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I usually do not name my poems so I'll just separate them with a spoiler otherwise please feel free to critique and comment on my works
1
+ Show Spoiler +Shadows cast light between tree limbs
while light casts shadows through over rippened leaves,
There’s too much life here.
The roar of bird chirping,innumerable really,
Blends into one sound
No longer beautiful and distinct,
Just
Loud
2
+ Show Spoiler +Despite what your senses will have you believe,
I never touched you.
Those were not my lips on your neck
Those were not my hands gliding down your waist
It was merely a quantum reaction,
Your cells repealing mine at the atomic level.
A scientific exchange of intentions
Producing an equal and opposite reaction.
What existed in the microcosm of space between my fingertips and yours was the friction between our energies, converting your will into life like superheated plasma discharged during fusion.
3
+ Show Spoiler +Galaxies on the verge of merging,we dance around questions and pull on each other’s souls while we pull off our clothes.
Like stars torn from their orbits, shirts and shoes are cast off into the universe that was reduced to my bedroom.
This is the stage for our performance.
A waltz that lasts eons until 2 become 1,
Revolving around a common center.
We struggle against the force that bought us together so we don’t lose our individual shape,
But it is too late.
Arms and legs have already twisted in their attempt to find balance.
Eyes are already locked in orbit.
The black holes at our centers engaged in a tug of war,
Each trying to gorge itself on the existence of the other.
4
+ Show Spoiler +I may have felt that way, once.
The sun rising and setting according to your time zone,
My moon phases synched to your menstrual cycle,
Clock hands, like time, have the tendency to keep moving,
So I can’t say I still feel that way when My hands have also moved.
5
+ Show Spoiler +F is for fiction.
Grandiose stories whispering of villains and heroes.
I played the hero in some,
The villain in others.
F is for fiction though,
Daily afternoon naps
Hours at work
Ivy league universities
Hospital trips.
I’ve got binders full of the fiction
We’ve based ourselves on
6
+ Show Spoiler +
I was a writer words were my tool, more than that they were my partner finishing my sentences as though we had a link,
a bond.
connected by an umbilical chord that allowed me to express.
but see, words left me.
Now my sentences arent worth completing.
7
+ Show Spoiler +He walked, hands jammed in pockets.
He talked, hands jammed in pockets.
He showered, hands jammed in pockets.
8
+ Show Spoiler +They never told you that
he who laughs last laughs alone they never told you that
he who laughs last laughs alone they never told you that
he who laughs last laughs the hardest
cause there aint no one else to hear him
9
+ Show Spoiler +I weave miracles with syllables of ooo’s and ahhh’s pronounced between your legs.
I speak all dialects.
My perfect diction creates echoes demonstrated by your vocal chords.
I am your speech therapist.
Tongue twisters and rhyme games to help you more clearly say what you want to say - I’ve got you studdering. Oh…oh….oh!
Let me mouth it more slowly so you can articulate.
10
+ Show Spoiler +An introduction,
A few words to pass the time,
First impressions like worn out lines on an etch-a-sketch,
Subconscious decisions,
An exchange of information,
Double-speak glances like daggers thrown across a crowded room,
Maybe they will hit their mark.
11
+ Show Spoiler +Dilated pupils,
Stretching horizons eager to capture their universe,
what secrets rest in your darkness?
What troubled thoughts and weary words echo in that vast singularity?
Windows do not change size so I cannot call this the window to your soul. Perhaps it is a pit.
Edges worn where your essence has tried to escape.
Are you trying to escape now? Is that why your eyes grow larger when you see me?
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United States24637 Posts
I can jot down random words
in ways that don't make sense.
You may call it poetry
I call it being dense.
lol sorry I just have trouble appreciating poetry when it is posted on TL. I guess I just don't understand where stuff like this comes from:
"while light casts shadows through over rippened leaves"
casts shadows through over rippened leaves? What?
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casts shadows through over rippened leaves? What?
light casts a shadow... without light there is no shadow not sure what the difficult part is here?
that the leaves are over rippened? nothing to do with the light casting a shadow really, maybe its the use of the word through that causes confusion... as nasty as your response was it did point out something that I already had an issue with but couldn't place my finger on so thank you
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Beginners should never write in free verse. You don't have the skill to pull it off.
