I think the miners' "cause" was severely undermined by
the failure of their union leadership to call a proper
ballot and to rely on public acceptance of violent
conduct in pursuit of victory for the "working man"
against an unpopular government. Both were fatal
miscalculations in a country suffering from increasing
levels of disenchantment with what was going on across
the land in industrial disputes that seemed to occur
at the drop of a hat, increasingly perceived as the work
of forces set at odds with the progress most wanted to
see.

Comment is about TRUNCHEON FOR LUNCHEON (blog)

Original item by Daniel Dwyran

Teachers and pupils...a situation fraught with risks to both
which have been around since my own youth - perhaps
a result of the loosening of social morality and respect
that arrived with the post-war throwing off of the shackles
of a more rigid structured society. Back in the mid-60s I
felt obliged to intervene when witnessing a group of East
End lads surrounding a young Asian man who, it quickly
became apparent, was a teacher at their nearby school.
No weapons - but the young mob's chant of threat and
intimidation was evident and the poor victim was virtually
reduced to tears by what was happening to him in that
dockland street one afternoon after school.
As for my own generation at school, I saw teachers keep discipline with a mere stare (and/or an accurately flung piece of chalk) whilst others couldn't have done
it with handcuffs and a cat o'nine tails! Hard to
define - but children are ruthless exploiters of human
weakness or inadequacy they identify in adults, teachers
or otherwise.

Comment is about FEAR OF SCHOOL (blog)

Original item by ray pool

Thank you for your lovely comment Daz. The night was great and my nerves were frazzled by the end but being in good supportive company certainly helps.

Comment is about dazzer (poet profile)

Original item by dazzer

excellent stuff. lot going on here.

defo worth a few reads

Comment is about Materialism (blog)

thanks for the comments, cynthia over my short little poem. This one is a short little poem this wrote for a friend to prove a point really but pleased as always you liked it.

life is good otherwise. you know me plodding along (: (Into running writing workshops more than reading but i may pop up again somewhere).

hope your ok in reverse (:

Comment is about Cynthia Buell Thomas (poet profile)

Original item by Cynthia Buell Thomas

thanks for the comments, laura over my short little poem. This one is a short little poem this wrote for a friend to prove a point really but pleased you liked it. must admit i'm getting more and more into short short short poems nowadays so hopefully will be more to follow in this style soon.

hope you and bob are rocking and hope to see you both soon xx

Comment is about Laura Taylor (poet profile)

Original item by Laura Taylor

thanks for the comments, tommy over my short little poem. this one is a short little poem this wrote for a friend to prove a point really but pleased you liked it.

thanks again.

Comment is about Tommy Carroll (poet profile)

Original item by Tommy Carroll

thanks for the comments, guys. a short little poem this wrote for a friend to prove a point really.

glad you liked it.

Comment is about For Danielle (blog)

Original item by Andy N

Not necessarily - but the sharing of happiness can be a fist in the face to someone who resents it - or an offered lick on a Werther's Original to someone who appreciates it.

Comment is about Happiness (blog)

Original item by Twilbury Wist

Also in sync with the prior comments.

How about:

'Judgements layer up
like bricks and mortar'

The point is crystal clear, and the line reads very strongly with the 'k' sound pressed forward in the first two syllables, followed by the sibilant 's' and the rough 'r's in 'mortar', picking up the 'r' in 'bricks'. IMO, always work sound to your intent. And I think you're after a certain pushy nastiness to open your work.

Always with respect. Could I use AWR? It's shorter.

Comment is about Judgements (blog)

The depth of your work, Andy, goes from strength to strength. This is really good.

Check 'Gloveless' or Glove-less' to see whether you might have meant 'without a glove'.

I hope you are happy.

Comment is about For Danielle (blog)

Original item by Andy N

Taut and tantalizing. The final line is superb, engaging the reader's intense interest. Always a good poetical ploy.

Comment is about Calligraphy (blog)

Original item by Tommy Carroll

A spell-binder, plummeting forward - or down - much like the plane. IMO, one of your best. So many themes slamming together - just like life.

Comment is about Materialism (blog)

Thanks dude,for being a very very nice man! x

Comment is about Daniel Dwyran (poet profile)

Original item by Daniel Dwyran

it's the other way round now Ray - teachers afraid of kids - but don't get me started on our education system!

Comment is about FEAR OF SCHOOL (blog)

Original item by ray pool

Lynn, it's the shattered ''shatterproof ruler / / Underlining, shifting, underlining / And shifting'' that does it for me. I know it relies on my own memories but sometimes, as Tommy suggests, it's precisely this quality that makes a poem memorable.

Comment is about BLAZER POCKET (blog)

The last verse is particularly effective Lynn.

