The sands of time are beginning to run out. In two short weeks, Google Groups will cease archiving new aapc posts; and my opportunity to write into the Google archive (something I've taken for granted for years) will cease along with it. There are many things I've never written here but wished I had - I see one almost every time I read through the archives - and I think the most pressing thing would be to concentrate on filling that gap.

But where to start? Well, for me the most interesting thing for me to think about has always been my own poetry, so I think that would make a good opening. I'll start by talking about one of my earliest works done here that I still enjoy, the "Maureen trilogy."

Inspired and taught by Dennis Hammes (a prolific sonneteer on RAP), I was learning to write sonnets in those days; and one result was a sonnnet to my wife on our 30th year together ("Afterglow"). That gave me the idea of writing another poem about us 30 years earlier, which I completed in time ("Light of Day"). That in turn gave me the idea about writing another one about us 30 years in the future. That last was the hardest to write (probably because I didn't have the life experience of being in my 80s), but after literally years I finally produced a sonnet that I was happy to consider completed ("Spring Again").

Those three are presented, in my books, as three separate poems; the only thing that ties them together is the use of my wife's name. There was no reason for me to expect readers to spot that they formed a trilogy, but no real reason I should care if they did or not. A reader of my books will encounter them in this order: "Spring Again," "Light of Day," and finally "Afterglow" - so I'll begin with the first; and as this is already long enough, just giving a definitive text for now.

Spring Again

It's spring again, and I am with Maureen.
I'd add, "thank God for that" (if I believed)
For, frozen as in high beams, I have seen
Oncoming dread: one dead and one bereaved.
No hope for us to live eternally
Or garner brave new bodies after death;
No more than this, the thought impelling me
To get untharn, to fight for every breath –
A battle till the setting of each sun,
A victory each sunset we survive,
Another day my love and I have won
And death has lost. Today we are alive,
This world is ours, its grass and trees are green,
It's spring again, and I am with Maureen.

~~
George J. Dance, 2010

On Thursday, February 1, 2024 at 7:55:13 AM UTC-5, George J. wrote:
>
> The sands of time are beginning to run out. In two short weeks, Google Groups will cease archiving new aapc posts; and my opportunity to write into the Google archive (something I've taken for granted for years) will cease along with it. There are many things I've never written here but wished I had - I see one almost every time I read through the archives - and I think the most pressing thing would be to concentrate on filling that gap.
>
> But where to start? Well, for me the most interesting thing for me to think about has always been my own poetry, so I think that would make a good opening. I'll start by talking about one of my earliest works done here that I still enjoy, the "Maureen trilogy."
>
> Inspired and taught by Dennis Hammes (a prolific sonneteer on RAP), I was learning to write sonnets in those days; and one result was a sonnnet to my wife on our 30th year together ("Afterglow"). That gave me the idea of writing another poem about us 30 years earlier, which I completed in time ("Light of Day"). That in turn gave me the idea about writing another one about us 30 years in the future. That last was the hardest to write (probably because I didn't have the life experience of being in my 80s), but after literally years I finally produced a sonnet that I was happy to consider completed ("Spring Again").
>
> Those three are presented, in my books, as three separate poems; the only thing that ties them together is the use of my wife's name. There was no reason for me to expect readers to spot that they formed a trilogy, but no real reason I should care if they did or not. A reader of my books will encounter them in this order: "Spring Again," "Light of Day," and finally "Afterglow" - so I'll begin with the first; and as this is already long enough, just giving a definitive text for now.
>
> Spring Again
>
> It's spring again, and I am with Maureen.
> I'd add, "thank God for that" (if I believed)
> For, frozen as in high beams, I have seen
> Oncoming dread: one dead and one bereaved.
> No hope for us to live eternally
> Or garner brave new bodies after death;
> No more than this, the thought impelling me
> To get untharn, to fight for every breath –
> A battle till the setting of each sun,
> A victory each sunset we survive,
> Another day my love and I have won
> And death has lost. Today we are alive,
> This world is ours, its grass and trees are green,
> It's spring again, and I am with Maureen.
>
> ~~
> George J. Dance, 2010

Outstanding... Google Groups will indeed be missed...

Faraway Star wrote:

> On Thursday, February 1, 2024 at 7:55:13 AM UTC-5, George J. wrote:
>>
>> The sands of time are beginning to run out. In two short weeks, Google Groups will cease archiving new aapc posts; and my opportunity to write into the Google archive (something I've taken for granted for years) will cease along with it. There are many things I've never written here but wished I had - I see one almost every time I read through the archives - and I think the most pressing thing would be to concentrate on filling that gap.
>>
>> But where to start? Well, for me the most interesting thing for me to think about has always been my own poetry, so I think that would make a good opening. I'll start by talking about one of my earliest works done here that I still enjoy, the "Maureen trilogy."
>>
>> Inspired and taught by Dennis Hammes (a prolific sonneteer on RAP), I was learning to write sonnets in those days; and one result was a sonnnet to my wife on our 30th year together ("Afterglow"). That gave me the idea of writing another poem about us 30 years earlier, which I completed in time ("Light of Day"). That in turn gave me the idea about writing another one about us 30 years in the future. That last was the hardest to write (probably because I didn't have the life experience of being in my 80s), but after literally years I finally produced a sonnet that I was happy to consider completed ("Spring Again").
>>
>> Those three are presented, in my books, as three separate poems; the only thing that ties them together is the use of my wife's name. There was no reason for me to expect readers to spot that they formed a trilogy, but no real reason I should care if they did or not. A reader of my books will encounter them in this order: "Spring Again," "Light of Day," and finally "Afterglow" - so I'll begin with the first; and as this is already long enough, just giving a definitive text for now.
>>
>> Spring Again
>>
>> It's spring again, and I am with Maureen.
>> I'd add, "thank God for that" (if I believed)
>> For, frozen as in high beams, I have seen
>> Oncoming dread: one dead and one bereaved.
>> No hope for us to live eternally
>> Or garner brave new bodies after death;
>> No more than this, the thought impelling me
>> To get untharn, to fight for every breath –
>> A battle till the setting of each sun,
>> A victory each sunset we survive,
>> Another day my love and I have won
>> And death has lost. Today we are alive,
>> This world is ours, its grass and trees are green,
>> It's spring again, and I am with Maureen.
>>
>> ~~
>> George J. Dance, 2010

> Outstanding... Google Groups will indeed be missed...

Indeed it will. We've all spent years here, and it will take some time re-establishing what we had here on a new platform. I hope it can be done.

