SUBJECT>Re: Dull (Strict 8/7-SYLL Met Rev) POSTER>Asher EMAIL> DATE>1109494639 IP_ADDRESS>cache-rtc-ac04.proxy.aol.com PREVIOUS>83988 NEXT> 84000 IMAGE> LINKNAME> LINKURL>

Hi David--
Good to see you around here. I'm not quite sure the premise of this poem is strong enough. The narrator hates Hindus and finally comes to some realization upon meeting the glance of a cow? And what's with the 8-7-8 thing? Why is it important for the reader to know that you are following this structure; why make it explicit, in other words? How does this structure comment on/expand/eddify the theme of the poem? Strophe 2 seems to me to be the most interesting and would be a good place to begin the poem. The fact that the whole poem is spelled out (I have the same trouble these days) makes it read like a straightforward narrative, where as a critic noted, everything is out in the front and there is nothing out back. Dunno. Perhaps, others will enjoy it. And I don't quite see why a cow would somehow cause a turn in the narrator's mind. Why a cow...there is nothing within the body of the poem that builds up that theme and hints at it; it is simply spelled out and the reader is supposed to swallow its message, which begs the question: why did he/she hate Hindus in the first place. Because he never saw a cow? Just a questio that I ask the poem, as I read through it. Not necessarily one that I need clarified in the body of the poem. The point is: where in the poem do we see an allusions to the evolution from hating Hindus to cows? Best AG

Dull (strict 8/7-syll met revision)

: 8 When I was young I hated all
: 7 things Indian and Hindu,
: 8 just because a girl in tenth grade
: 7 English class conversed in French
: 8 with ease and seemed to know what
: 7 the Bhagavad-Gita was.

: 8 The same as when I really did
: 7 spend two years driving cab down
: 8 New York avenues: I never once
: 7 saw Larry at the Belmore
: 8 eating lunch there, a shloka book
: 7 in hand while we played gin.

: 8 But whenever much much later
: 7 now I walk into the dawn
: 8 around this house hard-up against
: 7 the pasture which still borders
: 8 on this subdivision, one cow,
: 7 just one, always looks at me.