Great Regulars: The artist and the poem can never

completely merge, but they share the same "sweet hours" that they steal "from love's delight." The artist, during his creative periods, is sometimes deceived into thinking the poem will always complement his creativity, but then the dark times return again and again to enhance their separation.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Shakespeare Sonnet 36

~~~~~~~~~~~

The "bums in doorways": "the white/slugs of their bodies gleaming through slits in their/suits of compressed silt, the stained/flippers of their hands, the underwater/fire of their eyes, ships gone down with the/lanterns lit."

These fine images deserve a better place to reside. The poem is unconvincing and seems to exist for the sole purpose of displaying a few well-wrought images.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Sharon Olds' 'The Victims'

~~~~~~~~~~~

The British, including the poet's father, have fought to hold their island and have risen to fight injustice, including the rise of Hitler's Nazi Germany, and even now fighting the unjust and dangerous ideology of Islamofascism in Afghanistan and Iraq.

But the speaker in this poem claims that these young soldiers are "Lives Lost in Vain," that is, the lives of these fallen heroes are considered wasted.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Two Children's Poems

~~~~~~~~~~~