Vox Populi
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Doug Anderson: Distance
She said my poems had emotion in them
as if they might have syphilis.
Hers, she said, were ironically distanced,
questioning the things they spoke of
as if they weren’t quite real.
As if all we’d always believed
was some kind of sham and language
was itself a kind of lie.
Then one day I saw her sobbing
in the parking lot at Starbucks.
I wondered how irony could be so cruel.
Copyright 2022 Doug Anderson
Vox Populi 
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Thanks, Barbara. I do too.
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surprisingly heavy-handed for a Doug poem.
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Doug can be light-fingered or heavy-handed. He can tiptoe and he can kickbox. He can be ironic, tender, angry, smooth, rough or ready. Doug is many. He contains multitudes.
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Yes, but heavy-handed is not a good thing in poetry. It’s too closely related to strident and/or predictable.
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Thanks. Take a look at Wayne Karlin’s poem tomorrow and tell us what you think.
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So much packed into so few words. Excellent.
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yes, compact and yet conversational at the same time.
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Concise, cunningly crafted and oh, the irony!
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Yes, a very compact narrative.
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