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If anyone's interested, here's a list of contemporary poets (for a given value of "contemporary", I guess -- some of them are dead) that my school recommends: Ai Alexie, Sherman Angelou, Maya Ashberry, John Bell, Marvin Bly, Robert Brodsky, Joseph Brooks, Gwendolyn Bukowski, Charles Cisneros, Sandra Collins, Billy Dickey, James Doty, Mark Dove, Rita Gilbert, Jack Gluck, Louise Graham, Jorie Hall, Donald Harvey, Matthea Hass, Robert Heaney, Seamus Hoagland, Tony Hughes, Ted Justice, Donald Koch, Kenneth Kunitz, Stanley Larkin, Philip Neruda, Pablo O'Hara, Frank Oliver, Mary Palmer, Michael Phillips, Carl Pinsky, Robert Ruefle, Mary Shange, Ntozake Siken, Richard Simic, Charles Strand, Mark Tate, James Walcott, Derek Young, Kevin
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Jan 16, 2013 02:27
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I said I was going to crit Budgie some, then life got crazy. I'm back though, doing stuff. General thoughts from first reading: it's overall pretty good. There's a nice quasi-mythic thing going on, the rhymes are funny, the images are strong. All-in-all I get a sort of 50s-English-Quiet-Comedy-Poet feel to it; Spike Milligan-esque, I guess. With that in mind, I'm going to pull out all the bits that don't work because we can't get better without confronting our failings.  budgieinspector posted:
Also, the first two lines don't scan very well. The clod, Just transition is really bumpy. quote:When onward on my way I plod, quote:Some had handles, some were plain;  quote:The females gave a sprightly glance; quote:Now oft, when on the couch I lie, Anyway, overall great (no surprises there), hope I could help.
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Jan 22, 2013 01:47
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SurreptitiousMuffin posted:Not because it's bad: because it's fantastic up until the last line and you completely flub the landing in a really understated way that I can't quite articulate. It doesn't scan well at all but I'm at a complete loss to tell you why. I'm not! For scansion I read: - / - / - / - / - - / - / - / - / - Which should work fine, right? It would, were it not for two things:
Quick! Say "bottles!" Quick! Say "axolotls!" One of those is much harder to intuitively parse than the other, so much so that it becomes an imperfect rhyme when the reader's confronted by it. In other parts of the poem you can shrug and carry it along, but on the final line? It's an awkward landing. Parsing "bottles" sets the mind up with a particular lexical method of interpreting the word to follow. The reader expects a word that ends something like "ottles", but then you throw them for a loop with "otls." It's under a different pronunciation scheme, from a different language, and so it's not internally consistent as a rhyme. If you write them both phonetically, yeah, they're a perfect rhyme. Unfortunately, writing in English is not phonetic, and rhymes are impacted by it. As an experiment: Now oft, when on the couch I lie, The doctor asks me what I see. They flash upon my inward eye And make me laugh in fiendish glee. So I forget them axolotls, And find my solace then in bottles. Still not quite right, but better, yeah? It's because it's easier to revert from a foreign method of reading to a native one than the other way around. Hope this is at least somewhat helpful.
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Jan 22, 2013 02:06
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SurreptitiousMuffin posted:I said I was going to crit Budgie some, then life got crazy. I'm back though, doing stuff. General thoughts from first reading: it's overall pretty good. There's a nice quasi-mythic thing going on, the rhymes are funny, the images are strong. All-in-all I get a sort of 50s-English-Quiet-Comedy-Poet feel to it; Spike Milligan-esque, I guess. Did... did you just crit the poem from MAD Magazine that I posted to show Spacedad that their writing standard was higher than he seemed to believe? Because my thing's here. EDIT: Also: SurreptitiousMuffin posted:
Tee-hee! budgieinspector fucked around with this message at 08:48 on Jan 22, 2013 |
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Jan 22, 2013 08:36
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I maaaaaaay have.
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Jan 22, 2013 08:42
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Silly Muffin!
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Jan 22, 2013 08:49
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I hate Wordsworth. I hate his twee rhymes, I hate his sledgehammer-subtle metaphors and most of all I hate his "poor people are great because they're too stupid to lie to me" mindset. He's the Romantics' answer to Kerouac or Eat, Pray, Love: boring rich white person goes out exploring amongst the poors and discovers some bullshit facebook philosophy to bring back and discuss at parties.
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Jan 22, 2013 09:01
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Etherwind posted:I'm not! For scansion I read: 'Axolotls' and 'bottles' absolutely do rhyme. Whether or not two syllables rhyme has exactly nothing to do with how difficult the lexicography might make the discernment of the relevant syllable sounds, so long as phonetically speaking those two syllables have the same relevant internal structure (namely, the same nucleus and, where applicable, coda). When the rhyme occurs at the end of a line in a poem written in a complex metre as this one is (iambic tetrameter) the standards of rhyming are slightly more strict: the final beat-carrying syllables must at least have identical nuclei (and codas if there are any) and any successive non-beat-carrying syllables must be completely identical. In this instance we have an example of exactly that. The final beat-carrying syllables of both lines are occupied by identical syllables ('o' and 'o'), and the following unstressed syllables are also identical ('ttle' and 'tl'). In fact, since the final two syllables both rhyme with their counterparts in the other line, 'axolotls' and 'bottles' are not just in a simple rhyming relationship, but comprise an even more highly ordered double verse-rhyme. Axolotls is not under any relevantly different 'pronunciation scheme' from bottles: when uttered in spoken English (which includes the internal vocalisation that occurs when one reads silently) the relevant final syllables of 'axolotls' are identical to the relevant final syllables of 'bottles'. That 'axolotl' is derived from a different root language than 'bottles' has nothing at all to do with whether the two words rhyme when given their standard English pronunciations. That two phonetically identical syllables are, for whatever reason, lexicographically distinct also has no bearing whatsoever on their phonetic properties: 'axolotls' and 'bottles' rhyme perfectly regardless of whether they're written in phonetic script or in standard English characters or simply spoken aloud. No matter how much intuitive difficulty one might have in parsing one half of a rhyming pair, there is no logical progression whereby the difficulty becomes so acute that the two words no longer actually rhyme. And there is no such thing as 'consonance and assonance on the page' as abstracted from the actual sound-units themselves; consonance and assonance are nothing more than phonetic identity relations between consonants and vowels. Your 'fix' changed nothing about the rhyme relation between the two lines. They're still the exact same double verse-rhyme pair they were before, you just switched the lines around. You 'fixed' nothing because, at least as concerns metre, phonetics and prosody, there was nothing wrong to begin with.
