The great goliath online retailer Amazon is a one-stop shop for many Christmas shoppers. They stock a huge range of products ideal for presents, from kids clothing to books, to music and electrical items. It seems you can just about get anything with their expansive selection of products and with the reliable and guaranteed pre-Christmas delivery times available, they're an incredibly convenient and dependable choice.
However, if you are shopping online with Amazon for all or some of your Christmas gifts it's always worth knowing where you stand when it comes to cancelling orders or returning items. That way you won't be disappointed if you need to return a gift or have a change of heart on a quirky present idea!
Buying your gifts online automatically gives you extra consumer rights with a statutory cancellation right, thanks to the Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) regulations 2013, which means that by law you can cancel an order at any time from when it's placed and up to 14 days after the items have been received. However, with Amazon, they also have a voluntary returns policy, which extends the return period for most Amazon items to 30 days after they've been received, giving you more time to decide if you want it or not.
The other great news about shopping with Amazon for your Christmas presents is that they've extended their generous voluntary returns policy even further for Christmas purchases. All purchases made from 1st November up to midnight on 31st December 2015, will be subject to an extended returning period of midnight on 31st January 2016. So regardless of if you're being organised and buying gifts early or taking advantage of the post-Christmas sales, you will have plenty of time to return any Christmas gifts.
If you are returning an item, with most Amazon orders you can easily create a returns label for posting your item back via your Amazon account, so it's a relatively straightforward process from start to finish.
The same rules apply for Christmas gift returns as they do with regular purchases, so there are certain circumstances where Amazon will not accept returned goods, so bear this in mind before purchasing or attempting to return.
CD's, DVDs and computer software will only be accepted as a returned good if the seal isn't broken, so before your kids get over excited and rip open the DVD boxes, make sure it's a film they definitely want to watch. In addition any digital services or software that isn't supplied in a physical format by Amazon is also non-returnable.
Also, personalised gifts are generally non-returnable, so if you're planning on buying a novelty gift for someone, make sure it's something they'll cherish forever, as you're not likely to get your money back.
In addition, if you're buying items such as mobile phones with contracts or items fulfilled from Sellers on Amazon Marketplace, the returns policies may differ, so you'll have to check the individual Sellers return policy before purchasing or in the event of sending an item back.
Overall, for buying your Christmas presents online, Amazon offers a very attractive range of products and a generous returns policy, so you can get organised and put your mind at ease that cancelling an order or sending an item back shouldn't be too much of a hassle.


Tuck your pants into the boots and follow Ryan and Perram as they guide you through the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game's Ultimate Wilderness in the latest Know Direction!
Parim dumps wisdom on rogues? Hoo boy, you're already playing the Hardmode class, now you're doubling down on one of its biggest weaknesses? I both respect and fear for you, friend.
Shifter archetypes are interesting. Sometimes, for comedic effect. The fiendish shifter, with all of its dedication to evil, is still RAW required to revere nature to maintain its abilities.
Oozemorph is, thematically, the thing that I've wanted in this game since I started playing it 3 years ago. Sadly, its a rules nightmare. The ooze form is written to be as crippling as possible, and you're basically only able to adventure for a couple hours per day at early levels, which has dashed my hopes of this being legal for PFS since stuff like this tends to not be allowed. But the funniest part? The Oozeform is a (Su) ability, and according to some sleuths you can 'fall' by teaching druidic to a nondruid to lose all of your Su abilities. Basically your shape shifting, but also the oozeform, so you 'cure' yourself while keeping Morphic Weapon, the DR, and the ability to squeeze through tight spaces. Hell, check the Paizo forums, you'll see the folks really picking this archetype apart. Also, while YOU CAN'T USE MAGIC ITEMS IN OOZE FORM, it does qualify you for the Extra Item Slot feat, which allows for some fun visuals. Ooze infested armor, anyone?
All of that said, the free stats can be pretty rad. Enhacement bonuses from lesser aspects that last for "your combats for the day" are really nice, and you can't forget the free strength from wild shape as well. It doesn't make up for the lack of variety or the fact that the druid makes you look like a fool in comparison, but it's something.


On March 3, 2015, Keri Rogers (City Treasurer) and I were interviewed by representatives from Fitch Ratings, the organization that evaluates and then determines the city's bond rating. The bond rating, much like your personal credit score, ultimately determines the interest rate the city will pay for the bonds it issues. Fitch Ratings should have a draft of their finding for our review in 2-3 weeks. After Keri and I review the findings, the report will be made public. Please feel free to contact Keri or me if you would like to ask questions about this process and/or other questions and comments made.
The Pipeline Easement that allows the city to lay the Dedicated Sewer Main on Ottawa County Landfill (OCL) is finally done. This is the line that will be buried on the south side of the I-96. It is signed and copies sent to the appropriate parties. There are a couple of related documents that are in the process of final review, but are not necessary for the contractor to continue with their work.
As was mentioned in the last memo, please block out March 26 for Celebrate Coopersville at West Michigan Plumbers, Fitters, Service Trades Union Hall beginning at 6:00 P.M. For those that have not attended in the past, this evening of celebration honors volunteers and raises funds for the NorthEast Ottawa (NEO) Forum, which provides counseling services, education, support and resources to youth and their families in order to reduce substance abuse, violence, juvenile delinquency, and other risky behaviors. The NEO Forum is a great collaboration between the School, Sheriff Department, and City. To reserve tickets or sponsor a table, please email Sgt. Dennis Luce HERE or purchase tickets online HERE.
Ottawa County has a Brownfield Redevelopment Authority. Its purpose is to: spur redevelopment of vacant or underutilized property throughout Ottawa County, leverage public/private investment and job creation, and create public land and greenspace. Properties that may have been abandoned in the past because of soil/site contamination can now be addressed and redeveloped if there is interest from a developer and a municipality.
Yesterday afternoon, I attended a meeting at the county building concerning Brownfield Redevelopment Grants that Ottawa County Brownfield Redevelopment Authority (OCBRA) received. The U.S. EPA Assessment Grants received were $200,000 for hazardous substances and another $200,000 for petroleum products. These grants are for the initial assessment of the property in question which can be expensive for a developer to absorb. The meeting was to inform local governments that these monies were available and also to learn if local governments in Ottawa County would have interest in this program.
Obviously, there are many details and requirements to utilize these tools to redevelop properties. As I learn more about the program and learn more about potential candidates/properties in Coopersville, I will update the council.
March 21, 2015, 9:00 AM – 2:00 PM at the Coopersville Community Services Building: 182 East Street.


Our conference series explores innovation in data science, highlighting applications to risk management. This year's topics are Impact Investing and Fintech, and confirmed speakers include Kay Giesecke, Adair Morse, Alex Papanicolaou, Alex Shkolnik, Philip Stark, and Kewei Tang.
The third annual CDAR Symposium, presented in partnership with State Street, will convene on October 27, 2017 from 8:45am to 5:30pm at UC Berkeley's Memorial Stadium.
The Consortium for Data Analytics in Risk (CDAR) supports research into innovation in data science and its applications to portfolio management and investment risk. Based in the Economics and Statistics Departments at UC Berkeley, CDAR was co-founded with State Street, Stanford, and the Berkeley Institute for Data Science (BIDS). This year, CDAR welcomes a new founding member, the Southwestern University of Finance and Economics (SWUFE) based in Chengdu, China! CDAR organizes conferences, workshops, and research programs, bringing together academic researchers from the physical and social sciences, and industry researchers from financial management firms and technology development companies large and small.
Please send inquiries to soum@berkeley.edu.
Talk abstract: Impact funds, defined as venture or growth equity funds with dual objectives of generating financial returns and positive externalities, perform 7.8% below traditional VC funds in univariate statistics, or 3-4% lower returns in a willingness-to-pay (WTP) utility framework adjusting for investor choice covariates. These results need to be cast in the broader spectrum of understanding the landscape of opportunities and incentives for responsible investing. Development organizations, banks, and public pension funds have the greatest WTP, while endowments and private pensions have negative WTP. Mapping WTP to investor tastes and hindrances which could affect utility for impact, we find that Europeans, mission-oriented investors, and investors facing political pressure (often for local investing) have greater WTP for impact while legal restrictions (e.g. ERISA) lower investor WTP for impact.
Talk abstract: Stock market volatility is influenced by information release, and public acceptance. With the increasing volume and speed of social media, the effects of Web information on stock markets are becoming increasingly salient. However, studies of the effects of Web media on stock markets lack both depth and breadth due to the challenges in automatically acquiring and analyzing massive amounts of relevant information. In this study, we systematically reviewed 229 research articles on quantifying the interplay between Web media and stock markets from the fields of Finance, Management Information Systems and Computer Science. In particular, we first categorized the representative works in terms of media type and then summarized the core techniques for converting textual information into machine-friendly forms. Finally, we compared the analysis models used to capture the hidden relationships between Web media and stock movements. Our goal is to clarify current cutting-edge research and its possible future directions to fully understand the mechanisms of Web information percolation and its impact on stock markets from the perspectives of investors' cognitive behaviors, corporate governance, and stock market regulation.
Abstract: Estimation error has plagued quantitative finance since Markowitz launched modern portfolio theory in 1952. Using random matrix theory, we characterize a source of bias in the sample eigenvectors of financial covariance matrices. Unchecked, the bias distorts weights of minimum variance portfolios and leads to risk forecasts that are severely biased downward. To address these issues, we develop an eigenvector bias correction. Our approach is distinct from the regularization and eigenvalue shrinkage methods found in the literature. We provide theoretical guarantees on the improvement our correction provides as well as estimation methods for computing the optimal correction from data.
