mother" got . . . what the hell do I know? MSS	2008-10-17 10:58:30
Between Lines	James C. Horak	JCH, Two things I've decided to do. I rarely have time lately for writing poetry, reading what I want to read, and critiquing. This comes and goes, but that's the situation right now. But I'm going to critique everything, and read everything here. And max out my voting weight so i can have my say. Forgive me this non-critique. And give me whatever you want. :) I couldn't help but notice that assonance in "lectures" and "indentured." Even with my antenna folded. :) Very nice, that. MSS	2008-10-17 10:55:44
Prism	DeniMari Z.	DeniMari, I like this. It's meaty, and POETRY. My head isn't into involved critiques right now, but let me say this is the best thing I've seen from you, and will probably be high on my list. Though I'm just getting started reading the submissions and the month if fairly young. Real progression here from you. Bravo. MSS	2008-10-17 10:49:44
My September Vote	Dellena Rovito	Good for you Dellena. No secrets. MSS	2008-10-17 10:46:37
My September Vote	James C. Horak	JCH, The right thing to do. MSS	2008-10-17 10:45:49
PARTING	SHEELA VASANTA EVENI	Welcome, Sheela. I don't know what you're looking for here. Let me know, and I'll try to give it to you. Just saying hello as this point. MSS	2008-10-17 10:43:33
Inartistic Cook	James C. Horak	JCH, Neither here nor there but it calls to mind a memory. I am distantly related to Mr. "Zappa" on my mom's side. I remember going to the home of my great uncle - I think that's the term, he was my grandfather's brother - with my grandfather. Anyway, we were sitting around the table, the adults drinking some cheap guinea red, when these two little old Italian ladies recounted the story of going to one of the concerts of "cousin Frank" at Madison Square Garden. The ladies had seats on the ground floor, in front of the stage, and had quite an experience. :) I wish they had some photos of that excursion. Anyway, the poem. It's nice when a poet brings out little dimensions in words. Like, for example, "indulgence" here. I never really appreciated the wonderful way that word enacts its meaning in the second syllable until now - it's the context of meaning you've created, and that "deep" before it. Forever now will indulgence be appropriately associated in my mind with "diving in." Inside the minds of those gussied up bodies on the White House lawn they're "doing it" - the facade is a fence that fools no one - well, anyone who thinks. Love the "Thunderbird toast." Two minutes behind the muffler pipe, and then a nice spread of Suzy on top. :) Notwithstanding the relation, I never paid much attention to Zappa. I know Suzy's his creation, but don't know much else about her, or his music. So I probably miss much of your allusions. But then I think you're always a step or two in front of me in your poems. MSS	2008-09-30 16:05:01
Music Lifts Everything Up	DeniMari Z.	DeniMari, I like the idea of a music we CAN'T hear here being audible there. I like the way, also, the music becomes associated with Shaun through sheer physics - Shaun is there and not here, the music is there and not here. I also like the use of the moon and the moonbeams in portraying a physical veil on this side of the equation. I do take note of the syntax, the disjunctive phrasing and flow: "[p]assed the moonbeams," not "past the moonbeams," which makes it disjunctive with the prior line, not flowing out of it. The phrasing and line development supports the meaning. There is almost a progression in belief enacted between these two lines: "If God has a band only those above can hear Sheer masterpiece playing year after year" The "if" of doubt becomes an assertion of an affirmative presence in the next line. There are a lot of interesting things going on here, as addressed. I also like the title. However, the poem leaves the feeling that it is in need of some tightening. Of course, you have to be careful that it is not tightened to the point where it loses some of its nice disjunctive quality and that shifiness in syntax etc. that works well. It just needs some pruning and needs to ferment a bit more I think. MSS	2008-09-30 15:44:06
Mother	marilyn terwilleger	Marilyn, This poem has an immediacy that is heightened by your repetition, "[s]he held me in her stare." This poem is simple, universal, and poignant. It shoves off complexity to get to a core experience, ably utilizing simple images and building its poignancy. Their is no air of contrivance, but contriving is there. I once remarked in a critique of one of yours that the poet must attire and attend the function, but that that attire must be so natural and one with the character that the poet becomes the mask. You have brought yourself splendidly to the party my dear. This poem is you, and you have a lot of poetry to offer. A poem that, in my humble estimation, is as strong as any offered this month. It is vying for top billing in my rankings. A grand success. Kudos, MSS	2008-09-26 10:52:00
Debugging	Mark Andrew Hislop	MAH, This has meat, and voice, and is in the attire of the high poet you are. "It abstracts, like Zeus from a seismogram" - wow. Splendid,splendid, splendid. Ditto to "[a] compass from life's hieroglyphic coils." Noteworthy. I believe we (or at least I) have a winner. But I must revisit JCH's "Blue Suits and Bibles" and vet that offering from Dixon. But I think this will withstand those. MSS	2008-09-23 09:19:13
