a poem with a long audio introduction that includes Liam Neeson, Blue Angels fighter jets, peanut butter & jelly sandwiches, testosterone, and nostalgia.
I love your long introduction and love being able to learn about the process of writing a poem. I am not a writer, but I am less than profession painter. Painting can be very similar. Sometimes the painting is just there. In a short amount of time it is organized, painted and done. Most of the time I spend time with thumbnail sketches; start the painting, rub out parts of it and slowly begin to lay in colors. However I may spend a long time working out details. Ummmm, creativity. I too appreciate your stories about guns. My own kids were raised in the Vietnam War time and we lived in a neighborhood with 16-20 kids, mostly boys, who loved to play war. They made guns from anything and everything. Some times a kid had a toy gun or two. They divided themselves into teams and played war. When all were dead they got up and started over! It was a time when a lot of parents were very worried about the gun play...but as your friend said, I too have seen young boys turn a piece of toast into a gun and shoot at other kids. I also watched a group of grown men at a child's birthday party that happened to be at beautiful Puget Sound overlook, slowly drift to the edge and pretend to shoot enemies coming up the straight! I couldn't believe it! Something in the gene pool?
Man, parenthood is so exhausting and you just crave time to sleep, time to think your own thoughts. But when they leave home, you realize that the focus they brought, the meaning and the fierce protectiveness that came with parenthood was a profound devotion. After they leave every other endeavor seems small and contrived.
The preamble was a pleasure and amplified the intention of the poem. I agree with your more liberal friend's concern about the 2nd Amendment although the peanut butter sandwich chewed into the shape of a gun made me laugh! ... the poem is good and your nostalgia for the vanished cacophony of your sons is poignant but lively details of that noise would make the scene more textured -- the thuds and thumps and squeals and shrieks unique to 5 and 6 year olds, the pajamas smeared with jellied fingets, etc. I have always loved the details in your writing, often bittersweet but always picturesque, taking me directly into the picture you are creating for the reader, animating the specifics of the narrative.
I appreciated your use of you in this poem because this is exactly how I feel every time one of my dogs, my annoying wake-me-at-5am dogs, dies. And it's why I get another high-maintenance shelter dog too soon after losing my last dog. I also appreciate hearing about your process - it's a much fuller experience than watching MasterClass videos.
With both kids headed to college next year, my husband and I will be alone in a house for the first time in 22 years. We can really relate to this poem and enjoyed hearing your process too. I look forward to hearing more of your ninth person works--what an interesting perspective!
I love your long introduction and love being able to learn about the process of writing a poem. I am not a writer, but I am less than profession painter. Painting can be very similar. Sometimes the painting is just there. In a short amount of time it is organized, painted and done. Most of the time I spend time with thumbnail sketches; start the painting, rub out parts of it and slowly begin to lay in colors. However I may spend a long time working out details. Ummmm, creativity. I too appreciate your stories about guns. My own kids were raised in the Vietnam War time and we lived in a neighborhood with 16-20 kids, mostly boys, who loved to play war. They made guns from anything and everything. Some times a kid had a toy gun or two. They divided themselves into teams and played war. When all were dead they got up and started over! It was a time when a lot of parents were very worried about the gun play...but as your friend said, I too have seen young boys turn a piece of toast into a gun and shoot at other kids. I also watched a group of grown men at a child's birthday party that happened to be at beautiful Puget Sound overlook, slowly drift to the edge and pretend to shoot enemies coming up the straight! I couldn't believe it! Something in the gene pool?
Man, parenthood is so exhausting and you just crave time to sleep, time to think your own thoughts. But when they leave home, you realize that the focus they brought, the meaning and the fierce protectiveness that came with parenthood was a profound devotion. After they leave every other endeavor seems small and contrived.
Not there yet...but it sounds like a sweet sorrow.
The preamble was a pleasure and amplified the intention of the poem. I agree with your more liberal friend's concern about the 2nd Amendment although the peanut butter sandwich chewed into the shape of a gun made me laugh! ... the poem is good and your nostalgia for the vanished cacophony of your sons is poignant but lively details of that noise would make the scene more textured -- the thuds and thumps and squeals and shrieks unique to 5 and 6 year olds, the pajamas smeared with jellied fingets, etc. I have always loved the details in your writing, often bittersweet but always picturesque, taking me directly into the picture you are creating for the reader, animating the specifics of the narrative.
I appreciated your use of you in this poem because this is exactly how I feel every time one of my dogs, my annoying wake-me-at-5am dogs, dies. And it's why I get another high-maintenance shelter dog too soon after losing my last dog. I also appreciate hearing about your process - it's a much fuller experience than watching MasterClass videos.
Beautiful reminder to those of us who still have a littler one who does the run and jumps early on the weekends! I know I’ll miss it when it ends.
With both kids headed to college next year, my husband and I will be alone in a house for the first time in 22 years. We can really relate to this poem and enjoyed hearing your process too. I look forward to hearing more of your ninth person works--what an interesting perspective!
You sounded extremely manic or was your machine on fast forward or something. So fast that I couldn’t concentrate on the poem.😷🤷🏻♀️
Lovely.