Talk abstract: Pseudo-random numbers are used in countless contexts, including jury selection, electronic casino games, physical and chemical simulations, bank stress tests, portfolio risk simulation, numerical integration, random sampling, Monte Carlo methods, stochastic optimization, and cryptography. They are used in scientific fields from finance to particle physics to sociology. It's tempting to think that the pseudo-random number generators (PRNGs) in common software packages and general-purpose programming languages in are "good enough" for most purposes. However, pigeonhole arguments and empirical results show that those PRNGs are not adequate even for basic statistical purposes such as random sampling, generating random permutations, and the bootstrap – even for relatively small data sets. Cryptographers have developed cryptographically secure pseudo-random number generators (CS-PRNGs), which provide a far better approximation to truly random numbers, as manufacturers of gambling machines are well aware. For most purposes, the incremental computational cost of using a CS-PRNG is negligible. Statistical packages and general-purpose programming languages should use CS-PRNGs by default.
Talk abstract: In China, internet techniques continue to improve efficiency, increase capability and expand boundaries for China's financial industry, including banking, wealth management, mobile payments and insurance. Ant Financial, as the world-leading Fintech Giant, has built several strong internet-only business arms that are largely data-driven financial services. In its first decade, with only 7000 employees, it serves 500M customers domestically and 1.2B globally. This presentation shows how internet techniques and big data are helping to reshape China's financial industry, with Ant Financial as a good example.
Robert Sears, Executive Vice President, BBVA This panel will discuss recent developments in the area of financial technologies. Topics include data and AI, online and mobile payments, blockchain, cryptocurrencies, and roboadvisory.
Adair Morse is Associate Professor at the Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley, where she teaches New Venture Finance. She is on the Expert Panel (for oversight of the Oil Fund) to the Ministry of Finance of Norway, the board of the Haas Impact Investing Network, the faculty advisor to Haas FinTech Club, faculty mentor to Gender Equity Initiative, and faculty co-director of the Haas Impact Research Prize. She holds a Ph.D. in finance from the University of Michigan. Adair's research spans three areas of finance: household finance, corruption, and asset management, with the unifying theme that she tries to choose topics useful for leveling economic playing fields. She has won a number of top finance research prizes, and her various works have been directly implemented into policy via U.S. Congress Acts, U.S. and Canadian state banking regulations, and Greek Parliament tax reform. Adair's work on asset management includes work on factor investing of delegated asset managers, objectives of sovereign wealth funds, and impact investing. Her recent work studies many aspects of fintech on the lending and equity investing sides, and she has been invited to give a number of keynote addresses on the future of FinTech for consumers and investors.
Qing Li, associate dean of Information School at Southwestern University of Finance and Economics (SWUFE). He is a professor at SWUFE and an adjunct professor at University of Arizona. Prior to that, he worked at the Eller business school at university of Arizona, computer department of Arizona state university, and information school at Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST). Li's research interests lie primarily in financial intelligence which studies the advanced intelligent information processing techniques to solve the challenges in finance. He served on the editorial board of Electronic Commerce Research and Applications, Journal of Database Management, and Journal of Global Information Management, and the program committees or co-chairs of various international conferences including PACIS, SIGIR, CIKM, ACL. He is also the co-founder of HealthDirect – one-hour fresh food delivery e-platform (www.kuaijiankang.com).
Prior to his current position, Kewei served as Managing Director of platform risk management at Mybank, Ant Financial. His major responsibilities included applying cutting edge machine learning techniques to an online lending portfolio serving subprime customer or customers with no credit history. He is also an adjunct professor at Southwestern University of Finance and Economics in Chengdu, China. He has served as an adviser to several Chinese government committees and as a Director of the Sino-European Finance Association, London. His work has been published in several top domain journals and he presents frequently in China's top risk management forums.
Kewei obtained his PhD from Nottingham University, England, focusing on applying artificial intelligence techniques to financial risk management. He has also worked as a quant risk executive at RBS and Barclays. During that period he played a leading roles in a few large risk management activities, organized by IMF and ECB, involving top banks.
Kay Giesecke is Associate Professor of Management Science & Engineering at Stanford University and the Paul Pigott Faculty Scholar in the School of Engineering. He is the Director of the Advanced Financial Technologies Laboratory and the Quantitative Finance Certificate Program. He is the Co-Chair of the Mathematical and Computational Finance Program. Kay is a member of the Institute for Computational and Mathematical Engineering. He serves on the Governing Board and Scientific Advisory Board of the Consortium for Data Analytics in Risk.
John is a managing director and Head of GX Labs, State Street Corporation's center for R&D in risk management and data science in San Francisco, where he manages the group's research program in multi-asset portfolio risk and sustainable investing. Before joining GX Labs he led the behavioral research group at State Street Associates in Cambridge, Massachusetts, developing models of market participant behavior and applying these to quantitative asset management. Prior to joining State Street in 2005 John was an astrophysicist at MIT, and he has also held research and teaching positions at Emmanuel College, the University of Michigan and the University of Massachusetts. He has taught courses in physics, astrophysics, applied mathematics, environmental impact of energy production and climate change, and has authored/coauthored roughly 40 articles in peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings, including the Journal of Portfolio Management, the Astrophysical Journal, Advances in Space Research, Nuclear Physics B and the Astronomical Journal. His research has been profiled in media outlets including the New York Times, Science, and Discover. John has a PhD in astrophysics from the University of Michigan.
Dr. Bohn is the Head of the Swiss Re Institute. Most recently, he served as Chief Science Officer and Head of GX Labs at State Street Global Exchange in San Francisco. Before moving back to California, he established the Portfolio Analytics and Valuation Department within State Street Global Markets Japan in Tokyo. (He is fluent in Japanese.) He previously ran the Risk and Regulatory Financial Services consulting practice at PWC Japan.
Warren Pennington is a principal and global head of Vanguard's Office of Investment Management Fintech Strategies. The Office of IMFS mission is to actively explore new technologies in ways that could dramatically improve Vanguard's investment performance, make global capital markets work better for investors, and serve as a catalyst for innovation within the Investment Management Group at Vanguard. IMG manages over $3.6 Trillion of assets globally, across both passive and active strategies in the fixed income, equities, currencies, and derivatives markets. Before joining Vanguard in 2012, Mr. Pennington worked for the Macquarie Group in various senior leadership roles in their Investment Management division. Prior to working for Macquarie, Warren was division controller and ran operations in the consumer lending and corporate trust businesses at Wells Fargo Bank. He earned his B.S. Aerospace Engineering and M.S. Telecommunications degrees from the University of Colorado, Boulder. He is California CPA, and serves on the SIFMA Operations and Technology Steering Committee as well as the Advisory Board of the Ben Franklin Fintech Accelerator program out of Philadelphia.
Robert Sears is an experienced high tech executive, entrepreneur and innovator. Since 2008, he has focused on financial services, founding and running a unique consumer payment card company, Red Giant. There, he pioneered services giving consumers direct real time control over their own payment cards, making it safe for parents to give cards to their children and providing entire families with intuitive mobile tools to manage their daily spending.
Prior to Red Giant, Robert was Chief Architect of Multimedia Experiences at Nokia, where he spearheaded the design and creation of mobile services supporting consumers using Nokia handsets. He introduced Design Thinking into Nokia's product creation approach, drove the development of advanced mobile software architectures and pioneered the creation of global mobile service infrastructures.
Robert is an experienced director and advisor currently working with the d.school and the AFTLab at Stanford University, the World Economic Forum Center for the Fourth Industrial Revolution and a number of startups in Silicon Valley.
He holds a Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Michigan and lives in Palo Alto, California with his wife and daughter, the family dog and two horses.
The recommended parking lot is the Maxwell Field Stadium Lot.
For assistance with parking, please email Sang Oum.


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Hull City transfer rumours: What we know so far of busy summer ahead
It's been a busy week for Hull City as the transfer window finally sparked into life. We take a look at who could be leaving and coming in this summer at the KCOM Stadium
SPECULATION APLENTY: Andy Robertson (left) and Josh Tymon (middle) have been linked with moves away from Hull City, while the Tigers are interested in Tomas Kalas.
It's been a busy week for Hull City as the transfer window finally sparked into life.
While there were no arrivals, other than Tony Pennock who came in on Thursday to resume his role of first-team coach, two players left the club.
As such, here's what we know so far.
Joining Curtis Davies, who signed for Derby County last week, in leaving the club was Harry Maguire after he sealed a record-breaking move to Leicester City. Although officially undisclosed, the Tigers are expected to pick up an outright fee of £12million, which could rise to £17m with performance related add-ons.
Harvey Rodgers was the other departure, as he moved to Fleetwood Town on a free transfer after declining a new deal at the KCOM Stadium.
Rumoured departures
We'll start with Eldin Jakupovic, who was yesterday linked with a move to Leicester. Hull City themselves issued a statement insisting there has been no offers made or bids accepted, despite the BBC claiming a deal was close.
Meanwhile, a bid was rumoured to be made for City left-back Andy Robertson earlier in the week from an unnamed club, but nothing else has developed.
Josh Tymon has also been linked with a departure. He is expected to sign for Stoke City at some point over the summer, with the fee expected to go to a tribunal, while Michael Dawson has been linked to Burnley.
Hull City say they have received no bids for Eldin Jakupovic despite rumoured Leicester City interest
Rumoured arrivals
The most prominent rumour so far is that Tomas Kalas could be on the way to the KCOM. The Chelsea defender is available on a permanent deal this summer and his agent has confirmed the Tigers' interest.
Fulham, who he was on loan with last season, are also rumoured to be interested. However, rumours were only fueled when Leonid Slutsky hinted that he intends to use his connections at Chelsea to bring players to Hull.
"In the Championship we have some loan options. It's four players from one team, and it's a possible situation to get some players from Chelsea," he said in his first interview as City head coach. "We spoke with him about this situation, but it's not the absolute option. If we need some players, I think it's possible."
