Paul_Archer's profile
AGE:
52
LOC: United Kingdom
GEN: Male
LAST LOGIN: October 09
LOC: United Kingdom
GEN: Male
LAST LOGIN: October 09
I am interested in connecting with other poets and poetry readers across the world. It seems to me that we are in a fortunate moment of history where this can be done like never before. All thanks to the internet… and, of course, the good people at Urbis who have created a website that works a dream.
I enjoy being given this opportunity by this to read other poets’ work and take the job of reviewing seriously.
My reviews tend not to gush with praise. In general poets know what works in their poem, but they may have overlooked some flaws which may be more obvious to readers coming cold to the poem. I may make suggestions as to how the poem might be improved, or merely highlight areas for revision, but in the end my reaction to eve…
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Version 1
1 Review
2 Comments
Lemons like lanterns hung in the trees, Tired green leaves, darkening sky. These are Not the lemons on the fruit stall, They are swollen-bellied and knobbly, With skin like magnified human skin and its pores, Pale green, blotched cream, ochre, brown. Not the lemons on the fruit stall in the supermarket, Not ice-maiden yellow, smooth and clean. These are tough outlaws, renegades, Wild beasts that won't be corralled. They've held out against the Sirocco Belting through, bending their stems, Bla...
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Version 1
0 Reviews
0 Comments
If this poem came from IKEA It would be a flatpack poem You'd have to assemble it In your own time From its various parts Connecting the metre and the rhyme Aligning the alliteration And offering up heartfelt emotion And deep thought, bolting them With an Allen key that isn't yet lost, But will be. There will be diagrams in the pack But you won't be able to figure them out And you'll see how it goes By yourself And, folks, that's called free verse. If this poem came from IKEA It would have an...
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Version 1
5 Reviews
0 Comments
Here's what happened on my way home Not half an hour ago: the laces came undone On one of my shoes - the right one - I could hear them ticking, their ends Flicking on the pavement, I saw them arcing With each step, bobbing, cartwheeling. I should've stopped to pull them tight And thread a bow and maybe fasten The bow upon itself to make sure - But out of laziness, or not wanting to Break my flow or make an obstacle In the path of others, or for whatever reason, I kept on walking and added ...
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Version 1
9 Reviews
5 Comments
When the boots slammed into his head My father had no room to hide, The thugs left him dying or dead, It would become real if I cried. He'd gone out into the dark streets, They were making a racket outside, They set about him with boots and fists, It would become real if I cried. The gang was high on booze and drugs And the horrid way my father died Was just one night's fun for these thugs, it would become real if I cried. He's not coming back through our door And I will always be asking why....
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Version 1
8 Reviews
11 Comments
By 1.20 a.m. the firestorm Raged 2,000 metres into the sky Even the canals blazed, Blue flames flickered on corpses, Roasted brown, doubled up In pools of melting fat. Survivors fled Dresden With the shrunken corpses of their children Packed into suitcases. 'Cindy, Cindy, Cindy Lou, Love my rifle more than you, You were once my beauty queen Now I love my M-16.' Corpses from the nightly slaughter Dumped in the Iraqi morgue, the stench Of decaying flesh and disinfectant, The bodies of children ...
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Excellent meshing of mythology with the contemporary, so the myth enlightens the present. In the second stanza, do you need the word 'imagined'? Wouldn't it be more vivid if you took out 'and imagined' from the line? In the sixth stanza, rather than the bald 'it', what about saying 'Calypso was you'? In the seventh stanza, the 'here' implies the meeting room of the previous stanza, but I don't think you mean that. You could just say "We are alone, enmeshed...' The final line would be far stro...
Rant is the right word. I think this would work very well in performance when the rhymes would detonate. Good stuff!
I like the contrast between the gulls and the glacier - the gull's endless turning and dipping while a momentous change is happening in the background. To make us feel the glacier's movement, you may need to work on some of the words you use - we all know that glaciers 'crack' and 'groan'. As a poet rather than a prose writer you may need to use more expressive - more shocking - verbs if you want our eyes not to just glide by your words.
100.0% Review Quality (2 Votes)
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