• since feeling is first [ce]
    18 replies, posted
my heart burns for you like an eternal flame, and all those other inaccurate clichés every bored fourteen year old echoes to herself as she reaches for feelings that dart past like cars, and could just as well run someone over along the way - but this is more than impulse. it's a pulse that murmurs like a bass drum and steadily shuffles under shouting matches and placid embraces without ever looking up. it whispers imagery that smolders and glows before being drenched with syntax and trampled by cumbersome vocabulary as soon as they hit my tongue. it's too gentle to be exposed by a machine, thrumming at frequencies only the heart can hear, and compressing years of quiet comfort into pre-built words that take seconds to roll off of an assembly line is the best i can do. -- really really rough draft. hawe i line brake??? also critique is encouraged, as title states. haven't gotten critique in a while.. also +cool points to whoever gets the title reference
i've done some editing since i posted this. anyone got any cc for me? ):
I love non-rhyming poetry. So this poem's about the frustration of how hard it is to express feelings via text over the internet, I am assuming? It doesn't feel very... unique. It's worded well, and there's a lot of meaning to it. It's something nearly everyone who's been or is being a teen in post-information revolution times can identify with. But there's something about it that just kinda fails to make it stand out to me. Maybe it's TOO relatable, I don't know. Those are my impressions. And all I can think of, style-wise, is that the line "but this is more than impulse. it's a pulse" is really awkward. The 'pulse' part doesn't like being repeated on the same line to me. The second sentence feels kinda taped onto the end like an afterthought. I'm not a big fan of some of the word choices too. They're -almost- too flowery, but you've managed to avoid actually doing that (or it'd have ended up sounding all emo and shit)... Other than that, it's great. Much love for calling out clichés here too!
Almost every line leads to something visual. You're showing us one picture after another with this poem. I just don't know if that's a good thing or not, though. You've got so many visuals that it's hard to tie them all together to create one main point. I think you could use a couple of lines that just reinforce what your poem's about. Some of the greatest poems are very clear. I don't think it should be a guessing game.
I hate love poems
.. so basically you guys are telling me - metaphor is bad - imagery is bad - having depth to your writing is bad - being able to relate to a poem is bad i know you're trying to help, and i hate to sound pretentious, but i think i'll just find another forum anyhow, i'll fix up the first and last stanza. you're right that it sounds rather unoriginal. metaphor in first stanza is weak, last stanza is half-assed. i'll probably scrap them somehow.
I didn't say anything close to that. It's just that the entire poem is composed of imagery, with nothing to really pull it all together and drive the point home. I didn't say anything about depth or relating to poems or metaphors. If you're talking about the above critique, seemed thorough and reasonable. I think you should maybe try to learn how to interpret/handle critiques better, especially if you're deliberately asking for them and then misconstruing them. Or do you just not like negative feedback?
i was basing my last post on dude meister's advice as well. i did ask for critique, but the advice i received was vague and came off as backwards. i really hate to come off as that person who can't accept critique, but i can't tell whether you read through my writing a few times and came to your conclusions afterwards or if you skimmed it and thought it was meaningless because i wasn't completely direct. i'm taking everything you both said into consideration, but several of the points you both made didn't make sense.
I read through it several times. I write poetry myself, and I know how easy it is to think of an idea, a concept in your head, and then get so caught up in it that what you actually write makes a lot of sense to you, but doesn't read as anything but a lot of mumble jumble and incoherency. I know this because I've done that myself. One of the best things about poetry is it can connect so many people together by sharing universal emotions by relating them to specific situations. Poetry can create a sense of empathy without needing to establish characters and follow them on their journeys, like books. It's the same way with choreography in dance. I'm in one number that the choreographer described to be about our generation, the problems we're facing, how we view the thought of a revolution and what it would be for, etc. etc. But you know what? The dance just reads as a bunch of strange movement. So in the end, it doesn't really matter what YOU think your poem is about, it matters what the PUBLIC thinks your poem is about- at least, if you're not just writing to make yourself happy and to have your own private collection of thoughts. So to an extent, you need to be more direct. Imagery should be used to enhance and boost up an idea, not as the foundation for your idea. After a while, one visual after another becomes tedious to keep up with. It leads to a sense of vagueness about what your poem is. Most people don't want to have to guess, have to think very hard about what a poem means. They want to clearly identify the purpose, fully understand it, and then connect with it. Or, if a poem is written cleverly, a reader may take some time to figure it out like a puzzle, but once they do, they come to the same understanding conclusion. Having to wonder and not being sure about what it all means (or at least not having a few possible theories) leaves the reader feeling, in a way, stupid. They won't be able to emotionally connect on the level you're striving for if that's the case. Think, for example, of "I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings." You can clearly tell what it's about, and it's about something incredibly important, and so it's got a deep-rooted emotional attachment in many people's hearts (which is why it's so popular.) People can even relate to it now, though the original issue it was written about has changed. Yet in this poem, there's still some incredibly imagery. You can paint a picture in your mind without having to work too hard. Poems should be enjoyable, even if that means leaving the reader in tears. But one thing that is not enjoyable is getting a headache from trying to decipher a bunch of fragments of an idea.