Slutsky has also been linked with several of his former players. Firstly, Aleksandr Golovin was linked with a loan move to the KCOM, with City believed to be working with Arsenal to bring the Russian to England. It is believed should Arsenal land the midfielder they would offer him to the Tigers on loan.
Meanwhile, Seydou Doumbia reportedly rejected a move to East Yorkshire after a £3.5million bid was accepted, according to reports in Italy.
Josh Windass remains one of two anomalies so far, but the Mail understands he is on the club's radar. The Rangers midfielder has struggled for game-time since joining the Scottish giants and could be set for a move south of the border.
Lastly, Burnley's Scott Arfield has also been linked. The Canadian would be available for around £2.5m, although Sean Dyche is apparently reluctant to let him go.
Hull KRHull KR's Dean Hadley facing lengthy lay-off after suffering horrifying injuryIt is yet another injury blow for Rovers
Hull City LiveLive Hull City transfers and news: Jarrod Bowen contract, Corry Evans' horror injury, Newcastle's bid boost?The latest updates from the City camp and updates from the Championship
Hull FCLee Radford hails Hull FC's Josh Jones and Manu Ma'u and gives Albert Kelly updateThe FC coach was delighted with his new back-rowers

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Series: Accused in Elkhart
Elkhart's Acting Police Chief Has Previously Been Demoted, Reprimanded and Suspended
Ed Windbigler was forced out as police chief this week. The interim head, Todd Thayer, was demoted in 2013 for saying an officer who opened fire could now check that off his "bucket list," according to disciplinary records.
by Ken Armstrong, ProPublica, and Jeff Parrott, South Bend Tribune
Dec. 12, 2018, 3:04 p.m. EST
The interim head of the Elkhart Police Department Todd Thayer appears in October before the city's Police Merit Commission, a civilian oversight panel that has authority over the hiring, promotion and discipline of officers. (Santiago Flores/South Bend Tribune Photo)
Justice in an Indiana County
This article was produced in partnership with the South Bend Tribune a member of ProPublica's Local Reporting Network.
When Ed Windbigler was suspended last month as the police chief in Elkhart, Indiana, his No. 2, Todd Thayer, became the Police Department's public face, appearing at a town hall meeting, before a civilian oversight commission and on the radio.
In each setting, Thayer defended the department — the "thin blue line" protecting law-abiding citizens from "predators" and "all the other garbage" — and attacked the media, with references to "tabloid" journalism and "ambush reporting."
On Monday, Windbigler resigned under pressure from Elkhart Mayor Tim Neese, who said he wants "new leadership" after reports by the South Bend Tribune and ProPublica about how Windbigler minimized the beating of a handcuffed man. The news organizations have also reported that Windbigler repeatedly promoted officers with disciplinary histories. Efforts to reach Windbigler for comment have been unsuccessful.
The Daily Digest
In charge, at least for now, will be Thayer. He has been dismissive of the news coverage that led to Windbigler's exit, and has a disciplinary record that includes a five-day suspension and seven reprimands. In 2013, Thayer was demoted two ranks, from lieutenant to corporal, for making "inappropriate comments" about a fatal shooting by police. He said an officer who opened fire could now check that off his "bucket list," according to disciplinary records. During an internal investigation, Thayer acknowledged the "bucket list" comment but said he was joking.
On Tuesday, a spokeswoman for Neese said the mayor will consider "all qualified applicants" for the job, not specifying his preference for internal or external candidates. But interviews with three members of Elkhart's city council revealed a divide in opinion on what steps Neese should take next.
The president of Elkhart's city council, Brian Dickerson, said he believes Windbigler should not have been forced out — and that he hopes the next chief comes from inside the department. "You have a lot of really good officers down there, but now they have no leader," Dickerson said. "The mayor essentially took that leader from them, that they had some faith in, in order to rebuild."
Another council member, David Henke, said: "We do not have good leadership in the Police Department. Thayer has already proven himself to be a non-leader. He should not be acting chief."
A third council member, Dwight Fish, said he believes Thayer "can hold things together" as interim chief, but lacks the administrative skills needed for the permanent job. Fish said of the mayor: "He has to go outside this Police Department to pick a chief that will come in, knock some heads around and get the department organized and focused on their job. If he hires from within, there will be no respect for this Police Department, period."
Thayer could not be reached through the Police Department this week. Lt. Travis Snider, a department spokesman, wrote in an email Wednesday that Thayer is declining to do any interviews. "Chief Thayer wants to wait until a new Chief is named and takes over before any comments on any topics are given from the Police Department," Snider wrote.
A statement released a day earlier by the Police Department said: "Until a replacement is named as chief, the Elkhart Police Department is committed to providing professional police services to our citizens and our community. We will learn from the past while continuing to focus on the future."
Todd Thayer, interim head of the Elkhart Police Department
Windbigler's 30-day suspension, issued in November, traced to his handling of a beating in the police station's detention area. In a scene caught on video, two officers punched a handcuffed man in the face. After the Tribune, working with ProPublica, requested a copy of that footage, the two officers were charged in November with misdemeanor battery and placed on administrative leave. Before then, Windbigler had opted to limit the officers' punishment to a written reprimand. He had also downplayed the misconduct to a civilian oversight commission, saying the two officers had gone "a little overboard," while saying nothing of the punches thrown.
Neese suspended Windbigler in part for "understating the severity" of the misconduct to the commission.
On Monday, before Windbigler's resignation was announced, Thayer appeared before that same oversight group, the Police Merit Commission. Speaking about a case in which Windbigler promoted an officer with a recent drunken driving conviction — without notifying the commission, which must approve such moves — Thayer said, "We have never as an administration done anything to keep anything from this board."
The officer's promotion to detective — and the department's decision to not discipline him, even after he pleaded guilty to drunken driving — was reported last week by the Tribune and ProPublica. Thayer told the commission the promotion had "slipped through the cracks."
"That was an error on our part, and despite what you read or may see in the tabloids, it wasn't a purposeful action by the Police Department to keep this promotion from you," Thayer said.
Without offering any specifics, Thayer also questioned the actions of police in Noblesville, Indiana, where the officer had been arrested last year: "[W]e question the whole process down there about how that arrest took place. … I'm not disputing that he has a conviction. I'm disputing the process of how that took place."
The commission on Monday approved the officer's promotion after little discussion. A Police Department spokesman has said the officer would not speak to reporters.
Stung by Controversies, Police Chief Resigns in Elkhart, Indiana
Ed Windbigler's resignation as chief follows a videotaped beating of a handcuffed man and reports by the South Bend Tribune and ProPublica that he had promoted officers with disciplinary histories.
Nearly All the Officers in Charge of an Indiana Police Department Have Been Disciplined — Including the Chief Who Keeps Promoting Them
Of the 34 supervisors in the Elkhart, Indiana, Police Department, 28 have been disciplined. Fifteen have been suspended. Seven have been involved in fatal shootings. Three have been convicted of criminal charges.
Last month, the Tribune and ProPublica reported that 28 of the Police Department's 34 supervisors had disciplinary records. Fifteen had been suspended, including Windbigler, Thayer and the patrol captain. Three supervisors had been convicted of crimes during their careers.
Since that report, Thayer has defended the police and criticized media coverage while appearing in various forums.
At a town hall on Nov. 20, Thayer accused the news organizations of "ambush reporting" for calling officers to seek comment and ask questions about their disciplinary histories. "I mean, you're going to ambush my officers like that? That's ridiculous," Thayer said. At the meeting, a public forum hosted by the mayor, Thayer asked audience members to remember the police while saying their Thanksgiving blessings. Police officers, he said, are out there "serving you [so] that you that you can have a peaceful meal at your table."
"The thin blue line is that line of officers that keeps the predators and the sex offenders and all the other garbage from all these law-abiding citizens. We're the final stopgap. And that's falling apart," he said. "I fear for this country, I fear for my son. … Folks — we're falling. We need you to help pick us up, dust us off, and say go out there and do your job, we got your back."
This month, Thayer appeared on a talk radio program on 95.3 MNC, in northern Indiana.
"This type of attack has to stop," Thayer said of media coverage of the police.
Addressing the three supervisors with criminal records, Thayer said: "Just like any other citizen, we're all human, we all make mistakes. … To think that we're, you know, free from making mistakes out there is totally untrue. You know until they invite or they devise a button on our belt that we can push and go into robot mode and not be affected by all the stuff that we see on the road, and, you know, see the carnage and the suffering that's out there and the evil that we fight every day, you know, to say that that we can't be human is, is totally unfair."
"If you study history … how many of the great leaders have had a flawless record in their past?" Thayer said. "You know, you look at from Patton to whoever, you know they've fallen, they've gone down the ladder, and they've gone back up."
Thayer, who joined the Elkhart Police Department in 1991, said Windbigler had improved the department's morale and staffing, and "is one of the best chiefs I've ever served with, if not the best."
In 2007, while a sergeant, Thayer was disciplined for an episode in which police took suggestive photos of a woman waiting in the police station lobby for a ride. A corporal resigned, a safety officer was fired and six other officers, including Thayer, received five-day suspensions. Thayer was faulted for failing "to make an official report" of the improper behavior, according to disciplinary records. The police chief ordered him to get ethics training.
Thayer has also been reprimanded seven times based on findings that include neglect of duty and insubordination.
At the town hall meeting last month, Thayer said: "You think you know me by reading a couple pages in my personnel file? Do you know that I'm a father, a husband, brother, parent, an uncle, that I've dedicated 27 years of my life to this city?"
The South Bend Tribune and ProPublica are investigating criminal justice issues in Elkhart County, Indiana. If you have a story to share, please email us at [email protected].
Ken Armstrong
Ken Armstrong is a senior reporter at ProPublica.
@bykenarmstrong
The Story Behind Jared Kushner's Curious Acceptance Into Harvard
You cannot republish our photographs or illustrations without specific permission. Please contact [email protected].org.


