Wow, Tep. That is a very well written poem. I'm nodding along with what everybody said, but especially this:

It has that quality that, I think, separates poets from people who only think they can write poetry.

Thanks, really. I've been so unsure about this one -- whether it's good or dreck -- and so I'm a little taken aback by how *much* people like it.

I've written some poems that, when I finish, I *know* it's good. It's tight, it's expressive, it resonates. But with this one, I was afraid maybe it would resonate with only me.

But with this one, I was afraid maybe it would resonate with only me.

I think one its strengths is how deeply personal it is.

A random and possibly ass-outage thought about poetry:

I tend to believe that poetry - with music, which after all, it sort of is - is the single most subjective human expression on earth. But I also think that in something genuine, yes, I know, wretched word but I can't find another, there will always be something to produce a kind of psychic echolocation.

I mean, the alchemy laid out in this one? None of that matches my own. But the sense it produced of "belonging to humanity, see 1.a, "part of", John Donne for instance, WOW" echolocated that part of my psyche.

That's what the best poetry does. My opinion, belonging to me. It becomes a magic spell: I won't deconstruct why it pings me. Because when you take apart a spell, or a mantra, and to try to apply math to it? You risk depleting or eliminating the magic.

Because when you take apart a spell, or a mantra, and to try to apply math to it? You risk depleting or eliminating the magic.

It's got great meter, but you can't dance to it?

Heh. Really, though, poetry (with or without meter) is something I want to sing, or sway my body to.

I think one its strengths is how deeply personal it is.

As someone who doesn't know Teppy all that well, I'd say the recognizeability of the experience- if not literal universality- was very evocative.

Kind of along the lines of what Deb is referring to.

Really, though, poetry (with or without meter) is something I want to sing

I know what you mean. Rebecca Lizard wrote a poem that I read aloud over and over because of how wonderful the rhythm is -- like music.

I usually don't post in here, but I was intrigued by talk of Steph's new piece in whichever thread it was.

I'm not poetry gal. I don't have the sensibility for it most of the time (or haven't applied myself to it enough to develop one, is more like it). But, I delurk here to say that I thought this was lovely and evocative. Oh, well, that's what Astarte just said, isn't it? Well, then, I concur. And I wanted Steph to know that, in response to

I was afraid maybe it would resonate with only me,

it resonated with me, and I'm pretty much a stranger. So, there you go. You do good work with the words and stuff (see? no poetry from me).

Harlequin--the publisher whose Red Dress Ink imprint pioneered chick lit in the U.S.--is developing a new line of books that translate the Bridget Jones sensibility for readers who prefer church pews to bar stools.

The new line will be published by Harlequin's Christian Steeple Hill imprint. But in developing the line, Steeple Hill is borrowing from Harlequin's Red Dress Ink imprint's expertise in the chick lit market. Steeple Hill senior editor Joan Marlow Golan helped establish Red Dress, and Red Dress associate editor Farrin Jacobs is part of the five-person team launching the new line.

"I bring the background of having worked at RDI for almost two years, seeing the changes it's gone through and paying attention to the chick lit market--what people are reading, what publishers are buying, what's getting a positive response, what's been done a million times," says Jacobs, who coined a tagline for the inspirational program: "Life, Faith and Getting It Right."

While certain chick lit mainstays--premarital sex, four-letter words--will be off limits in the Christian line, the underlying sensibility of the genre will cross over well, says Golan. "When you try to define what chick lit is, it's really a voice," she says. "They use wit and irony. They have a certain edge and they deal with reality."

t head explodes