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Jan 22, 2013 13:27
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Okay, since you've clearly got a better grasp of this than me: step up. What's the problem? Why doesn't it work on the page, if it's an absolutely perfect rhyme? 
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Jan 22, 2013 15:00
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Etherwind posted:Okay, since you've clearly got a better grasp of this than me: step up. What's the problem? Why doesn't it work on the page, if it's an absolutely perfect rhyme? Part of the awkwardness is that the bottles lines are the only time the poem slips into feminine rhyming (second-to-last syllables rhyming, with same last syllables). The rest of it is all masculine rhymes (last syllables rhyming). It's awkward because it's a stupid parody in a stupid parody magazine, so maybe it was intentional, or maybe the writer didn't give a poo poo about feminine/masculine rhyme, but that's why it reads "wrong" even though it's "right". Josh Lark fucked around with this message at 16:27 on Jan 22, 2013 |
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Jan 22, 2013 16:24
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Etherwind posted:Okay, since you've clearly got a better grasp of this than me: step up. What's the problem? Why doesn't it work on the page, if it's an absolutely perfect rhyme? I don't see that there is any problem. It does work on the page. The feminine endings might be standing out to some people, as Lark said, considering that the only time they occur is at the ends of lines 2,4 and 17-18. I personally don't see that this is an issue given that feminine endings are one of the oldest and most common sorts of variation in this style of verse, and that their use here is extremely modest. Whether it 'works' is really a matter of whether the variation is to the reader's taste. All I'm saying is that the variation has nothing to do with any technical error in the rhyming, and that the apparently authoritative account you gave of rhyme is wrong in almost every identifiable detail. The headless or catalectic opening of the first line in the second stanza ('Some had handles...') is the much rarer and more disruptive variation, and, unlike in the case of feminine endings, headless lines have been claimed to be errors ever since they first started showing up in (at first pretty well only dramatic) verse; Pope (pretty sure it was him) 'fixed' these apparent errors in Shakespeare wherever he found them by adding in the missing off-beat syllable. I'm surprised no one's been bothered by the one example in this poem. It's the only thing in the poem's form that I can see that has any claim to being an 'error'. Orkin Mang fucked around with this message at 20:09 on Jan 22, 2013 |
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Jan 22, 2013 19:52
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Oh, hey--more people who sound like they know things about poetry! (For the love of gently caress, please stick around. It's lonely for a VerseGoon in this cold, cold world.)
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Jan 22, 2013 20:56
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boogs posted:I don't see that there is any problem. It does work on the page. The feminine endings might be standing out to some people, as Lark said, considering that the only time they occur is at the ends of lines 2,4 and 17-18. I personally don't see that this is an issue given that feminine endings are one of the oldest and most common sorts of variation in this style of verse, and that their use here is extremely modest. Whether it 'works' is really a matter of whether the variation is to the reader's taste. All I'm saying is that the variation has nothing to do with any technical error in the rhyming, and that the apparently authoritative account you gave of rhyme is wrong in almost every identifiable detail. budgieinspector posted:Oh, hey--more people who sound like they know things about poetry!
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Jan 22, 2013 21:58
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Prince of the city of wind I'll tell you how My life is 100 degrees I would like to take the time I said, "Cousin, it is in the city of wind" Born and raised in the West I spent every day at school Fresh-cut to maximize his profits. Missing people I, I'm in trouble in this area My mother was horrible, it was a bit of a struggle And then he says, "My uncle and my aunt. I'm impressed" Then he flew to the investment Year in the foot. "Fresh." And in the mirror was Russia If you want to use a taxi, do not. They only work rarely However, not all I think that the air in the hood is making me homesick In July 2008, I moved to a house I. Me We tell the taxi driver, and the house said, "I stink!" I was the last kingdom Prince of the air at my throne
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Jan 23, 2013 22:01
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Just got an acceptance notice from PiF! (They pay not a dime, but I like what they do.) EDIT: Triangle posted:Prince of the city of wind http://youtu.be/5utc5TOPNbo?t=5s Is this found poetry and/or cut-up?
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Jan 25, 2013 07:57
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I'm not a poet by any means (I have a Maths degree and almost failed English at school). But I wrote this whilst the gas man was checking our boiler this afternoon. THE GAS MAN COMETH AND TAKETH As he sucks the air in through his teeth, I sense the bad news rearing from beneath: "The safetly valve on your boiler is goosed," "and the valve in question is no longer produced." My joy for that day is now erased, As the boiler needs to be replaced. Winter has come and is full swing, and Glasgow's no place to feel the sting. Deep down I know that a solution will come, But as it's Friday no work will be done. So I put the kettle on to the boil, And consider wrapping up in aluminium foil. I see that I'm down to my last tea bag, I fear this weekend is going to drag.