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Essay: The Life, Death and Art of Rachel Wetzsteon
A Line of Shakespeare Poetry Contest
Culture, For Educators, From the Society, Humor, Poetry, Poetry Contests, Shakespeare
'A Poet's Lament' and Poetry by Joe Tessitore
"Comparison" by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema
A Review of Amanda Hall's The Gift of Life: An Epic in Verse
Essays, Poetry, Reviews
Reviewed Book: The Gift of Life: An Epic in Verse by Amanda Hall, 2021.
by Margaret Coats
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
—Shakespeare, "Sonnet 18"
These words say as much about Shakespeare as about his loved one, Amanda Hall believes. The love that produced the poem, and the writing of it, give life to Shakespeare. Hall's The Gift of Life: An Epic in Verse uses 600 Shakespearean sonnets to tell how love gives life to the fictional poet protagonist Anne Hart. The work also imagines what might happen if contemporary artists could re-focus on the power of love Shakespeare knew. To Hall, his sonnets are the ultimate writings about love. Her sonnet sequence, stretching to epic scope, fills in the gaps of sequences like Shakespeare's (where sonnets can stand alone as independent poems), to provide a continuous narrative resembling a novel.
Hall was not familiar with early love sonnets other than Shakespeare's. Still, her epic begins with a contemporary version of the storied Petrarchan love situation. The poet-lover sees the beloved, and life is forever changed. The beloved is beautiful and virtuous, but inaccessible. That's the tension from which poetry springs.
Anne Hart gazes far across a city park to spot a man with a tortured look on his handsome face. She and he immediately fall in love. Sean Hughes is virtuous as well as beautiful. He's a married man determined to raise his children as a good father, and thus he is inaccessible to the soul-mate he finds. For Anne, though, the way is clear to producing passionate sonnets that reverberate with true love. Love moves her to create art that gives her a life of her own.
Almost. Anne has a job that pays her bills and takes up most of her time. Hall wanted her story to be one that deals with the needs and difficulties of an artist's life. The available income for artists either squanders their creative time, or demands that they conform to an art establishment with effective control over the art they produce. In fact, both evils may afflict the artist, leaving him with meager earnings, little time, and no freedom to pursue artistic goals. The Gift of Life has much to say about this perennial problem, magnified by the up-to-date disavowal of beauty in art. Art can and does deal with unbeautiful things. But by banishing or canceling ideals such as true love, the art establishment seems to promote—in all the arts—a kind of art that is not life-giving.
This problem gives Amanda Hall's work its potential for epic transcendence. But readers will laugh at the proposed means of overcoming ugly art. Greeting card verse? Anne writes some true love sonnets, and gets an artist friend to make pictures for cards to be sold in local stores. They have modest success when ordinary customers, starved for beauty, become enthusiastic. The overwhelming success comes, however, when a sympathetic investor with entrepreneurial know-how transfers their work to e-cards.
The art establishment notices and (because money and prestige are at stake) an epic battle begins in the blogosphere. Anne and her art are malevolently attacked by the avant-garde art establishment, but she is capably defended by independent bloggers. This army, and a vast free market of individuals who buy and send cards because they want to hear and see and spread expressions of true love, emerge as a neglected world of normal humanity. They find power in love and art to sustain their lives. They each put a little money into art, because it enables them to extend love and beauty to others. They devote their talents to a necessary battle against hate, lies, and ugliness.
Now, the greeting card love sonnets don't appear in the book. Readers can only imagine the individual Shakespeare-like poems the world eagerly clicks to buy and send. The Gift of Life offers the story of their creator and her beloved, and a few stories of persons whose lives are changed by love transmitted through the cards. This is a long haul, as are many sonnet sequences. The contemporary depiction of the Petrarchan innamoremento, or falling in love, is fascinating in similarities and differences with earlier sonnet sequences. The epic battle of the bloggers is perhaps the liveliest part of the book. The auxiliary love stories about Anne's readers are fun and can be quite touching, especially that of a woman whose love for her dying mother is rekindled. The journey to the nursing home with time running out is one of those treasured tales about minor characters that epics have room for. It does take quite a number of sonnets, but these recall the journey groups in early love sequences, similar to archipelagos within seas of independent island poems.
Sometimes, though, Hall's work attributes so much to love that it lacks verisimilitude. An infertile couple renews their love, sets aside anxiety over biology, and the woman conceives. That's believable, even considering that the words inspiring restored passion were found on a greeting card. But it's not credible that love carries the new mother through her entire pregnancy in utter bliss without the slightest discomfort. Pregnant women who do suffer anything are said to be "grouchy mothers." Some blame, it is implied, attaches to insufficiently loving fathers. The pains of childbirth are passed over. The little girl born to the happy couple turns out to be a poet, whose first book is published when she is six years old. At this point, readers who have not recycled The Gift of Life may remember the infant Hercules, and attribute the apparent marvels to the mythic element of epic. This takes ample suspension of disbelief in a contemporary narrative.
Because of the emphasis on the power of love to transform lives, and because of statements that art can enter a "New Age" if artists will only affirm love and beauty, I asked Amanda Hall directly whether she espouses some New Age philosophy. I mentioned as an example the beliefs of 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Marianne Williamson, intent upon applying love to politics. Hall was not familiar with Williamson, and disclaimed any particular philosophy promoted by others. Her own views come from observing artists who focus exclusively on what is squalid or repulsive. Hall gives this as one reason why the general public is little interested in art. She feels that the artistic avant-garde demands ugliness and hatred (not wanting to allow other approaches). However, she also distances herself from puritanical attitudes that could limit artistic freedom.
Her epic of life-giving love may seem to downplay the evil and suffering that an epic often examines. Whether epic evil derives from the gods or fate or from human folly or sin or malice, it exists to be endured or assaulted, and it may involve extensive social and political devastation. The Gift of Life, with love as panacea for personal and social problems, is rather light on this front. To require that love be true, and to assume that persons once touched by true love will never revert to non-loving ways, is not a practical or effective way to confront war and oppression. The Gift of Life is prepared to combat hateful and destructive art, economics, and philosophy, but not by hating or destroying them. There is a philosophical section of the book in which unavoidable suffering is acknowledged, but as always, the method of approach is love.
Does The Gift of Life have an epic hero? The poet-lover in a sonnet sequence usually seems stranded in suffering love; his major challenge is finding varied poetic devices to express himself. An epic hero needs to act—but Anne's fighting against the avant-garde is done for her by the army of bloggers she inspires. Her life's major change of mode is to move from writing sonnets for cards to writing an epic in sonnets. It is meant to show her beloved Sean the life his love has given her, and the work takes years. Failure to meet any external challenge is Anne's disqualification as epic hero, unless we give her credit for revitalizing poetry with poems that don't appear in the book, and for changing the lives of many whom she motivates to put their faith in love.
Amanda Hall's epic also lacks the elevated style suited to the genre. It is written in the so-called "middle style" appropriate to love sonnets and sequences. However, one feature of it is so perfect as to be awkward. A significant passage glorifies iambic pentameter, saying that it reads, da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM. But the perfection Hall achieves is not the arrangement of English in this accentual pattern, but the perfection of ten syllables per line—every line, throughout the book.
The insistence on ten syllables per line, without variation, leads to unnatural English and tedious rhythm. As a choral singer, I have performed thousands of pieces of music, and I cannot recall a single one of unvarying regular meter. The music would be dull. To see what happens to language, take a look at the selection of five sonnets published here on February 8. "The" is omitted ten times where it would naturally be spoken, and "their" twice. The perfect syllable count is achieved by leaving out small words that are important only because they naturally belong in English sentence structure. We also see a "did" added unskillfully to change the tense of a rhyming verb. Much more often elsewhere, "do" and "did" are added with no function other than to fill out a line that didn't quite reach ten syllables. Because English word and phrase accent cannot always fall on every other syllable, especially when rhyme is involved, there are some gauche grammatical groups that nevertheless maintain perfect syllable count (check out line 12 of the second sonnet in the February 8 selection). In any poem of accentual meter, unimportant words sometimes stand in an accented spot—but this happens much more frequently when word artistry within the line is limited, because the poet will not alter the number of syllables. And sometimes English simply has no more than four accented syllables in a group of ten. Therefore, Hall's invariable ten-syllable lines occasionally read as clumsy tetrameter. All this through 600 sonnets makes for an uneasy reading experience.
Below is what the author has to say in response to the above criticism.
AMANDA HALL: For myself, I consider a break in iambic pentameter to be a flaw. I have given poetry readings of portions of The Gift of Life, considering myself a bard of music above all, and sing in accordance with the iambic pentameter. Anything that "sang" like prose did not sound right to my ear. There is thus an archaic feel to some passages, especially with the "did." I am hoping to carry on the tradition of oral recitation, rather than silent reading of epics, and I composed in accordance with accents and feet as song. I wonder if those readings would have appealed to your ear, aurally. There is a whole life for poetry and an audience, and I think the trend of silent appreciation is less appealing to the human desire for music. Perhaps when I have an opportunity with technology I can post a little aural video. I am perhaps most like Keats, in regard to the strict meter. He often just cut words in half, to fit his metrics. As did Burns. Ultimately, it was my desire to read a poetic score in full musicality, rather than a modern use of English, that influenced my strict meter. I have a hard time understanding how perfection in meter is a fault.
MARGARET COATS: In recitation, you would have more resources, such as pitch and loudness or softness, to bring some pleasing variation to the text. In regard to metrical variation, I'll stick with Shakespeare. One can easily find eleven-syllable and twelve-syllable lines in his iambic pentameter, keeping five stresses while permitting more unstressed syllables, and thus allowing his verse to follow patterns of natural English speech.
