Topic awaiting preservation: Poetry: full-contact reviews! (Page 1 of 1)

All right, ladies and gentlemen! Put on your reviewer gloves, then sew horseshoes onto the knuckles! We're going to have a poetry demolition derby! The rules are simple: one person posts a poem, then anyone who wants to can say literally anything they like about it, no matter how hurtful or blunt, as long as it's honest. This means that good poems may well receive praise, but bad poems are doomed to utter ridicule. The poem's author is not permitted to defend his poem in any way, or counter-attack the reviewers, although he is welcome to answer questions, or ask how he could improve his work.

Everything is open game, all existing friendships and relationships are on hold, nothing from this thread is taken personally (even if someone calls you a sissy goth thumb-sucker with an Oedipal complex!) This is how I review poems and fiction with my friends, and this is the only way we should be doing it at the Asylum, which is legendary for straight-talking critiques.

I'll kick it off. Load both barrels and take aim!

Read it aloud, or at least under your breath.

Cell 1250 :: alanmacdougall.com :: Illustrator tips

I am not one to be petty, so I will give an honest review.

What are you waiting for? If you keep waiting life will pass you by. Honestly, I could relate to your words. It made me think of fear, the fear you feel before you feel you might make a mistake and risk being judged. That was part of my interpretation anyway. Keep expressing yourself, it might touch someone else and make them feel not so alone.

Btw...don't you mean his or her poems/poetry.

quote:

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I am not one to be petty, so I will give an honest review.

---

Err...hate to go off topic so soon, but...if you weren't one to be petty, you wouldn't have made any reference to being petty.

Of cuorse, there's nothing for you to possibly hold against anyone for your reveiws in the other thread...as *none* of them were harsh - in fact they all seemed pretty damn soft and gentle if you ask me!

Ok, so, back on topic - PT :

I don't like it.

It has great meter, great rhyme schemes, and for having relatively complicated structure it all rolls off the tongue rather smooth.

But...I just can't help but feel like it's a cheesy rap-rock song, and I can picutre all the crooked-baseball-hatted goons bobbing their heads along to it....and all the apostrophed g's get on my nerves. For all of the words it uses, it really doesn't seem to say much of anything.

Of course, I haven't written poetry in about a decade, so what do I know?

quote:

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I just can't help but feel like it's a cheesy rap-rock song, and I can picutre all the crooked-baseball-hatted goons bobbing their heads along to it....and all the apostrophed g's get on my nerves.

---

That's actually a really legitimate criticism. The word "crunk" automatically adds cheese points as well. The song-lyric quality and lack of depth are probably the two greatest weaknesses of the piece.

Cell 1250 :: alanmacdougall.com :: Illustrator tips

That's what I was going to say. It looks like the lyrics of a song (though I wouldn't go as far as rap), and not like poetry.

Anyway, here is a poem I wrote some time ago... If you want to bash someone there you go :

Sorrow

When sorrow came that night,
You remembered in a second,
All the years you lived together :
The good, the bad, the rejoice, the fears,
All sumed up in a metaphysical place.

The most ironic trick of Life,
All the complexity of a human being
Cut down to a few molecules,
Memories in a sad and unhappy brain.

Your sorrow is loneliness,
Your sorrow is self pity
Towards your situation,
Your sorrow came and
didn't leave you any choice.

Are those tears for yourself ?
Or for the one who is dead ?
Fremens only cry for the dead.
You don't have to cry for yourself.

How can we live ?
How can we bear ?
How can we make the Present
Be the same as the Past ?

Understanding is not easy.
Once you will understand,
Sorrow will become freedom,
Freedom to live, freedom to think,
In this wide, strange and harsh world,
In which we didn't choose the rules.

Um, yeah, I was actually wondering about that, but kind of afraid to ask: what does "crunk" mean?

My Babylon says :

English slang dictionnary :

Crunk

1. Excellent, cool
2. Crazy : "She's a crunk-ass bitch"

Hope that helps, to be frank it is still a bit unclear for me, I wonder what a crunk-ass bitch would really mean in French

It's a corrupted past-tense of "crank," as in "get that music crunk up!" which has mutated with time into a adjective that can be used to approve of any party-related situation. "Damn, that joint was crunk!"

I can't say that I used it entirely seriously, but I guess it wasn't clearly ironic either.

Cell 1250 :: alanmacdougall.com :: Illustrator tips

Chopping block!
A WarJay original from way back when.
:sniff: I almost miss those days.

