2017-03-20
Bravo! And welcome!

2017-03-16
I especially like "daffodilled" --- an original participle! Verbally alert and innovative, as always. Bravo!

2017-03-14
Nicely done. Bravo!

2017-03-10
Welcome back to poetbay after a long absence! Keep writing!

2017-03-09
The short lines are very effective, very potent ...

2017-02-25
Oh, I like this a lot! Some wonderfully fresh phrasings!

2017-02-20
Wonderful. Bright, specific, adept. Well done!

2017-02-14
The last stanza is especially potent and attractive to this reader. And there are several other moments in this poem that I enjoy!

2017-02-13
Genuine emotion comes through in this poem's clear and compassionate language. Well done.

2017-02-13
Humour saves us! Thank you for posting this poem.

2017-02-12
I cherish the ecstatic language! Your poem is a kind of counterpart to Edna St Vincent Millay's sonnet "On Hearing a Symphony of Beethoven" ... do you know the poem? "Sweet sounds, O beautiful music, do not cease ..."

2017-02-09
I love the litany of the different types of women ("Wild women, sexy women, brave women, bold women ..."); it's the part that I'm reading and rereading!

2017-02-06
By "last stanza," I meant the second-to-last, the one beginning, "i remember the good food, the drinks" -- sorry for the double comment, just needed to clarify!

2017-02-06
The last stanza affects me most powerfully. The "listing" of the happy memories is very effective. A very good poem. Thank you for posting it!

2017-02-06
As I read, I hear a gentle guitar, and a voice that is slightly plaintive, but strong and hopeful nonetheless. Beautiful poemsong.

2017-02-06
A very potent reflection! Thank you for posting.

2017-02-06
"serendipity sticks it to the ducks"

--- bravo!

2017-02-02
This is beautifully written.

2017-01-30
"[...] it was always safer
To be the broken heart, the failed
dreamer, the hopeless case."

These lines speak to me powerfully.

2017-01-27
I cherish the imagery of the couplet where you speak of breathing in her warm breath. On the whole, a really beautiful and tender poem, despite, or perhaps because of, its ineluctable sadness.

2017-01-26
So deeply felt, so directly expressed.

2017-01-26
The language here is kinetic and lively. Thank you for this poem!

2017-01-26
Oh, this is marvelous! Thank you for this poem.

2017-01-19
I don't have any suggestions for a title. Just wanted to say: well done!

2017-01-03
This is very interesting!

2016-12-29
There's a commendable fluency and economy to this poem. I like it a lot.

2016-12-29
I do love that third-to-last line, "Shall we humble ourselves and walk with light steps ..." There's something ineffably perfect about it, both the phrasing and the rhythm and the certainty (even in questioning!) ...

2016-12-29
I love that line, "He gives me dreams when I go to bed!" Any writer who can do that is truly accomplished!

Thank you for a wonderful poem.

2016-12-22
Even the most political of poems (Auden's "September 1, 1939" for example) usually contains some concrete image ("I sit in one of the dives/On Fifty-Second Street"), something to make the abstract idea more vivid. I respect your passion and commend your sincerity, and urge you to consider making your poems even more vivid --- perhaps with the introduction of some metaphor, image, or anecdote that illustrates the larger point.

2016-12-16
Many of the phrases in this poem shine with a gentle brilliance. Well done.

2016-12-13
There is so much here to like. So many fresh combinations of words. Bravo de nouveau!

2016-12-10
I like the language here: very fresh and alive, especially the second quatrain and the fourth. I'm slightly perplexed by the poem, but I am inexorably fascinated.

2016-12-09
Lively. Fresh. Well done.

2016-12-03
I commend the Team for highlighting this sorely underrated 1890s poet, who also gave us the line "They are not long, the days of wine and roses ..." (Spelling note: Dowson, not Downson.)

2016-11-28
Very well done. A moving elegy.

2016-11-28
I'm still drinking coffee. Not quite 9 am, my time. But I cherish the "readiness" of this poem -- ready for anything that might come!

2016-11-27
I like this a lot. Clarity, verbal economy: considerable virtues! I have a micro-qualm about the two adjectives modifying "routine" in line 7: the noun itself might suffice to convey "mundane" and "ritualistic."

Other than that, very much a thumbs-up and a bravo! (And yes, I like the fact that you name the deceased, Emily Bakerson. It's what US poet laureate Ted Kooser would call an authenticating detail.)

2016-11-21
Whether you write on This or That or Any Other Thing, I greet your poems with a surge of joy! Keep agitating and motivating!

2016-11-18
Very nicely done.

2016-11-18
A carefully, joyfully, beautifully, made poem. Thank you for posting it!

2016-11-15
Powerful.

2016-11-15
There is, indeed, something songlike about this poem, without rhyme, a certain agile delicacy of language that we associate with music.

2016-11-15
A graceful poem, which instills the eagerness to read more, much more, of your work! Well done.

2016-11-15
Some lovely and original images, especially in the third of the five stanzas!

2016-11-14
Well done! (And a beautifully produced video.) An excellent reading of a compelling poem.

2016-11-13
My heavens, that's beyond lovely. Heartfelt bravissimas by the boatload. And profoundest gratitude.

2016-11-11
Nicely done! (And thank you for the "hat tip"!)

2016-11-10
Proof positive that good poetry can be made from quotidian, domestic, everyday imagery. Well done.

2016-11-01
This poem is an excellence. You capture the reader's attention with the opening lines, and sustain it throughout. And I love the word "gallivanting"!

2016-11-01
Vivid and verbally alert. I like it. Thank you for posting!