I am very happy to have read The Gift of Life, and I recommend it to anyone especially interested in epic. It was of great interest to me as a unique sonnet sequence with a full narrative. Amanda shows phenomenal skill with the plot; there is surprise after intriguing surprise near the end of the book. Although I've said the work seems not entirely epic in some ways, certain epic features prove quite appealing. For example, one doesn't expect epic machinery (the gods and their trappings) in a contemporary story. But when messages or packages have to be delivered, there are clever ways of relying on both Hermes and the mailman. The reader remains unsure what happened. Something was sent and received, in a discreet, practical, yet supernatural manner. That was epic amusement. And Amanda hasn't played all her greeting cards yet; I look forward to the singing ones when they are ready.
Margaret Coats lives in California. She holds a Ph.D. in English and American Literature and Language from Harvard University. She has retired from a career of teaching literature, languages, and writing that included considerable work in homeschooling for her own family and others.
Sally Cook June 12, 2021
Wow, Margaret ! Must get a copy.
Just leaving; more later.
BRIAN YAPKO June 12, 2021
Margaret, thank you for this detailed review. I'm definitely interested in seeing how far the sonnet form can be stretched. I'm also interested in the two perspectives on meter which found you and Ms. Hall in opposing camps. I appreciate her perspective on a rigorous adherence to counting syllables. However — as a general principle of poetry composition — I strongly agree with your perspective — that some variation is necessary to allow the poem to breathe. I, too, have issues with eliminating words whose absence is unquestionably missed. It can feel forced rather than organic. I think I would enjoy reading more of Ms. Hall's poems other than just the five that were published here in February. A book like this bodes well for the future of classical poetry.
Julian D. Woodruff June 12, 2021
Thanks for such an informed and enlightening review, Margaret. You make the sequence sound like a very promising read, but also put me and a lot others, I suspect, on guard against questionable poetic practices. Your reference to choral music, especially of the Renaissance, is very apt.
Margaret Coats June 13, 2021
This comment addresses Sally, Brian, and Julian, who have been kind enough to post replies above. As all of you say, the themes of Amanda Hall's book and her extended treatment of them, are quite worthy of reading. Her combination of the genres of epic and sonnet sequence was a gamble worth taking, as the combined work makes up for deficiencies in some of the features that might be expected in either genre.
But as Julian says, the question of whether to read really boils down to whether the reader can tolerate the unvarying syllable count, in order to hear an important discourse about art. Perhaps I can help further by giving just three examples of what you may encounter. I will be quoting by page number, as the sonnets are not numbered.
Here is the final couplet of a sonnet from page 84:
A love was born which spread to world through wings;
The internet is place where true love sings.
This is good iambic pentameter, but to maintain a strict ten-syllable count, the author cannot say "the world" in the first line or "the place" in the second. Both lines would then have 11 syllables, and one iamb in each line would become an anapest. However, I cannot emphasize strongly enough that IF THESE ANAPESTIC SUBSTITUTIONS WERE MADE, THE LINES WOULD STILL BE GOOD IAMBIC PENTAMETER. English poetic practice of many centuries allows substitutions, and I consider it most unfortunate that Amanda Hall sacrifices good English usage requiring "the," merely to achieve a count of ten syllables per line. And nothing more is achieved. It is false to suppose that good meter requires the abandonment of good usage. Meter in the lines and in the poem remains predominantly iambic, and because each line has five feet, it is iambic pentameter.
I notice that you, Sally, Brian, and Julian, have read and commented on Joseph Salemi's essay posted immediately after this review. Dr. Salemi makes it clear that iambic pentameter is iambic pentameter even with substitutions.
A second problem comes about in this final line of a sonnet on page 25:
Love as verse and love as sketch would soon blend.
This is an example of what I call forced iambic pentameter. To make these ten syllables iambic, one must read:
Of the five important words in the line, only the final one is stressed! The other stresses occur on unimportant words. But there is an easy fix here: eliminate the unneeded "soon," which is only there for the ten-syllable count. Then we read,
LOVE as VERSE and LOVE as SKETCH would BLEND.
This is a lovely iambic pentameter line with nine syllables. The first of the five feet in the line is a one-syllable "headless" iamb, lacking any unstressed syllable to begin it. This too is a well-known poetic practice, and the line remains iambic.
My last example, of what I call "clumsy tetrameter," comes from page 213:
On a MAN who was FAMED for SELLing POTS.
The line, read in accord with its natural meaning, begins with two anapests and ends with two iambs. That makes four feet, and therefore this line is neither iambic nor pentameter. It is mixed-meter tetrameter. The only fix for this is to insist that the important word "man" cannot be stressed because it is in the wrong position, and to stress the unimportant words A and WHO instead.
I am glad to say that Amanda Hall's work does NOT include a great many such ten-syllable lines that fail entirely in the supposed purpose of insuring regular meter. I include this one, merely to demonstrate the fallacy of counting syllables, rather than giving attention to the stresses and stress patterns that constitute regular meter. When these patterns conflict with what the poet wishes to say, a substitution is possible, and no one should fear that he is violating his poem's predominant meter by introducing a limited number of substitutions. There can, of course, be too many substitutions if the poet's chosen meter becomes obscured by them.
Amanda Hall June 16, 2021
Hello, friends. I wish to publicly thank Ms. Coats for taking the time to read and review The Gift of Life: An Epic in Verse. I also wish to thank Sally, Brian and Julian for taking the time to comment on the posting.
I would not have mentioned Dr. Salemi's essay, in this context, but as Margaret brought it up, I will: said essay was condemnatory, haughty, and cold, as is the other Salemi essay material I have read. I can't imagine such a perspective as his of his latest essay having a mass following on a site devoted to formal poetry, but there it is, and my reply must be as one already defending against doggerel, sugar-sweet, sophomoric poetry.
Poetry is far older than English verse, and the choice of what to do with rough spots is a matter of style. Keep ten syllables, in iambic pentameter, or use extra-metrical or under-metrical syllables to keep a semblance of beat, when the ideal does not come. As the count of ten is most critical to all that humans do, in mathematics and other wise, I chose to keep ten syllables, rather than add or cut syllables to affect the beat, which, if done, must interrupt the flow in the former or latter line. There is a problem in language with a stretch of many articles, or multi-syllablic words with both a major and minor accent, such as the word happiness. Is it proper to end there, with a minor accent on the tenth syllable? I have always composed as it is, though someone may take issue with it.
Poetry by definition is repetitious and regular, as well as rhythmic and stressed, or accented. To criticize exact meter is to encourage a ridiculous hodgepodge. If variations in meter and rhyme are desirable, when to know how much, and where? Too many, and it becomes free verse. From the usual published material on SCP homepage, I suspect that the fashionable amount of carefully placed trochees and dactyls are added into poetry that could otherwise scan flawlessly in IP, are added to appease the eyes and ears of Salemi, who seems to be, from what I have been told, the one to obey, as is evidenced by the sycophantic remarks on his postings. I was told by a person who will go unnamed, that he couldn't review my book because Salemi and Sale wouldn't approve of juvenile attempts at poetry, such as The Gift of Life.
For myself, I am well read (known of Petrarch, though no expert, as I told Margaret in an interview). The best poems in history are all regular. Is Robert Frost doggerel? Is Longfellow sophomoric? We are talking about striving for an ideal, in meter and form. Some people approximate perfect verse better than others. I sense, and will take the risk here, that competition is rife here, as always, and many poets feel bile rising up, at the exacting skill of another poet, not indoctrinated into the Salemi-is-God undercurrent. Why would anyone encourage a hodgepodge of 'variants' when it interrupts expectations and limits the poem's life as song? Would you tell a classical musician to interrupt the timing that is specified? Only if it is changed at the next staff. To be fair, Margaret's tone was professional and I value her input, though I disagree. I suspect that for others, too scared of Salemi and pissing their pants about incurring his wrath, to carry on in exact meter and time, they will have similar comments about my book, and simply won't have anything to do with it. A shame, as one of my magnum opus's (I have four) is 600 sonnets long, and a great contribution to letters. I am thinking of ten syllables and hypnosis, scanning on bones, and humming with the digeridoo, taking poetry all the way back to caves, and then forward into new epics for a hurting age. I have a copy to send to Dr. Salemi, if he asks for it, but I suspect that after my post, I'll barely be worthy of acceptance at SCP. (Evan, for the record, has been professional and polite.) For those interested in my work, my website on Amazon is http://www.amazon.com/author/amandahall
Striving after perfect form,
At SCP Dr. Salemi is a member like you and me, whose contributions are submitted as ours are. In his most recent essay, it is his perspective gained by close reading that I recommend. We can do what he did on our own, with the works of any poet. Take the most familiar sonnet of John Keats, "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer." It is iambic pentameter, with trochaic beginnings to lines 1, 5, 10, and 14, and there are 11 syllables in line 12, indicating an internal substitution. This is mainstream English poetic practice.
The Society June 17, 2021
Dear Amanda,
We are all on the same side here at the SCP, which is the side of traditional poetry. We are learning and growing alongside real people. People have a variety of opinions within that, but ultimately none of that matters. I am the editor and choose what is published, not Dr. Salemi. Dr. Salemi has a vast amount of experience, far more than myself and he has done a great deal to contribute to the SCP. He deserves our thanks. In fact, when I first started the Society in 2012, I was writing in syllabic verse. I was generally repulsed by the mainstream poetry world and so my knowledge was incomplete. I was counting ten syllables per line and that's it. That, however, is an immature understanding of traditional (or classical or formal) poetry. Actually, counting syllables is a good introductory step for students just starting to write traditional poetry, but it is introductory, purely. Shakespeare, Milton, Longfellow, Frost… that is the vein that SCP follows and all of them are not writing in ten syllable lines or counting syllables; they're writing iambic pentameter (or some other meter), which means the lines frequently have 11 or 12 syllables, or more, even nine sometimes, but with five hard stresses (or beats) and the general pattern of the iamb throughout. If a poem works out with perfect meter, it is fine, but forcing it too much will often lead to other problems in the expression of the poem. Maybe for people recovering from a world of free verse, perfect meter can serve some cleansing function at first, which is fine, but ultimately that is not how classical poetry is done.
