18 Comments
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Aug 22, 2023
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Glad I could show you around.

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What an epic journey, I enjoyed every step!

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Thanks Lorraine! I feel like I need to write another one covering everything I left out.

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It's an amazing accomplishment to write that way. The story is fantastic too. Keep going!

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Fun, ingenious, and a lovely nostalgic trip through some favorite haunts from my 15 years or so in Seattle.

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Thank you!

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When were you there?

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From 1986 to 1997, and again from 1999 to 2005.

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My time there overlaps quite a bit with yours.

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Magnificent. My favorite of the double sestinas for cities, if only because I live in Seattle.

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And your backyard gets obliquely mentioned

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Yes! The non-oblique abutment ... there have been a number of other coincidences for you in that city I think.

Decidedly less splendor these days, but I’m hopeful good times will recur. Right now we’re dealing with an unhealthy amount of smoke, but that’ll blow over soon.

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Wow, I really knew nothing about Seattle except the space needle and it being home to tech billionaires; but this poem really knocked it out of the park. I loved the sestina format which created so many cool lines and images. Now I feel I experienced Seattle. For some reason, this kind of reminded me of some of Apollinaire's poetry when he was singing about Paris. This was great.

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Thank you for reading and commenting.

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This is an immersive experience of a piece - full of sehnsucht.

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Thanks for reading it!

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This is such a wonderful piece of the Seattle experience, Jonathan! I have only been a handful of times, yet your poem brought to me familiar places and a few parallel experiences! Fabulously well done! And, I feel a warm chuckle as I think of my cousin who has lived there her whole life. Thank you for this picture of a special city.

Blessings, ~Wendy💜

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Thank you, Wendy. Your comments are tremendously gratifying. I’m grateful anytime someone is willing to read a mammoth poem such as this in the first place — so blessings on your head for that, too!

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