On Friday, March 24, 2023 at 5:25:14 PM UTC-4, General-Zod wrote:

George Dance wrote:

On Saturday, March 18, 2023 at 8:01:45 PM UTC-4, Will Dockery wrote:

George J. Dance wrote:

February
Unnoticed dreams:
ocean waves in winter,
the curve of your cheek.

Kudos to NancyGene, good find, excellent nectoposting.
🙂

And this time it wasn't even a decade-old draft for c&c, but a decade-old finished poem. That was a nice surprise.

Cool poem, G.D...!

Thanks, but it's a good lesson in humility for me: after a few days of thinking about the poem, I'm no longer happy with it, so I think I have to revise it again.

The problem is with the word "dreams" -- the more I think about it, the more I think that word doesn't add anything to the poem, but instead obscures the meaning -- which is why Michael Monkey and NastyGoon seemingly can't understand it. Neither the
waves or my wife's face are "dreams," so why call them that?

I think the word that fits best is "beauty" -- the idea of the poem, of course, being that the two images are examples of the beauty that I've failed to notice. (Of course the "curve of your cheek" is a synecdoche, a part that stands for the whole -- I
don't love my wife only for her cheeks :) So why didn't I use it? Probably because it's an abstract noun (an "abstraction"), and you're not s'posed to use abstractions. That was the rule 14 years ago, so that was the rule I was following. I let that rule
get in my way, and the poem suffered.

The other word I can think of is "visions". That's not just pure abstraction like "beauty," but it's not as informative -- unlike "beauty," it doesn't tell me why I'm suddenly noticing those things now.

So I haven't decided. I have two alternative drafts:

Unnoticed beauty:
ocean waves in winter,
the curve of your cheek.

or

Unnoticed visions:
ocean waves in winter,
the curve of your cheek.

Let's see if I can actually get some constructive criticism. Which version do you prefer (and, if you can express it, why)? Or would you suggest some other word (and again, why)? Those are questions for everyone in the thread, not just for you.

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On Sunday, April 16, 2023 at 12:40:07 PM UTC-4, George J. Dance wrote:

On Friday, March 24, 2023 at 5:25:14 PM UTC-4, General-Zod wrote:

George Dance wrote:

On Saturday, March 18, 2023 at 8:01:45 PM UTC-4, Will Dockery wrote:

George J. Dance wrote:

February
Unnoticed dreams:
ocean waves in winter,
the curve of your cheek.

Kudos to NancyGene, good find, excellent nectoposting.
🙂

And this time it wasn't even a decade-old draft for c&c, but a decade-old finished poem. That was a nice surprise.

Cool poem, G.D...!

Thanks, but it's a good lesson in humility for me: after a few days of thinking about the poem, I'm no longer happy with it, so I think I have to revise it again.

The problem is with the word "dreams" -- the more I think about it, the more I think that word doesn't add anything to the poem, but instead obscures the meaning -- which is why Michael Monkey and NastyGoon seemingly can't understand it. Neither the

waves or my wife's face are "dreams," so why call them that?

I think the word that fits best is "beauty" -- the idea of the poem, of course, being that the two images are examples of the beauty that I've failed to notice. (Of course the "curve of your cheek" is a synecdoche, a part that stands for the whole -- I

don't love my wife only for her cheeks :) So why didn't I use it? Probably because it's an abstract noun (an "abstraction"), and you're not s'posed to use abstractions. That was the rule 14 years ago, so that was the rule I was following. I let that rule
get in my way, and the poem suffered.

The other word I can think of is "visions". That's not just pure abstraction like "beauty," but it's not as informative -- unlike "beauty," it doesn't tell me why I'm suddenly noticing those things now.

So I haven't decided. I have two alternative drafts:

Unnoticed beauty:
ocean waves in winter,
the curve of your cheek.

or

Unnoticed visions:
ocean waves in winter,
the curve of your cheek.

I decided to ask one constant reader of my poetry, my wife; and got a reaction that decided me. First I read her the original, with "dreams", and she gave that "what are you trying to say?" look. Then I read her the "visions" version, and got the same
look. Then I read the "beauty" version -- she replied "that's good!", and began talking animatedly about the unseen beautiful things of winter. I'm convinced that's the right word choice -- abstract or not, it resonates, in a way the other alternatives
don't.

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February

Unnoticed beauty:
ocean waves in winter,
the curve of your cheek.

- George J. Dance, 2023


Commentary for those who need it:

This is a revision of an old poem I wrote and posted here in 2009. It's still on the group; I considered deleting it, but decided there's no need as it's obviously an older version. (It was posted before I started using my middle initial.) I also
published it in print form in a 2015 book.

My reason for revising it is that it recently came up that a couple of people didn't understand the poem. IMO, if a reader tells a writer that he can't understand something he's written, a reader should take that in and look for an explanation. Sometimes
it's just a stupid reader, but it can also be that the poem is unclear. So I looked at it, and decided that indeed the idea I was trying to express ws not clearly expressed.

That idea, for those who need it spelled out, was a simple thought that came to me one day. Here I was, sitting at my computer day in and day out, and missing out on the wonderful things around me, the natural world and my wife. (The two images of LL2-3
are meant as synecdoches for both.) Nothing "profound," or intellectually deep, but it hit me as a revelation or epiphany at the time, so I wanted to see if I could express it in the poem.

This revision incorporates an abstraction, "beauty", which one is never supposed to do in modern poetry, a rule that can be traced back to Ezra Pound. However, that's a rule I've never subscribed to. In fact, there have been many good poems that depend
on abstractions, which is enough to refute Pound's rule. That point was made by Northrop Frye years ago; I don't remember the name of the essay I read it in, but I do remember that Frye's counterexample was Byron's "She walks in beauty" (which,
ironically, uses the same abstraction that I've used here).

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On Tuesday, April 18, 2023 at 2:24:23 PM UTC-4, George J. Dance wrote:

February
Unnoticed beauty:
ocean waves in winter,
the curve of your cheek.
- George J. Dance, 2023

Commentary for those who need it:

This is a revision of an old poem I wrote and posted here in 2009. It's still on the group; I considered deleting it, but decided there's no need as it's obviously an older version. (It was posted before I started using my middle initial.) I also

published it in print form in a 2015 book.

My reason for revising it is that it recently came up that a couple of people didn't understand the poem. IMO, if a reader tells a writer that he can't understand something he's written, a reader should take that in and look for an explanation.

Sometimes it's just a stupid reader, but it can also be that the poem is unclear. So I looked at it, and decided that indeed the idea I was trying to express ws not clearly expressed.

That idea, for those who need it spelled out, was a simple thought that came to me one day. Here I was, sitting at my computer day in and day out, and missing out on the wonderful things around me, the natural world and my wife. (The two images of LL2-

3 are meant as synecdoches for both.) Nothing "profound," or intellectually deep, but it hit me as a revelation or epiphany at the time, so I wanted to see if I could express it in the poem.

This revision incorporates an abstraction, "beauty", which one is never supposed to do in modern poetry, a rule that can be traced back to Ezra Pound. However, that's a rule I've never subscribed to. In fact, there have been many good poems that depend

on abstractions, which is enough to refute Pound's rule. That point was made by Northrop Frye years ago; I don't remember the name of the essay I read it in, but I do remember that Frye's counterexample was Byron's "She walks in beauty" (which,
ironically, uses the same abstraction that I've used here).

PS - I'd like to thank a very special and wonderful woman for their feedback in this regard.

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Today's poem on Penny's Poetry Blog:
February. by George J. Dance

https://gdancesbetty.blogspot.com/2024/02/february-george-j-dance.html

#pennyspoems

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