[Barry J. M. Thomson]

Thanks for your response Clark, I'm sure I have many flaws, and being honest, I like how my poem turned out in the end, though I'm not sure I can be a good judge of quality, I'm uneducated, with little understanding of spelling, grammar, sentence structure, and no tutoring as part of a creative writing course, etc.

But I will say, I'm just a casual writer, writing what I enjoy, paying little attention to rules or expectations placed upon me from the outside, I like what I write, as I find it enjoyable, and I feel though it is often a little simple, most of my work is at least passable, and I have more than a few positive comments in my memory to confirm that much at least, its passable, casual, enjoyable poetry.

Not sure what your getting at with the recommendation to honesty though, I have been writing and re writing this post passionately for a number of hours, because I was enjoying myself, and the initial responses while I was still busy at work, show that it did not even appear to be passable to begin with at all.

I had no idea how it would turn out, I just noticed a few things while writing that inspired me, went with it, and tried to turn it into something poetic, I think it turned out ok in the end, but if what you are implying had any basis, I have to ask, would I not have instead made a completed post, showcasing the best of what I have written?, if nothing else, it was all written completly unplanned, in the heat of the moment, right before the eyes of the erato sphere, and in any case, a key element within poetry, at least in my opinion, is "try", so it doesn't matter if you fail, so long as you poe-try.

I wasnt thinking about outside opinion while writing, not wholly at least, though seeing the responses to the dibs period of the process, which I intended to stake my work until I could format it completely, did help to let me know that it would be a good idea to remove the dibs, once I was finished with the creative process.

But anyway, it doesn't really matter if the first draft, or any other draft really, of the resulting poem, is any good or not whatsoever, as it was a work of complete spontaneity, unplanned, un designed, left exactly as it was in order, just modified with seasoning within it's original context, at least for the most part as far as I remember it, to try to make what I had written sound a little better, a little more poetic, maybe I wasn't as successful as I would have liked, but I like it, and I liked writing it, it was fun, my only real aim, once I had given in to the creation process fully, was perhaps to tell an interesting story within a story, but I had no way of knowing if It would be successful or not, while I was still writing it and editing it, I just believed in the potential, got swept along with the inspirational feeling, and enjoyed myself in the process, why do you think I wrote dibs in the first place, it doesn't make sense as part of a poem, not the way I wrote it anyway, and that fact is also made clear amongst my responses, perhaps I am a less than competent poet?, but surely I'm not THAT bad, I was simply claiming my unfinished work, while I was still in the middle of writing it.

I'm not sure why you would suggest what you seem to have suggested, but it's ok, I know myself, I've always done my best to be honest, even at detriment to myself, particularly in the sight of others, appearing silly or foolish to them, being laughed at, etc, but I am who I am, I've been depressed about that for a long time, but I'm finally starting to accept myself, after year's of struggle and self hatred, and I will continue to be who I am from now on as well, as being alone in the world, I am the only person I have who can make me happy.

The opinions of others have ruled my life, for most of the last 20 years or so, but I've realised it doesn't really matter, I can't please 6 billion plus opinions, and I agree with less than half of their opinions anyway, so I'll just keep being myself, knowing who I am on the inside, oblivious to the negative criticism as best I can be, which always passes like mist in the wind regardless, and anyway, we will all be dead soon, so what does it really matter?.

Thanks for stopping by, B.