1st workshop of my poetry

Today I workshopped two poems after not being scheduled in the first two workshops. I read my poems "Bad Movie Night" and "Whispering Moonlight" and the discussions were very different. "Bad Movie Night" was somewhat admired, but people wanted more images and examples, while my poem was making a kind of aesthetic argument, wryly. I am uncertain whether I want to make the kind of changes they were suggesting, but think that I would like to insert more of a sense of characters (involved in Bad Movie Nights) and more descriptive details about such an event (PBR, wings, yelling at the screen, whatever).  However, the poem starts with somewhat abstract discussions of good and bad movies and closes with an argument for bad movies.  I like this structure.  I felt like some of the arguments being made reflected what the others would want to put into such a poem, not what my poem was doing.  So, I take the input, mull it over, then revise as my instincts lead me.
"Whispering Moonlight" is a musical, lyrical meditation with a lot of atmosphere and intuitive movement. I think it was very successful because people were struggling to come up with ideas for change. One of the moderators had some ideas for extending it a bit, but wasn't too committed to the suggestions - they were just potential ideas. I think I'll have some other poets look at it, read it somewhere and see where I come out. I really like it because its very lyrical and thought-provoking. It's not really like much of my poetry and just sort of entered my mind and I captured it, making purely instinctive (not logical) choices about how to format it.

Whispering Moonlight is on my website: http://www.johnfbrowning.com/Poetry.cshtml

Here is Bad Movie Night:

bad movie night

When you compare the consensus

worst film acclaimed best c’mon now:

not so different. they contrast in

small details really, not content

I watch them all-  like bad better

Robot Monster, Wild in the Streets!

Citizen Kane? No, boo!

(supposed to be the best)

Bad ones generate deeper thoughts

Good ones sometimes leave a warm glow

dissipated so soon

Trite fare shall persevere

Estimate the number of films

you have endured versus those you

have enjoyed, do the math

which is which? what and who?

Plastered to your innermost skull

Mesmerized in your movie seats

Images and eyelids and cinematics

Art and time and craft and skill

Elaborate, architectural,

Fizzling tinsel and shiny light

Two hours of deadened time

Consecrated, benign

“Let’s watch Showgirls. Again.”