[Alexandra Baez]

Jim, I barely got that seriously examining humans’ hypocrisies regarding animals was your central agenda. It’s a worthy topic (one that plagues me, as well, as a longtime vegetarian turned pescatarian), but the humorous shift is a big distraction from it. Max makes an excellent point about how this puts the n in a position of power, not quandary. And yes, your additional stated aim of “quirky and cute” is miles away from the serious tenor of the concerns you’ve raised in your comments. (I did think that the first part involved the catch, not the dressing.)

One intent was to compare the apprehension present the first time one has sex with the first time one takes on a squeamish chore.

Interesting, but as you’ve presented it, how does this do service to your philosophical examination? I do see some connection between it and the sex dynamic—there’s some willful blindness in both, I’d say--but I also think this angle opens a can of worms much too large to contend with in a mere sonnet.

then to let meat eaters like me off the hook

Nice turn of phrase there.

Alexandra had no opinion on them, probably only because she was withholding crits until I give her a poem without what she saw as a major fail.

Yes, that’s right—if you to were respond to my initial comments by way of revision, many if not most of the details—archaisms and others--I’d be critting would disappear (although they might possibly be replaced with similar new ones—but I’d rather address those, assuming they really stood on a firmer foundation).

Now whether my point of view or how I bring it out can be popular with anybody, and especially with artists and sensitive people, is a big question that I am experimenting with in the poem.

It’s important. It may make me cringe at my own indecision (I’ve heard that fish have such a rudimentary nervous system that they perceive being caught and killed as simply an “inconvenience,” and yet I can’t manage to consider fishing myself, or be happy about others’ fishing exploits). But then again, such an investigation might also press me to finally come to more coherence on this issue.