i understand your point, but you should keep in mind that the level of directness in a poem has to do a lot with the audience you're trying to write for. i'm not a fan of direct poetry because it leaves the reader little to think about afterward - i think poetry should be thought provoking, something that a reader can't just read through once and forget about. if there isn't anything subtle about a poem, then it doesn't need to be reread to get more out of it. just telling your reader exactly what you want them to know isn't going to have as much of an impact on them because they won't think your poem is worth reconsidering. i do have trouble with that, though. i've been varying between degrees of subtlety with my work - it tends to be metaphorical to the point of being obscure, and i'm trying to fix that. also, writing isn't just about knowing the dictionary definitions of words - what about their connotation and how they sound or what they remind you of? even if you don't know exactly what my writing is about, do you feel anything from it based on the way i word certain things? i'm curious because i'm very careful about my word choice.
Well, that's where I disagree with you. Writing doesn't have to be subtle to be worth of being re-read. Writing direct poetry is actually more of a challenge than the type of poetry that you've written, because you're right. If it's done poorly, it doesn't leave much for the reader to think about. That's why direct poetry has to be incredible for it to work. That being said, when it is done correctly, it is beautiful. What about "The Giving Tree?" It doesn't use big vocabulary words, it's just a few sentences about a boy's life and the tree, but it's still so deep and does call for thought afterwards. Have you noticed that some of the best lyrics are that way? Songs only have 3, 4 minutes on average, so the singer wastes no time and gets straight to the point. This can leave a lasting impression. The thing about this type of writing is that, besides coming off as boring a good percentage of the time, the writer can't really be "wrong." You can always say to criticism, well, that's what you thought, but it's your fault as the reader for not reading it correctly. It takes courage to write something direct to say, "Here's my idea, I'm laying it all out on the table." Because then, if it's a boring thought, there won't be any way to avoid it. If it's amazing, people will also realize that right away. But if you have a boring thought that you're writing about, you can hide it within so much imagery with this style. Well it's good that you can recognize that obscurity isn't really a good thing. :) Believe me, you're not the worst, and you're not the only one who does this either. I think at every point in a poet's life, they try to go through an "edgy" phase where they write prose and think that it can be compared to the greats. It's all part of the learning process, and if you can learn to improve off of that, it's all for the better anyways. Plus, it's fun to get deep inside your head and write this way for a nice exercise. Sometimes it even works out, if later you go to it with fresh eyes and make it more understandable.
i think we were talking about different meanings of "direct". i was referring to writing that doesn't even have layers to it and completely lacks metaphor. i still disagree that subtlety is necessarily a bad thing. poetry is about conveying emotion - even if you don't understand the exact story behind the poem, you can still feel emotion based on literary devices and their word choice. i've really got to stop posting through steam in-game browser when i'm in the middle of an sc2 1v1 quickmatch. edit: and i just realized i started typing a sentence in this post and didn't finish it. TVT 1V1 QM I'M WINNING BTW
Yeah I just meant that the poem didn't feel as personal as it could have when I used the term "too relatable", so yeah. Metaphors are good. Imigary is good. Depth is good (over-flowery writing =/= depth, but your writing wasn't over-flowery, as I said) relatable is fine, it's about finding a balance. You don't want your poem to blend in with all the countless other poems of this type, do you? And at the same time you don't want to alienate the reader. Just trying to help, bro. And FYI yeah I did read it 3 times before commenting, and not one read-through was a skim. [editline]18th November 2010[/editline] grats on winning your match.
ah, that makes sense. i didn't realize what you meant by that. and yeah, i know you were trying to help. i got a bit cocky. i don't think "relatable" is really finding a balance. using cliches detracts from a poem because they lose meaning over time - it's often more effective to use metaphors the reader has never seen used. also, thanks. game lasted 48 minutes :V
make a stanza that goes : i love penis penis is nice i like penis in and around my mouth <3 xxx
CRAWWWWWLIIIIINGGGG IIIIIIIN MY SKIIIIIIIIIINNNN THEESEE WOUUUNDSS THEY WILL NOT HEALLLL FEAR IS HOW I FALLLLLLLLLLL :'( deep
[QUOTE=Guy Mannly;26142836]ah, that makes sense. i didn't realize what you meant by that. and yeah, i know you were trying to help. i got a bit cocky. i don't think "relatable" is really finding a balance. using cliches detracts from a poem because they lose meaning over time - it's often more effective to use metaphors the reader has never seen used. also, thanks. game lasted 48 minutes :V[/QUOTE] Glad I could help you :smile: I know where you're coming from though- I often get similar kneejerk reactions when I suffer a miscommunication with a critic.
[quote=bobie;26143086]crawwwwwliiiiingggg iiiiiiin my skiiiiiiiiiinnnn theesee wouuundss they will not heallll fear is how i falllllllllll :'( deep[/quote] OI FUCKING LOVE MCY CHEMICAL ROMANSe
[quote=raydark;26155187]oi fucking love mcy chemical romanse[/quote] dood its not mcr :"(
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