Evan Mantyk
BDW June 22, 2021
First off, not everyone @ SCP is a follower of Mr. Salemi's. I definitely am not! He once insisted that his "A Gallery of Ethopaths" was an epic; I called it a mock-heroic poem; for an epic, in my mind, is filled with heroes and heroic action (which is what I am trying, even if unsuccessfully, to write about).
Joseph Salemi
by Wilbur Dee Case
One can respect Salemi's focus on ethópathy,
a plague that rages round the World and hits both you and me.
He's marshaled many terse examples in polemic verse,
alerting us to this abuse and its pandemic curse.
He's like a swirling cyclone when he offers his advice,
a mild-mannered man he's not, nor would one say he's nice.
Like Oscar Wilde with vituperation cranked up high,
expostulating to the crowds found floating in the sky.
He shouts aloud to bring them down to Earth, to make them see
the error of their airy ways and full-blown lunacy.
An Agamemnon in his hard-won literary realms,
he spews and slews his snarky views in hopes he overwhelms;
and yet one finds, upon occasion, rarely, to be sure,
a rarefied opinion wrest-l-ing with the absur-d.
And though it isn't very often he is not uncouth,
irradic'lly, sporadic'lly, he blunders into truth.
And I am definitely not a fan of Mr. Sale's; he once said he would not review my poetry, because it wasn't in the form of a published book. (On the other hand, what would he want with hundreds of thousands of words, cf. Ms. Cook?)
Still, like Mr. Salemi, Mr. Sale is an intrepid literary critic. He analytically goes to places most would fear to tread. He has reviewed Frederick Turner's "Apocalypse" and Frederick Glaysher's "The Parliament of Poets", as well as "Sonnets for Christ the King" by Joseph MacKenzie. Nevertheless, I find his attempt at a "Dantesque epic" ill-founded; and so unlike Dante. But both Mr. Salemi and Mr. Sale have written interesting, if not breathtaking, poems.
But it is my sincere belief that the epic is untenable in the New Millennium. In some ways, Whitman, Pound and Williams may have come closer than Michael Lind in "The Alamo" or Esther Cameron in "The Consciousness of Earth" in blank verse. But I think it's because we don't have a natural line, like the "dactylic hexameter", or anyone who can embrace Milton completely, and move beyond him, and that is keeping this era from a master epic. It requires too much for a poet to sustain—at least as far as I have seen.
As for an epic of sonnets, like that of Mr. Whidden, or Ms. Hall, I personally am just not interested in the sonnet, as a vehicle for an epic—maybe a Pushkinesque "novel in verse"; but an epic? I once thought in my youth that the sonnet or ottava rima (in the manner of Byron's "Don Juan") were possibilities; but I gave that up as wrong-headed. Of Shakespeare's magnificent oeuvre, his sonnets are really near the bottom of the extraordinary power found in his poetic dramas. Which reminds me of something T. S. Eliot, once wrote, that I can only very badly paraphrase—'No one can write dramas as well as Shakespeare until the language has reached a new articulation point beyond that expressed that must be expressed.' That single thought of Eliot's was enough for me to drop my incomplete poetic drama "Nelson", which was becoming so unwieldy in the writing and research of it. I had no Plutarch. And no writer I am aware of, in English, has mastered Shakespeare's incredibly fluid power and density. Milton came no where near.
But when I think of an epic, I am not thinking of ten syllables, hypnosis, scanning on bones, and humming with the digeridoo, I think of the Universe, and those great individuals who have contributed to our grand, modern vision of the Universe. Here I am closer to Turner; but without his "fictionalizing" propensities. Here I am more in tune with the PostModernists, like Hersey and others, in their move to nonfiction; hence my obsession with docupoetry (which, along with other things, makes me about the most unpopular writer @ SCP). So what. Popularity doesn't mean a damn thing (as we have seen so vividly in the New Millennium). And at least I haven't been banned, exiled…or sent to a goolag…yet.
Andrew Benson Brown June 22, 2021
Mr. Wise,
Umm not sure where to start here.
Big of you to acknowledge the critical powers of Sale and Salemi, even though you aren't crazy about their poetry—your opinion is of course ultimately your prerogative. I also was under the impression that 'A Gallery of Ethopaths' was a mock-epic or epic satire, though I've only read a handful of the chapters and not the whole thing, so I could be mistaken. I've never spoken to Salemi privately beyond exchanging comments in threads, so I'm not aware of his view on the matter, or, generally speaking, any number of other subjects he might or might not sanction.
The definition of a book review is that it is a book. At least half of a book review's purpose is to serve as a marketing tool, and if there is no book, and thus nothing to market, then there is little point in writing a review. If you want a review to be written of your work, it only takes a short time these days to throw something up on Amazon.
Saying not to write an epic after the style of Dante is like attacking JC MacKenzie for writing a book of sonnets when Shakespeare already tackled that form—since no one is better than Shakespeare or Dante, it would seem, we should all just give up now. And if one does take inspiration from an old master, the finished product obviously isn't going to be the same thing—there are 700 years separating Dante and Sale.
As far as epic being untenable today, one could extend that argument and say the same thing about poetry in general, being that this is a prosaic age in which few people care about verse. And yet here we are, and epics are being written, a few of which like Sale's, Salemi's, and Glaysher's are of very high quality (at least from what I have read so far), regardless of this genre's lack of acceptance among the binge-watching masses who spend nearly all of their free time staring blankly at a screen.
Joseph S. Salemi June 22, 2021
BDW can nip at my heels all he likes; it's of no concern to me. But when he speaks slightingly of the kindly and inoffensive Sally Cook, that's another matter. Sally has more poetic talent in her little finger than BDW has shown in decades of endless, witless charichording.
Mr. Salemi has misread me…again. I have no idea what he is so upset about.
Ms. Cook said: "I believe before you write one more of your 600 sonnets you should stop!…I mean this in a helpful way."
Note from moderator: Ms. Cook's comment was taken out of context. Here is the entire comment:
Dear Amanda —
When you say "this post" do you mean my post or yours?
I am very serious when I say — I believe before you write one more of your 600 sonnets you should stop! You have immersed yourself in a plethora of feelings you don't understand.
Stop and THINK !! Your scattered feelings are good but clouded. Consider it an experiment. I know your sonnets will be better for it. I mean this in a helpful way.
That was my reference point.
I believe before Mr. Salemi writes one more sentence of his mindless chatter, he should stop!…I mean this in a helpful way.
Bruce, if your prose were clearer, you would not be misunderstood.
Mr. Brown's arguments are more serious here than that of Mr. Salemi, and I should like to attend to them now.
In this respect, I agree with Mr. Brown that Mr. Salemi's "A Gallery of Ethopaths" is a satire; in fact, I would call it a verse satire. It is actually a striking work of our era; and outdoes H. L. Mencken for me—if not for Mr. Salemi. But I do think it less balanced than Dryden, less polished than Pope, less linguistically rich than Johnson, and less fun than Byron. Still, what else are we accomplishing in the New Millennium?
As for Mr. Brown's thoughts on a book of poetry—Amazon? Part of the G-Mafiat destroying this nation? I think not. One is not compelled to sell one's books, or to sell them through corrupt tech corporations (cf. History).
I must admit I am not as great a fan of Shakespeare's sonnets as I am of his poetic dramas. In fact, I find occasional sonnets of Mr. MacKenzie of far more interest than many of those of Shakespeare. But here is the quote I should have supplied:
From T. S. Eliot's "What is a Classic?":
"That every great work of poetry tends to make impossible the production of equally great works of the same kind is indisputable. The reason may be stated partly in terms of conscious purpose: no first-rate poet would attempt to do again, what has already been done as well as it can be done in his language. It is only after the language—its cadence, still more than vocabulary and syntax—has, with time and social change, sufficiently altered, that another dramatic poet as great as Shakespeare, or another epic poet, as great as Milton, can become possible. Not only every great poet, but every genuine, though lesser poet, fulfils once for all some possibility of the language, and so leaves one possibility less for his successors. The vein that he has exhausted may be a very small one; or may represent some major form of poetry, the epic or the dramatic. But what the great poet has exhausted is merely one form, and not the whole language."
This is partly why I am creating new poetic structures, like the bilding, which was inspired partly by Dante, targeting new topics English poetry has not yet developed (the list is enormous here), etc.
Mr. Brown and I can agree to disagree about our visions of the modern epic. All I can do is repeat what I have already mentioned, and that is this: Whitman, Pound and Williams offer for me a more inspiring attempt, in their failed epics, than those of our generation, like Lind and Turner. In short, their failures seem better than our successes; and this is partly (but very importantly) why I said the epic is untenable in the New Millennium—at least until a new line is developed.
But enough. And although neither this site, nor this generation is all that committed to literary criticism, I hope Ms. Hall can find individuals on this site (and elsewhere) that can be inspiring at times, like Ms. Coats or Mr. MacKenzie, Ms. Foreman or Mr. Sedia, Mr. Gosselin or Mr. Harris, Mr. Tweedie or Mr. Anderson, Mr. Juster or Mr. Yankevich, Mr. Whidden or Ms. Bryant, etc. Mr. Mantyk continues to do an excellent job in bringing diverse voices to SCP. One need not be much appreciated, yet this is an excellent site for poetry that strives to be classical, and a place where one can discuss one's artistic aims. And I am thankful for it.
A perfect book about what is and isn't poetry: Poetry Handbook, A Dictionary of Terms, Babette Deutsch. My go-to reference for all questions concerning ballads to haiku.