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Jan 25, 2013 13:41
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budgieinspector posted:Is this found poetry and/or cut-up? will smith
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Jan 25, 2013 14:46
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DarthBlingBling posted:I'm not a poet by any means (I have a Maths degree and almost failed English at school). But I wrote this whilst the gas man was checking our boiler this afternoon. Thing is, it's the year 2013 and poetry hasn't needed to rhyme for a long time. You're allowed to make it rhyme certainly but unless you feel it's actually adding something to the poem, don't. It's really not here: you're breaking the arms of sentences to fit them into your rhyme scheme. There's not a lot more to say beyond that- the whole thing has been twisted awkwardly to fit the rhyme scheme but the rhymes aren't very good. The gas man coming when the boiler blows in winter could actually be a decent poem, just stop trying to force the POETRY for a while. Get a hang of the basics before you try the more formal aspects. Also dude, please spell check this yourself instead of running it through MS word. It's not 10,000 words you're editing, so things like "safetly valve" really shouldn't slip under the radar.
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Jan 26, 2013 03:48
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I don't really do poetry but during one of my meditations a funny man appeared, then this appeared: Old Man Xau Old man Xau he sits by the bay strumming his guitar grinning cheek to cheek. they leave him coins, handfuls sometimes five dollars once two hundred he grins and nods, a fake smile with a genuine intent waving it away, ah but they insist and though he sweeps the pile, when they turn be assured he holds it not for long. Xau spreads the currency to hidden corners in the crannies of the street under the glass lampshades beneath stairs behind bushes tucked in trees he spreads the currency back to his most beloved muse of luck and chance she would guide unwary souls to meager fortunes and sums.
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Jan 27, 2013 04:25
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Tonsured posted:
Overall, I appreciate the impulse of this poem, but I feel like it's a little bit weak-willed about stating plainly what it wants to say. I don't have enough specific detail about Xau to understand him as a character, and if this poem is not about character, then I'm not sure what to make of it. Is it about charity? Is it about the love Xau has for his "muse"? Is there some allegory that I'm missing? I should say, though, that I appreciate that you didn't overexplain everything in the poem. There's something very stripped-down and plain about the language of the poem that I appreciate. THOU Because there is a drought, my pepper plants Go without water for weeks at a time. This is, a banker might say, by design. The pained go on to torture. This is true For everything. And so when pepper plants Are left unwatered, they draw their fruit from The fire wounding the green out of their roots And the last parched gasps of leaves before they're shed. This afternoon, I drive to the studio Of my friend Bret, a painter. He shows me A new work that he calls Slow Alchemy— A sort of comic mask, a gaze willed from Spoonfuls of chocolate brown and open canvas— A face absurdly squinting from the wall With eyes like tools made sharp to strike, And no mouth but a wild, bewildered shriek. * I should say, too, that I haven't been to the poetry thread in a while and I'm glad to see that there are people taking it seriously again.
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Jan 27, 2013 23:03
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My critiques as of late have been so full of IDGI that I'm beginning to sympathize more with these people:budgieinspector posted:I know intelligent, well-educated people who, when confronted in a museum setting by art that they don't understand, shrug and say, "Someone likes this enough to put it here. They must be smarter than I am." Nevertheless, I'll try: Tonsured posted:Old Man Xau All of my notes on the above are tweaks intended to polish what I consider to be a solid idea. On the whole, I dig it. ASDFJKLM posted:THOU > I'm not getting the title's relationship to the piece Again, as with the previous poem, I think this is solid (although, as I said, I think it's two pieces), and could use a couple of minor tweaks to be as good as they can be. In my unprofessional opinion, though, I'd say it's ready to shop as-is... some editor will probably connect to it.
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Jan 28, 2013 00:27
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Thank you for your eyes, I agree it was vague in the weak sense. Xau is indeed meant to be a character piece, I envisioned him as a street performer who plays only for the sake of art. To Xau the money is comparative to writer's block, it tarnishes his process hence his behavior.In my mind, he is paying back to the universe, he's reimbursing the very same random faces that left the cash in the first place. It is only when his art is valueless that Xau is Xau. I will work on it. Tonsured fucked around with this message at 12:04 on Jan 28, 2013 |
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Jan 28, 2013 11:48
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I normally don't share my pieces online, but it would be very helpful to have a different perspective on my pieces. It should help me to improve since I am an amateur at this poetry game. I'll post this piece since it is still in the works. I plan to make a series out of it. I'm hoping to do five parts or more. --- SUMMARY It is a story about a singing ghost, a young girl that got murdered, haunting this fellow who have been struggling to sleep at night. It will escalate into something sinister. --- SOMEWHERE BEYOND Part I The curtains quietly billow around. My mind awakens me when I’m near. Must be insomnia or is there a sound? There is an indistinct voice, I hear. Somewhere beyond the window… How I wish I had known Left wanted like fool’s gold Buried without a stone A story left untold Words have been heartbrokenly sung, But I am certain there’s nothing, but air. As if it was a girl that died so young? There it is again, the tone of despair. Somewhere beyond the window… Too many of a night Afraid my soul's older Been long dead, but not quite Afraid my soul's colder Quite concerned, I fear I’m daunted Slowly, my heart starts to fill with guilt Flabbergasted, why am I being haunted? Higher as the emotions are being spilt Somewhere beyond the window… How I wish I had known Left wanted like fool’s gold Buried without a stone A story left untold Please leave me, I have already forgave But the voice seems so quaintly Can such words come from the grave? The pitch is rising, but so faintly Somewhere beyond the window… Too many of a night Afraid my soul's older Been long dead, but not quite Afraid my soul's colder The warmth of dawn filters through Reaching me as if I was able to redeem Shall I allow myself to call out to you? Only silence there as if it was a dream Somewhere beyond the window… Silent Nature fucked around with this message at 04:19 on Jan 29, 2013 |
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Jan 29, 2013 00:01
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I've recently realised it's been over a year since I've properly sat down and written poetry. Ugh, here goes. I can feel my wheels squeaking. medicine cabinet stories The words were shaken out of me. Would that those eyes were coal - then I could start a fire. My leg still hurts at night and I shake. There are pills for the shaking but not for the leg. Bless the poor, crooked boy with screwtop lovers; friends by the milligram. It's bullshit - chasing slogans and kissing embers. My ashes must be spread in a forest; until then, keep a fire burning. It's pretentious, maudlin crap but I've got to start putting stuff out there. I can't really write unless I'm bouncing raw stuff off the walls.
