All Comments on 'Finding Love in the Arthur Kill'

Subtle with a clear message but still a slow burner.

The cleverness really works to build the poem. This an ode to life with constant references to death – particularly chemically induced death.

Above all, I liked the end lines with “an ovum in her bikini, and me, a sperm, wiggling her way, wet and alive in the Arthur Kill”.

I do have a couple of queries – as I think that knowing the answers would increase my enjoyment of the poem yet further.

First, I am lost in terms of the ‘ladies’, I do not understand ‘colored or Clorox’ or what ‘bleaching of placenta stains’ is as an antithesis to thoughts of mortality in ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

Second, what are the ‘vanilla bone white ones’ that are sitting in fields where there weren't any trees?

First of all, thank you, Cleardaynow, for your comments. I like that you put a lot of thought into them.

The colored and Clorox references are attempts at word play for interracially mixed laundry workers at the hospital who bleach life(placenta) and death(ashes to ashes) stains out of bed sheets.

The part of NJ I'm writing about is highly industrialized and, well, ugly. I think every major city has these "fields" of giant oil storage tanks that are usually painted white, are cylindrical, and in barren areas. If that still is unclear, you might want to Google "images of oil tanks in Carteret NJ."

"Vanilla" as in sweet and "bone white" as in death was perhaps a feeble attempt to mix two incongruous elements as in oil and water(in the Arthur Kill). Pardon the pun.

This is a really evocative poem for me, gives me a real sense of home (no shock there). It is also a really big poem imo not just because of the number of lines but because you have an extended setting, kind of a backstory, for what the title promises. I think it might need some pruning without losing the distinctive voice of the narrator (lol I have great faith that you can do that). The second stanza is problematic to me for a few reasons but mainly that we don't know until the end of said stanza that these women work at the hospital. I think if the reader knew that at the beginning of the stanza, the other stuff would make more sense. And I totally get your references to the fields of oil tanks, but I think the word "cupcakes" may be throwing readers. It's too sweet an image for what you really mean. Overall though this is stellar writing, just wonderful poetry. I loved reading it over and over.

Into this piece that I am still reading before I throw out more detailed comments but this deserves reading multiple times. At the moment I don't agree with cutting the piece back but I need more time on it.

2nd stanza edit:

New Jersey Transit empties a load

of Perth Amboy General Hospital

uniformed laundry room ladies,

and their faces got me thinking, Jimmy,

I hope these worn out women

find meaning in the bleaching of

placenta stains instead of the stuff

of ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

4th stanza edit:

Choo Choo, my girl, used to sing

"My Guy" better than Mary Wells did

on hot summer days in a dinghy

next to petrochemical tanks

with a dock on which an old man once

flipped the finger, pissing at us,

Choo Choo, an ovum in her bikini,

and me, a sperm, wiggling her way,

wet and alive in the Arthur Kill.

Finishing the poem with mention of the two fluids a penis produces, urine(waste) and sperm(life), seemed somehow fitting.

I have read the different versions several times and am pretty sure that I prefer the original in each case – given your explanatory notes anyway.

“uniformed laundry room ladies” seems to clash with the vernacular style of the rest and very slightly impedes the flow.

“fields without any trees” is so evocative that I would not want to lose it. The revised verse seems slightly empty as a consequence of the alterations.

One thing I have come to respect is the pleasure you get from setting riddles. Perhaps you just need to issue explanatory notes, rather like the solution to yesterday’s crossword, for people like me whose brain starts to hurt long before I have any chance of actually solving the riddle.

Who say it needs multiple readings, and it is very evocative. Wonderful dialect and descriptive phrases. Find a lot of my youth in it, in a different setting but with the same toxins and romance. Tinkering is not necessary, Greenmountaineer.

Staten Island Baby!

Idda giveit a six or a seven.

I think I commented on this elsewhere. Sadly only a 5 is allowed.

For those that don't know the history of Arthur Kill, it is worth looking up. It was the a huge dump on Staten Island and then closed, it was reopened for the remains of the world trade center and is now a sort of memorial park. Staten Island was once a grave yard for ships and tugs also, it has somewhat been cleaned up.

GM captures SI as it was, so well

Boy, am I glad I read new poems for a change.