Hey everyone, I'm writing this because I've always loved poetry. I adore it, especially when it's in music, bands like La Dispute come to mind for sure. I'll make this introduction short because my thoughts are in a jumble and I just need to get this out. I'm writing this knowing that many probably won't understand, that a lot of you will read it and interpret the message differently. I know most of you may think i'm being melodramatic and alot of you won't think i'm any good at all. That's alright, I firmly believe that all beauty is relative, that all problems are relative. That whatever "first world problems" as we call them are just as serious to the people that live them as the worst tragedy can be to another.
This one's for you kid:
You lit a match and maybe you never wanted to start a fire But intents are skin deep and actions speak louder than words
It only takes one soul to feel but it takes two hands to clap And I've never been the type to dance alone.
You see kid the heart's a funny thing It never thinks but never does it forget That's right I never did quite forget
You lit a match and I caught fire You get to chose what these flames mean
I do like the idea of being a beacon of hope The more I think about it, I think i'm just a funeral pyre for us
You lit a match and maybe you never wanted to start a fire But intents are skin deep and actions speak louder than words
It only takes one soul to feel but it takes two hands to clap And I've never been the type to dance alone.
You see kid the heart's a funny thing It never thinks but never does it forget
That's right I never did quite forget You can stitch wounds but scars always show I used to think scars were ugly, that was back when I didn't know what murder was
Fixed it. Now it sounds like the beginning of a real thriller.
well this is the same advice as all the other poetry blogs
but you should try reading it aloud
I think you will find that you trip over the syllables. they will fit together choppily free verse does not mean that you have no meter it means you can use all different meters however you want but you still need to find the rhythm this has no rhythm. it is just ideas with less grammar don't worry poetry is very hard
you have to always be conscious of the choices that you make with language with structure with organization etc. because the less you have the more each thing is important.
at the beginning u have: you lit a match, and maybe you never wanted to start a fire/ but...
which is good. but then you kind of devolve into "intents are skin deep" and "actions speak louder than words", one of which is a corruption of a cliche that doesn't really contribute anything to the meaning or twist it in any interesting way, and the other is a cliche.
then we change directions (after the already abrupt mid-sentence direction change in the previous line) and say "it only takes one soul to feel" this beginning half of the line which confuses me as to what it wants to say and then shift directions quickly again to "but it takes two hands to clap" the second half of this line confusing me again as to what it wants to say and how two hands clapping is related to one soul feeling. its kind of like a mixed metaphor or something.
then we change directions again and say "i've never been the type to dance alone" which is not related to our souls or our hands clapping. how frustrating!
"you see kid" is kind of interesting maybe but as a concept is unexplored and i think unless you want to explore it you should get rid of it. the heart line is strange. it is strange in more than one way. "the heart never thinks but never does it forget". if we try to follow the ideas i think the words get in the way because you say "never thinks" and then "but" and then "never does it forget". i feel like the "but" sets us up for a contrast but the words that you use set us up for a parallel. i think it could be worded better. not only that, i think that the image itself is strange. i know that hearts don't think. everyone knows the heart doesn't think. unless they are a time traveler from the 1800s. hearts don't have memories. maybe it's not a literal image. i don't know. it's confusing.
then we say "that's right i never did quite forget". is the narrator the heart? that is strange. i think that "that's right" is kind of going off of the "you see kid" and if you don't explore this concept then i think you should get rid of this too. i don't like "quite forget". i don't think it contributes anything. i think i would prefer just "forget".
"you can stitch wounds but scars always show". i think this could be clearer. talking about scars is dangerous territory.
"i used to think that scars were ugly, that was back when i didn't know what beauty was" i think you are letting your language get in the way of your poem.
imagine how much stronger your line could be as "i used to think scars were ugly/ when i didn't know beauty" or "when i didn't know what beauty was".
consider something like this in comparison:
my heart is strange and while my heart may never think never does it forget. I never forgot you can stitch a wound but its scars never fade.
i used to think scars were ugly when i didnt know what beauty was.
still i think u present some cool ideas and i think the first line "you lit a match and maybe you never wanted to start a fire" is pretty neat & also i just realized that you said never in the first line and you say never a lot at the end maybe you can say never in the middle too. never say never hehehehhehe.
New game: Try to make the poem less terrible. Here's my attempt. I'm no expert at poems, but I think what your poem lacks here is creative language. You're essentially just writing prose broken up into several lines, but poetry is more nuanced than that. Instead of writing out the cliche "actions speak louder than words" try saying that without actually saying it. Your reader isn't stupid, so be subtle.
You lit the match, sparked that fire you never thought that it would but intent goes no further than the charred skin
words mean nothing while this fire still burns
the heart is your will the awareness within everything and yet it cannot reason it cannot lie, it cannot forget
I never did quite forget what those flames left behind these scars that will not heal
yet the fire still crackles as if to say that beauty hides within the wreckage
I love when people see a free verse poem and complain there isn't any meter, as if that is what is stopping it from being a good poem. A poem is just one form of communication, it doesn't have to separate itself from prose by being rhythmic or using a lot of literary devices (tho these are characteristics of many good poems). You are allowed to attack the ideas of the poem itself and say that they are stupid and you don't like them, they're not off limits because it's poetry. If the OP had written this in straight up prose, people might have been more willing to attack that part. Even if the OP says "you are going to misunderstand and misinterpret my writing, so anything you say means nothing to me," you're still allowed to say you thought what he wrote was dumb.
So the OP is probably imagining some event in his life and describing it in an abstract way with a lot of cliches, but as a reader I don't get anything out of it. The writing uninteresting and didactic in a patronizing way, as if the OP really thinks his audience is a couple of 6 year olds. I'm sure a little kid would find the idea of a scar being beautiful quite profound (unless it is a boy, because all boys think scars are cool, so in that case he'd just agree). But maybe the OP isn't talking about a real scar, but a metaphorical one! Still not interesting lol.
It is your first poem, and it doesn't deserve such a mean spirited welcome, the same way I shouldn't insult how someone played in their first game of SC. But 1: you posted it and 2: I just have to make a response to people who think that the only reason free verse can still be poetry is if it has meter, when there are really way more important things wrong with this.
On December 10 2012 21:21 Chef wrote: A poem is just one form of communication, it doesn't have to separate itself from prose by being rhythmic or using a lot of literary devices (tho these are characteristics of many good poems).
yes it does that is the point if you don't believe me ask viktor shklovsky
EPT
