Any comments on which of the three versions of the haiku-ish poem below you think best?
1
sun and sea
a bucket of starfish
your beauty
moonlight and ash
2
sand and sea
a bucket of starfish
smooth in the sun
your beauty
moonlight and ash
3
sand and sea
a bucket of starfish
smooth in the sun
your beauty
moonlight surf
a cup of ash
* * * Click covers for links * * *
“Sun and sea … ”
flows with poetic motion,
much like the ocean 🌊
. . . So says me 😎👍
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Thanks, David. Always nice to get versified feedback 🙂 . My daughter picked # 1 too. (And my daughter has the best instincts of anyone I know. I often send my draft novels to other authors, PhD friends, etc., who give more or less good feedback, but none can match my daughter, whose field is landscape architecture but who has impeccable instincts for what works and doesn’t work in art and lit. All that to say — you’re in good company!!)
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It’s good to have family
to keep one on track 🚂
Once you have one
there’s no going back 👌😎
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First one. 🙂
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Thanks, Georgiann. I detect a consensus building 🙂
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I like the first one. Simple and direct.
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Thanks, Ken. You’re in the good company of everyone else so far 🙂
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I like the first one: clean and flowing. The others seem more forced to me.
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Thanks, Annie. I thinks so, too. I didn’t realize it until after the writing session was done, but you are right 🙂
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I think they go well together — they build a quiet story. Quiet beautiful.
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Thanks, Kim.
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#1
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Thanks, Steve. I’ll be coming to Europe soon with the old hitchhiking backpack. I’d scratched the UK off the list due to Covid restrictions (and even in the best of times the UK is always waaaay worse on me at the border checks than any Schengen entry point). But I heard you guys are easing up, so who knows. If I’m hitchhiking in France (and I certainly will be) and get picked up by someone heading to the channel … 🙂
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We’re letting anyone in now, even old hippies like you! Seriously, give me a shout if you make it this far, and we’ll meet up.
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Hey, please pass that “old hippies” directive to the border agents. I always love England once I’m inside, but I always get the 3rd degree at the border. So far, they’ve always let me in, but they always seem quite undecided until I’m interrogated, body-searched, and put to the side for a bit to ponder my evil ways. (I’ll be happy to rail on at greater length if I make it to The Turf.)
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Surprised to hear that. I don’t think you look particularly dangerous. Maybe you look at them the wrong way?
Mind you, the harshest border treatment I’ve ever received was arriving at JFK in New York. They very nearly dismantled my laptop to look inside.
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I know. I think I look kinda sweet 🙂
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Like the first one. Terse, harsh, and done.
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Thanks, Nessa. Convincingly put 🙂
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So far as I’m able to catch the vibe of haiku (-ishness) I have a preference from among the versions, but hesitate to voice it without being able to articulate *why* I prefer it. This is my small private crusade with poetry in general, the effort to ascertain and express how a configuration of words delivers its payload (or not). A hint as to my own leaning is that I’m not sure how elaboration improves on where you started. I admire you for inviting your readers to weigh in.
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I accept your point about elaboration in this case. Also, no need for “why”. Sometimes an immediate reaction is more telling that a critical process mediated by the intellect. At least, they both have their place 🙂
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Thank you! You make a good point, and it comes at a good time for me. I need to have more confidence in intuitive response to poems. The other day a awoke mulling your phrases “your beauty” and “moonlight and ash” and reflecting on how I had subjected them to a kind of cerebral scrutiny that wasn’t what poetry always needs (nor were you seeking). It did occur to me then that there could be a cosmic aspect to the phrases, it being around Ash Wednesday. Poetry invites rambling associations!
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Yes to rambling associations. Poetry to me is less like a riddle with a fixed meaning and more like a garden — turning corners, specks of beauty, moments of reflection — but you don’t have to ask what the flowers mean 🙂
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Damn. So helpful. Thanks again.
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Hey, I learned something from your comments about my phrases too. We’re all walking each other home 🙂
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Walking each other home! That is a remarkably congenial and nurturing phrase. I’ve never heard it. It’s refreshing to get your input and have a bit of dialog with a writer. Best regards and thanks. — Jim
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I picked that phrase up somewhere — I think from Baba Ram Dass 🙂
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Baba Ram Dass — the name — is familiar to me from some kind of past exposure (reading). My guess would be either an Eastern master who influenced the Beatles, or maybe from Christopher Isherwood’s writings about “my guru and I” (an approximate title). I read several of his books too long ago to recall much. I know in the age of Google these matters can be clarified in nanoseconds, but I’ve come to enjoy the luxury of letting myself remain in doubt for periods of time before resorting to the Internet! It’s simply too easy these days for me to appear more learned than I am. 🙂 Best regards.
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Not to ruin your doubt 🙂 , but Baba Ram Dass was Dr. Richard Alpert, Harvard psychology professor who teamed up with Timothy Leary to get kicked out of Harvard and fuel the explosion of LSD culture in the 1960s. His philosophical musings on LSD led to a pilgrimage to India, and when he returned he was “Baba Ram Dass,” one of the great spiritual gurus of the hippies 🙂
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My doubt is well ruined. Your superb note had slipped past me. I know the broad outlines of these events, but I wouldn’t have remembered Alpert’s name. Most of my experience of the culture was through reading in a haphazard way. I was leery (ahem) of acid. They were salad days for a confused provincial naif. 🙂 Best regards!
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hahaha. You’re in good company. A lot of academic administrators and FBI officials were also leery of Leary. On second thought, I’m not sure that’s really good company 🙂 How about we put you with the confused provincial naif played by John Savage in the 1979 film version of “Hair.” Company you can feel good about 🙂
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Your mention of Savage, not an actor I know, and “Hair” the film, which I recall as having been performed naked on stage (?), will send me to Google straightaway! I can still hum snatches of the theme, which always leads me into “Almost cut my hair” by Crosby, Stills and company. I confess to having fallen afoul of the academic lot though not the FBI (to date, knock on wood). You’re “right on” about where the good company is!
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I love the first.
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Thanks, Kathleen. Yes, I went with the first as the final draft 🙂 Gary
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