[Glenn Wright]

Hi, Joe, Matt, and Hilary—

I agree that it is usually a bad idea to try to rhyme anything with “that.” I revised S3 with your suggestion in mind, Matt. I like it much better. Thanks!

I thought for a long time about whether to change the title and decided that I liked keeping “Dream.” It allows me to present the scenario as something merely imagined.

Thanks, all three, for your continuing helpful responses!

Glenn

[Matt Q]

Hi Glenn,

I think S3 is much improved with the latest revisions. With the rust, there's more image and less abstraction. Plus, after all, does anyone really believe politicians are wholly good with pure motives? And "despite the rust" has really helped dial that back quite a bit, qualify it. And now the stanza seems more about the underlying structure than those whose run it, a structure that the N had previously thought -- while not perfect -- to be good enough.

I did wonder about something like "was strong enough, and would endure", but I'm not saying its better than what you have.

Matt

[Marshall Begel]

Hi, Glenn
This is in good shape! Now I'm crying again.

S2L3: The emphasis on "they" doesn't feel natural. Also, I hear 2 syllables in "toward". So how about:
"But as they climb toward the stars,"

S4L3: Would you add a head: "When dragon fangs..."?

[Glenn Wright]

Hi Matt and Marshall—

Matt, “was strong enough” works, but I like including “proud” to inject a note of patriotism, since it reminds the reader that in this dream vision allegory, the roller coaster represents the American system of government.

Marshall, I pronounce “toward” as one syllable with a silent “w.” Apparently there is a lot of variation in the treatment of this word. Most British speakers use “towards” with the “w” pronounced, but without the “r” as one syllable. According to the video clip below, most Americans pronounce it as one syllable:
https://youtu.be/zPhP6ZFgxXw?si=dRICqhCPivy—3x_

Thanks!

Glenn

[Susan McLean]

Glenn, I like it until the last stanza, which seems weak to me. It is not what is happening to the ride that should be the focus, but what may happen to the children. The possibility of not getting the children back is the power of this nightmare.

Susan

[Glenn Wright]

Hi, Susan—

Thanks for weighing in. I appreciate knowing how the poem lands with you.

I like leaving the ultimate fate of the children unclear. It is possible that they will survive the ride and that it can be patched up over the next few years so future groups of children can be entrusted to it. The point is that the future of the children is precarious and uncertain, and the possible consequences of not fixing the roller coaster are dire.

Glenn

[Max Goodman]

This metaphor is a strong way of grappling with something so many of us are struggling to grapple with.

Toward the end, a few things strike me as less strong. The "sixty times" feels too literal to me, too direct a reference to a number of elections. It's hard to imagine a father counting that many roller coaster rides. And the end implies that the father is putting his kids back in the ride despite its clear decrepitude--which is, of course, what we're doing with our rickety democracy. This may be a stress point where the metaphor fails; we wouldn't do that with a roller coaster. Is there a way to end, rather than with the observation that the roller coaster is no longer safe--which the poem has made clear more strongly with the details--with the parents' dilemma?

[Julie Steiner]

Glenn, I'm unconvinced by the overall scenario, since putting a literal child on a literal roller coaster is generally optional and temporary. And since Trump won the popular vote with his authoritarian promises, the majority of other parents in your scenario should be removing bolts, actively sawing through support struts and setting the structure on fire, but your poem just has the thing fall apart on its own in the final stanza.

My misgivings about the metaphor are unremediable, but I have some picky quibbles with "Sixty times" and "we" that you might find helpful.

"Sixty times we" is wildly inaccurate, if the "we" of the poem is intended to include women, people of color, or non-legislators. It wasn't until well after the Civil War that most state legislatures delegated the ability to vote on the President to enfranchised citizens, usually defined as land-owning white men. The Constitution says that each state legislature decides how to allocate its Electoral College votes (with or without benefit of public input).

