[Susan McLean]

Here is a poem I didn't workshop here, because it had to be about current events. I thought I'd share it.:

https://lightpoetrymagazine.com/poem...as-struck-him/

Susan

[Roger Slater]

Clearly it did not need to be workshopped. Great poem.

[Susan McLean]

I'm glad you like it, Roger. I rarely publish poems I don't workshop, since I welcome a chance to polish them first.

Susan

[Julie Steiner]

Just as well you didn't workshop it, as my critique would have been a uselessly inarticulate LOVE IT LOVE IT LOVE IT SLAVES STYROFOAM PANTHEON MWAH

[Carl Copeland]

You snuck in an extra epigraph by using it as the title? It was too topical for the Sphere?! Oh well, Roger’s undoubtedly right about that. And Julie about the Styrofoam. In fact, it’s so white and practical and architectural that I’m surprised the Romans didn’t invent it. I love that touch and the title too!

[Susan McLean]

Julie, it's such fun to hear what you liked.

Carl, I didn't workshop it because the Poems of the Week site wants poems about events that have been in the news during the past week, so the poems are time-sensitive. Eratosphere asks that you workshop a poem for at least a week before submitting it anywhere. Although topical poems are not prohibited here, they tend to get a relatively unenthusiastic reception because they are viewed as being ephemeral. I am glad to hear that you also liked "Styrofoam." I wasn't sure how readers would react to that. I was amused when I thought of the Shakespeare quote because it fit the context so perfectly. Cleopatra was just one more girlfriend complaining about her boyfriend's obsession with Rome.

Susan

[Chris O'Carroll]

The white of cheap, unwholesome Styrofoam instead of more luxurious ancient-world statue material is one of the poem's many elegant touches. Puts me in mind of these opening lines from one of Wendy Cope's Strugnell sonnets:

Not only marble, but the plastic toys
From cornflake packets will outlive this rhyme

[Julie Steiner]

To me, "Styrofoam" very neatly captured the artifice of Hollywood, and people's eagerness to believe in what looks true on film—whether a statue or a whole hypermasculine fantasy.

And it also suggested that this flimsy flimflam lasts forever, since although Styrofoam crumbles, its component chemicals famously don't break down for ages.

BTW, although De Mille's 1923 faux-Egyptian set of The Ten Commandments was made of fragile plaster, not Styrofoam, new bits of it keep getting unearthed in the dunes of Santa Barbara.