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Jan 30, 2013 13:45
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I feel your pain. As like for anyone else, when I'm retardedly depressed or force myself into one, I can spew some creative lines... That's a lot of enjambments in there. I've never really did much of that, but I should look into that. I really enjoyed the creativity of this part...awesome metaphors! "The words were shaken out of me. Would that those eyes were coal - then I could start a fire. My leg still hurts at night and I shake. There are pills for the shaking but not for the leg. Bless the poor, crooked boy with screwtop lovers; friends by the milligram. It's bullshit - chasing slogans and kissing embers. My ashes must be spread in a forest; until then, keep a fire burning." --- Another piece that I managed to spew my heart out on... "Excuse Me" Too softly, I cannot hear. Lips, it seems to move. Nothing comes out. Eyes, it signals me. All that it took. It’s just me. Although, This is a dream. It’s just me. Without a sound, Dreaming around. Above the ground, Away from reality. Mute button’s stuck, Your great disaster. Mute button’s stuck. Oh, oh, that’s how it is. Eerily quiet. Can you hear me? Ears, it does not work. Hollowly in and out. Hands, it vibrates me. Absorbing it in all. It’s just me. Although, This is a dream. It’s just me. Without a sound, Dreaming around. Above the ground, Away from reality. Mute button’s stuck, Your great disaster. Mute button’s stuck. Oh, oh, that’s how it is. Yeah, quite deafly... Did you hear that? Yeah, quite deafly... Did you hear that? Without a sound, Dreaming around. Above the ground, Away from reality. Mute button’s stuck, Your great disaster. Mute button’s stuck. Oh, oh, that’s how it is. Silent Nature fucked around with this message at 01:51 on Jan 31, 2013 |
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Jan 30, 2013 23:29
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First poem in quite a while. Untitled (A cough) A cough fell out of his right side, where on the left it got caught in a sleeve of steel. Meaning, of course, a Poetic Idea, a division in something, but where, or what, he wasn't sure. "Oh come on now!" she cried (having changed her pronouns.) "I've been working on that left side for weeks. It's like this: it's so much easier, the release, on the clear side -- the distinct confusion, all a muddle, on that other side, like a profound well, perhaps, or perhaps a little puddle, a filthy subsistence of turbid moisture -- oh you know what I mean!" Asking yourself then: did I but skim the surface, or, is there even any difference there from plumbing the depths? Is there pain there? Or my sense of humor gone to die -- the left side, rigid in the arm and in the shoulder, interlocked as if with empty contradiction, as if enervated by a secret source or battery embedded below the scapula.
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Feb 2, 2013 20:32
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Is it bad that I just plain old don't get the meaning of some of these? But then, I usually read prose. Here's a poem. The context- I'm a decent carpenter and a lovely Christian. Crux Commissa When I build the cross, I make sure the joinery is sound. A tenon atop the dense olivewood stipes, The mortise carefully chiseled And centered in the patibulum just so. I pin it with a planetree plug, Its pale sapwood showing my craftsmanship Against the tan and gray grain. When I build the cross, The devil is in the details- Confident beams planed with exactitude and sanded with superfine grit. Even without a satin finish, There's no chance of any splinters. I leave a live edge on the transverse for a refined, rustic look. When I set the cross, I make sure I dig below the frost line, Augering a precise hole in the earth So the beam moves but little. It ascends as a shoot, a perfect verticality From the messy dome of the hill. I emphasize the elegance of man-made Against the messiness of nature.