That giees me an idea. I'd like to spend what time I have in the next week writing about the group, and my experiences; and the responses I got to this poem are a good microcosm. So I'll start with this poem, and the thread I opened on the last draft I'd submitted, from a thread called "Spring Again again."
https://groups.google.com/g/alt.arts.poetry.comments/c/KSoDQZkANuI/m/Jsseq9xQ4F4J?hl=en

aapc, as described, was a place where writers could post their poems, and more experienced poets would give constructive criticism, to help them improve the poem. I thought that was ideal for this poem, which I'd previously posted drafts of on RAP, but from the reaction there concluded it needed work. So I posted it here, and hoped for the best. Let's see what happened.

The first crit was by Dale Houstman (or Dale Housetroll, as I later learned to think of him), but I don't want to begin with that! So let's move to the next person to comment, Randy.

On Friday, November 23, 2007 at 3:16:39 AM UTC-5, Randy wrote:
> On Nov 22, 7:48 am, George Dance <georgedanc...@yahoo.ca> wrote:
> >
> > Spring Again
> >
> > It's spring again, and I am with Maureen.
> > I'd add "... thank God for that!" (if I believed)
> Okay, I'm going to try to make some sense of this. The person
> speaking, the "I" of the poem, says the first line and I can accept
> that. The second line makes it seem like you're stepping outside
> yourself to say the next thought. If you meant to say:
> It's spring again, and I am with Maureen.
> And thank God for that!
> then just say it. Oh, but you're trying to write a sonnet and you need
> to fill out the meter. But then you question what you're saying with
> the parenthetical remark. Maybe the next thought should be something
> like
> (I'd say thank God! if I believed)

This intrigued me, because the first sentence sounded like Randy was making the effort to read the poem. Unfortunately the second line threw him. When I wrote that line, I knew exactly what I wanted to say, and thought I'd written it. "I'd say "Thank God for that!" says that I'm happy and grateful that my wife and I are alive for another year, put in the conventional way of expressing it. "(if I believed)" says that I don't believe in God - that's a parenthetical thought, hence the parentheses. I can't see a better way to put it, and it's not changed.

But Randy, it appears, doesn't like formal verse -- he suspects that it leads to padding, and filler, so he was on the lookout for that.

> > For frozen by its high beams I have seen
> > Oncoming dread: one dead and one bereaved.
> So the metaphor here is spring is an oncoming car and while frozen in
> it's high beams you see death and some one near to death.

This is certainly not what the poem means, but I can see what threw him off -- the "its" in L3, which is supposed to refer to the "dread" in L4. But he hadn't read that line yet, so he has to think "its high beans" is "spring's high beams" -- that's silly, but what else could he think given what he's read? That does sound like the writer's (my) mistake, so I revised L3 to get the pronoun out. Now it reads "as in high beams" which makes it clear spring doesn't have high beams, that they're a simile.

So I'd already received some benefit from his criticism. But I also had two disturbing thoughts: first, that Randy hadn't read the poem before he began criticizing it; second, he wasn't going to try to read the rest of it.

> > I cannot pray to live eternally
> > Or gain a brave new body after death;
> > This is my all - a thought that forces me
> > To not go tharn, to fight for every breath:

> This part did nothing for me and "tharn" made me reread to see what
> else could be meant. To do no harm? To not go to the barn? If you
> meant to not go there, just say that. "Tharn" does not seem to be a
> word to the rest of the English speaking world. I noticed in another
> post you thought you were continuing the metaphor. Of the headlights?

Not of the headlights, but of being "frozen" in them. "Tharn" (a word coined by Richard Adams (Rob Evans caught that), but I actually got it from Stephen King who used it once as well. It was the only other word I could think of to describe being "frozen" or paralyzed in that way, and since I like new words I didn't want to lose it. But as it bothered other readers, I did replace it with a word I coined: rather than "not go tharn", I resolved to "get untharn". (No one ever criticized that.)

So, I got a second benefit. But it now looked obvious to me that Randy had given up even trying to understand the poem, and that would be all I was going to get.

> So the speaker is fighting against death (with out god's help)
> something like "Do not go gentle into that head light"?

That was a good explanation, and his pun (on Thomas's poem) was amusing. Of course my poem wasn't like thomas's -- he wanted his father to fight a lost cause on his deathbed, to die "like a man" -- but the pun was funny.

> > A battle every day this course is run,
> > A triumph every day that we survive,
> > Another day my love and I have won
> > And death has lost. Today I am alive,

> This is all just filler to get you to the end.

That told me the lines still needed improvement -- and I did revise LL9-10 to add the "sunset" metaphor, on my own as this comment didn't help me with that at all. My main thoughts were that (1) Randy indeed disliked formal verse, and saw padding or "filler" everywhere; (2) he had indeed stopped reading; (3) either he resented having to go through the motions of critting the rest, or he was being deliberately insulting, perhaps trolling to get a rise out of me.

> > This world is mine, its grass and trees are green,
> > It's spring again, and I am with Maureen.
> So there's a mention of an image of death and subsequent resolving to
> be glad it's spring and not dead.