Economics	Mark Andrew Hislop	MAH, I'd love to give you a pass, but the hallway is being very, very monitored. I've reached into my wallet and am waiting for the circulating basket. Lear's "off, off you lendings" is all I can hear - the same truth (and metaphor) distilled through that alembic of self and experience that makes high poetry. This, however, reads like an exercise in the seminary. It is redeemed somewhat by the honesty of the message, and the soul of the bearer. You could never produce fluff - but you are far from your stride here. MSS	2008-09-23 09:12:22
Blue Suits and Bibles	James C. Horak	JCH, Well, the highest complement I can pay this poem is that it triggered my imagination. Why? Two things. First, the portrait - based on another portrait that inspired it, a painting - of a man for whom an ideology becomes a tool. Unfortunately, not merely for the ennoblement of himself, but for profit, and the potential degrading of another human being because of the use of his tool - the child being deprived of dinner, and God knows what else. Secondly, the wonderful metaphor at the heart of it - the hand "falling empty taloned" from - this is superb - "the severity of Great Depression fall." It's not the idea of that metaphor so much, as the imaginative leap shown by the grasp of the device. Wonderful. Other things to note: interesting construction in "clattered up" and then the pun in "Light [as in both slight and illumination] illusion [a figment and an (a)llusion]." As always, you exhibit a subtle use of rhyme and assonance: man, taloned, Depression, intervention, illusion, Culberson. The main drawback I find with your poetry is that it often doesn't have the emotional or surface brilliance that grabs or possesses the reader. But my gosh there is always, always a depth of intellectual . . . your poems are a mine of meaning. If you could harness that wealth, or rather attach it to a team of beautiful horses that catch the eye and make the reader what to jump on the wagon - that would be formidable and turn your work up to the highest level. You have the resources and just need to perfect your transportation system. :) My past inability to connect with your poetry points to this aspect . . . as well as my inability to sufficiently pay attention to the depths in those deep shafts your poems open into. I am grateful to for your breaking open the surfaces of my earth with this one, and for generally being a reader and poet who challenges, and causes others to rise to occasions. I'm afraid I failed your test: I do not see any "flaws" in this - other than the general stylistic observation I noted above, which is not directed at this poem in particular, which works on so many levels. MSS	2008-09-15 10:15:49
Kiss on the Wind	Regis L Chapman	Regis, There is a moment in this poem where you become a genuine poet maker: "across a day a month a week." Form meeting meaning. Much of the rest is just a spilling, a spilling of something of value, which just heightens - for me - that sacrilege of the toppling glass. We have to approach each other here genuinely. Which means not critiquing with savagery because the poet we are critiquing made a negative comment about a poem we made, and not critiquing too "nicely" because the poet whom we are critiquing had some nice things to say about a poem of ours. I tend to think true candor has been stifled here out of the fear of reprisal for a negative, out of fear that one's own poem will be scrutinize with the intent of reprisal. Of course, being genuine also requires being positive when the poem in questions warrant it - without the baggage of past critiques received, past critiques given shaping the critique. We are feeling our way here. Again. We must begin from the core of ourselves and be relevant, have something to say. But that is a beginning. Then we have to say it with the same difference, the same distinction, that is contained in the message. We must begin with relevance - as JCH has finally drummed into me - but then the real battle of making something of distinction begins. I think Mother Relevance has her own internal form, a dynamic of truth that assists the form. But we still must work and craft, not fall asleep at the task. Life gives us the stuff to put in the glass, but we still have to raise it to the lips - we have to successfully use our hands if we want to be poets. I'd love to know what you read, how you read. It's not the volume. One could only read Shakespeare - or any great, genuine poet to whom one is akin - and take away everything one needs to know about the craft to be a poet. Just bring the spark God gave you to a genuine reading of something of real value, and learn how to read it. All of my deep and serious reading has been of Hart Crane's "Voyages" for the last month, and nothing else in the way deep reading requires - making it part of me, being educated by it, being transformed by it. What are you reading, and how are you reading it? I wonder because . . . are you trying to turn that capacious soul into the maker called a poet? Are you trying to raise the glass to your lips? Because I see you spilling the precious ointment here. If that's all you want to do, spill it . . . I apologize, and won't bother you further. Our last exchange makes me think not. MSS	2008-09-12 13:32:47