Comment is about RePlaCeMeNT bUs (blog)

Hello Helen, i now see my last comment may have been a bit patronising; i aplogise.

You say writing more formal stuff poses problems in terms of performing. I'd say do what you normally do and get the sound of it right, on your own terms. I'd also say audiences, in my limited experience, generally respond well to formal pieces. Judging by your last few posts there seems to be a stronger emphasis on rhythm and rhyme, something i think audiences like, because it helps dispel the sense that poetry is esoteric and mysterious - my own work gives the lie to that idea.

Whatever you're writing, the fact is you are writing and that's the point, i suppose.

It took me thirty years of very intermittent gigging to reach a point where i can work without notes - i wish i'd started sooner.

Comment is about Helen (poet profile)

Original item by Helen

loved this one, it was well worth the wait until the end in wigan.
daz

Comment is about BLAZER POCKET (blog)

Helen,
Why did you start me off on Rondeau`s?


The best examples for giving the feel of the Rondeau form is the `Shadow Poetry` site. Now even I`m begining to get it.

(See what I mean about starting me off?)

Comment is about Helen (poet profile)

Original item by Helen

Cynthia, you have captured the moment well. I always smile and chat to children. That's all they want - interaction. I also know how it feels to be the crazy, busy mum rushing here and there and perhaps hoping that a kind stranger will smile and chat to my children, to stop me from feeling guilty about being pushed for time!
Enjoyed this :)

Comment is about Child in a Stroller (blog)

Original item by Cynthia Buell Thomas

Hello John, thanks for your reply, and tentative explanation. I suppose it was slightly unfair to ask for clarification - it's poetry, after all.

What you did say though, describes quite uncomfortably the way i kind of feel myself.

Thanks for your kind comment on my work. Before we descend into a tasteless mutual appreciation, you have a distinct and compelling style of writing, which i like.

Take it easy.

Comment is about Zach Dafoe (poet profile)

Original item by Zach Dafoe

' “Today a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, there is no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we are the imagination of ourselves''.... Here’s Tom with the weather.'...Bill Hicks

Let that weather change for you. Tommy

Comment is about Zachary (poet profile)

Original item by Zachary

Really enjoyed this Andy - those first two lines are killer, mate. Some lovely dense layering here, with a great finish.

Comment is about For Danielle (blog)

Original item by Andy N

Great to hear you've been practising 'out loud' - that's the only way anyone will hear you ;D Beware though - I am luring you towards a place that, once tasted, becomes hugely addictive ;)

Comment is about Helen (poet profile)

Original item by Helen

Hello Harry, the original poem was simply based around me sat in a cafe on a wet day watching people passing by. Then it developed, haphazardly, into what you see here.

In the beginning it ended with the fourth verse. But i thought it needed more. So, in sum, the idea is this; the climate is screwed, it would seem, and it's our fault. We're consuming the very sources of our existence, and increasingly paying the price, or at least other regions of the world are.

The Seeds of the title then, are those sown by Adam and Eve, the original 'consumers' whose eating of the forbidden fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, started the ball rolling. Evolutionarily, we continued what they started and now the chickens are coming home to roost.

Essentially, it's an environmentalist poem, although, as the end suggests, because the 'natural disasters' mostly occur overseas, we can largely ignore the issue.

That said, it's this very ignorance, in the affluent 'West' that prevents any serious tackling of global warming - hence being able to forget those 'atoll-eating seas'.

Comment is about SEEDS. (blog)

I don't fully understand this poem, yet, but i do like it.

Comment is about long light short shadow (6/10/2015) (blog)

Original item by Zach Dafoe

Thanks for the comment on 'Mist in the Menai'. Glad it brought back some good youthful memories for you. It is indeed a wonderful place.

I didn`t do it in quatrain stanzas as after I read it back, (having walked and witnessed this from Newborough Warren across to the mountains), the speed of the mist just captured a staccato type rhythm and was always the focal point... majestic and free. It didn't look right but it was just how it was.
Thanks again Harry. Much appreciated.

Comment is about Harry O`N eill (poet profile)

Original item by Harry O`N eill

John.
Thank you for you kind comments on 'Mist on the Menai'. I am still giggling to myself about your trainspotting story. Cracker! (Maybe not for you at the time though).
Great bit of improvisation with the polythene bag though, and travelling through the Bangor tunnel will never be the same for me.
I did write a piece last year called 'In Llanfairpwllgwyngyll'. If you do read it I hope it gives you good memories and not nightmares!
Thank you.

Comment is about John Coopey (poet profile)

Original item by John Coopey

M.C.
Your comment on 'Mist on the Menai' was very much appreciated especially with your background of poetry, songwriting and lyrics. Thank you. Glad you liked it.

