[Susan McLean]

Julie, I don't see the raven as extraneous, but as the link between "poet oppressing birds" and "bird oppressing poet." I have tried to reword S4 to make that link clearer, rather than just ignore it. I need something as a bridge to the poet eating crow.

Susan

Nemo, we cross-posted. Though I could see S5 working after S3, I think fitting one more bird in adds to the fun.

[Julie Steiner]

Perhaps "naysaying" instead of "deriding"? That might build a stronger connection between "Nevermore" and literary criticism, I think.

Last stanza should have a tense/mood change to the future conditional to match the hypothetical stanza before it, I think, rather than present indicative.

[Susan McLean]

Julie,
I don't think the birds have to oppress in exactly the same way. Derision is as negative in its way as denial is. Also, the intended meaning of the last two lines is "I [already] know [from past experience] / the gut-churning flavor / of swallowing crow." I am not forecasting the future there.

Susan

[Alexandra Baez]

Susan, I like the new smoothness of L1, but I do appreciate the neat parallelism you had going with the n and the nightingales each being trapped in different ways. I was trying to think if there was some way to convey the sense of the n’s entrapment in a two-syllable word for the end of L1. “Fighting” is a bit indirect but perhaps would get the point across and would certainly be fun, assonance-wise. Perhaps you could think of another option.

I personally got the point of the raven, even in your original (including the syntax), and I enjoyed the expansion of literary references and the turning-around of the victimizer/victim roles. I also think it’s much more interesting and unsettling (a feeling you’d want here) to have stanzas in the odd number of five rather than the simple, stable, and almost pat four.

I do miss the “trilling disdain” of the original—it’s much more vivid and nightingale-like than “deriding” (which sounds more raven-like), and there was a nice internal rhyme with “killing.” I know that your new “nightly” builds the Poe connection, but might you at least use “disdaining” instead of “deriding”?

I also got your point that the last stanza was referring to past experience—it works for me.

[Susan McLean]

Alexandra, I have reverted to the original S1L1 because I missed the image of entrapment of the speaker. I have also brought back "trilling" in S4, with a change of wording at the end that I think better explains the behavior of the nightingales. Thanks for letting me know what you were getting from the different stanzas.

Susan

[David Callin]

I like the way this one rocks along, Susan.

"Eating crow" is a phrase which I am aware of without being familiar with - is it a purely US thing? It seems so to me. Even with that handicap (of my lack of familiarity), I feel that diluting it to "swallowing crow" in the last line doesn't help the poem. It would be great if you could finish on the resonant phrase itself instead of the (I assume) metre-driven alternative you have used.

And I feel, somehow, that the last two verses don't follow on from the first three, which I think deserve a different - and better? - ending. I don't see the logical flow there.

No doubt I'm misinterpreting your aims and intentions here, but that's how it seems to me. Mea culpa!

Cheers

David

[Susan McLean]

David, thanks for giving me a British perspective on "eating crow." I will probably keep "swallowing crow" because I am writing in a meter that will be unfamiliar to many, so I have to send as many metrical cues as I can to keep readers on the beat. Also, I will know to send this poem to an American journal. As for the ending, we all have individual chains of association. The sequence of nightingale-Keats-Poe-raven-crow was what gave me an arc for the poem, and I usually follow my instincts on that. I have trouble imagining where else to go with the poem.

Susan

[David Callin]

Originally Posted by Susan McLean

As for the ending, we all have individual chains of association. The sequence of nightingale-Keats-Poe-raven-crow was what gave me an arc for the poem, and I usually follow my instincts on that. I have trouble imagining where else to go with the poem.

I think that's absolutely the right thing to do, Susan.

Cheers

David

[Alexandra Baez]

Is it possible to trill reproach "on" something rather than "for" it? How come the change of preposition?

There's another advantage to "swallowing" that you haven't mentioned, Susan--the suggestion of yet another avian species.

[Susan McLean]

David, thanks.

Alexandra, "reproach" is a kind of blame or disapproval. I picture the nightingales pouring blame, by means of their song, on the song of the poet. It is not the verse that has done them wrong, but the poet's imagination. Nevertheless, I mean the reader to picture one kind of song fighting against another kind of song. I had not thought of the suggestion of a bird in "swallowing," but the more, the merrier.

Susan