I've sort of given up on the ten random thing. I think it's better for me to keep reading random poems until I find one that really hits me. Anyway, here's today's:
Easter
by trudie_wells
www.abctales.com/abcplex/viewStory.cgi?s=3274
I loved the vivid imagery in this poem and the way the words sort of snake through the poem the way the stream flows through the garden.
My pick of the day:
'Mirror, Mirror...' by curua
A surreal dark twisted scifi this one, hard to tell whats going on. Jealous cannibilism, a cloned twentieth century mass murderer, AI and dna mutant stuff.
http://www.abctales.com/abcplex/viewStory.cgi?s=4674
I have to say I'am a sucker for this kind of surreal twisted stuff - great!
my picks for today are two poems, both were given cruel low ratings. Honestly there are some right miseries giving people low ratings. I actually tried to boost their ratings a bit, I know I shouldn't do this but I felt sorry for the authors, cause I thought they were good poems.
anyway the first is called 'Citylife' by jannie
http://www.abctales.com/abcplex/viewStory.cgi?s=7821
a sad poem about the grim reality of gang warfare in an inner city.
the second is called Somme 1998 by f.i. walker
http://www.abctales.com/abcplex/viewStory.cgi?s=159
From what I can gather this poem is about soldiers re-visiting the place where the battle of Somme took place.
22/11/01
yes it's a difficult one that, funky, seeing a low rating on a piece that doesn't deserve it. i've frequently found myself awarding more highly than i otherwise would in order to 'recover' a piece that's been unduly lowly ranked. similarly, the only 1/2s i tend to give (and i've only done it once or twice) are to lower a piece of absolute crap that's been given a 5 by (presumably) a close friend.
got some good pieces today, the best of which being Sibyl by Cloo - an account of the death of someone on the fringe of your mental life. delicate, understated treatment of a profound theme.
Andrew: They don't all start with "W." There are two choices: some start with "W" and some start with "K" It definitely has to do with the FCC (Federal Communications Commision) licensing of radio stations. I'm going to reach for this one and say that the dividing line is geographical, somewhere running North/South roughly thorugh the middle of the country. Thus, in the eastern part of the country they begin with W and in the west they begin with K. I believe the same thing holds true for television stations, although hardly anyone refers to televison stations by their call letters anymore.
The first random that has truly interested me today is andrew pack's
"D-Chapter 2" from his 'Pen and Ink' set. I need to print it off and read it properly, but i already have the idea that i could never fault a piece that begins with the line "This just all sounds like total bollocks to me"...
My favorite today was:
Night fires off Kobe
by Richard Watt (richardw)
http://www.abctales.com/abcplex/viewstory.cgi?s=3330
I love the vivid imagery. Always a sucker for poems that I can really see in my mind and aren't just explainations of things.
Lots of good stuff this week. My random button only pulls out stories not yet read by editors (which means the three of mine that haven't been read yet...)
Poems :-
Winter by Dogstar - feel the cold snap and a bit of a flourish at the end (isn't flourish an odd word - the thing it describes is nothing like flour. Just like there's no alchohol in licorice. )
gallery by Feymouse - there's a description at the end about glass and perspex that made me feel very... ah, malleable.
And Stevepoet - gosh, he's good. Check him out, anyone who likes poetry.
Stories :-
Muskie's Big Break by Sirat - a real feelgood piece, very fellow and full of warmth.
Marzipan ! Marzipan ! Marzipan by Alang - strong language, but what language. Story of a man whose wife is obsessed with marzipan, but only in her sleep - when she's awake, she's in denial. Surreal, funny, cool.
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