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Feb 5, 2013 16:34
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Stavrogin posted:Is it bad that I just plain old don't get the meaning of some of these? But then, I usually read prose. Here's a poem. The context- I'm a decent carpenter and a lovely Christian. I do like what you're doing here, just because Christ was a carpenter, so there's cool sort of parallel there with yourself. I really appreciate what you're trying to do with like "The devil is in the details," but I feel like that exact phrase is a bit of a cliche. Is there a different way to say that? Like, your own way of saying the devil is in the details. You'd still have that juxtaposition, but in your own words. That being said, I think you could reshuffle things a little, and the first stanza could be about maybe planning the cross, or something along those lines? Having two stanzas about building the cross feels a little redundant, and I think you could almost make like, a sort of narrative about this cross and the person building it. I think the final two-lines work really well. I think the idea of a cross made by man that represents God being elegant, while nature, which if the bible is to be believed is actually created by god, is messy, really says a lot about the speaker. That's the most interesting part of the poem. BUT, can you say that in the rest of the poem without actually coming right out and saying it like you do here? For example, you can use clean, elegant words to describe the cross, as you already kind of do, and put a bit more about the general messiness and dirtiness of nature in there, and really make that same point. Watch the repeated use of mess in the last three lines. Good work. I think it has potential. Zack_Gochuck fucked around with this message at 23:09 on Feb 6, 2013 |
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Feb 6, 2013 22:54
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DUI When I was nine I ate lunch in a small room with white cinderblock walls and I had time to trace a pattern on their surface a robot built from blocks or the face of a cartoon dog and I waited with submerged dread for when I would see my parents and tell them about the fight at school The room was cold and the socks they gave me were thinner than the standard issue blanket and the sleep I tried to steal in the drunk tank at 5am on a Saturday morning so I sat waiting for the phone call I would make and the fear of what waited fought against the need to get out but the white walls were the same as the ones I remember when I was a child in trouble
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Feb 7, 2013 00:57
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SurreptitiousMuffin posted:medicine cabinet stories Okay, so... we've got two motifs: drugs and fire. Good motifs. I think the drugs sections were well-worded and intriguing. I think the fire sections need more cohesion, and they don't feel anchored to the drugs idea. Would suggest entwining them somehow. Silent Nature posted:"Excuse Me" ...And this is where I stop. You're trying to write lyrics, aren't you? You have to be drat good to get away with repeating entire sections in poetry... and these sections aren't that great. Look: Start by taking out every line repetition. Then fix your punctuation. Then decide what the spine of your piece is--it seems like you want to say something about silence and/or miscommunication. Then take out all of the loving non sequiturs! Here is a list of lines that you seem to have just jammed in there to no good effect:
* It’s just me. * Although, * This is a dream. * Dreaming around. * Above the ground, * Away from reality. * Your great disaster. * Oh, oh, that’s how it is. This poo poo reflects not at all on your only obvious theme. It doesn't add; it clutters. nomadologique posted:
I have no idea what you're driving at, but you sound like you mean something. If you're playing with words for the fun of it, well, good enough. Throw it at a lit mag and see if an editor bites. But if you're trying to communicate an idea, either it needs refining or I'm not your target audience. Stavrogin posted:Crux Commissa Well, poo poo. Other than the stuff Zack pointed out, all I've got is the timeframe issue--which you can resolve by talking about either power tools or adzes and poo poo. If it is intended to be contemporary, might want to let the reader know why he's building a cross. Also, I don't know if MS Word is capitalizing the first letter of each line, or if you're doing it intentionally, but it breaks up the momentum: I make sure I dig below the frost line, (pause) Augering a precise hole in the earth (pause) So the beam moves but little. But yeah; a couple tweaks and I'd say shop it. Kadath posted:DUI I'm hesitant to jump on the run-on-iness of the two stanzas. Although personally, I'd like to see more punctuation, others might not. I just get tired of long sentences after a bit. Otherwise, I don't see why this couldn't get published. It tells a couple stories, ties them together well, and has an accessible point. Now: How many drat critiques do I have to do before some motherfucker will tell me how to improve my goddamn poem? EDIT: fixed link budgieinspector fucked around with this message at 17:32 on Feb 8, 2013 |
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Feb 8, 2013 10:11
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quote:I Wandered Lonely as a Clod This is a fun poem and I genuinely liked it, but my biggest issue is I feel like you are only using axolotls because they rhyme with bottles, and you really shouldn't let your rhyme scheme dictate the path your poem takes. Would you consider writing it with a looser rhyme scheme? You can still put some rhymes in there, because it's a fun poem and rhymes are fun, but like, not strictly with a ABABCC rhyme scheme. I feel like too many end words are dictated totally by rhyme and not because they're the best fit. It's very difficult, I sure as hell can't do it, but the words you choose for end rhymes should also be there because they say what you're trying to say in the poem better than any other word on top of rhyming. Does that make sense? I feel like I talked in circles a little. Just look at this old first year university standby. The logic of the poem dictates the rhymes and not the other way around. Here's something I wrote yesterday. I'd love some critique because I'm trying to get back into this sort of thing: Paycheque to Paycheque Grade 2 Cafeteria Order 02/07/2012 Jonathan Wilson: Chocolate Milk.....0.99 Hotdog & Fries......3.00 Total.....................3.99 Mark Clayton: Apple Juice...........1.29 Yogurt..................1.50 Total.....................2.79 Samantha Greenberg: Apple Juice...........1.29 Veggie Sticks.........3.00 Total.....................4.29 Billy Osborne: Milk......................0.99 Total.....................0.99 (NB: Billy’s parents will send payment with tomorrow’s order.) Zack_Gochuck fucked around with this message at 16:13 on Feb 8, 2013 |
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Feb 8, 2013 15:39
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budgieinspector posted:
Zack_Gochuck posted:
To my eye this is less poetry and more prose. A bit like that Hemingway baby shoes story. I have literally no idea what to crit about it, other than I think you got the year wrong and no way are veggie sticks that expensive. And if milk costs the same as chocolate milk, why the hell am I buying normal milk like some sucker? Here is something I'm working at on and off. The title I just made up, that's why it is terrible. Not really sure I'm going anywhere with it, but meh. All and Sun-dry A Serpent, cold-coiled, it twists, Unfurling, sun-hungry, and roils. Flickers of forked tongue, static hiss, And skin the sheen of beaten foil. It carves the baked earth in slices, Scimitrous curves with metalline eyes That gleam like onyx rifts in yellow vices Which even the noon-sun fails to prise. It seeks the terracotta throne, Blood calling for the warm-light. Curlicued reign atop tawny stone, It twists and bends in shadowed sleight. Jeza fucked around with this message at 18:35 on Feb 8, 2013 |