Comment is about M.C. Newberry (poet profile)

Original item by M.C. Newberry

Huge thank you Sarah for a good workout I mean a good workshop!

Comment is about June Meeting (blog)

Original item by Stockport WoL

A heart beats with every word.

Comment is about Heart of Stockport I (blog)

Original item by Stockport WoL

From the heart of Stockport a collage poem is born.

Comment is about Heart of Stockport II (blog)

Original item by Stockport WoL

I think you have a good poem in here Vanna although personally I'm not a big fan of this type of rhyming. For me it gives the poem a very plodding feel when read. Perhaps try mixing things up a bit as in soul / price / toll / ice or even find ways to scatter the rhymes within the lines rather than at the ends.
Also watch for unnecessary repeats as in the 'two girls' about two thirds through. I'd ditch the second and make it 'for years they were put through pain'.
Looking forward to reading some more of your work. x

Comment is about Their Story (blog)

Original item by Vanna

Cynthia - it's a good job I can't empty my head in this way - there be nothing left.
Graham - I don't think Jesus Christ listens to Spurs fans.

Comment is about THE POWER OF PRAYER (blog)

Original item by John Coopey

As long as government isn't at the helm, Harry, I'm sure you'll be fine.

Comment is about DRIVEN BY FEAR (blog)

Original item by THE PEN AND THE PAGE

Now that's what I call reserved affection. Able to deny its existence and also to pursue it. Well played sir.

Comment is about For Danielle (blog)

Original item by Andy N

Don't listen to your Aunty Cynthia Vanna, rejoice in human contact, let your heart sing! :)

Comment is about Happy Ending (blog)

Original item by Vanna

Good one, David, masterful in suggestion. I never see comments from you; or do I just miss them?

Comment is about HEART OF WALES (blog)

Original item by David Subacchi

Glorious is fleeting friendly human contact CBT ;-)

Comment is about Child in a Stroller (blog)

Original item by Cynthia Buell Thomas

Welcome to WOL. I'm sure you will enjoy the site. Please take part whenever you can, with poems and comments.

Comment is about anastasia pelletier (poet profile)

Original item by anastasia pelletier

This is strong. Why not put these words into a 'poetic break structure'? They fall very naturally into such a form. The last thought is powerful in its truth. Check 'crocodile'.

Comment is about untitled (blog)

Original item by anastasia pelletier

Cute! Tight and clever. Well done. Sometimes I get the 'rhyming fits' which can be a real pain. The only cure is to spit them out into the 'poem' they're longing to be. But one not often worth sharing.

Comment is about Coffee shop blues (blog)

Original item by Pauliegreg

And I think the health of the entire Digestive System is paramount to the health of everything else. I hope the prayer worked. If we could only get rid of the waste material in our heads - maybe with a prayer there too.

Comment is about THE POWER OF PRAYER (blog)

Original item by John Coopey

Very wisely put. But I still think the heart needs a little caution. Life is a complicated business.

Comment is about Happy Ending (blog)

Original item by Vanna

Always an interesting read - but I see two poems in this - even with 'See - ' by way of some sort of explanation for 'Part 1' . IMO, you are addressing two completely different ideas which can stand brilliantly alone.

Always with respect.

Comment is about Tell it to the wind (blog)

Original item by Twilbury Wist

Amen to that.

Comment is about Tell it to the wind (blog)

Original item by Twilbury Wist

Thanks, Graham. I've had problems before, copying from my source in Word, in Windows 8. I'm so inexpert (is that even a word?) but I stick with it to see if I can correct the glitch. Multiple copies seems fairly frequent. You sure are 'on the ball'. I have no idea why there is a line 'dysfunction' on the master Poetry Blogs'.


Know what you mean, I do, about chattering children. But I encourage it by chatting right back - block after block. They can be so funny - and very observant.

Comment is about Child in a Stroller (blog)

Original item by Cynthia Buell Thomas

The standout part of this is the fact that the tiny child is facing you and not its mother.

I took my sixteen-month old granddaughter out on Sunday morning and she doesn't stop chattering.

I must sound as mad as those people who walk everywhere with an earpiece in their ear whilst talking on the phone.

Good observation of the sourness of the mother's demeanor.

Comment is about Child in a Stroller (blog)

Original item by Cynthia Buell Thomas

Koans come when you least expect them Laura. I was puzzling over the cult of celebrity actually and why/how people want to be "someone" on the world's stage, and how if they achieve some celebrity can they keep their selfness?

Me, I'm just happy to teach my sixteen-month old granddaughter to blow kisses.

Thank you for reading it Laura.

Comment is about Laura Taylor (poet profile)

Original item by Laura Taylor