Sometimes.

More years ago than I care to number, I belonged to a group of poets in Toronto, a community that had grown out of a workshop. The way we discussed poems, is much like the discussion I’ve seen here about the nature of nodes, especially good ones.

Noding for the ages, is like writing poems for the ages--ones you would want to read again and again. The ones you would take to that proverbial desert island.

Mostly, we talked about poems that worked or didn’t. That punched you in the eye, took your breath away and yelled--I’M IT!!! And there was no mistaking it. That’s what moves me to 'cool' a writeup. It works! It may be well-written, well-researched, well-felt, well-chosen, well-integrated into Everything--or not. But its a node, or writeup, I feel is important, that I want to read again, that I believe should be carried down through the ages.

Not just emotion, but thoughts, too. Not just one’s own, but others', too. All can be nodes with heart.

As for voting. Not eveything you can say "cool" to. And you get so many fewer 'cools' than votes. I don’t like to vote negatively; I like to encourage. I like to say its a good idea, a good effort, try again you can do better, don’t get discouraged. As John-Robert Columbo (the Canadian, sometime poet, and list-maker extraordinaire) once told me, a poem that doesn’t work is an experiment. I like to encourage experimentation.

Because sometimes, and sometimes more than sometimes, they work!

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