It is a book I remember from my youth that once upon a time served me well, as well.
To Mr. BDW –
.Very .clever of you to use some of my words to attack Dr. Salemi. Thank you too for reminding me that Cook rhymes with book.
One small criticism — I think you do protest too much.
Susan Jarvis Bryant June 16, 2021
Margaret, thank you for your insightful and honest review. Your views on iambic pentameter are invaluable. With much gratitude.
DEar Margaret —
I enjoyed your careful review of Amanda Hall's book very much. Amanda believes in love, as, at heart I think we all do at SCP.. But sometimes we need to reexamine our terms. I fear there is a touch of the Victorian about Amanda's premise which gives it an unrealistic approach.
By this I mean:
No one and nothing can ever be perfect, even Iambic
Pentamater! Rhyme, meter and form exist as tools. But what of concept, style, subject and intent?
I have been told often by those with self-applied blinders, that my work is too "cynical." To that I reply:
Life is not all gin and roses, sunsets and self-praise.
Does this mean I have no momentary sentiments, no deep feelings? Hardly. I prefer to think that I can see all of life, and choose to comment on any aspect of it.
A good poem is a work of art, not an exercise in technique. When the man I worked for suddenly died and came back to speak with, of all people, his first wife's boyfriend, he had
little to say except practical advice to the living. One
sentence, however, pervaded his memorial service, and I have never forgotten it. He said "love is the most important thing." He was a gentle man in a dull job; I think people here would have liked him.
Those few words had an exceptional effect on all those who had known him. Everyone had a different slant on it; I took it to mean I should put more love into my visual art and my poetry.
Tough love for poetry? Well, why not? What kind of love? Well, perhaps the kind of clear-eyed love that Dr. Salemi offers. He seems to say we might all be better off to take a clear-eyed look at why we create and what we are willing to put into our creations. He has been my friend and mentor for some years now, and he never steers me wrong. If I don't agree I feel free to tell him, and if he ever thought for a minute I was playing the sycophant, he would probably let loose with a few choice words and throw me over the side – in a metaphorical manner, of course.
No point in getting irritated with someone who knows more than you do. I say let's stop wasting our time getting ticked off at excellence, and re-examine what we ourselves are doing. Self-indulgence will never make a creative artifact. As has been said, life is hard, life is earnest, and every poet who has developed their own style has been willing to work hard, honestly view the results and try again until it's right.
Dear Sally, I appreciate your words to Margaret, who was kind enough to give her time and attention to my book. Here is a little excerpt, as I believe what is missing from this post is the passion and emotion epic poetry offers. I wrote the book with my hand on my heart, making beats become iambic feet, and I'd like for my offering to the world of letters to be enjoyed. Thank you.
"You are too good to this old broken man,"
The lonely vendor said to the young child.
"But I'm afraid there's nothing that I can
Do to make up for an act that was wild.
My carelessness has caused a little boy
To suffer by my hand and then to die;
I don't deserve to feel a sense of joy,
But must with all the time that's left me, cry.
A pipe dream it was, to claim I'd do Good—
A strong man might turn sorrow to good ends—
And though I claimed to be that man, I should
Just do away with life that life offends.
A sense of justice goads me to commit
A crime against a man on whom all spit."
The young boy pointed to the leaf in hand.
"I don't spit on you; neither does our God.
I may be small, but I will by you stand
When Law administers its awful rod.
Whatever is in store for you, please hold
This leaf within the center of your palm;
It will give confidence and make you bold—
It's like a kind of singing, ringing psalm.
The people who don't understand your grief
Will see expression on your face, the calm
That passed to you from out the little leaf
With juices that became a sacred balm.
And once the world sees that you have been healed,
They, too, will know that God has been revealed."
The man did not pull back, did not object
When the boy kneeled beside him, kissed his cheek;
Tears met with lips not able to reject
A man who thought his pain made him a freak.
Not meek or timid with affection shown,
Not caring whether other souls approved,
The boy passed love he felt man should have known,
As he had by the man's grief been so moved.
And wrapping his small set of arms around
The man whom all but one had written off,
The boy became aware of a new sound—
At sob of gratitude he could not scoff.
Deprived of human warmth for but one soul,
The man felt the young boy had made him whole.
There are some moments in a life that do
Define the course for the rest of one's days;
Connection with a man's grief, felt all through,
Was such for the boy schooled in other ways.
It did occur to him as he sat in
The dirt, long after man had wandered off,
That all the special magic did begin
With words of one who did not dare to scoff.
The words of love had been the very thing
That stilled the seething passions of the crowd;
The words of love became an angel's wing
That razed the hatred, with love echoed loud.
The cure, in fact solution, to the hate,
Came from a poet hatred did abate.
I see no reason to engage in a long argument with Amanda Hall over aesthetics and metrics, since our views are obviously irreconcilable. But I do wish to assert that I hold no special position of authority here at the SCP, nor do I dictate what anyone must think or say. As Margaret Coats rightly points out, I'm just a contributor like everyone else.
When a posted poem is not to my taste, or if I think it done in a style that I dislike, my general practice is to say nothing at all about it.
As a good indication of the level of my participation here, I invite Ms. Hall to consider this: from June 5 to June 18 there have been twenty-one separate postings here at the SCP. In all that time, apart from the discussion thread at my June 12 essay, I have posted ONLY THREE BRIEF COMMENTS.
Is that the voice of a dictator to be obeyed, scaring everybody? Moreover, I have NEVER tried to tell Mr. Mantyk what he can or cannot publish here, nor would I ever do so. Those choices are completely his own.
James Sale June 21, 2021
It's great to be mentioned in the same breath as the great Dr Salemi, even if by an anonymous source. But three things: first, Dr Salemi and I are not in cahoots and never have been; we occasionally disagree, but more often than not, I think he has great, if severe, judgement; certainly, like Dr Salemi, I am not some dictator of taste or fashion on this site – one has a view and one expresses it as cogently as possible. Second, this is a great review by Margaret Coats, which as an experienced reviewer myself, clearly bends over backwards to give Amanda Hall's collection the benefit of the doubt whilst simultaneously preserving her own intellectual integrity. This approach has led to a flowering of critical comment that is extremely useful to anyone interested in the art of poetry. Thirdly, it is quite clear that Amanda Hall is impervious to anything apart from the sycophancy she decries in others. The reality of this poetry isn't really about meter: from the extracts above – and the idea that there are 600 of these things – it is quite clear that the poetry is trite. Sadly. Amanda Hall's pleading for her own integrity and ability reminds me of nothing so much as someone arguing that Francis Bacon wrote the plays of Shakespeare: it's strained to infinity. So where a person cannot be helped, I think it best to quit the field.
I myself did appreciate the high-minded subject and theme in Hall's work, as well as the love story, though I also found that the Margaret's criticisms were apt.
Unlike the CCP, the authority of those at the SCP are deferred to because they have spent years building a reputation as poetry critics, the basis of which is ultimately good judgment. When so many people are saying the same thing independently of one another, that is an important indication as to the reality of the thing.
I used to be a syllable counter—and not too long ago! Then Salemi gave me a piece of advice: "don't be a syllable counter." I listened. Acknowledging that others are right when they are right does not automatically make one a sycophant.
Nobody starts off a master at any endeavor. But getting better is all about accepting advice and revising.
I learned a hell of a lot more from Keats than any NewMillennial poet @ SCP; yet there is much about the poetry of Keats that does not appeal to me; but as this is a strand on sonnets, I thought I would include one of his: "On the Sonnet":
If by dull rhymes our English must be chain'd,
And, like Andromeda, the Sonnet sweet
Fetter'd, in spite of pained loveliness;
Let us find out, if we must be constrain'd,
Sandals more interwoven and complete
To fit the naked foot of poesy;
Let us inspect the lyre, and weigh the stress
Of every chord, and see what may be gain'd
By ear industrious, and attention meet:
Misers of sound and syllable, no less
Than Midas of his coinage, let us be
Jealous of dead leaves in the bay wreath crown;
So, if we may not let the Muse be free,
She will be bound with garlands of her own.
Will Dunn June 30, 2021
Ms. Hall —
Well said I find the eloquent defense
of meter as the stuff of common sense…
…as form indeed by which a poem's known
enabling the intent one should intone…
…and, if iambic, as the pulse of heart
that says "This is my life and is my art,
becoming stately voice of long resolve
entrusted I reissue to evolve.
This is the very essence of my soul
and is the presence humbly I control
of echoes that descend on heaven's wing
as anthems I have heard and learned to sing.
These are the words I choose to so perfect
as symphony renewed I resurrect."
I am not a proponent of every element of your "style", but the argument (that meter should indeed be meter) from which you and Daniel Kemper@SCP proceed is profound.
But that means, in the case of IP, that each line has five successive iambs. Any other ten syllable arrangement is not IP though it might well satisfy five stress accentual rhythm in which magnificent formal poetry can also be done.
I believe you are saying each line must be five successive iambs, and I sense such construction often, but not consistently, in your sampled work.
That speaks to the heavy burden we have to cue a myriad of unique beholders well enough that their aural renderings are reasonably consistent with our oral intent. That in part, as you rightly suggest, is the function of the meter implied by the sonnet form.
As you have noted, for example, the bias for accentual rhythm (as opposed to meter) can affect how your work is heard and recited. It does not account for my reaction, but I think it influences many commenters at this site. There is nothing inherently evil about their preference, but it differs decidedly from yours and mine. And its effect on their reading and their observations is transparent.
In fact, the position many of them hold would normally benefit you here had you not claimed that you create only flawless meter.
Your ten syllable consistency requires complaint either about its impact on your style or about its failure to achieve five stresses. Substitution is inarguable, by their own stipulation, if five stressed syllables are present.
