All Comments on 'St. Mary's Amateur Minstrel Show'

Usual disclaimer, comment below is not to be taken as any indication of overall quality. Which I find high. Solid 5. Merely, my opinion one the last four lines.

Last stanza, does nothing. démodé makes it look like the comment of a snob. My feeling is either keep it in 1959. or make today equal in length. An alternative end would have been Kennedy's election.

Brilliant subject matter and your word choice in this is wonderful. What's interesting to think about is that Minstrelsy is the only art form that is 100% American; born and raised. It's such a fascinatingly ugly part of our history.

so here we go back 52 years (almost), and what was acceptable then surprises us now.

your imagery is, as per usual, vivid and humane, holding up a scrap of history to our 'today's standards' yet you do it without laying blame. accepting of how things were, and that there were no golden old days - life was always a struggle for survival, to make money, and how people don't really change... we take our pleasures where we find them, whether it's dressing up for a show, or enjoying something perhaps we ought not to.

is there a missing word in that last line?

i don't think your final lines add anything much, and you'd leave us with a strong image of the priest there....

Regarding the last stanza, snobbish, as 12o1 called it, was the intention. However, I also wanted to convey that how we foolishly elevate ourselves by putting down others hasn't really changed. Given the stanza's brevity, that didn't come across as I had hoped it would and should have been expanded for that reason.

démodé sounds snobbish and out of place. The last stanza seems like you are driving home the point. Point is a good poem to there. If you want to balance then and now, make it balanced.

All I can say if I do NPR, which I am loath to do, I would recommend.

is why I love poetry. It gives me joy.

Good work GMT tho' I disagree with you about the last Stanza. The poem is strong enough for the reader to reach that conclusion without an extra prod... and if the reader doesn't, well that is appealing in itself.

So I vote for scrubbing those few lines!

Is now my friend, so I wanted to express what this poem did to me.

You wrote a short story,

using the expediency of words,

manipulation of the English language,

and made it poetry.

I’m discovering that one of the most difficult things to do in poetry is to make it more than a simple tale.

Expressing the absurd,

showing some inner truth another,

or just providing a picture of some sliver of time,

are all types of poetry;

but this does all three AND tells a story.

There is an inherent contradiction in this piece,

as the priest doesn’t even see his bigotry

as a vehicle to make money. It's absurd,

A man of God who is supposed to show goodness

when at the essence we see greed

and racism he does not even recognize.

The ending that has received comment?

From my perspective,

I like it,

but think we do still feather our hats.

Bigotry is not dead, but rampant (and that’s the meaning in the last phrase I gleaned).

I'm late but I agree with 1201, however, I'm not so sure the last stanza needs changing but the poem can do without it altogether. The poem illustrates meaning, it doesn't need the meaning to be explained in the last stanza which just weakens a very good poem.

A great read beginning to end although I don't understand what 'we longer feather our hats' means