Thursday, May 01, 2008

Moderation

Due to posts either non-germaine or merely self-promoting, I have resorted to the moderation option on this blog। That's a kind noun for deleting interlopers.

I started this blog in the late summer of 2005 and continued it through our trials in Mexico and my subsequent two-year depression. That some would come here not in good faith but only to scribble graffiti saddens me.

At The Melic Review Roundtable poetry board we had about seven good years before the barbarians stormed the gates. I had a policy that adults should be able to ignore the posts of brigands bent on stealing the spirit of communal discourse without policing. Alas, at last, I was proved wrong--and as we switched to censorship the board simply collapsed, after which I put the whole enterprise on hold.

Right now I'm open to editing and publishing again, I'm even toying with the idea of starting a new magazine or resurrecting the old one. (Cyanide capsules may be mailed to my snail address.) Seriously, I know some untapped talent I suspect would make for a riveting magazine, my only impediment being the lack of a literary light also schooled in webmastering who might be willing to devote her gifts to the technical side. Any volunteers should e-mail me and I will try to provide some monetary reward as well, though likely not commensurate with the current commercial market.

Meanwhile my mood is holding, with a few dips, at least stable enough to write about melancholy not in the first person, a poem presently being workshopped at Gazebo and Wild Poetry Forum (at their Biofeedback thread), should you wish to visit the workshop process. I post the poem here for your convenience:


Queen Melancholy

Dressed in perpetual blue,
her smile a wound too wise
for ordinary martyrdom,
with the stealth of a blue-bottle fly
she moves, black-veined wings
pressed on an azure gown.
Though her kiss is bitter
as the almond pit, her name
flows over the tongue
like maple syrup.

“All happens for a reason”
she reassures us
in a smoky cocktail voice,
rendering unreasonable pain
immune to reason's solace.
She will choke you
with a noose of accusations
woven from strictest honesty.
Beware her lying bed.
Great minds have languished there
and dined upon themselves.


My thanks to all who have followed my journey and apologies for delaying the publication of your comments. There is no other apt word for what I am being forced to do than censorship, which I detest. I hope the result will not be as discouraging as the downfall of the Melic poetry board.


Thine,

CE

6 comments:

  1. Best of luck with any magazine etc.

    I don't think of moderation as censorship. You are editor of your blog just as when you are editor of a zine. You have the right to choose the content acceptable for your own site.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous5:12 PM PDT

    Apart from the Japanese girls down below, I take it you've been deleting junk posts?

    norm

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous5:33 PM PDT

    I enjoy stopping by and reading your poetry. You have quite a talent.

    Your moderation of comments makes sense. I know folks who rarely moderate what comes out of their mouths, so doing it for them when they write on your blog is a sign of wisdom.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I never was bothered by the idiots- I still think moderation is inane, the assholes do go away eventually- the roundtable was the best board around and I still am annoyed at the weinies who took their toys home (and I know your names- in fact, where are most of them now???)

    I would be glad to help you in any way I can, I personally am a webdummy but I do have friends who might be persuaded.

    If you're up to it, I think it would be FABULOUS!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Thanks, Shann, and I would certainly enlist your help, and Norm's (if he's up to it), and other friends and colleagues.

    Here's my idea: "The Journal of Retrogardism and Logopoetry."

    Having found a similar school of poetry in Sweden (Retrogardism) I would like to trumpet the beauty of intelligibility, while embracing a breadth of styles from around the world, including translations.

    There are recent journals with which I am happy in this regard, Umbrella for instance, but I envision something with more of a critical sting for those emperors wandering around naked and getting strokes from the literary world. I am a rebel at heart, and I need the sense of a rebellion to pour my energies into a new zine.

    Melic meant to defend the canon and the craft; since that position is a minority one nowadays, if we listen to the loudest voices, then that position, formerly conservative, becomes revolutionary. And the play goes on.

    I like the title of the magazine because it will make people ask questions: What the hell is that? It's hard to distinguish a zine by title anymore, though qaartsiluni may have achieved that distinction, but I like the intellectual baiting of announcing our affiliation at the top and making submitting poets school themselves a bit in our philosophy as the price of admission.

    You know I am eclectic at heart, my only shibboleth about poetry being "say something." I like meat and potatoes, not cream broulee'. But I would not be doctrinaire; I am always amazed at how many ways there are to say something. Our philosophy would not be meant for exclusion but clarification. I think poems should work hard for us, not the other way around, don't you?

    I'll write you privately as well.

    Thank you for your generous offer!

    CE

    ReplyDelete
  6. Anonymous4:53 PM PDT

    I remember that thing at the melick-- some sort of spanish-ish burnt marshmello fight.. red it, watched it.. sometimes with guarded amusement (one never really knows amusement at what/whos' cost) so.. yes censorship is good, specially when your children mouth off quite understandable. I can never ++Really++ figure anything out .. but I like to watch the blooms in wonder and awe, still.. have always said, if i'm buggin you,, just let me know... say hay! you idiot.. quit lookin in my window!!!

    fair-nuff

    btw - they say you can't pick your family,, parents etc,
    I'm not sure that's worth a HIll of beans or what addvice,, or not

    Do you think our children choose us? image wise.
    .. off to study "The WAy" .. the final hours of 14 steps
    can you find the big Word in the small suffin succatashhhhhhhhhh:)

    ReplyDelete

Please share your opinion!

Unexpected Light

Unexpected Light
Selected Poems and Love Poems 1998-2008 ON SALE NOW!