For my part, although I find some some strong iambic phrasing in your sampled work, I also sense variation and phrasing unduly awkward.
Still, I applaud your passion for meter ("flawless" is superfluous).
I also, however, do not find the sonnet viable for segmenting epic narrative, whether romantic or not. Becoming a vessel for linear narrative tends to negate the function of its configuration. But I am expressing only a very personal opinion that you clearly do not share.
600 iterations, moreover, on which continuity depends, tend to make the sonnet form wearisome regardless of relative quality. And that number makes disagreeable seeming style far more grating than it might otherwise be.
But with all that said, despite all the commentary you are getting here, including mine, the audience for your work will find it if it remains extant and accessible.
The degree to which that audience builds will be the only useful way you have to guage the validity of the predominantly negative reaction you are getting here.
And sadly, but understandably, selling art tends to shorten its reach.
Amanda Hall July 1, 2021
Thank you for your remarks, Mr. Dunn. If you are interested, I can send a hard copy volume of my epic to you. I am wondering whether you would appreciate the chain of sonnets, upon reading more. Your comments about meter are most welcome, in any event.
C.B. Anderson July 1, 2021
Yes. When no one knows what anybody else is talking about, it's time to quit the field and go to greener pastures. Never before have I read such a panoply of vacuous statements.
Daniel Kemper July 11, 2021
First things first: I'm always musing about how poetry can be extended to book length in a single theme. I'm really interested in what you've done to honor yet extend tradition.
There is a difference between badly written perfect meter and well-written perfect meter. Many notes on bad writing were mentioned; however, although it has been demonstrated elsewhere that perfect meter (redundant expression) need not be unnatural, perfect meter still suffers a kind of displaced aggression that would be rightly targeted at bad writing techniques sometimes used fulfill meter. I am in no way saying your writing is bad — I haven't experienced it. I am only chiming in on your side regarding perfect meter. When the logic of arguments is lost, often what remains is appeal to authority and/or ad hominems, which I hope you have not had to endure.
I appreciate Will's mention of me a great deal. (Thank you, Will!)
I'm late to your book for a variety of reasons.
More is coming from me; I just have far too many balls in the air and struggle with essay format too much to be timely. Let me say this about someone's mention of authority at SCP (not authority as command, but authority as expertise) and about numerous voices saying the same thing. How do we say that truth is determined by the number of people saying a thing rather than by logic in full view of how many press outlet say the same untrue things? And do we not see growth and evolution as a result of developing beyond what everyone is saying? Truth is simply not determined by popular vote. So many things used to be "thought by everybody" that were not right, or needed extension.
I agree with Dr. Salemi in a way — one should not be a "syllable counter." We part company though on what it means to be a syllable counter. One shouldn't sacrifice content for meter; nor should one sacrifice meter for content.
On a personal note, I dislike the beatification of Shakespeare. It strikes my ears as if someone said, "If the geocentric universe was good enough for Ptolemy and Aristotle, then it's good enough for me too." Shakespeare is awesome; don't get me wrong, but it shouldn't be sacrilege to think we can keep getting better.
Joseph S. Salemi July 11, 2021
Nice try, DK, but no cigar.
Practice and taste in the field of aesthetics are not determined by 'logic." Platonic idealism and definitionism do not hold sway in areas that are determined by historical tradition, national custom, and the example of past masters.
It was a skillful propaganda move to say "Truth is simply not determined by popular vote." You know that the audience here is largely hard-right and conservative, so you come up with a standard conservative talking-point. But the big mistake was to let your slip show by alluding to "Truth" — a philosophical issue that is not connected with the arts, except tangentially. A poet may express truth when he writes, or be personally devoted to the pursuit of truth, but how he puts together a verse is not an epistemological matter, or subject to abstract definitionist mandates. He writes in accord with the tradition that he chooses to follow. Your view that "he shouldn't be doing that, because it's not governed by a logical algorithm" tells us more about you than about aesthetics.
Your attitude is that traditional metric verse, as it was practiced for centuries and is still practiced today by many persons, is not in accord with "The Truth." It has to change. It has to develop. And you are here on a mission to bring those changes about. Besides being an arrogant attitude, it is what you have called a "category mistake." The traditions of metrical verse in English have grown up organically and historically, NOT logically. Trying to debate them logically is like trying to debate the course of a river, or a person's eye color.
But let's simplify the issue. You say "One shouldn't sacrifice content for meter; nor should one sacrifice meter for content." That is spectacularly wrong, and is the source of all your misunderstanding.
In a poem, which is a fictive artifact based on mimesis, ANYTHING AT ALL can be sacrificed if the poet needs to do it. He can do whatever the hell he likes if it suits his aesthetic purposes. If he needs a rhyme, he will search for it until he gets it, even if it means changing some detail in his narrative. If he need a certain foot, he'll revise his poem to get it. THE ONLY THING THAT MATTERS IN COMPOSING POETRY IS THE POEM THAT ENDS UP ON THE PAGE. Nothing else. Nothing at all.
Now if you have some grandiose plan for changing formal poetry to suit your agenda, fine. Go ahead. But why insist on dragooning everybody else into supporting it? You go your way, and we'll go ours. Nobody here is required to change "what is not right," or what "needs extension," or to help the world to "keep getting better."
I said in my third paragraph that your slip was showing. But with the above language, you show a profoundly revolutionary temperament which I strongly suspect is not limited to poetry.
Margaret Coats July 12, 2021
"Badly written perfect meter"? Really, Daniel, this is illogical. As is your absurd statement that "perfect meter" is redundant. I am sorry to see that you are abandoning your own previous ideas on variation, problematic as they were, to take up Will Dunn's position that there is no meter at all in English poetry as it stands. If you keep this up, I predict it will kill your efforts at both essay writing and verse writing. I would be very sorry to see that happen. You, unlike Dunn, have posted good poems.
The conversation gets passionate and ranges widely, so it's easy to lose earlier threads. In earlier threads the point that there are many facets to a poem which make it good or bad has been made. A cliche subject, unoriginal diction, a shallow treatment of thoughts lying behind the subject and so on are the sort of thing that I have in mind there. That is the broadest sense in which a poem can be badly written, but still be in perfect meter. There is a second sense, too. If a poet uses a preponderance of monosyllables, and/or sentences that end as the line ends, and/or short sentences, then the meter can be perfect, but typically such a poem would still be badly written, likely even robotic.
To your second point, there's kind of a classification problem which is compounded by how charged the subject can be, right? A car with a missing fender we continue to refer to as a car. A sonnet with a metrical foot missing in the seventh line (e.g.), we still call a sonnet and we still call its meter IP, although hyper-technically neither "IP" nor "sonnet" is correct if you want to go all the way. Is that technicality useful? Generally, no, or only potentially in very specific contexts. Is it potentially very charged to appear to say that for even the slightest divot a poem is more or less not a poem? Yes.
But look, here's a problem that I noticed with my own analogy. Or at least a limit that I think is useful to consider. A car was still constructed AS A CAR. Saying it's technically incorrect to refer to a car with a flaw as a car can't be sustained. It doesn't lose it's category because of damage. For example, if I consider the difference between a combat vet who has lost two percent of his body from amputation, he's still a person because s/he was constructed as a person. But if I consider a bonobo/chimpanzee whose genetic construction is said to be a 98% match with a human's, that does not mean we are discussing an amputated/flawed human. That limits my analogy — it doesn't apply to classifying the meter of poems as directly as it might seem.
Let me try out an outline in front of you and see what you think.
1. It IS NOT technically correct to say a damaged car is no longer a car.
2. It does sometimes seem so to me and it is easy to slip there. It seems all about a shift in the sense of the words.
a. It's still true that a poem said to be in IP that has non iambs, missing feet (etc) is not in perfect meter. It would be technically correct to say very little poetry is in perfect meter.
b. It would not be correct to say there is NO meter in English poetry as it stands.
3. The expression "Not in IP" is destructively ambiguous. I've used it plenty and will try to stop.
a. It could mean "is written in a different meter"
b. It could mean "is written in no meter at all"
c. It could mean "is written with other than 100% iambs, five to a line"
d. Conflating any of those unmentioned senses is bad.
1.) It can be really offensive to hear "b." (with all the connotations that seems to bring as well) when c. is intended.
2.) It can be really offensive to hear "c.", which appears to run afoul of the most basic logic, e.g. 3=5 etc., when something other than that is intended.
4. In order to reign in these destructive ambiguities, the term "perfect IP," which is only redundant when considering one of the senses outlined above (3c.), is a good and useful term and I'll drop my snarky rejection of it.
Please don't let me forget, in the midst of the passion of debate, to thank you for your compliment on my poetry.


Women in Art's General meeting was held on Saturday 7th May, 2016 where the immediate past president Mrs. Noreen Carrington-Dixon stepped down. The new President was elected; Mrs. Michelle Tappin-Davis, Ms. Eleanor Belix, Committee member, Ms. Ayodele Roseman resigned on July 2nd.
The meeting was held at the residence of Ms. Ayodele Roseman, 31 Grenada Avenue, Federation Park. Gizelle Winter and Marrissa Richards were re-elected as Secretary and Treasurer respectively.


text:
Het Nationaal park Mooball (Engels: Mooball National Park) ligt in het noordoosten van de Australische deelstaat Nieuw-Zuid-Wales, op een afstand van 646 kilometer van Sydney.

Mooball

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


It is an obvious truism that given enough time everything will fail. The only tool we have at our disposal to hopefully delay this eventuality is maintenance service. Unfortunately, it's another truism that for most small computer room operations, this vital step is not performed. As is unfortunately typical, we often put off short-term inconvenience for future unplanned and unpredictable grief.
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Is preventative maintenance high enough on your data center to-do list? What technologies do you rely on to monitor your critical systems?