On Monday, February 5, 2024 at 4:35:14 AM UTC-5, George J. wrote:
> Faraway Star wrote:
>
> > On Thursday, February 1, 2024 at 7:55:13 AM UTC-5, George J. wrote:
> >>
> >> The sands of time are beginning to run out. In two short weeks, Google Groups will cease archiving new aapc posts; and my opportunity to write into the Google archive (something I've taken for granted for years) will cease along with it. There are many things I've never written here but wished I had - I see one almost every time I read through the archives - and I think the most pressing thing would be to concentrate on filling that gap.
> >>
> >> But where to start? Well, for me the most interesting thing for me to think about has always been my own poetry, so I think that would make a good opening. I'll start by talking about one of my earliest works done here that I still enjoy, the "Maureen trilogy."
> >>
> >> Inspired and taught by Dennis Hammes (a prolific sonneteer on RAP), I was learning to write sonnets in those days; and one result was a sonnnet to my wife on our 30th year together ("Afterglow"). That gave me the idea of writing another poem about us 30 years earlier, which I completed in time ("Light of Day"). That in turn gave me the idea about writing another one about us 30 years in the future. That last was the hardest to write (probably because I didn't have the life experience of being in my 80s), but after literally years I finally produced a sonnet that I was happy to consider completed ("Spring Again").
> >>
> >> Those three are presented, in my books, as three separate poems; the only thing that ties them together is the use of my wife's name. There was no reason for me to expect readers to spot that they formed a trilogy, but no real reason I should care if they did or not. A reader of my books will encounter them in this order: "Spring Again," "Light of Day," and finally "Afterglow" - so I'll begin with the first; and as this is already long enough, just giving a definitive text for now.
> >>
> >> Spring Again
> >>
> >> It's spring again, and I am with Maureen.
> >> I'd add, "thank God for that" (if I believed)
> >> For, frozen as in high beams, I have seen
> >> Oncoming dread: one dead and one bereaved.
> >> No hope for us to live eternally
> >> Or garner brave new bodies after death;
> >> No more than this, the thought impelling me
> >> To get untharn, to fight for every breath –
> >> A battle till the setting of each sun,
> >> A victory each sunset we survive,
> >> Another day my love and I have won
> >> And death has lost. Today we are alive,
> >> This world is ours, its grass and trees are green,
> >> It's spring again, and I am with Maureen.
> >>
> >> ~~
> >> George J. Dance, 2010
>
> > Outstanding... Google Groups will indeed be missed...
> Indeed it will. We've all spent years here, and it will take some time re-establishing what we had here on a new platform. I hope it can be done.
>
> That giees me an idea. I'd like to spend what time I have in the next week writing about the group, and my experiences; and the responses I got to this poem are a good microcosm. So I'll start with this poem, and the thread I opened on the last draft I'd submitted, from a thread called "Spring Again again."
> https://groups.google.com/g/alt.arts.poetry.comments/c/KSoDQZkANuI/m/Jsseq9xQ4F4J?hl=en
>
> aapc, as described, was a place where writers could post their poems, and more experienced poets would give constructive criticism, to help them improve the poem. I thought that was ideal for this poem, which I'd previously posted drafts of on RAP, but from the reaction there concluded it needed work. So I posted it here, and hoped for the best. Let's see what happened.
>
> The first crit was by Dale Houstman (or Dale Housetroll, as I later learned to think of him), but I don't want to begin with that! So let's move to the next person to comment, Randy.
>
> On Friday, November 23, 2007 at 3:16:39 AM UTC-5, Randy wrote:
> > On Nov 22, 7:48 am, George Dance <georgedanc...@yahoo.ca> wrote:
> > >
> > > Spring Again
> > >
> > > It's spring again, and I am with Maureen.
> > > I'd add "... thank God for that!" (if I believed)
> > Okay, I'm going to try to make some sense of this. The person
> > speaking, the "I" of the poem, says the first line and I can accept
> > that. The second line makes it seem like you're stepping outside
> > yourself to say the next thought. If you meant to say:
> > It's spring again, and I am with Maureen.
> > And thank God for that!
> > then just say it. Oh, but you're trying to write a sonnet and you need
> > to fill out the meter. But then you question what you're saying with
> > the parenthetical remark. Maybe the next thought should be something
> > like
> > (I'd say thank God! if I believed)
>
> This intrigued me, because the first sentence sounded like Randy was making the effort to read the poem. Unfortunately the second line threw him. When I wrote that line, I knew exactly what I wanted to say, and thought I'd written it. "I'd say "Thank God for that!" says that I'm happy and grateful that my wife and I are alive for another year, put in the conventional way of expressing it. "(if I believed)" says that I don't believe in God - that's a parenthetical thought, hence the parentheses. I can't see a better way to put it, and it's not changed.
>
> But Randy, it appears, doesn't like formal verse -- he suspects that it leads to padding, and filler, so he was on the lookout for that.
>
> > > For frozen by its high beams I have seen
> > > Oncoming dread: one dead and one bereaved.
> > So the metaphor here is spring is an oncoming car and while frozen in
> > it's high beams you see death and some one near to death.
>
> This is certainly not what the poem means, but I can see what threw him off -- the "its" in L3, which is supposed to refer to the "dread" in L4. But he hadn't read that line yet, so he has to think "its high beans" is "spring's high beams" -- that's silly, but what else could he think given what he's read? That does sound like the writer's (my) mistake, so I revised L3 to get the pronoun out. Now it reads "as in high beams" which makes it clear spring doesn't have high beams, that they're a simile.
>
> So I'd already received some benefit from his criticism. But I also had two disturbing thoughts: first, that Randy hadn't read the poem before he began criticizing it; second, he wasn't going to try to read the rest of it.
>
> > > I cannot pray to live eternally
> > > Or gain a brave new body after death;
> > > This is my all - a thought that forces me
> > > To not go tharn, to fight for every breath:
>
> > This part did nothing for me and "tharn" made me reread to see what
> > else could be meant. To do no harm? To not go to the barn? If you
> > meant to not go there, just say that. "Tharn" does not seem to be a
> > word to the rest of the English speaking world. I noticed in another
> > post you thought you were continuing the metaphor. Of the headlights?
>
> Not of the headlights, but of being "frozen" in them. "Tharn" (a word coined by Richard Adams (Rob Evans caught that), but I actually got it from Stephen King who used it once as well. It was the only other word I could think of to describe being "frozen" or paralyzed in that way, and since I like new words I didn't want to lose it. But as it bothered other readers, I did replace it with a word I coined: rather than "not go tharn", I resolved to "get untharn". (No one ever criticized that.)
>
> So, I got a second benefit. But it now looked obvious to me that Randy had given up even trying to understand the poem, and that would be all I was going to get.
>
> > So the speaker is fighting against death (with out god's help)
> > something like "Do not go gentle into that head light"?
>
> That was a good explanation, and his pun (on Thomas's poem) was amusing. Of course my poem wasn't like thomas's -- he wanted his father to fight a lost cause on his deathbed, to die "like a man" -- but the pun was funny.
>
> > > A battle every day this course is run,
> > > A triumph every day that we survive,
> > > Another day my love and I have won
> > > And death has lost. Today I am alive,
>
> > This is all just filler to get you to the end.
>
> That told me the lines still needed improvement -- and I did revise LL9-10 to add the "sunset" metaphor, on my own as this comment didn't help me with that at all. My main thoughts were that (1) Randy indeed disliked formal verse, and saw padding or "filler" everywhere; (2) he had indeed stopped reading; (3) either he resented having to go through the motions of critting the rest, or he was being deliberately insulting, perhaps trolling to get a rise out of me.
>
> > > This world is mine, its grass and trees are green,
> > > It's spring again, and I am with Maureen.
> > So there's a mention of an image of death and subsequent resolving to
> > be glad it's spring and not dead.
>
> Randy was correct about point A (the image of death) and point B (the subsequent resolve) he just didn't see how I got from point A to point B. I took that in, but by this point I was convinced that he was not trying to be helpful.
>
> > Spring, of course, has long been known as a time of birth and rebirth.
> > The "voice" in this is all over the place and sounds confused.
>
> This was a comment I'd hear again and again in the course of writing on aapc. To paraphrase: "I don't understand what you're trying to say, so you must be confused." My suspicion that he was trolling got stronger at this point.
>
> > If you
> > feel you must put in your two cents about it, try to see what's really
> > there. Sit outside in the spring time and write down all the little
> > details you observe particular to spring. That can be much more
> > exhilerating than reading about a mention of something that,
> > apparently, was scary.
> > Randy
>
> Randy is right: if I were trying to write a descriptive poem about spring, I failed; and going out and looking around would be a better way to do that. But, since I wasn't writing about spring, but about "something" else which he didn't see, that didn't help me improve this poem in the slightest.
>
> So were his comments constructive criticism or trolling? In hindsight I'd say the latter, but I did get three constructive comments telling me what lines needed work -- L2, L8, and LL9-10. So I had to accept what he gave me, and thank him.