Clearly the distressed "we" of the poem does not include the majority of last week's election's voters, who were presumably pretty content, and even giddily delighted, with the outcome. But even within that "sixty times," you also seem to be overlooking situations in which the winner of the most Electoral College votes and the winner of the popular vote were not the same candidate. Not exactly a model of "Democracy" there, and it's happened repeatedly.

Such things as the Electoral College are built into the Constitution for a reason, which was that the Founding Fathers did not WANT a democracy. They did not WANT anyone but landowning white men to be voting even in local contests, and certainly not on who would be President of the whole shebang. That's why the Constitution establishes a republic and not a democracy.

I don't want a true, direct democracy, either. I hate the ballot box budgeting that goes on at the local level. When counties and cities have ballot measures to decide whether there should be a zoning change to allow a specific housing development that would otherwise violate the General Plan, and which will be voted on by people who live nowhere near the proposed development and will not be affected by any negative impacts from it, I doubt that a fair and equitable decision will be made, and I resent spending several hours evaluating that crap only to have whichever side spent the most money on signage and ads win.

I think of ancient Athens and its randomly selected huge group of leaders (designed to be too big to bribe) deciding everything all the time, and I wonder how as a society they managed to get anything else done.

Way beyond the scope of your poem, but perhaps something in my blather will be helpful.

[Matt Q]

Hi Glenn,

I'll add to the above that, "sixty times we came to trust our futures would be safe and sure.", implies that sixty times we also stopped trusting, or were unsure -- and then came to trust again.

Also, I guess, we don't get much choice/any choice in the system, and we may trust reluctantly. So maybe something like: "So many times we've had to trust" would hint at that? "we've placed our trust" covers that too, but would require more rejigging.

So many times we've had to trust
our futures would be safe and sure.
The carnival, despite the rust,
was strong and proud, and would endure.

A couple of options for tweaking, that aren't necessarily better than what you have: You could have "that this wild ride" in place of "the carnival" though I like carnival, for it's sense of a bright and noisy show, its not the carnival that's being ridden. If the dodgems stop working, say, no one gets hurt. And "built to endure" in place of "and would endure" is maybe slightly stronger wording and avoids the repetition of "would".

best,

Matt

[Glenn Wright]

Hi, Max, Julie, and Matt—

Thank you all for your helpful insights and useful suggestions.

Max and Julie—I wanted to avoid having to be realistic and literal in presenting characters, so I cast this poem as a dream vision allegory. Of course real parents would not put their children in a ramshackle roller coaster, but allegorically, we risk our children’s futures every four years with our strangely cobbled-together system of federal elections which are managed by states, decided by an electoral college, and susceptible to corruption, voter suppression, gerrymandering, and now, charges of fraud, incitement to sedition, and refusal to allow peaceful transfer of power.

Matt—I see your point about “came to trust” implying a loss and subsequent regaining of trust. I like your proposed fix and used it. Thanks!
On your second point, I would submit that the system of federal elections/roller coaster are not “made to endure.” It is miraculous that our system has lasted through 60 cycles and 240 years. I want the reader to decide whether there is a chance that the roller coaster will not collapse into fragments. This might be made clearer by changing “would endure” to “could endure.” That also eliminates the repetition of “would.”

Julie—The vexed and troubling history of federal elections that you summarize in detail is precisely what I was hoping the poem would invite the reader to ponder. Pre-15th, 19th, and 23rd Amendments, enslaved and previously enslaved people, women, and residents of D.C. were excluded from voting. Today children, released felons, Puerto Ricans and residents of other American territories, and resident aliens are excluded in most cases from voting, but the system that “we” call “our” system affects them, too.
Although our government is not a pure democracy, until very recently, we were dedicated to the democratic principles embodied in the Declaration of Independence and Constitution in which leaders receive their power and authority to govern from the people they govern—even though many of those people are unfairly represented because of voter suppression, gerrymandering, inequities in the electoral college, and other problems you described.