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Feb 8, 2013 16:31
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Jeza posted:To my eye this is less poetry and more prose. A bit like that Hemingway baby shoes story. I have literally no idea what to crit about it, other than I think you got the year wrong and no way are veggie sticks that expensive. And if milk costs the same as chocolate milk, why the hell am I buying normal milk like some sucker? After reading your comments, I did alter the prices. I also arranged the other kids' orders from lowest to highest with Billy's at the end so there as a sort of build. My main concern is, I mean, am I successfully telling a story through this lunch order here? Zack_Gochuck fucked around with this message at 17:16 on Feb 8, 2013 |
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Feb 8, 2013 17:14
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budgieinspector posted:Now: How many drat critiques do I have to do before some motherfucker will tell me how to improve my goddamn poem? Zack_Gochuck posted:MAD Magazine poem critique Jeza posted:MAD Magazine poem critique *checks link* I'm a loving idiot who fails at pasting things. My thing's here. And just in case I accidentally linked to MLP slash fiction, here it is: Pour Vatel, le maître des maîtres d’hôtel Le Roi-Soleil sweeps in with his retinue. Beneath the ermine, silk, and lace, there lies an appetite to be tantalized. I have the manor strewn with jonquils, their petals dust the marble floors with sunlight, then, crushed underfoot, exude this sharply-perfumed beatitude: “Blessed are they who surround themselves with splendor, for they need not wait for heaven.” C'est vrai, and I, the miracle worker. As the Christ woke putrefying Lazarus, so I resurrect the senses; as Muhammad split the moon, so I shatter the expectations of the jaded. But what divine conspiracy has hatched to topple poor Vatel? Six-and-twenty tables ringed around the banquet hall, yet only twenty-four of these have any roasts at all! For the evening’s entertainment, I promised silver scarabs, crimson poppies, azure harts and hinds, bounding through the heavens but the soaking mist that blinds us from the starlight, so douses all the fuses; paper rockets, damp and ragged as a toothless pensioner's daily rye. Each downturned eye assaults me. What Gods have I offended that my penance be this rank; as though Our Lord stepped out upon the stormy sea and promptly tripped and sank? I shall rally! Behold the ice armada, a dozen ships fashioned from an Alpine glacier, which I shall fill with the ocean's bounty! From the merest brined anchovy to swordfish à la poêle, I shall raid old Neptune's cupboard and once again Vatel will bask in well-earned honor! The fishmonger is prompt; he stands in my cold kitchen like my father, tightly clutching cap in hand. His prickly jowls quiver when I ask him for his wares. He leads me to his cart, and there, he offers two bushels of haddock, stinking in the cool spring air. He chews his lip and shrugs, "C'est tout." I could strangle him. Instead, I cross his palm with silver, and hasten to my chambers. For there, within the armoire, is the medal of my station: The sabre granted to me with the greatest approbation. With the hilt against the doorframe and disgrace around my neck, it takes three tries to get it right. Poor Vatel: d'échec en échec.
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Feb 8, 2013 17:32
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Zack_Gochuck posted:After reading your comments, I did alter the prices. I also arranged the other kids' orders from lowest to highest with Billy's at the end so there as a sort of build. My main concern is, I mean, am I successfully telling a story through this lunch order here? As long as they read the title there is no issue. The story is put across just fine. Things you could play around with would be increasing the disparity of lunch bought, so like the rest get a full meal and Billy gets nothing/water/milk. The other thing that occurred would be fiddling with the little NB at the bottom. Considering it is the most substantial info we receive in the piece, it seems quite off the cuff and innocent. It wouldn't hurt to make it more aggressive or negative, like, an administrative note that his menu is restricted until backlog of payment is received or even that he gets his lunch from mandatory coupon or its state paid or something like that. budgieinspector posted:*checks link* I guess it isn't what you want to hear but I like this a lot how it is. The rhyme scheme is a little footloose but it doesn't really detract.
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Feb 8, 2013 18:18
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NOT A DEFENSE, JUST A REPLY TO INTERESTING POINTS:quote:- Worker sounds a bit utilitarian. Bist du Französisch? Asking because of nuance and phrasing. The "worker" in "miracle worker" doesn't really scan as "laborer" (unless you're going to the extreme synaptic level of cognitive linguistics); "to work", when paired with miracles, means to perform a miracle or cause a miracle to come into being. Jesus is commonly referred to as a miracle worker, as are (in the secular sense of "causing something previously deemed impossible to occur") Anne Sullivan, Montgomery Scott, and various successful doctors, engineers, and sundry professionals. Besides "relative position or standing", "rank" has another meaning: "foul". This is most often used in describing an overwhelming odor. quote:Is a sabre really the mark of his station as the maitre d'? Not his station as "the maître d'", but his station as "The Maître d'". There really isn't a definitive account of François Vatel's life. All sources seem to agree about his profession, and all assert that he was excellent at his job. One source asserts that his employer, the Prince de Condé, was so pleased with Vatel's work that he was "given the right to carry a sword, which was an honour in those days". Am I educated enough in 17th-Century French law to know whether there really were restrictions on commoners walking around with blades? Nope. But I liked the idea, especially in relation to how the story ends. quote:I can't actually picture how he is killing himself properly. Hmm. Well, a contemporary account has it that he braced his sword against his door and threw himself at it. Only, the first two times, he missed skewering his heart, so he had to stab himself three times... which I thought was darkly in keeping with the way his last week had gone. How to convey this differently, though? quote:Instead of for Vatel, maybe 'Pauvre' or something like that. Sets the tone a little clearer. There are a couple of reasons why I went with "Pour Vatel":
* I don't actually pity Vatel. He had an incredible streak of good fortune, then tossed it all away in a manic snit about "honor" after a bad couple of days at work. As far as I know, there isn't any reliable account of what his peers and employees thought of him, but I imagine that that kind of perfectionism would make him insufferable. Writing in the first person forced me to try and think my way into that sort of personality, and to rationalize his actions. What I decided to go with was "narcissism in conflict with self-pity and a vague paranoia that the Fates were conspiring to lay him low". So he might have considered himself "pauvre Vatel", but I decided to deny him the use of the title to plead his case with the reader. quote:The rhyme scheme is a little footloose Thanks for commenting on this. I went back and forth on whether this was a poem about a perfectionist, and should be written with a strict meter and rhyme scheme, or a poem about a man unraveling. Picking the latter, I thought that flitting back and forth between rhyming and not might get some of that confusion across. My major concern was whether readers would respond well to a loose rhyme, or whether it would just be annoying.