To repeat, I had no idea whether Randy was giving constructive criticism or trolling -- I suspected the latter, but responded as to the former just in case. After all, I was a newbie, and I posted the poem for constructive criticism, not to fight with trolls (which I'd done too much on other groups).

With the next crit, though there was no doubt what he was up to.

On Friday, November 23, 2007 at 8:26:58 AM UTC-5, ggamble wrote:
> You do the exact same thing every time you get legitimate feedback.
> You did the exact same thing when Rob graciously gave you legitimate
> feedback.

Gary Gamble was easy to classify - he didn't even want to talk about the poem, only to complain that I wasn't properly respectful to Randy (and to "Rob" whom I must have replied to in a different thread about a different poem) - so he decided to rant about that. It was clear that Randy and Rob were friends of his, and he was sticking up for them by going ad hom on me.

> It's difficult to imagine that you've ever submitted your work for
> critical review before.

Fair enough; I'd done that with a few poems in RAP, never previously. I was a newbie to the group and a newbie to poetry critique.

> You're going to claim that you just want to improve, or somesuch
> self-delusionary craziness, but your reaction to legitimate commentary
> betrays you every single time.

It certainly showed that I was a newbie. My idea of the crit process was:
(1) I got the idea of writing a poem, so I'd write a draft and post it to the group;
(2) someone would tell me that this or that part was unclear (or "filler" or WTTE);
(3) I'd explain the Ideal Poem that I'd wanted to write ;
(4) then people would explain, if they felt like it, how I could best turn my draft into that Ideal Poem.

I'd been following that script with Randy up to (3). But instead of (4), I got this "Gary" complaining that I dared to reply with (3); I should have just thanked the guy who gave me (2) and shut up or something.

> You have yet to learn that it's not what your intent was when you were
> writing the piece that matters.
> You have yet to learn that your explanations regarding what you really
> meant are irrelevant.

Amazing. Not only was Gary not helping me to improve my poem, by helping me move it closer to the Ideal Poem I'd wanted to write -- he was complaining about me explaining what I'd wanted to write. For him, what I was trying to write, and my explanations of what I was trying to write, were "irrelevant" -- he and his friends just weren't interested in any of that.

> You have yet to learn not to defend your work.
> You have yet to learn that your self-defensive posturing in the face
> of legitimate feedback makes you look like a moron who doesn't know
> anything about the critical process.

Up to this point I'd thought "the critical process" was to help me learn how to improve the poem I'd submitted, by learning how to turn it into the Ideal Poem I was trying to write. But according to him, that wasn't it at all. What I was trying to write didn't matter; it was "irrelevant". Then how in the hell could he or his friends help me improve what I'd written? By turning it into something else? By throwing it away and writing some other poem that they wanted me to write? What was he talking about?

> You have yet to learn that good poetry is not about *what's going on
> inside minds*. Good poetry is about conveying experience to a
> receptive reader through the skillful manipulation of words.

To this day I don't understand what Gary was trying to say here. I'd agree that a poem's purpose is "conveying experience" -- what the speaker sees, hears, feels, and thinks, , told from the speaker's point of view. But Gary was saying that is not what a poem's purpose is; instead it was about conveying some other kind of "experience." What kind?

> It's the words on the page that matter, not what the writer had in his
> mind when he wrote those words.

Of course the words on the page matter; the whole point of submitting it is to see if it's the poem I'd intended to write or not; and, if not, to learn how to turn it into the poem I'd intended to write. But Gary (and presumably Randy and Rob) didn't care about that. For them the "critical process" seemed to be only saying "I didn't like or understand your poem" and my only appropriate response was to thank them and go away.

> You need to learn which elements of the poem need to be there for the
> good of the poem.

How in the hell would Gary or anyone else know "which elements of the poem need to be there for the
good of the poem" if they had no idea what the poem was supposed to say? Or even what it was supposed to be about? Withoug knowing any of that, how could they decide what was "good" for it?
> Until you learn these basic things, you will never begin to improve
> your writing.

As I understood it, and still understand it, improving a poem of mine means getting it closer (as close as possible) to the Ideal Poem I'd intended to write. But according to Gary, the only way to "improve" it is that what I'd intended to write doesn't matter. So what did he mean by "improving" it? To this day, after more than a decade of interaction with him, I have no idea what he meant.

All I could figure out, at this point was that Gary was not interested in helping me "improve" the poem I'd submitted -- his only interest in was in patting his friends on the back for their "gracious" criticisms, and flaming a newbie who'd dared posting poetry on his group. Until the day he left, I never saw any reason to revise that estimate of him.

> But, I'm not entirely sure that you're really interested in improving
> your writing, I think you're just here to troll, troll.

As I said, I was a newbie to aapc, but not to usenet; and this reminded me of a troll tactic I'd experienced before, which I'd call "pre-emption". Pre-emption works like this: Start by calling your victim a troll; then, if they call you a troll sometime later, that doesn't count because they said it first. Seeing that from Gary decided it for me; he was a troll. (Of course, being a newbie, I couldn't tell him that right then, so I didn't.)

> You're welcome. Now, take a good look in the mirror or continue to be
> an amusement factor here.

Did this mean what I thought it meant? I kept an eye on Gary and Gary's Gang, and found that it sure did. He and his Gang (Randy, Rob, ...) might occasionally write a poem, or comment constructively when one of their Gang (or one of their fans or cheerleaders) submitted one. However, whenever a newbie submitted a poem, they were simply to be treated as an "amusement factor" -- the Gang would troll them while pretending to laugh at them.

So much for aapc as a place for new people to submit their works for commentary; anyone who came here and did that would similarly be nothing but an "amusement factor" to Gary Gamble.

