Arrivals and Departures - stormy_petrel

Bloody brilliant imo.

Bloody brilliant indeed. "a misplaced piece from the Tate Modern: ‘Four Cars and a Truck’ Fate (2003) Another incomprehensible work from life’s fickle sculptor." Ain't that just great?

Yes, I think so, too. I liked the shape of it. I liked the description of the leaves, and the Steinbeck reference, and the rest of it, except: I didn't like "translucent" to describe skin - I understood the image, but the word didn't work for me. foster.

"How good is this?" It's very, very good. For me, Stormy successfully captures real life stuff that many highly regarded modern day poets either ignore or can't communicate anything like as well.

It's totally brilliant.

I thought it was choppy. I liked the salt bit. Don't like the thought of stormy sun bathing though. There's nothing more mind-teasing than the incomprehensible eagerly avowed - Dennet

This is excellent. It stands out amidst the best. The shape of the poem works perfectly, expecially in the leaf description where the leaf and the shape of the stanza were perfectly superimposed in my mind's eye. I've read a lot of poetry in the last year or so (buying one slim volume almost every week and all the major mags) and I agree with Bukharin, Stormy does better than many of the names out there. I wasn't too sure about translucent but I was just looking for a hole to pick, but no, it does work. Nice one Mr Petrel. jude "Cacoethes scribendi" http://www.judesworld.net

i remember when i was about 10 driving through France on our way to Spain (longest 3 days ever!!!) and going past a scene just like the one described. I don't think i know what is good or bad poetry but this certainly resonated with me. Juliet

http://www.koopress.co.uk/speaking.htm Blimey! Thank you ALL very much indeed. I only popped this back up in a self-indulgent moment the other night when I decided to re-post a few of my favourite poems. As an aside, and just to let those that don't know how hard it is to get poetry published, I remember that Andrew O'Donnell started a thread about this poem when I first put it on abctales. He subsequently asked my permission to send it off (alongside his own stuff and that of others) to the major poetic mags. Never being a great one for self-publicity, I agreed. Six months elapsed and I heard from Andrew again. No positive responses, he said. I could sense the shrug of his shoulders in his email. A month later I heard from him again (and I wish I could remember who said this!), some head honcho in the poetry world had this to say about my poem: "Interesting" Good eh? I made it as far as 'interesting' in the poetry world! Anyway, glad the shape was mentioned, no-one said this last time, and it took an age to sort out. Sorry translucent didn't work for you, Foster, but it worked for me and, anyhow, if I changed it I would have to re-work the whole poem! Fergal, many thanks for the flag and your subsequent comments. They mean a lot to me as do those from everyone else. Yan, it's always best to take a sea-sick pill two hours prior to reading my stuff.

You should send some stuff here: www.brittlestar.org.uk