To expand: free verse takes a much higher level of structural and rhythmic awareness than any other form of poetry. All you're doing here is putting ideas into lazily combined sentences. That's not poetry. Just because it's free verse doesn't mean that every word isn't important. Start with iambic pentameter or something similar. The enforced structure will help you to choose your words and force your ideas into a rhythm.
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Beginners should never write in free verse. You don't have the skill to pull it off.
lol definitely the wrong forum for this... maybe i should have specified constructively criticize my stuff.
Thanks for nothing
EDIT: if i thought i had the skill to really pull it off you think i would be posting on a forum?
EDIT2: Thanks for your edit. I come from a background of spoken word so for me the pacing, emphasis and rhythm is in my head.
70% of spoken word is in the delivery, so I'm trying to challenge myself to write without having my voice pick up where i'm lacking.
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On December 07 2012 03:07 Trainrunnef wrote:light casts a shadow... without light there is no shadow not sure what the difficult part is here? that the leaves are over rippened? nothing to do with the light casting a shadow really, maybe its the use of the word through that causes confusion... as nasty as your response was it did point out something that I already had an issue with but couldn't place my finger on so thank you
should be "over-ripened leaves" (whatever that might mean... leaves don't ripen. fruits can ripen, but not leaves.)
and you cant cast a shadow through something, you can cast a shadow upon something. or on something.
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I for one hate poetry with any sort of a narrative structure. Fuck that. Poetry should make you think...and should let you create your own meaning...not just tell you a story or lay everything out in front of you.
But your descriptions have to have a theme, and have to makes sense...or else people will complain. You also have to spell things correctly.
Also if you are writing free verse think REALLY HARD about what your punctuation is doing...It has a great effect on how people read your work.
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On December 07 2012 03:23 Trainrunnef wrote:Show nested quote +Beginners should never write in free verse. You don't have the skill to pull it off. lol definitely the wrong forum for this... maybe i should have specified constructively criticize my stuff. Thanks for nothing EDIT: if i thought i had the skill to really pull it off you think i would be posting on a forum?
his post was constructive criticism, despite how you might take it. it didn't need to be worded harshly, but it was criticism nonetheless. he means that rather than jump right into free verse poetry, you may want to practice more structured forms of poetry and become familiar with those first.
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+ Show Spoiler +his post was constructive criticism, despite how you might take it. it didn't need to be worded harshly, but it was criticism nonetheless. he means that rather than jump right into free verse poetry, you may want to practice more structured forms of poetry and become familiar with those first.
He didn't have the further explanation when i originally responded, hence my own nasty response.
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On December 07 2012 03:23 Trainrunnef wrote:Show nested quote +Beginners should never write in free verse. You don't have the skill to pull it off. lol definitely the wrong forum for this... maybe i should have specified constructively criticize my stuff. Thanks for nothing EDIT: if i thought i had the skill to really pull it off you think i would be posting on a forum?
It is constructive. I'm telling you to write in predefined structure until you have the skill to try and create structure. Hopefully you'll give up on free verse completely though. I dislike the notion that because a poem has metric structure it is less expressive than free verse.
The only reason you should be writing in free verse is if you're going to convey some meaning using the structure of your sentences (you don't, they're only complete sentences for the sake of making it easier for you to express them - you won't learn poetic expression like that) or if you genuinely have the ability to make a more aesthetic poem in free verse than in regular metre. And beginners generally don't have that ability.
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You might be right about one thing: This is the wrong forum for this kind of stuff. Actually there is no right place, to be honest. It's very difficult to get satisfying criticism anywhere, and TL, while it has its art types, also has a lot of people who you won't want to hear from.
However, you wrote "My moon phases synched to your menstrual cycle," so basically you are gonna get a lot of people who don't know how to put into words why your poetry does nothing for them. It doesn't do anything for me either, the handful that I read.
So in my mind you've made two mistakes if you want advice: You posted too many and you posted them indiscriminately. If you want good advice, you probably need to go to someone you think is a good writer and ask them personally if they'll give you any advice. You'll hear about what they think and their own philosophy, which may not help you, but at least you will get a focused response. On a forum, no one who knows what they're talking about wants to argue on the internet with a stranger about why their poetry is bad.
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I particularly like number 7.