Two more brief comments deserve mentioning, though neither were written to me. First, Rob Evans (the "Rob" whom Gary had just praised for his "legitimate commentary"):

On Friday, November 23, 2007 at 9:13:39 AM UTC-5, Rob wrote:
> In message <4745BEB...@skypoint.com>, Dale Houstman
> <dm...@skypoint.com> writes
> >"To not go tharn"?
> >
> I think poor George was heavily influenced by Whitterslop Down and a
> Dancing Bunny in the headlights is worth two fish in a barrel.
> Rob
> --
> Rob Evans

Second, Karla Rogers:

On Friday, November 23, 2007 at 1:50:27 PM UTC-5, Karla wrote:
> On Fri, 23 Nov 2007 00:16:39 -0800 (PST), Randy <rand...@gmail.com>
> wrote:

> >So the speaker is fighting against death (with out god's help)
> >something like "Do not go gentle into that head light"?

> OK, Randy, you MUST post warnings so that people who are drinking coffee
> don't muss up their desk! hahahaha "Do not go gentle into that head light"
> - priceless! Bravo (and sorry George for a laugh at your expense).
> Karla

==========================================================
IOW: once Gary Gamble had decreed that my poem was to be treated solely as an "amusement factor", both Rob Evans and Karla Rogers had to pop into the thread just to tell everyone how amused they were by it.

Just when I'd almost given up - when I thought that I'd get no more help than the little that Randy had given me by accident or design, I received this reply in the thread. ("Lime & Tequila" BTW is a poet whom I'd met on a Google Group, conversed with a couple of times, and encouraged to come to aapc.)

On Wednesday, November 28, 2007 at 1:35:27 AM UTC-5, Lime & Tequila wrote:
> I've read Spring Again a few times now. I first read it silently. I'm
> pretty sure I must have just skimmed it. It didn't draw me in
> immediately. And tonight when I read it, I clued into the meaning of
> this poem (not exactly flattering to me).

L&T was the one person commenting on "Spring Again" who'd read the poem before commenting. And she'd read it not just once, but "a few times" until she thought (correctly) that she got it. I'd say that paints a very flattering picture of her.

> Initially, I want to share with you the fact that I don't care for the
> "frozen by its high beams" and "oncoming dread" allusion to an
> automobile. It's not that have any particular problem with your actual
> language, it's just the automobile reference seems grafted in, chosen
> mainly because it's kind of a cool way to reference fear and death.
> But then you drop it--appropriately enough--and move on with a more
> traditional battle against death motif.
> I'm thinking some other reference would work better in this context,
> onrushing soldiers, army, whatnot. The car motive would easily work
> in another poem, but not here.

Fair enough. My working L2 (which I was determined to NOT use :) was "For like a deer in headlights I have seen" - that was a cliche that even Barbara's Cat could laugh at. But I liked the concept, and none of the other ideas referenced the idea I wanted, of being frozen or paralyzed by the oncoming dread. So L2 stayed, with the wording changes now in.

> Well, I've beaten that horse to death. So let's move to tharn. I'm
> comfortable, even admiring, of unconventional word choice. And I kind
> of like tharn in the context of frozen by fear of death. But when you
> combine it with oncoming headlights, as Richard Adams did in his novel
> "Watership Down," it's almost cliché.
> Let's be honest, the vast majority of your readers will have to look
> up the word tharn. And they'll be directed to the reference in
> "Watership Down" of rabbits frozen in fear by oncoming headlights. And
> suddenly the originality of this line goes a bit flat, it trails too
> deeply in the footsteps of Richard Adams.

Again, a good point. But if I was going to keep "frozen as in high beams" (how the line reads now) I had to keep "tharn". But L&T is right (as was Rob), that word is tied to closely to /Watership Down/. So I coined my own word - I now had to "get untharn." I'm even happier with that, since it falls in L8, the volta (from being paralyzed by impending death - being frozen - to fighting for, winning, and celebrating every day of our life together - getting unfrozen).

> A small point, throughout the poem, you are "I" centered, thus, "I
> am," "I'd add," I have," etc. But in your lines 10 and 11, we shift to
> us, you and Maureen. Maureen hasn't done much so far, she hasn't
> prayed or been forced or fought. But she's now winning the battle
> along with you. It's a subtle point, but I tend to think you should
> either bring Maureen in as an active participant earlier or leave her
> the beloved wife and keep your work "I" centric all the way through.

This is not a small point - it's L&T's best criticism and one that I think helped me improve the poem 1000%. I'm trying to talk about us, but I'm only talking about me, me, me. My speaker sounds too selfish to be in a relationship. Leaving it that way would probably ruin the poem for most anyone. And it's wrong; this is not a just poem about me, but about us.

So I kept the "I" in LL1-3 and L8, but pluralizxed the rest. Now in the octet, there's now "No hope for us to live eternally" and now in the sestet it's "A victory each sunset we survive." 1000% better; I'll be forever grateful to L&T.

> Now, turning to the end of your poem, you state, "This world is mine,

Now "This world is ours" (mine and Maureen's, but not necessarily just us).

> its grass and trees are green."

> I get the joy of another day and I understand why you reference the
> grass and trees are still green. But to me, "it's grass and trees are
> green" seems a bit weak given that you have just fought death and
> won.
> In other words, the line is there solely to support the spring again
> motive. But is this really what springs to mind as you stand unbowed
> and glory in having fought and defeated death another year.

Yeah, but my thought wasn't that the grass and trees are still green. It's that after so long they're green again. That's the best part of spring, and it makes spring the best part of the year, for someone who lives in a cold climate like Canada.

> I don't want to exhaustively examine line by line every word in this
> poem. Frankly, it's beyond my capability. But I did want to give you
> the courtesy of my honest thoughts on this poem.
> As drafted, it doesn't quite work. On the other hand, I really like
> the idea of a man glorying in the fact that he and his wife are still
> together. I like that his fear is one or the other being left alone.
> And I can see and feel the elements that prompted you to write this
> poem. It's something worth capturing.

As I said, L&T read the poem multiple times, and commented only when she understood it. That's probably why she was able to give me actually constructive criticism, which did help me "improve my writing" - at least this one part of it.

> Perhaps the reason I didn't quite get the meaning of this poem on my
> first read or two lies in the fact that my best friend and I have
> joked for years that when our husbands drop dead, we can finally live
> together as old women and cackle from our porch at anyone who passes
> by as we rock back and forth.
> Thank you for letting me read your poem. I can see why you return
> again and again to this particular subject. If you can capture the
> essence of that fear, losing a spouse, and the glory of surviving
> another year, you'll have something well-worth reading.

