THE TRANSIT OF VENUS

A lovely piece that had depth and meaning, with a heartbeat running through it, the heart missed a beat in the last line that will need attention, otherwise Great Yours Ian.T

I read your poem closely and I don't have great news. You are using successively hackneyed phrasing beginning with the title. I can't begin to tell you how many times "transit of Venus" makes it into a poem or other literature, and if you use it for a title, the content better be all new and zinging. A recent reference to its use is a play of that name by Maureen Hunter. But there are hundreds if not thousands of others. Personally, I prefer the non-rhyming style of the last stanza to the other stanzas which all rhyme. But if you are going to rhyme then the rhyming becomes crucial because it sets up the lyrical sway of the poem and getting spies into a love poem to rhyme with eyes is, well... awkward. The ideas in the second stanza are something we discussed, and are interesting ideas. There is one simple change which will immediately spice up the poem: remove the word "I" every time it occurs. The first line then becomes: Taste your skin though the textures of my tongue. The speaker really does not disappear, but the ideas hit a simmer much quicker, in part because of the juxtapositions that are left behind. But I think you should force yourself past the "rude" threshold. Write a love poem that only contains rude images (after all, you don't have to show it to anybody, so who will know). Then see if there is truly anything of interest in the poem. Try to forget comparing it to your standards for romantic behaviour for that is, after all, a quite different thing than writing a poem. Your task would be to desensitize that censor you have in your head which is only permitting the safest of phrases, safety being mostly determined, in this case, by how many times that brain has heard these phrases before and therefore how un-unique the phrases are. We want unique phrases in poetry and if you don't stretch, you won't find them. But it is clear, that your brain has all the capacity required, just not the permission. Brian

I loved the flow of this one but that last line made me pause as well I hear your heartbeat from a thousand miles the one that calls to me from leagues away in smiles ????? That could be an idea Boni I loved this one and that came to me its probably not much of an improvement just trying to help and give you some ideas for the last line ... Much Love Jayne x x

I have to second Brian on the eyes/spies thing, and would like to add that miles/smiles is much in the same category for me. I like how you tried to make each stanza reflect one of the human senses, but I think this piece is really in need of a rewrite. How about trying again in free form? You can always incorporate some rhymes later. Yours, ~Nina P.S. on the title: transit can also be passage, route or conveyance. My money's on the last one of the three.