SUBJECT>Re: ** At Sherman Place POSTER>geoff EMAIL>geoffleone@hotmail.com DATE>1112034873 IP_ADDRESS>uhall-backlab-151t.fdu.edu PASSWORD>aa3znsx.4y15U PREVIOUS>85546 NEXT> IMAGE> LINKNAME> LINKURL>

Re. At Sherman Place.

For Jessica A.C. Snyder.

Thank you for visiting Sherman Place again. And a pleasant tree lined street it was too....

You make a number of points but I beg to differ on the last stanza. G. is the mainstay of every stanza up to there -- so why should I desert him for strangers? I don't.

Best,

Geoff

*

: "ghost of a smile" is a bit cliched,
: but I like the image it portrays, and what
: effect that image has on the rest. Perhaps
: rephrase?

: I really like the word choice of
: "accepts" instead of
: "takes." It allows some sense of
: fate, and a sense that he chooses his
: customers. Nice.

: FIRST: "then" should be
: "than." SECOND: The phrasing of
: "Another/trace of accent" however,
: seemed overly repetitive. I'd suggest you
: cut either "trace of" or "of
: accent"--preferably the latter. The
: fact that you are clearly referring to the
: full phrase will be still obvious, but it
: would allow those traces slight differences
: even on the page, and wouldn't seem quite so
: awkward.i>

: The phrase "heart of hearts" is very
: trite. I can almost forgive it, though, as
: it feels like something Goldstein might have
: said. But, it seems completely unnecesary.
: If you completely eliminate that line, the
: stanza reads just as strongly if not
: stronger.

: Every time I read this, my opinion of this
: strophe changes. I can't make up my mind
: whether I love or hate it. I think it is
: that moustaches can't swear for their
: wearers. Does that make sense? I like the
: idea of the moustaches (judging by
: "childish," I'm guessing these are
: eggcream moustaches), swearing thier
: approval/allegiance to the stuff they are
: made of, but the "us" here does
: not seem to be the moustaches, but the
: narrator & companions.

: My previous comments regarding this portion of
: the strophe still hold.

: The exclamation point turns this into a rather
: hokey line, methinks. I suggest you consider
: some other punctuation, maybe a semicolon,
: or long dash, to connect that gasp with the
: stuff it is made of, in the next line (and
: give that vague pronoun a clear owner--the
: neighbor).

: It is in this strophe that the vague pronouns
: really become a problem. Is the he here
: Goldstein, or the last clearly stated
: person--the gasping neighbor who remembers
: Goldstein. And, when you say "the
: latter" it would seem you are speaking
: of the second person in the preceding
: sentence--namely the vague pronoun person,
: not the satisfied customer. Well, why be
: specific enough about the person to mention
: that he is a person on the speaker's paper
: route, but not use his name? And,, then,
: who's son? The son of the funeral parlor
: owner, or the owner himself, or the
: satisfied customer, or Goldstein, or the
: gasping neighbor?