> Peace,
>
> L&T

L&T's criticism, combined with the empathy and understanding behind it, are something I will always be grateful for.

Will Dockery wrote:

> On Monday, February 5, 2024 at 4:35:14 AM UTC-5, George J. wrote:
>> Faraway Star wrote:
>>
>> > On Thursday, February 1, 2024 at 7:55:13 AM UTC-5, George J. wrote:
>> >>
>> >> The sands of time are beginning to run out. In two short weeks, Google Groups will cease archiving new aapc posts; and my opportunity to write into the Google archive (something I've taken for granted for years) will cease along with it. There are many things I've never written here but wished I had - I see one almost every time I read through the archives - and I think the most pressing thing would be to concentrate on filling that gap.
>> >>
>> >> But where to start? Well, for me the most interesting thing for me to think about has always been my own poetry, so I think that would make a good opening. I'll start by talking about one of my earliest works done here that I still enjoy, the "Maureen trilogy."
>> >>
>> >> Inspired and taught by Dennis Hammes (a prolific sonneteer on RAP), I was learning to write sonnets in those days; and one result was a sonnnet to my wife on our 30th year together ("Afterglow"). That gave me the idea of writing another poem about us 30 years earlier, which I completed in time ("Light of Day"). That in turn gave me the idea about writing another one about us 30 years in the future. That last was the hardest to write (probably because I didn't have the life experience of being in my 80s), but after literally years I finally produced a sonnet that I was happy to consider completed ("Spring Again").
>> >>
>> >> Those three are presented, in my books, as three separate poems; the only thing that ties them together is the use of my wife's name. There was no reason for me to expect readers to spot that they formed a trilogy, but no real reason I should care if they did or not. A reader of my books will encounter them in this order: "Spring Again," "Light of Day," and finally "Afterglow" - so I'll begin with the first; and as this is already long enough, just giving a definitive text for now.
>> >>
>> >> Spring Again
>> >>
>> >> It's spring again, and I am with Maureen.
>> >> I'd add, "thank God for that" (if I believed)
>> >> For, frozen as in high beams, I have seen
>> >> Oncoming dread: one dead and one bereaved.
>> >> No hope for us to live eternally
>> >> Or garner brave new bodies after death;
>> >> No more than this, the thought impelling me
>> >> To get untharn, to fight for every breath –
>> >> A battle till the setting of each sun,
>> >> A victory each sunset we survive,
>> >> Another day my love and I have won
>> >> And death has lost. Today we are alive,
>> >> This world is ours, its grass and trees are green,
>> >> It's spring again, and I am with Maureen.
>> >>
>> >> ~~
>> >> George J. Dance, 2010
>>
>> > Outstanding... Google Groups will indeed be missed...
>> Indeed it will. We've all spent years here, and it will take some time re-establishing what we had here on a new platform. I hope it can be done.
>>
>> That giees me an idea. I'd like to spend what time I have in the next week writing about the group, and my experiences; and the responses I got to this poem are a good microcosm. So I'll start with this poem, and the thread I opened on the last draft I'd submitted, from a thread called "Spring Again again."
>> https://groups.google.com/g/alt.arts.poetry.comments/c/KSoDQZkANuI/m/Jsseq9xQ4F4J?hl=en
>>
>> aapc, as described, was a place where writers could post their poems, and more experienced poets would give constructive criticism, to help them improve the poem. I thought that was ideal for this poem, which I'd previously posted drafts of on RAP, but from the reaction there concluded it needed work. So I posted it here, and hoped for the best. Let's see what happened.
>>
>> The first crit was by Dale Houstman (or Dale Housetroll, as I later learned to think of him), but I don't want to begin with that! So let's move to the next person to comment, Randy.
>>
>> On Friday, November 23, 2007 at 3:16:39 AM UTC-5, Randy wrote:
>> > On Nov 22, 7:48 am, George Dance <georgedanc...@yahoo.ca> wrote:
>> > >
>> > > Spring Again
>> > >
>> > > It's spring again, and I am with Maureen.
>> > > I'd add "... thank God for that!" (if I believed)
>> > Okay, I'm going to try to make some sense of this. The person
>> > speaking, the "I" of the poem, says the first line and I can accept
>> > that. The second line makes it seem like you're stepping outside
>> > yourself to say the next thought. If you meant to say:
>> > It's spring again, and I am with Maureen.
>> > And thank God for that!
>> > then just say it. Oh, but you're trying to write a sonnet and you need
>> > to fill out the meter. But then you question what you're saying with
>> > the parenthetical remark. Maybe the next thought should be something
>> > like
>> > (I'd say thank God! if I believed)
>>
>> This intrigued me, because the first sentence sounded like Randy was making the effort to read the poem. Unfortunately the second line threw him. When I wrote that line, I knew exactly what I wanted to say, and thought I'd written it. "I'd say "Thank God for that!" says that I'm happy and grateful that my wife and I are alive for another year, put in the conventional way of expressing it. "(if I believed)" says that I don't believe in God - that's a parenthetical thought, hence the parentheses. I can't see a better way to put it, and it's not changed.
>>
>> But Randy, it appears, doesn't like formal verse -- he suspects that it leads to padding, and filler, so he was on the lookout for that.
>>
>> > > For frozen by its high beams I have seen
>> > > Oncoming dread: one dead and one bereaved.
>> > So the metaphor here is spring is an oncoming car and while frozen in
>> > it's high beams you see death and some one near to death.
>>
>> This is certainly not what the poem means, but I can see what threw him off -- the "its" in L3, which is supposed to refer to the "dread" in L4. But he hadn't read that line yet, so he has to think "its high beans" is "spring's high beams" -- that's silly, but what else could he think given what he's read? That does sound like the writer's (my) mistake, so I revised L3 to get the pronoun out. Now it reads "as in high beams" which makes it clear spring doesn't have high beams, that they're a simile.
>>
>> So I'd already received some benefit from his criticism. But I also had two disturbing thoughts: first, that Randy hadn't read the poem before he began criticizing it; second, he wasn't going to try to read the rest of it.
>>
>> > > I cannot pray to live eternally
>> > > Or gain a brave new body after death;
>> > > This is my all - a thought that forces me
>> > > To not go tharn, to fight for every breath:
>>
>> > This part did nothing for me and "tharn" made me reread to see what
>> > else could be meant. To do no harm? To not go to the barn? If you
>> > meant to not go there, just say that. "Tharn" does not seem to be a
>> > word to the rest of the English speaking world. I noticed in another
>> > post you thought you were continuing the metaphor. Of the headlights?
>>
>> Not of the headlights, but of being "frozen" in them. "Tharn" (a word coined by Richard Adams (Rob Evans caught that), but I actually got it from Stephen King who used it once as well. It was the only other word I could think of to describe being "frozen" or paralyzed in that way, and since I like new words I didn't want to lose it. But as it bothered other readers, I did replace it with a word I coined: rather than "not go tharn", I resolved to "get untharn". (No one ever criticized that.)
>>
>> So, I got a second benefit. But it now looked obvious to me that Randy had given up even trying to understand the poem, and that would be all I was going to get.
>>
>> > So the speaker is fighting against death (with out god's help)
>> > something like "Do not go gentle into that head light"?
>>
>> That was a good explanation, and his pun (on Thomas's poem) was amusing. Of course my poem wasn't like thomas's -- he wanted his father to fight a lost cause on his deathbed, to die "like a man" -- but the pun was funny.
>>
>> > > A battle every day this course is run,
>> > > A triumph every day that we survive,
>> > > Another day my love and I have won
>> > > And death has lost. Today I am alive,
>>
>> > This is all just filler to get you to the end.
>>
>> That told me the lines still needed improvement -- and I did revise LL9-10 to add the "sunset" metaphor, on my own as this comment didn't help me with that at all. My main thoughts were that (1) Randy indeed disliked formal verse, and saw padding or "filler" everywhere; (2) he had indeed stopped reading; (3) either he resented having to go through the motions of critting the rest, or he was being deliberately insulting, perhaps trolling to get a rise out of me.
>>
>> > > This world is mine, its grass and trees are green,
>> > > It's spring again, and I am with Maureen.
>> > So there's a mention of an image of death and subsequent resolving to
>> > be glad it's spring and not dead.
>>
>> Randy was correct about point A (the image of death) and point B (the subsequent resolve) he just didn't see how I got from point A to point B. I took that in, but by this point I was convinced that he was not trying to be helpful.
>>
>> > Spring, of course, has long been known as a time of birth and rebirth.
>> > The "voice" in this is all over the place and sounds confused.
>>
>> This was a comment I'd hear again and again in the course of writing on aapc. To paraphrase: "I don't understand what you're trying to say, so you must be confused." My suspicion that he was trolling got stronger at this point.
>>
>> > If you
>> > feel you must put in your two cents about it, try to see what's really
>> > there. Sit outside in the spring time and write down all the little
>> > details you observe particular to spring. That can be much more
>> > exhilerating than reading about a mention of something that,
>> > apparently, was scary.
>> > Randy
>>
>> Randy is right: if I were trying to write a descriptive poem about spring, I failed; and going out and looking around would be a better way to do that. But, since I wasn't writing about spring, but about "something" else which he didn't see, that didn't help me improve this poem in the slightest.
>>
>> So were his comments constructive criticism or trolling? In hindsight I'd say the latter, but I did get three constructive comments telling me what lines needed work -- L2, L8, and LL9-10. So I had to accept what he gave me, and thank him.