I'm Weary	marilyn terwilleger	Marilyn, With this more simplistic language you're getting closer to something essential . . . peeling away the merely ornate masks of language. Of course, the trick is not to totally forgo the dress, but make the dress and the person in it merge into one. The positive aspect of this poem is negative, a stripping away of what needed to be stripped. On the negative side, I think you go a little too far in the way of tossing off the masks of language. A costume party after all DOES require a costume. Every poet is a masker, and must attire. The poem resolves into two lines that are very prosaic, which may befit the resignation or surrender, but it just shows you naked at the party - where a successful presence requires a costume of some sort, a costume that is yours, and a genuine work of art. You've thrown off the borrowed diction, but haven't yet found your garb. Yet a step forward is a step forward, and always a success. MSS	2008-09-12 13:05:15
Drops of Dusk	marilyn terwilleger	Marilyn, Having a natural inclination toward ornate and wonderfully "stuffed" Elizabethan type verbiage - Marlowe, Shakespeare, Hart Crane (their descendant who used such ornateness to express his genuine and fresh, very "modern" and Romantic vision, genius that he was) - I of course like this. Say it out loud, like Shakespeare, Marlowe, and Crane - the mouth is engaged in almost sexual activity. Looking at other inclinations of mine, I change the analogy and say this is definitely a redhead or a blonde (smile). But before you get too swelled, this is not a Shakespearean, Marlowian, or Cranian redhead or blonde. Not by a longshot. But it is a redhead or a blonde. :) Having said this, you are at your best when you harness your natural inclination to such Elizabethan type expression (which we share) to looser forms, shorter lines - as in last month's "Whispers." The restraint of the different, simpler form takes the tendency and saves it from excess, which is indulged here. Sometimes our best voice is expressed when we move a bit away from the style/form we love, and we must become fully ourselves, and not the writer's we cherish. Thus, I'm at my best in free verse, using a Whitmanian type of long, freer line, and not writing the iambic pentameter with the fixed forms that S, M and C utilized so well. Consider. MSS	2008-09-11 09:27:40
Simple Truth	James C. Horak	JCH, Love the rhymes, especially "honor" and "abhor." To send back to you what you said to me: subtle, subtle, subtle. But, come to think of it, I love that "do - too" rhyme perhaps even more. Instead of "to do" the right thing, it is the old "do to," the old stick it to. Wonderful reversal. Subtle, subtle, subtle. MSS	2008-09-11 09:16:08
Entirety	James C. Horak	JCH, There are two really fine lines here: "Stillness deems the deep fiercely / while suns flash unmeasured." I just love that assonantal rhyme between "deems" and "deep." The fierce stillness and the sun flashing - everywhere power and intensity, even in the stillness. I can't say I have a firm grasp on this language and the thought it contains, which is part of the attraction. Anyway, those lines have a wonderful largeness of thought and expression to them. I suspect there is some scientific allusion at work in the last two lines - that they are true as a matter of physics or astronomy. Not my strong suit. Do you really want that "begun" in the last line of stanza 1? MSS	2008-09-09 14:02:06
Elegy	Mark Andrew Hislop	A more honest voice never haunted these grounds. I suspect you've never written a line of bullshit. I know, just as Italians know pasta - if I may be forgiven for comparing my beloved pasta to bullshit. Forgive me for not critiquing this when it mattered. May it bring you forth now. Your friend, ever, MSS	2008-09-05 17:33:25
The Beaded Curtain	James C. Horak	JCH, My second favorite among your poems this month, close, almost vying with the Cortez poem. Nicely sustained metaphor throughout. MSS	2008-09-05 12:13:41
Conquistador	James C. Horak	JCH, The best way to bury our hatchet is to . . . bury it. I come with shovel in hand. I have an inherent leaning toward a certain architecture in poetry. Of course we all do. Your poems, almost invariably, are of a different built than my leaning. So I have avoided them. You have taught me of the value of having something to say, and you are so right about that. To create poetry that makes a difference, you must express the difference, the thing that separates men from apes. It is not architecture. Being a polymath, I'm sure you could point to creations of the animal or insect world that, architecturally, are as fine as anything man has made. But our makings surpass them. Why? Obviously not because of the architecture, but something else. What the architecture expresses - the human difference. That sublime difference which makes poetry and everything else we do worthwhile. Which is clearly not the architecture alone, as i said. But the architecture matters. We are talking about "art," after all. So the poems that make a difference have something to say and are as well made as the finest beehive BESIDES. Anyway, you always have something to say, and since that is where the difference lies, it is better to say something and lack a little in architecture, than have all the splendor of the beehive, but be nothing more than a poem that doesn't have a meaning much greater than a beautiful house. I still can't tell you I like your architecture. But I've learned that, in judging poems that fall short of the greatness that has both, meaning and architecture - describing about 99% of the poems submitted here, nime included - the ones with meaning are superior, and truer to what we are ultimately trying to accomplish when we strive to write a poem with both. Thus any honest judgment must have your best poems, like this one, at or near the top here. MSS	2008-09-05 12:10:38
