Unwrapping the Truth

[CalebMurdock]

The forum has been absolutely dead recently, and I wonder if I am somehow responsible. If so, please let me know.

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Unwrapping the Truth

The thumb print on the dust
jacket of Alicia Stallings’
new book tells me more than
that the store clerk forgot
to wash his hands after
a lunch of fried chicken,
for compared to such blossoms
as I find inside, my efforts are
oily smudges, and my pride
a grease trap from which
immortal flowers may ever
be challenged to bloom.

☙

Line 9: "mind" instead of "pride"?
Line 11: "poems" instead of "flowers"?

Thank you.

[Billy]

Just my take:


Unwrapping the Truth

The thumb print
on the dust jacket of Stalling’s
new book tells me that
the Amazon clerk
forgot to wash his hands
after a lunch of fried chicken.
Compared to such blossoms
as I find inside, my efforts
are oily smudges,
my pride a grease trap
from which immortal flowers
may ever be
challenged to bloom.

[CalebMurdock]

Those are subtle differences, Billy, but do result in a more readable poem. However, putting "more" in the first half of the poem somehow connects the first half to the second half for me, so I'm not sure what to do. But I'll work on it.

I didn't like having "than that" in the first half, and you seem to have fixed that.

Thank you for your input!

[BobBradshaw]

I like the efficiency in this. And the idea of starting with something as simple and as common as a thumb print endeared me to this poem.

[CalebMurdock]

Thank you so much, Bob. That's nice to hear.

I put in the comma and "for" (instead of the period) to make it one sentence so that I could submit it to One Sentence Poems.

Alicia Stallings has seen this, and was appreciative.

[BobBradshaw]

Ms. Stallings is an excellent poet. I just googled One Sentence Poems, and couldn’t find it. Could you share the url? Thanks

[CalebMurdock]

Alicia Stallings is almost a god, in my view. Her talent is enormous.

https://www.onesentencepoems.com

That is the URL for One Sentence Poems. It is part of a larger organization called Ambidextrous Bloodhound Press owned by Dale Wisely. He has other publications; I think that Right Hand Pointing is the most active of the other journals.

The concept of writing a poem which is just one sentence is interesting. At first, it made little sense to me. Now, however, I find myself purposely trying to write them. It is natural for me, since I tend to fit a lot into my sentences anyway. They want grammatical sentences, and they eschew semicolons, which allow people to chain sentences together (although they don't mind a semicolon which could be replaced by a comma).

They are very choosy about what they take. I have gotten only one poem in there.

[BobBradshaw]

Thanks, Caleb. It looks like a good magazine. I liked seeing a Steve Klepetar poem there.

[CalebMurdock]

I'm glad you are talking to me again, even if you still won't critique a poem of mine that Michael hasn't critiqued first.

That Klepetar poem points up a complaint about One Sentence Poems that I have. Their submission guidelines are very specific, but Klepetar's poem doesn't follow them. His poem doesn't have a logical grammatical structure. I have always followed the advice given by Robert Frost -- he described his writing as "sentencing". There have been many times when I submitted poems to OSP that were in correct grammatical form, only to have them bypassed for poems that did not follow the guidelines. I'll have to talk to Dale Wisely about that. You can't make a poem a one-sentence poem simply by not punctuating it. I'll hold off with that complaint for a while, though, as I plan on submitting to OSP again soon.

Actually, I just read through Klepetar's poem again, and he is using the title "Houses" to substitute for a missing word in the poem. When I insert it there, the poem becomes more grammatical.

in my neighborhood
HOUSES look the same, more or less,
each one larger on the inside
than on the out,

Even so, the guidelines also specify that poems should be punctuated, which Klepetar hasn't.

If you like Klepetar, I can see why my concrete writing style might not be your favorite.

The poem that I like the best in that group is "Subterranean Cancer Blues" by Howie Good.