> George J. Dance wrote:
> The sands of time are beginning to run out. In two short weeks,
Google Groups will cease archiving new aapc posts; and my opportunity
to write into the Google archive (something I've taken for granted for
years) will cease along with it. There are many things I've never
written here but wished I had - I see one almost every time I read
through the archives - and I think the most pressing thing would be to
concentrate on filling that gap.
>
> But where to start? Well, for me the most interesting thing for me
to think about has always been my own poetry, so I think that would
make a good opening. I'll start by talking about one of my earliest
works done here that I still enjoy, the "Maureen trilogy."
>
> Inspired and taught by Dennis Hammes (a prolific sonneteer on RAP),
I was learning to write sonnets in those days; and one result was a
sonnnet to my wife on our 30th year together ("Afterglow").
That gave me the idea of writing another poem about us 30 years
earlier, which I completed in time ("Light of Day"). That in
turn gave me the idea about writing another one about us 30 years in
the future. That last was the hardest to write (probably because I
didn't have the life experience of being in my 80s), but after
literally years I finally produced a sonnet that I was happy to
consider completed ("Spring Again").
>
> Those three are presented, in my books, as three separate poems;
the only thing that ties them together is the use of my wife's name.
There was no reason for me to expect readers to spot that they formed
a trilogy, but no real reason I should care if they did or not. A
reader of my books will encounter them in this order: "Spring
Again," "Light of Day," and finally
"Afterglow" - so I'll begin with the first; and as this is
already long enough, just giving a definitive text for now.
>
> Spring Again
>
> It's spring again, and I am with Maureen.
> I'd add, "thank God for that" (if I believed)
> For, frozen as in high beams, I have seen
> Oncoming dread: one dead and one bereaved.
> No hope for us to live eternally
> Or garner brave new bodies after death;
> No more than this, the thought impelling me
> To get untharn, to fight for every breath -
> A battle till the setting of each sun,
> A victory each sunset we survive,
> Another day my love and I have won
> And death has lost. Today we are alive,
> This world is ours, its grass and trees are green,
> It's spring again, and I am with Maureen.
>
> ~~
> George J. Dance, 2010

Again, good collection, George.

This is a response to the post seen at:
http://www.jlaforums.com/viewtopic.php?p=574925852#574925852

George J. Dance wrote:
>
> Just when I'd almost given up - when I thought that I'd get no more help than the little that Randy had given me by accident or design, I received this reply in the thread. ("Lime & Tequila" BTW is a poet whom I'd met on a Google Group, conversed with a couple of times, and encouraged to come to aapc.)

> On Wednesday, November 28, 2007 at 1:35:27 AM UTC-5, Lime & Tequila wrote:
>> I've read Spring Again a few times now. I first read it silently. I'm
>> pretty sure I must have just skimmed it. It didn't draw me in
>> immediately. And tonight when I read it, I clued into the meaning of
>> this poem (not exactly flattering to me).

> L&T was the one person commenting on "Spring Again" who'd read the poem before commenting. And she'd read it not just once, but "a few times" until she thought (correctly) that she got it. I'd say that paints a very flattering picture of her.

>> Initially, I want to share with you the fact that I don't care for the
>> "frozen by its high beams" and "oncoming dread" allusion to an
>> automobile. It's not that have any particular problem with your actual
>> language, it's just the automobile reference seems grafted in, chosen
>> mainly because it's kind of a cool way to reference fear and death.
>> But then you drop it--appropriately enough--and move on with a more
>> traditional battle against death motif.
>> I'm thinking some other reference would work better in this context,
>> onrushing soldiers, army, whatnot. The car motive would easily work
>> in another poem, but not here.