Performing Art	Dellena Rovito	Dellena, What I like about your poetry is that you always have something to say, and always say it poetically - and it always comes from your core. Which is a sine qua non for making a difference, artistically or any other way. And I just wanted to say that I've felt similarly to how you felt here, and tried to sketch it poetically myself. MSS	2008-08-27 16:41:44
Shadows and Light	Regis L Chapman	Regis, I've read your bio posted at this site and I'd say you're definitely wired right for poetry. Now, I face the eternal TPL question: how does one "critique"? If you want a critiquer who takes out the red pen and says this works, that doesn't - I can point you to a lot of sites where you'll find that. Let me know. I'm assuming those who submit here want something else. It sure as hell isn't the prize money anymore. The graphics here are top notch, and it's so easy to submit your poem formatted as you intend it. If you've visited a site maintained or administered by Yuko - not sure if that's spelled right, I just call it "Yucko" anyway - you know that's a huge credit to Chris and this site, and worth sticking around by itself. If your supreme desire is to be read (I said "supreme" desire; anyone bothering to craft something wants to show it to the world), well, there's not many readers left here. So it can't be that. I like to think the survivors here want something else. Some survivors here envision poetry as the highest form of expression, one uniquely conducive to creating . . . I'm not sure exactly, some kind of amalgam of politics, religion; something liberating - a sort of Blakean idea of poetry. This is a noble pursuit. Not mine, but noble nonetheless. There are (were) others here for whom poetry is capable of transcendence, not in a religious (for the individual) or social or political sense (for the group), but a transcendence of the sort you see in the grandest pieces of human imaginative achievement, as in Shakespeare's Hamlet, or one of Mozart's sublime adagios from one of his great piano concertos. This type of poetry (art) absorbs the religious and political dimensions, transforms them like energy into what ultimately can only be called beauty. Of course, you cannot have an artistic triumph without those dimensions, like you can't have a magnificent horse without hay. But its supreme end and desire is a perfection that is aesthetic, which contains within itself all other perfections, political, social, religious - like the divine being we call God. That being simply identifies himself with being, I AM THAT I AM - and you know that is the perfect, complete definition. You are dealing with the heart of consciousness, profound and deep, defying any further elaboration but the fact of its own supreme existence. Those who think thus of poetry (like myself) have found a home here, too. All other poetry sites (and I've checked out most of them) are alien to this conception of poetry. So I remain here, in this dwindled realm of dreams and alienated longings. As a critiquer I end up looking for the same dreams and longing in other writers. When I see another poet whose poetry strives for the same type of thing I strive for, I hope that I can support that striving. The best I can do is tell someone when they've taken a step up on that heavenly ladder; give a push from behind. Or tell them that are not making progress up that ladder. And if they are on a different ladder, they will not give a damn about my comments, and, frankly, I won't give a damn about their poetry. As my critique is a waste of time to them, their poetry is a waste of time to me. So here I am commenting on your poem. I don't know you very well. Think of this as a hello, a sounding. I'm taking to time to do it because I sense a reaching, a spirit that might be sympathetic to my vision of poetry. I can't tell you if this poem is standing on "my" ladder or not. I know it's not yet on a high rung. If you want to get pissed off and tell me in response about all the wonderful effects you put into this poem, about how I'm missing things . . . you'd be right, but I'd say "so what?" I don't know a damn thing about music, can't read it or play an instrument, but when I listen to the second movement of, say, Mozart's 23rd piano concerto, I become angelic, I AM angelic. And I don't need to know a damn thing about the supreme musical craft of Mozart or how he put together that achievement. Do you want to help this poor fellow mundane creature become angelic, or not? That's what I DO want to know. MSS	2008-08-26 16:58:49
The Crescent, The Star and The Cross	Gene Dixon	Gino, Shall we meet in the Levant, me, you and GW? I'll mediate. And bring the Yeungling. We can sit around a fire and read Gospel parables of the Lord. Nice. But of course. MSS	2008-08-18 09:10:45
The Woman in the Garden	Gene Dixon	Gino, You've been promoted, and are now part Italian. You're welcome. Now give me back some brogue so I can sing of leperchans and those knobby, clubby walking sticks. Then tell me how to spell the little guys and what you call those knobby, clubby walking sticks. And send me back a Guiness. Quick. A Yeungling will do. MSS PS - Did you have in mind Hart Crane's poem, "Garden Abstract"? This poem has a certain Indian (American) wisdom.	2008-08-18 09:06:45
Whispers	marilyn terwilleger	Marilyn, Nice to read someone who has a true lyrical voice, a sense of how words, sounds, rhythms, syllables build like atoms. Keep 'em coming. MSS	2008-08-18 09:00:27
Poem Title	Poet Name	Critique Given by Mark Steven Scheffer	Critique Date

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