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Feb 9, 2013 01:12
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budgieinspector posted:Bist du Französisch? Asking because of nuance and phrasing. Looking back on what I wrote, I did use some really odd turns of phrase, but I am not French. I used to speak French to a mostly fluent level though if that is any consolation. I understand the connotations of both things. I suppose you could say I was bringing cognitive linguistics into things (though having never studied any linguistics, I wouldn't have known what to call it), but miracle worker just seems quite crude to me. It is a common, everyday sort of cliché. Going purely from the picture that you paint of Vatel, I just felt like it wasn't an appropriate term of self-reference. As you point out, rank is almost always used in regards to foul odour. It is used in a way I would never put in a sentence, that is why I picked up on it. (Also scanning over it again, you refer to 'the Christ', which sounds a bit funny with definite article attached.) budgieinspector posted:
Well, you could always be more direct about it and just deadpan what he is doing. What really threw me off was the line 'disgrace about my neck', because it instantly brought hanging to the forefront of my mind and muddied the waters.
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Feb 9, 2013 04:00
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budgieinspector posted:Pour Vatel, le maître des maîtres d’hôtel It's too bad you had to beg people to give you a critique because this is the best poem in the thread so far. It reminds me of a collection of Browning's poems in that it's a tale of obsession told from the perspective of the madman. Your use of rhyme also faintly recalls Browning (though Browning, at least in the poems I'm thinking of, the name of the volume of which I've forgotten, managed to write these poems in rhyming iambic pentameter couplets without ever allowing the poem to devolve into metronomic whimsy; 'My Last Duchess' is a great example, and the form is just about impossible to pull off). Your character is less deranged, though, I suppose as a consequence of historical fidelity--a proud master committing suicide after a string of humiliating failures is notably less mad than, say, the Browning character who murdered a woman in her house and then recounted to her, as if she were still alive, the vision of his own divinity he received as he strangled her. Though your character does compare himself with Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead and Muhammad splitting the moon, he doesn't quite go so far as to actually identify himself as a god. I'm not quite sure that the form of the poem is working in the way you intend it to. You mentioned that you wanted there to be an established form that would gradually deteriorate in parallel with the growing failure of Vatel's entertainments, and that, rather than electing to establish a recognisable metre, you chose to insert rhymes at varying stages, the rhymes being the order amidst the relative disorder (or, if you prefer, freedom) of the rest of the poem. My problem is that, though you rhyme well (the 'exude' and 'beatitude' couplet is very nice), the rhymes are too infrequent, too variously structured and too randomly scattered to suggest any palpable deterioration from order to disorder; the effect it had on me was pretty much the opposite, actually, that is, a general lack of structure occasionally punctuated by baffling instances of order. To overcome this you could either rewrite the entire poem in a complex metre, which would be extremely difficult at this stage, and vary the metre according to the established pattern for the desired mimetic effect; if you were to do this, and I don't expect you to, then alexandrines would be a good choice, given that the poem is about a Frenchman. Otherwise, I'd rhyme more frequently and in more predictable positions, and as the poem proceeds perhaps allow these rhymes to deteriorate. For example, start with your first rhyme in a clean iambic pentameter couplet, then in the next instance keep the full rhyme but miss a beat, then in the next only use half rhymes--that sort of thing. This section quote:But what divine conspiracy is problematic to me for a few reasons. In a poem where the intention is to formally reflect descent into madness, the first four lines of the stanza are made up of two lines of pretty much unavoidable iambic tetrameter followed immediately by a rhyming couplet, which, far from suggesting confusion and panic, suggests an inappropriate excess of order. The rhetorical question about providence put in such an instantly recognisable English metre, followed by an archaic and by now pretty silly syntactical transformation ('Six-and-twenty') at the beginning of a jaunty rhyming couplet, makes the whole of Vatel's situation come across as less an occasion for suicide as an obstacle to be overcome by a Dr. Seuss character. The whole four lines are just too whimsical to work. You could pretty well cut these entirely and lose nothing of importance (you mention cruel providence later, anyway, with 'what Gods have I offended'). You could almost certainly distill this section into about one line about a lack of roasts. The joke about Jesus is a pretty good one, though I have a suggestion. quote:What Gods have I offended First, though, I like the line 'that my penance be this rank'. I picked up on the 'rank' (status) and 'rank' (putrid stink) double meaning, which is pleasing in its own right but also links nicely back to his reference to Lazarus, though now it's Vatel who's the rickety corpse of Lazarus rather than Jesus, a rotting thing in need of miraculous saving rather than the saviour himself. My only suggestion is that the final line ('and promptly tripped and sank') be dramatically shortened to give the enjambment a more dramatic rejet, which disrupts expectations (as a good punchline out to) as well as being a rending of form mimetic of Vatel's descent into suicidal, almost comical, hysteria. It would work especially well given that the preceding line, as a neat little iambic tetrameter, establishes a clear rhythm all the more suited for the breaking. So I would write it as: quote:What Gods have I offended or, for an even rougher, more sudden shift, have a feminine ending and then a single-word rejet: quote:stepped out upon the stormy sea and I actually prefer the latter because, while in the first option the transition is rough because of the short rejet, the enjambment occurs in a grammatically relatively non-disruptive position (at a non-obligatory intonational break, fairly common in almost all complex verse). More interesting would be to place the enjambment between the verb and its clitic (and | sank), creating a more sudden and