> Fair enough. My working L2 (which I was determined to NOT use :) was "For like a deer in headlights I have seen" - that was a cliche that even Barbara's Cat could laugh at. But I liked the concept, and none of the other ideas referenced the idea I wanted, of being frozen or paralyzed by the oncoming dread. So L2 stayed, with the wording changes now in.

>> Well, I've beaten that horse to death. So let's move to tharn. I'm
>> comfortable, even admiring, of unconventional word choice. And I kind
>> of like tharn in the context of frozen by fear of death. But when you
>> combine it with oncoming headlights, as Richard Adams did in his novel
>> "Watership Down," it's almost cliché.
>> Let's be honest, the vast majority of your readers will have to look
>> up the word tharn. And they'll be directed to the reference in
>> "Watership Down" of rabbits frozen in fear by oncoming headlights. And
>> suddenly the originality of this line goes a bit flat, it trails too
>> deeply in the footsteps of Richard Adams.

> Again, a good point. But if I was going to keep "frozen as in high beams" (how the line reads now) I had to keep "tharn". But L&T is right (as was Rob), that word is tied to closely to /Watership Down/. So I coined my own word - I now had to "get untharn." I'm even happier with that, since it falls in L8, the volta (from being paralyzed by impending death - being frozen - to fighting for, winning, and celebrating every day of our life together - getting unfrozen).

>> A small point, throughout the poem, you are "I" centered, thus, "I
>> am," "I'd add," I have," etc. But in your lines 10 and 11, we shift to
>> us, you and Maureen. Maureen hasn't done much so far, she hasn't
>> prayed or been forced or fought. But she's now winning the battle
>> along with you. It's a subtle point, but I tend to think you should
>> either bring Maureen in as an active participant earlier or leave her
>> the beloved wife and keep your work "I" centric all the way through.

> This is not a small point - it's L&T's best criticism and one that I think helped me improve the poem 1000%. I'm trying to talk about us, but I'm only talking about me, me, me. My speaker sounds too selfish to be in a relationship. Leaving it that way would probably ruin the poem for most anyone. And it's wrong; this is not a just poem about me, but about us.

> So I kept the "I" in LL1-3 and L8, but pluralizxed the rest. Now in the octet, there's now "No hope for us to live eternally" and now in the sestet it's "A victory each sunset we survive." 1000% better; I'll be forever grateful to L&T.

>> Now, turning to the end of your poem, you state, "This world is mine,

> Now "This world is ours" (mine and Maureen's, but not necessarily just us).

>> its grass and trees are green."

>> I get the joy of another day and I understand why you reference the
>> grass and trees are still green. But to me, "it's grass and trees are
>> green" seems a bit weak given that you have just fought death and
>> won.
>> In other words, the line is there solely to support the spring again
>> motive. But is this really what springs to mind as you stand unbowed
>> and glory in having fought and defeated death another year.

> Yeah, but my thought wasn't that the grass and trees are still green. It's that after so long they're green again. That's the best part of spring, and it makes spring the best part of the year, for someone who lives in a cold climate like Canada.

>> I don't want to exhaustively examine line by line every word in this
>> poem. Frankly, it's beyond my capability. But I did want to give you
>> the courtesy of my honest thoughts on this poem.
>> As drafted, it doesn't quite work. On the other hand, I really like
>> the idea of a man glorying in the fact that he and his wife are still
>> together. I like that his fear is one or the other being left alone.
>> And I can see and feel the elements that prompted you to write this
>> poem. It's something worth capturing.

> As I said, L&T read the poem multiple times, and commented only when she understood it. That's probably why she was able to give me actually constructive criticism, which did help me "improve my writing" - at least this one part of it.

>> Perhaps the reason I didn't quite get the meaning of this poem on my
>> first read or two lies in the fact that my best friend and I have
>> joked for years that when our husbands drop dead, we can finally live
>> together as old women and cackle from our porch at anyone who passes
>> by as we rock back and forth.
>> Thank you for letting me read your poem. I can see why you return
>> again and again to this particular subject. If you can capture the
>> essence of that fear, losing a spouse, and the glory of surviving
>> another year, you'll have something well-worth reading.

>> Peace,
>>
>> L&T

> L&T's criticism, combined with the empathy and understanding behind it, are something I will always be grateful for.

Interesting back story...

> George J. Dance wrote:
> The sands of time are beginning to run out. In two short weeks,
Google Groups will cease archiving new aapc posts; and my opportunity
to write into the Google archive (something I've taken for granted for
years) will cease along with it. There are many things I've never
written here but wished I had - I see one almost every time I read
through the archives - and I think the most pressing thing would be to
concentrate on filling that gap.
>
> But where to start? Well, for me the most interesting thing for me
to think about has always been my own poetry, so I think that would
make a good opening. I'll start by talking about one of my earliest
works done here that I still enjoy, the "Maureen trilogy."
>
> Inspired and taught by Dennis Hammes (a prolific sonneteer on RAP),
I was learning to write sonnets in those days; and one result was a
sonnnet to my wife on our 30th year together ("Afterglow").
That gave me the idea of writing another poem about us 30 years
earlier, which I completed in time ("Light of Day"). That in
turn gave me the idea about writing another one about us 30 years in
the future. That last was the hardest to write (probably because I
didn't have the life experience of being in my 80s), but after
literally years I finally produced a sonnet that I was happy to
consider completed ("Spring Again").
>
> Those three are presented, in my books, as three separate poems;
the only thing that ties them together is the use of my wife's name.
There was no reason for me to expect readers to spot that they formed
a trilogy, but no real reason I should care if they did or not. A
reader of my books will encounter them in this order: "Spring
Again," "Light of Day," and finally
"Afterglow" - so I'll begin with the first; and as this is
already long enough, just giving a definitive text for now.
>
> Spring Again
>
> It's spring again, and I am with Maureen.
> I'd add, "thank God for that" (if I believed)
> For, frozen as in high beams, I have seen
> Oncoming dread: one dead and one bereaved.
> No hope for us to live eternally
> Or garner brave new bodies after death;
> No more than this, the thought impelling me
> To get untharn, to fight for every breath -
> A battle till the setting of each sun,
> A victory each sunset we survive,
> Another day my love and I have won
> And death has lost. Today we are alive,
> This world is ours, its grass and trees are green,
> It's spring again, and I am with Maureen.
>
> ~~
> George J. Dance, 2010

Ping George, non PPB posts seem to post fine.

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