What are your influences? Why do you write? Do you perform regularly?
micronesia is right, it is very easy to string together some ambiguous sentences that formally resemble poetry. It is quiet another thing to create something with intensity and impact simply through the combination of how you right about your subject - even having the 'how' as your subject. But it always can connect to something elsewhere, unexpected. These are the challenges of all the Arts and Humanities.
Certainly have a go at formal verse forms - William Blake is ideal to look at since he is a master of so many forms and his expressions have an overwhelming combination of simplicity and complexity. Getting to grips with scansion is your first port of call, I recommend simply having a go a writing your own limerick and focusing on rhythm over rhyme.
On rhythm and structure -
Poets that work in spoken word, that is, as composed orally with the intention to be performed, tend to gravitate towards ballad rhythm anyway, which is the 4/4 of the poetic world - even if you break lines across or merge lines together the over all result is something that natural vocalizes into a 4/4 rhythm
On the other hand, with number 7 there is a more syntactic turn of structure, something which you repeat in number 8 and throughout your work - give exploring this a shot?
What your writing about I guess is OK, there are some fairly sickening cliches in there, why don't you experiment on writing a poem about your cat? Or TL for that matter. I'd suggest you approach the subject matter of 'you' and 'me' in a romantic context with more experience - otherwise you will end up recycling the same old patterns. You run the risk of oscillating between romantic poems and poems about naval gazing loneliness.
Sorry! I'm not very good at evaluative criticism!
Well done though, it's good to get your stuff out there. Expect people to be hostile though
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Phew, thank god.
There was an... interesting... blog post about poetry recently... Needless to say, I required extensive use of brain bleach.
I am of the opinion that most of your poetry is lacking in structure. It doesn't have much rhythm to speak of. Unfortunately I am not the one to ask for more critique than that.
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I used to perform in high school often but its been years. I still wrote a little bit in college, but not as much as I would have liked.
At this point I've just come out of a long relationship during which i wrote nothing, and I've been finding the joy in putting my thoughts on paper again. These are mostly recent poems with the exception of 7 & 8 oddly enough.
I will admit some of these are very selfish. By that I mean some have references to inside jokes where if you didn't know the history you wouldn't get it, like 5.
I think most of the issue is with how I started my OP These are all poems I wrote in under 20 mins (again except 7 & 8), very little work has gone into them and what I was hoping to get out of this was which poems had the most potential, and how to get it to resonate more with a wider range of people. Poorly crafted OP's get poorly crafted responses i guess.
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Baa?21242 Posts
Some of these definitely scream "I need to be read out loud." Try reading some of them and recording them lol 
Please explain 5 a little bit...
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Please explain 5 a little bit...
Ex girlfriend was full of shit.
It was a long distance relationship so when shit got rocky she would fake some huge story (cancer)
we would take "naps" together after her "radiation"
she lied and said she got accepted to columbia university to move to NY to be here
basically any lie it took for us to stay together.
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On December 07 2012 06:11 Trainrunnef wrote:Ex girlfriend was full of shit. It was a long distance relationship so when shit got rocky she would fake some huge story (cancer) we would take "naps" together after her "radiation" she lied and said she got accepted to columbia university to move to NY to be here basically any lie it took for us to stay together.
holy fuck man. That's way more interesting than the actual poem. Put "radiation naps" somewhere into it.
anyway, prepare for a really long reply from me in a bit.
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Baa?21242 Posts
On December 07 2012 06:11 Trainrunnef wrote:Ex girlfriend was full of shit. It was a long distance relationship so when shit got rocky she would fake some huge story (cancer) we would take "naps" together after her "radiation" she lied and said she got accepted to columbia university to move to NY to be here basically any lie it took for us to stay together.
Hm. Ok.
The actual poem was pretty sketch. Felt like some poor attempt at humor and binder full of action just reminded me of romney -.-;
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I wonder what would happen if for example Ezra Pound posted his free verse poems under pseudonym on TL. Would he be praised?
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I too really like number 7. Very haiku-like.
2, 4, 5, 8, and 10 have lots of promise. You can probably throw the rest out. 6 is trite. 9 is masturbatory. 3 is … I'm not sure actually. I don't really get the connection between orbits and sex, tbh. (i like the idea of merging science and emotion but this one doesn't seem to go anywhere. #2 does it better I think).
