[+Donny]

Okay, Mr. Shoup, I've been simmering in your poetry (about one or two poems a day for a couple of weeks) and am starting to get your images and references a lot better. But I've come up with a question: Why the titles for "a universe created without legs and without feet" and "Apollo's Envoy to Broksvalinn"?

Oh, and I loved "Potholes become craters / and refuse is moondust", as well as "curl their grins until skin / yields to tongue and teeth", though I didn't get "and lovers place themselves / in lieu of flags in the / center of the street," unless you just meant they are under flagpoles, which I guess might be it.

[The wirerat]

Jeffrey, your pm box is full give me an address please.

[Skeeter]

Originally Posted by +Donny

I didn't get "and lovers place themselves / in lieu of flags in the / center of the street," unless you just meant they are under flagpoles, which I guess might be it.

I just saw that as them claiming the street, but since they didn't have flags to do so, they simply placed themselves.

[Jeffrey]

Originally Posted by +Donny

Okay, Mr. Shoup, I've been simmering in your poetry (about one or two poems a day for a couple of weeks) and am starting to get your images and references a lot better. But I've come up with a question: Why the titles for "a universe created without legs and without feet" and "Apollo's Envoy to Broksvalinn"?

It's a reference to the Ouroboros, the ancient symbol of a serpent or dragon devouring its own tail. Plato in one of his dialogues discusses early life and creation in the universe and uses the phrase in reference to the concept of the Ouroboros. Since the poem itself makes reference to that symbol/concept, I used the line as a title.

Many of my poems are set in and around New Dakota, where Dagger City is located. My brother recently mused that he sees in my poetry and stories a love of populating invented locales. "Broksvalinn" was a word/name I discovered in a Northern European story/myth written not long after Christianization. The name refers to a place of clouds, if I recall.

So the poem depicts an evening in the streets of Broksvalinn. I wanted there to be a dark, unsettling edge, so Rollins' quote and some of the lines here and there imply something unsettling yet beautiful is occurring. Apollo as a god seemed to fit that - it's also a bit of an oblique reference to an early short story by H.P. Lovecraft entitled "Poetry and the Gods," which may be public domain at this point.

I almost wanted to contrast the first stanza, where the din of the city hums behind a lullaby indoors, with what's going on in the streets, where the city itself seems to turn into the surface of the moon.

Oh, and I loved "Potholes become craters / and refuse is moondust", as well as "curl their grins until skin / yields to tongue and teeth", though I didn't get "and lovers place themselves / in lieu of flags in the / center of the street," unless you just meant they are under flagpoles, which I guess might be it.

Skeeter's got the right idea. The street becomes the lunar landscape, so the lovers play Armstrong and Aldrin.

Originally Posted by The wirerat

Jeffrey, your pm box is full give me an address please.

Sent. Thanks! And I have two that I'm mailing today or tomorrow! Sorry for the delay!