Forum Changes to Poetry Category, Your feedback welcome! Options

[Cleo_Serapis]

Hello everyone reading this tile!  

A while ago, James and I had a conversation regarding site navigation and forum layout. James has kindly mentioned this topic to me again this morning which I believe has great merit and will summarize here in the thread.  

New visitors to MM often times get overwhelmed by all the forum offerings (mostly in the Poetry area). I've just made one merge a few minutes ago for the less frequented forum "Garden of Eden" formerly for polished works - not for critique. I have taken all the posts in there and merged them into "Plato's Pearls of Wisdom" and slightly re-worded the forum description. Now, the new and improved forum shall be used as follows:

Plato's Pearls of Wisdom (Exhibition - NOT for Critique)
Posts in this forum are for exhibition and polished works only. Post here only when poet feels their work is polished or does not seek a critique. Thanks for adding tiles to our Mosaic! All forms of poetry are welcome in this forum.
The 1:3:2 rule applies here. See forum rules for more details.

I am also planning to have also merged Punner's Paradise (Comedic Themes), and The Fountain of Youth (Youthful Themes) into Angkor Wat Accolades (Seasonal Works) and re-worded it as 'Themed Works - Not for Critique'.

Now for the REAL challenge:  
We would like to CHANGE the format of Homer's Homilies (Poetry for GENTLE Critique) AND Socrates’ Synapse (Poetry for COMPLEX Critique).

Most of our writers already provide a complex or thorough critique to those posts in Homers. Questions have arisen with regard to Socrates. To quote James (Jox):

There are more poems than ever on MM and two or three posting forums may be justified - but I would suggest along different lines than at present. Maybe one could be form poems and another freeform? A third could be non-form rhyming and so on.

I am in agreement with James' idea in that I would like make a change to both forums and do away with a 'gentle' verses 'complex' critique division.

The idea is to change Homers to be a 'structured R & M (form) poetry' forum and Socrates to a 'non-structured (freeform) poetry' forum.

If our members agree, it will take me a while to move the posts accordingly between Homers and Socrates but all in all, I  like the sound   and beat   of this idea and I feel it would be an improvement to MM's forum board.

On a second note, I would also like to begin a forum for external competitions offered elsewhere on the Internet - perhaps within Incan Inversions?
Any suggestions and referals are most welcome!

Your feedback is appreciated all!  

Cheers!


~Cleo  

[Cleo_Serapis]

Hi Alan!  

I am going to use a few of your poems here as examples of R & M and FV oif you don't mind...  

A great example of R&M:

ILLUMINATUS
(Words used : mimic laser succumb matrix
hatch human obsess span organic luminous)

Mimic the laser,
get straight to the point,
or succumb to the matrix
and blow up the joint.

Hatch human plots now,
be obsessed by the span
of mankind’s brief lifetime
’fore he’s washed down the pan.

If confined to organic,
you’ll not become numinous;
so forsake all that’s flesh :
free spirit, you’re luminous.

Alan McAlpine Douglas

In the above, you employed a quatrain stanza pattern with a rhyme scheme of ABCB (point/joint) DEFE (span/pan) etc... This is clearly an R & M poem...

This one I would say is FV as there is no rhyme patterns:

BEHOLDEN

Behold and wonder that a simple freckle
could cause this wintry frost
to envelope my entire life;

a lapse, barely a dot in time
never even logged in the dust
that passes for history :

how could I know when serenading
this perfect beauty spot,
as beholden by my eye,

that it is the one feature
that mars the perfection,
as seen by her beholder ....

Alan McAlpine Douglas

(wonder simple freckle wintry frost
lapse dot log dust serenade)

Another R&M:

ABSOLUTE HELL

The weatherman will cheerily tell
of absolutely freezing hell,
but really he has no idea
of coldest winner, true and clear.

The prof’s theory is absolute,
world’s central heating’s up the chute,
on minus scale, absolute zero;
makes of him a “Science Hero”.

Come on guys, all your fine theories
have it wrong, how my mind wearies;
think big, absolutely bolder :
the coldest thing is ...
                      ... her cold shoulder.

Alan McAlpine Douglas


Does this help?