Spare a minute for this brief Substack post: millsbi.substack.com/p/a-note-on-... - ThreadSky

billymills.bsky.social • 12 days ago

Spare a minute for this brief Substack post:

https://millsbi.substack.com/p/a-note-on-or-against-sentiment

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Point well made. I’ve believed & said similar, but you’ve said it better.

Question (actual question, I don’t know the answer) Do readers need at least some sentiment as an easy label & entry point?

evecastle.bsky.social•12 days ago

At various poem workshops… I was told a good habit to make is to ask yourself “what if you drop the first line… what about dropping the last line?” I’m not sure why but it seems the sentiment is on one of those lines, sometimes both, and dropping those lines makes little difference.

frankhudson.bsky.social•12 days ago

A good tactic to keep in mind that! Last lines are so hard. I worry when they're flat, but also worry when they seem right & then seem on 2nd thought "That's just/merely what a poem would do." 🤷

billymills.bsky.social•12 days ago

Maybe it's best to deny the reader what they want?

j-tkelly.bsky.social•12 days ago

I have two things in mind to avoid as I revise:
sentiment
and sounding like TS Eliot in an armchair holding forth.

I like reworking things until I find them at least a little baffling. But getting rid of all traces of sentiment is a real challenge.

billymills.bsky.social•12 days ago

Nobody wants to sound like Our Tom.

frankhudson.bsky.social•12 days ago

That's a more availing tactic if one has obtained (somehow) an audience to baffle/perplex. Otherwise, there may be no audience to challenge. I worry that that's a more availing tactic if one has obtained (somehow) an audience to baffle or perplex. Otherwise, there may be no audience to challenge. 🧵

frankhudson.bsky.social•12 days ago

There is the idea, the aim, of a smaller, better, more selective audience. I've disappointed very small audiences for decades, growing to a slightly less small audience, and that took a lot of effort.

So, I must believe that someway.

billymills.bsky.social•12 days ago

I'll see your small audience, and raise you an even smaller one.

keithjebb.bsky.social•12 days ago

No maybe about it.

billymills.bsky.social•12 days ago

I was aiming for understated.

keithjebb.bsky.social•11 days ago

I’ve given that up for my retirement.

vivbnow.bsky.social•12 days ago

truth

billymills.bsky.social•12 days ago

Maybe just a smidgen.

guentheralex.bsky.social•12 days ago

thanks for sharing this. i definitely find something... not compelling... about that phrase. maybe it's just the adjective overload? i actually *like* "forsaken cities", and "cities of grief" is... OK to me, so is it just the combo of the two where i draw the line? i have to think more about this!

guentheralex.bsky.social•12 days ago

ok, that was my quick response to just that one phrase you cited... now i've read the whole poem. yeah. sentiment. i get why you zoomed out and made the larger point. poetry can't just be saying something is sad is sad so we should feel sad about it in flat language.

billymills.bsky.social•12 days ago

Exactly.

billymills.bsky.social•12 days ago

Either the 'forsaken' is redundant of the 'of grief' is; having both there is definitely too much.

guentheralex.bsky.social•12 days ago

this kind of doubling up runs throughout the poem, which dulls a lot of its potential impact (for me). "child refugee’s orphaned eyes"? just orphaned refugee is enough, child refugee orphan is overkill. "daily promise of sunrise"? what other kind of sunrise is there than daily? etc.

billymills.bsky.social•12 days ago

It's built in redundancy.

j-tkelly.bsky.social•12 days ago

Planned Obsolescence
-poems by

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