You need to work on your grammar, by the way. That's what caused micronesia's confusion. The most important thing while writing is to know that even if YOU know what you mean, that doesn't mean the reader will. Make things clear and concise.
Also, you really need titles. If not for the reader, for yourself. Titles are the supply depots of poetry. Mundane, seemingly useless, but vital. oooh and SCVs are repetition, images are marines, punctuation is medics, tank lines are to structure as CCs are to stanzas. battles are volta. Macro is rhythm. Micro is rhyme. :D Anyway. you get the point. You need titles. Not everyone is ee cummings or emily dickinson. Something titled "Conversation with Slugs and Sarah" will have a very different readerbase than something titled "Juggling with Gerbils" (both real poems btw)
#2 - Starts off well, but then veers off into quasi-scientific blather. Stick closer to the main idea. Repulsion, laws of thermodynamics, friction, fusion.... pick one. Focus on it. This poem is too short to try to do all this. A title would help. Something like "I Never Actually Touched You". Look at how carefully John Donne uses metaphors in the A Valediction Forbidding Mourning, for example, and how carefully each metaphor is explained in a straight forward logical sense. So yea, either expand this poem to do justice to all the things you're trying to fit it, or pin your focus. http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/donne/mourning.php
#4 - I think line 4 needs to start with "But" or "However' or something similar, to separate the introduction from the volta. I kept reading expecting similar phrases, but line 4 is a 180 from the opening lines. I'd also recommend introducing "the hands" earlier. Here's my own little re-write for this poem:
+ Show Spoiler + My hands may have felt you then, when
Suns set and rose according to your timezone,
When moon phases synched with your menstrual cycle .
But the clock's hands keep ticking
So I cannot say I still feel the same way;
My hands have moved as well.
#5 - I think you need to tell these stories. You bring up these pieces of fiction, and tease the details, but never show. Bring down those binders from their shelves, show us the pictures of the hospital, the stories from Uni. I think this piece can be expanded into something much longer and detailed. Don't tell us you played the hero or villain, show us. Give us the actual actions and circumstances. Make it a narrative. Don't be afraid of longer verse.
#8 - Punctuation. How do you say this in your head? Make sure the reader can tell through the use dashes, periods, commas, colons, etc. Engrave the momentum into the lines. Poems are written to be read, make sure they're read correctly.
#10 - "Maybe one will hit it's mark " is a cool line, but why end there? This reminds me of the episode of Seinfeld where George always leaves the room as soon as he gets a laugh, ending on a high note. Keep going. Say something more. If that's all you wanted to say, ok, but it seems like this can keep going.
"Pay no attention to the criticism of men who have never themselves written a notable work" - Ezra Pound
also, to the guy above me, we'd all probably tell Pound his poems are shit.
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Thanks for all the advice, both the harsh and the kind. I will definitely take it to heart and post the updated poems so you can admire the fruits of your critiquing labor.
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it's a good advice, about the structure
also you need to pay more attention to the sounds of words
you are thinking too much about the ideas
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United States24637 Posts
His poems were not good,
he was not understood.
The grammar was off,
its appeal reached a trough.
He posted his story,
in all of its glory.
Criticism rolled in,
with tips how to win.
He took all the advice,
and edited thrice,
and was no longer met with a whine.
He can't yet rival Poe,
nor free verse like a pro,
but his work is still better than mine.
True story.
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if you say
but his work is still better than mine
it sounds better
edit: <3
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United States24637 Posts
One word short,
of sounding quite good.
Just edit.
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Lol you guys are unbelievable
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Ask for critique
this will go well
so they punch you in the oblique
and we're all going to hell
the above poem
had no flow
To try again?
I think no
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On December 07 2012 09:20 HowardRoark wrote:
I wonder what would happen if for example Ezra Pound posted his free verse poems under pseudonym on TL. Would he be praised?
even if ezra pound posted his poems here under his own name he wouldn't be praised.