Lilac Brings

When I find that I am down
And nothing can bring me back
I go outside and sit beside
My mnemonic lilac

I sit and smell blossoms
Those wonderful, delicate things
And then the song of you
Is what my memory sings
Memories of your name and soul
That's what the lilac brings

I can't help but remember
All of the time we shared
Sitting beside this lilac
Showing how much we cared
And giving so much--yes, oh so much
As much as our souls had dared

When I catch the scent of the blossoms
Your silhouette is brought to me
A wraithen figure sitting here
This is what I see
I wish it were you--but it can't be you
Because you are gone from me

The wonderful and the tragic
I remember all of these things
Sadness, hope, and delight
The bell of rememberence rings
For when I smell the blossoms
That's what the lilac brings

This poem was a valentines gift to the woman who has been the art in my life since 1995 and who has been a part of my soul since before time began....She has been holding that soul for me while I have been in Seattle. Tomorrow I return to be a whole person again.


This man who dreams of You

I know a man who, sees your face everywhere he turns,
but only for a moment, the vision disappearing as rapidly as it came, leaving him haunted by the look that only you can give, by those eyes that always reach so deeply into his soul.

I know a man who, with every breath, catches the faint lingering of your scent upon the air.

I know a man who, so often hears the quiet echo of your voice above the clamor of
this city, a man who cannot help but turn and look around him, always hoping to find
you there, hoping against reason, hoping with all his heart.

I know a man who, can no longer count how many times he has awoken in the middle of the night, straining to hear the familiar soft rhythm of your breath as you sleep. This man dreams only of you, and not always is he asleep when he dreams. He cannot rest without you in his arms.

I know a man, who can almost feel your touch, and sometimes can find such sweet solace in that, but more often than not, is only driven to the edge of madness by the desire to feel your body against his.

I know a man who has never been and can never be, anything but in love with you.

I know this man who is me.

warjournal - You are very good at making the reader feel the emotions you have. I really liked it.

-Here's one I wrote-

~ Stranger ~
Walking down the streets of my town,
I see you walking, walking towards me.
You are not my friend, you are not my lover.
You're just a passing, a passing shadow.
Why do I care? Why can I feel you?
Why does your soul tug at me?
You're only a stranger, no one to me.
Yet your soft eyes, oh how they affect me.
I want to feel you; I want to know your every desire.
But you are just a stranger: walking slowly past.
You are just everyone, whom I have never known.

Other stuff I wrote

GN, that really struck a chord, I've definately had that feeling before. Here's one I wrote a few weeks ago:

Ode to Another Time

a funerelle march
into dystopia may
have led me
all astray,
a dystopic day
caught me up
i'll return
to grow a garden,
a garden in
an ashtray.
just as
the sea's tide
i've my
return, and
i'll return,
to grow a tree,
a tree in
the ocean.
come 11:12
gone 11:12
a moment held
a moment,
smouldering slow,
a moment
to grow
a moment.

Others, probably not so good.

All right... been away from the madding crowd for a little bit, but I should be back in shape here. Going from the top, with no particular consideration for anyone's emotions . Moon Shadow, here's your review.

Overall: despite a few instances of repetition, there is no overarching lyrical or dynamic concept; the lines aren't stilted, but neither do they flow as smoothly as one might hope. I'm a sucker for science in poetry, so the line "all the complexity of a human being cut down to a few molecules, memories in a sad and unhappy brain" appeals to me; but the next three stanzas, which include an unexpected and somehow out-of-place Dune reference, are syntactically disjointed and conceptually void. The final stanza recovers somewhat, although "once you will understand" seems like it would make more grammatical sense as "once you understand." The final line, "In this wide, strange, and harsh world / in which we didn't choose the rules" is the most powerful of the poem, but unfortunately it directly echoes the cliched "I'm a stranger and afraid in a world I never made."

One-word summary: bland.

Cell 1250 :: alanmacdougall.com :: Illustrator tips

for warjournal: i think yours is actually quite good. i like it a lot.

ed: one more for the critics-->1062<--it's full of cliches




[This message has been edited by outcydr (edited 07-04-2003).]

Well, cliches are the single hardest thing to avoid in a poem. There are some themes of human existence so recurrent and pervasive that nearly every way of expressing it has been taken already. The trick is to choose a topic and make it yours, so completely that your expression of it is strong and fresh by default.

Cell 1250 :: alanmacdougall.com :: Illustrator tips

Hello,

I added a couple of poems to my
site if you feel like reading them.
They are rather short.

