Novalis: A Tribute

[jdeirmend]

I had a number of teachers. The most influential of them for me, perhaps, recently won the Agha Shahid Ali prize.

But to echo your sentiments: I too was a little dismayed at what little work my readership thus far seemed willing to put into finding the sense in my first draft. I guess the original was a good tribute to Novalis, in that vein, as the original German of the Hymns has notoriously tortured syntax.

Either you can decide your writing is "pearls before swine" and write off your readers or you can actually fix the very obvious and numerous problems in the poem to make it enjoyable for readers. The choice is yours.

Oh, BTW, writing with poor grammar and tortured syntax isn't a new poetic movement, every would be poet has written that way, some develop beyond it.

Milo, I'm working on it. If you look at the first revision, you will see that I took a number of your suggestions into account. Anyhow, if you could abstain from taking such a browbeating tone with me, it would be much appreciated.