awkward jolt away from the established metre (due to inducing a pause where a pause would not intuitively ever occur), a sort of double rhythmic stagger or hesitation suggesting a catastrophic failure of expectations. I'd also lengthen the 'as though Our Lord' line to give it the same metre as the next one, just to establish the rhythm a bit more (maybe 'as though Our Lord and Saviour' or something to that effect; mentioning that Jesus is the saviour here might also be taken to be a further clarification of the earlier admittance on Vatel's part that he is not at all the Saviour himself, but a Lazarus). Another suggestion is in the next line: quote:I shall rally! You've already established that Vatel occasionally refers to himself in the third person ('What divine conspiracy... poor Vatel'). At least when I'm under a lot of stress and my mind's becoming watery with anxiety, I tend to talk to myself in the third-person ('Come on, boogs, chill out and get it done, you antsy gently caress'). Since that's pretty much what Vatel is doing here, I'd suggest that the line become 'Rally, Vatel!' The rhythm is better too: it's a sharp two beat iambic line with an initial punchy reversal. This makes its rejet more emphatic, as well as halting the rhythm with a sudden violation of the iambic pattern ('and sank' is iambic, 'sank' is obviously not) that follows upon an enjambment that occurs at a very harsh grammatical juncture. I also have a suggestion for this section: quote:He leads me to his cart, and there, Vatel is hoping to dazzle his guests with a banquet of the finest and most varied seafood, and all he gets is haddock from a man that looks like his dad. It's not entirely obvious, though, that haddock is an inferior substitute for what he was expecting--even though in the next line you refer to it as stinking, so it does eventually become clear. I think, though, that if you transform the line a bit you can get an emphasis on haddock that both informs the reader that it is the haddock itself that infuriates Vatel as well as creates a sudden rhythmic jolt that reflects Vatel's own furious shock. The rhythm is also rougher due to more obligatory intonational breaks and a more awkward enjambment on 'stinking'. So maybe: quote:'He leads me to his cart, and there I like the final rhyme: quote:For there, within the armoire, It's entirely appropriate, reflecting in the order of the rhymes his resolve to suicide. As for the ending, I don't think you should end a poem in English with a French phrase. I don't know French and you can guarantee that most English speakers won't know French; having the title in French is questionable enough (I'd simplify the title to 'Pour Vatel', which works in French and English due to 'pour' and 'poor' being near-homophonous). That he's a sort of master of ceremonies of the house becomes abundantly clear almost immediately, so nothing much would be lost in the simplification, though there would be arguably a gain in clarity for the English-speaking reader. Also, Vatel's death is maybe just a little too perfunctory; an extra line reflecting the condign absurdity of his not even being able to commit suicide properly the first time (or even the second time) might be called for. If you made his suicide this bit more interesting and put the final line in the same language as the rest of the poem, then it would end much more effectively. Incidentally, I agree with Jeza about the definite article on 'Christ'. It sounds strange and adds nothing to the line. quote:Paycheque to Paycheque This isn't a poem. It's barely even prose. Orkin Mang fucked around with this message at 09:19 on Feb 9, 2013 |
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Feb 9, 2013 04:09
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Re: Billy's milk - I've just read a book about poverty in Victorian England and milk is one of the few luxuries that the empoverished family is able to provide to their children. What I'm saying is I'm accutely aware of milk being a luxury item (more so than apple juice), so if you want to get the message of him being poor across maybe pick another drink? Also P.S. Does anyone know of a good primer text for begginer poets? I'm immersing myself in poetry and I'm going to start to submit some pieces for criticsm. It would be cool to be able to bypass some obvious errors if I had a book of essential concepts and terms of poetry available.
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Feb 9, 2013 05:29
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| # ? Apr 25, 2024 21:51 |
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YES! Thanks for taking the time! Quick clarification, though: It wasn't my intent to loosen the rhyme from a stolid, metrical beginning, portraying a descent into madness. To me, at least, Vatel's already on the downward slope when the piece begins. His thoughts are in disarray from the stress of preparing for the king's visit--his tremendous-but-precariously-balanced ego tips all the way over the minute the king arrives. The most important day of his life, aaaaand... go! But if that didn't come across, then that's something else to work on. Here's a question: Do you think that the meter/rhyme oddness could work if I broke the stanzas around the different schemes? For example (without rewriting): I promised silver scarabs, crimson poppies, azure harts and hinds bounding through the heavens, but the soaking mist that blinds us from the starlight, so douses all the fuses; paper rockets, damp and ragged as a toothless pensioner's daily rye. Each downturned eye assaults me. What Gods have I offended that my penance be this rank; as though Our Lord stepped out upon the stormy sea and promptly tripped and sank? ...Does that improve the read, or is it obnoxious? (Not trying to make this the ALL ABOUT MEEEEE thread; it's just that I haven't been able to get any sort of concrete feedback from three consecutive poetry instructors, and I've been going a little bugshit from trying to figure out where and how the work needs to be done.) EDIT: Tactical Grace posted:Does anyone know of a good primer text for begginer poets? I'm immersing myself in poetry and I'm going to start to submit some pieces for criticsm. It would be cool to be able to bypass some obvious errors if I had a book of essential concepts and terms of poetry available. Whatever you do, do not--I repeat, do NOT--pick up Mary Oliver's Poetry Handbook. That loving thing is so chock-full of her own arbitrary value system that it's like having an elderly woodlands lesbian perched on your shoulder, waiting to throttle you if you stray from her path. I've heard Ted Kooser's Poetry Home Repair Manual is good, but I haven't read it.
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Feb 9, 2013 06:13
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