Shell & Window

[This message has been edited by Gilbert Nolander (edited 08-04-2003).]

hmm, the only criticism I have for your poem warjournal is that it comes off a little over the top. Im having trouble imagining a dude going out and smelling flowers to remind himself of a past lover or friend. It just seems cliche, and very melodramatic. That's my two cents.

(((IN STEREO))) the Peter.Pansy way

Three from a previous life,
exposed.
Bash all you like.
You see,
he isn't me any more anyway.
And besides,
he would never have noticed.
He was like that you see.

===================================================
Thoughts on a Virtuality
(retirement from the world of MOOs)

If I could wish myself a life
would it be here ?
Cloud-castle land ?
my fleeting face, glimpsed
in the embers of a dying fire,
candle-lit wayang,
shadow flickers, dancing
on the tight-stretched silk
of your perception,
A wasnotwas, chimeric, transitory,
a leaf pattern, tossed
on the breeze of an illusion.

And gone ...

Only to wake blear-eyed, devoid,
and morning-sore from one more fix
of phosphor glow.
Electron junkie,
fantasy's cowboy,
spinner of dreams
and maker of toys?

Now might I dive,
plunge laughing, on
through dew-soaked fields
of morning spring, leap unafraid
into the jaws, and feed
me to the beast of life.
And know that here,
twixt sky and sea,
my sails will fill
with that which loves,
lives, laughs and cries,
and is itself the stuff
from which my cyber-dreams derive,
and fly its shuttle through my warp,
and weave myself a life.

The search
(unconscious though it was)
is done.
Not searching
I have found what I was looking for.

I was
I am
I will be

me

But this time, real

not virtual.
===================================================

Packets
(a.k.a. The loneliness of the Long Distance Lover)

<We are discrete components in a soci><CHECKSUM>

<al web, separated by more than the m><CHECKSUM>

<ere existence of geography. We touch><CHECKSUM>

< the illusion of eachothers image, o><CHECKSUM>

<ur thoughts and feelings packaged by><CHECKSUM>

< impersonal couriers, scattered to t><CHECKSUM>

<he wire, travelling the space betwee><CHECKSUM>

<n atoms, totally alone in a logical ><CHECKSUM>

<void................................><CHECKSUM>

<CR><LF><EOF>

<We live in our data-based illusions,><CHECKSUM>

< feel we are together, smile and tou><CHECKSUM>

<ch eachothers afterimage, sequential><CHECKSUM>

<ly responding to a sequential respon><CHECKSUM>

<se, digitally giving from an analog ><CHECKSUM>

<source. Stepwise, flows the stream o><CHECKSUM>

<f emotions, stutters forth in stacca><CHECKSUM>

<to bursts, quantised, encapsulated..><CHECKSUM>

<CR><LF><EOF>

<Even webbed we are apart, our packet><CHECKSUM>

<s of feeling separated by instants a><CHECKSUM>

<s they pass between. Isolated from e><CHECKSUM>

<achother by protocol's rule, kept ap><CHECKSUM>

<art by logic and design. Loneliness,><CHECKSUM>

< absolute, separation complete......><CHECKSUM>

<CR><LF><EOF>

<Unipaired by traffic noise, bandwidt><CHECKSUM>

<h unconstrained, my thoughts run fre><CHECKSUM>

<e and turn to you. My soul aches, my><CHECKSUM>

< heart yearns for that one, sweet da><CHECKSUM>

<y when we can both speak at the same><CHECKSUM>

< time, interupt and sorry, laugh and><CHECKSUM>

< hear the other laughing, when our b><CHECKSUM>

<odies, warm and soft, can occupy the><CHECKSUM>

< same space, when I can whisper in y><CHECKSUM>

<our ear I lo



** Client Disconnected **

Hatred
(a.k.a. Hell hath no fury like a lover scorned)

Venom, fresh-spilled from broken trust,
stained red with hate,
pours scorn. Derision,
caustic, sticks
to all it touches,
leaching into mind and heart,
eats into love
with vitriol.

Old trysts, their secrets long untold,
as weapons flung,
screech through the air.
Exposed by gall. A love
laid bare, strikes back
with all the caring tenderness
of charnel house
and abatoir.

Humiliation, twisting gouts
of primal spite,
boil deep, erupt
as screamed disgust
drives in, and twists, the blades
of knives well honed, their keeness found
in heart's intent
on heart's despite.

Engulfed in passion, total,
left with one desire,
to seek revenge,
a soul betrayed
exacts the price,
and punishes another soul.
Death is no substitute,
for torment ...

... live.


[This message has been edited by trib (edited 08-14-2003).]