@op
#1: dunno if the errors are from transcribing the poems or intentional. i think you should keep track of your sentences while you are writing your poems because it would help you clean up the imagery a lot. people pointed out "over-ripened leaves" which is a strange image because, like people pointed out, leaves don't "ripen" in the first place. it happens again when you say "the roar of bird chirping, innumberable really,/ blends into one sound": there's a lot of ambiguity in the language here and if these are errors in transcribing its hard to tell what you are really saying but even if we do clean it up some ie "the roar of birds chirping, innumberable really,/ blends into one sound" we still have some problems because the noun of this phrase is "roar" and not "birds" which makes "innumerable really" modifying the singular roar (an innumerable roar?) and "blends" doesn't fit because we are already blending the chirps of the birds into a singular roar, and then we are taking the singular roar and blending it again (with itself? with nothing?) into "one sound". strange image but you should really be very conscious of these choices that you are making during your creative process.
i think you might add weight to the poem by cutting most of it out.
#2: the last line is too long. i think you add a lot of words here that you dont need to add. i think it would do good to break that last sentence up into different lines. i prefer "that microcosm" to "the microcosm". "converting you will into life" is the weakest part of this line, but the rest of it i think is really cool. this is probably just a stylistic thing but i cant reiterate enough how much i think (after having read these two) that you would benefit from trying to cut away some of your language. "despite what your senses will have you believe" feels too verbose, "it was merely" takes me away from the poem, etc and i think you might add some phrases of content that aren't really very necessary ("producing an equal and opposite reaction"). i dont think you are mindful enough of the rhythmic qualities of the repetition of "those were not" and i think because of this you are better off (in this instance with these words) saying something like "those were not my lips on your neck, my hands gliding your waist, but a quantum reaction" etc.
#3: i like it. you still need to clean it up some (same sort of criticisms as before) but it's interesting.
#4: i think that this echoes an old sentiment (time passes and we change) and uses old images (the sun rising and setting, the clocks hands moving representing time, the cycles of the moon tied to menstrual cycles) and feels too much like old cryptic poetry for me to really get into.
#5: do stories whisper? i feel the same kind of way towards this poem as i did above.
#6: words are my partner, my friend, my baby (or my mother???) and i own the words but they're gone now so why do i do it. there's not enough here.
#7: good. im kind of torn about the length though, i think it could be longer but it's sort of like "i went fishing when i was five" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjcOK2T0lPo)
#8: i dont like the repetition here because "he who laughs last laughs" is kind of a tongue twister and i dont like the feel of it sonically. it's a good jumping off point though because i think it shows that you are concerned about the sonic nature of ur poems and that's always a good sign.
#9: nice a sex poem!
#10: i've kind of fizzled out listening to another video of tao lin. but the line "double-speak glances like daggers" confuses me and as an image i dont think that its particularly engaging or interesting.
#11: as a final thing i think that you often "fall into the trap" of "wrestling with language" like this kind of "poetic" language and you get sometimes "caught up" in "poetic" diction. i think it "leads" you to mistakes like the over-ripened leaves gaff. we get things like "troubled thoughts" and "weary words" "echoing" and thinking about the "secrets" that are hidden in people's eyes but what does that do for us? i feel like in some of your poems you are taking the words of all the dead poets from hundreds of years ago and trying to use them rather than trying to use words and ideas from today that we could find new or interesting.
you have a lot of stuff in here that shows a lot of promise. just think really hard about what poetry you like, and be mindful of all the decisions that you make while writing and be mindful of all the things that you say, like your images etc. ts eliot said something like being a poet was less about the arrangement of ideas as it was composing the sounds or something and i think that it's really true. i agree with what someone else posted earlier about free verse being difficult to begin with and if you haven't already you should try playing around with form a bit to get a good feel for rhythm and meters. it's like tennis and form is like the net. u dont need it to play and really good tennis players could play without the net but as a beginner its good to have the net until you at least have a feel for the game.
keep it up tho good stuff.
also ps i forgot to remind myself to make sure when you are posting stuff that you double and triple check it for errors thru transcribing etc.
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Lol
you guys are unbelievable
how can you conscience this critique?
your fingers fill these forums full
of philistinic reek
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On December 07 2012 13:13 sam!zdat wrote:
Lol
you guys are unbelievable
how can you conscience this critique?
your fingers fill these forums full
of philistinic reek
This calls for an anti-poem
Roses are red
Or so I'm told
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"let's go to bed??"
oh u so bold ^.^
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You ruined everything forever.
So I must embark upon another endeavor
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This threads smells of garlic. Or maybe pistachios.
Parmesan.
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EPT
