Passing

love the Oriental influence behind this one, and these are five well-balanced, beautifully crafted lines. wondered about 'Walking' - whether a more descriptive verb could be found. also not sure that the final line takes me the full distance. i like everything about this poem, but i feel maybe it needs another line, or a more nuanced final line, just to crystallise the meaning you're leading the reader towards.

chant: "Walking" does seem tame but that's what I was doing (which I know isn't really a justification)and something like "jogging" is too fast for the moment I'm trying to present. I don't know about an additional line but I am fooling with " a brown-eyed girl" to be worked into the last current line. to another poem, ERIN is changed from the original draft and I'm reasonably pleased with it up to the last line-and-a-half. That poem has been very hard for me to work on and I still can't read it aloud all the way through without wailing, thus it is tabled for awhile. Good sense of the last line in PASSING needing more, so thanks. Swep

like 'pausing', like the fact they're moving and you're standing still.

chant: Thanks. I know in a vacuum, which is what individual poems are generally read in, that some hint to context is probably needed i.e. (though not these) a dedication, something in the title, etc. I'm in no hurry with this one. I have the rest of my life. Swep

read this again earlier today, was working on a little piece of my own this evening and it came back into my mind. wondered, if this is written from the present rather than the past perspective, about something like the following as a concluding line: 'One like her turns, looks at me'

chant: I still think this poem needs the context of being paired with ERIN, a poem I'll take up again sometime in the future. Now that you bring this one up, I've almost cut the "Dark eyes dark brown hair" line and returned the piece to its original state other than the improved first line. "One like her" doesn't have the immediacy, the connection I want to close the poem, the connection is direct and directly with Erin, out of space and out of time, not one like her. Thanks, Swep

ah i see where you're coming from. that's a lot of meaning you've got to get into the final line. wondered about 'She turns and looks at me', though maybe you're right, and, when paired with Erin 'One girl' will carry the requisite weight. quite liked the energy and movement of the 'Dark eyes' line in its current form.