Tal's poems

[Taluria]

Any feedback? I need constructive criticism as well... I'm pretty new to writing poetry...

[Taluria]

I put up some new stuff... What do ya think?

[Scavy]

Wow. Those were quite original I'll give you that. But they were on the depressing side. Still, excellent.

[Taluria]

Yeah, I was thinkikng back to a bad time in my life a few years ago... What's art without angst... :D

[Scavy]

You do have a point.

[Cavatica]

I'd kind of like to know what's up with all the rhyming. You do it in all your poems. I mean, rhyming's cool and all, if you're using it as a device to specifically evoke a mood or image, but rhyming for rhyming's sake -- particularly in couplets or iambic pentameter (or iambs of any kind, really) -- can make poetry sound very cliche and simplistic, which severely detracts from its substance.

[Taluria]

*shrugs*
I usually think in terms of songs when I write most of my poems are supposed to end up as songs eventually...

Also, like I said, I'm not very experienced with poetry writing... I'm mainly working on a book right now...

[Scavy]

Really? I hope you put it in the fiction center, I would like to read it. what's it about?

[Taluria]

It is mainly about the effects of genetic experimentation on a group of teenagers. I love the first part... it's like someone is pulling up their files... and yes, I've actually done... dun, dun, dunnnn... research!

[Cavatica]

*shrugs*
I usually think in terms of songs when I write most of my poems are supposed to end up as songs eventually...

Also, like I said, I'm not very experienced with poetry writing... Okay, well, you asked for the criticism, so there it is. Just trying to help out. These last few years in college, I learned buttloads about the technical aspects of writing poetry, and the knowledge definitely paid off-- managed to get myself a couple of awards (one of them with cash)! And I'm happy to pass on what I've learned, or just talk shop, or whatever.

But you can't improve if you stay in your comfort zone. Take risks! What would happen if you wrote in blank verse, or free verse, or sonnets or sestinas (how I hate you, sestina)?

[Madrigal]

But you can't improve if you stay in your comfort zone. Take risks! What would happen if you wrote in blank verse, or free verse, or sonnets or sestinas (how I hate you, sestina)?

What she said.

The type of poem itself can immediately impart a feeling to a piece--whether for good or for bad. For instance, if something's supposed to be singsongy and rhythmic, rhyming is great. But if it's a raw, bloody poem about murder, it's most likely going to detract. (Of course, the very contrast can prove effective... but only in the hands of someone who knows exactly what to do.)

Just about everyone starts out rhyming, though. The poems aren't bad. Don't worry. Just keep writing, go back over your work and rewrite every so often, and you'll get better.

[Cavatica]

Just keep writing, go back over your work and rewrite every so often, and you'll get better.That can be the hardest part, but it's what I learned from the most.

In 2003 (god, was it that long ago?), we had a long-term assignment in my Creative Writing: Poetry course (for you Southern poetry readers out there, my professor was Dr. Janice Moore Fuller, who has a lovely chapbook out called Sex Education) that was specifically designed to cultivate that ability to more or less objectively view your own work-- which is HARD with poetry. Hard with anything creative, really. You want to cherish every word, and keep it just as it is, because those are YOUR words, and "I put them that way for a reason." And that's valid. But sometimes you've got to ask yourself if your reasons were actually good ones. ;>

First, we had to freewrite (i.e., put pen to paper and start writing without thinking, without stopping, for X number of minutes -- usually as many as ten or as few as three) a poem. Then we had to take it home and revise it. Like, work on line breaks, take out unnecessary words, shorten it, chop it down, make it aerodynamic. And it was ROUGH. And when we were done? We had to revise it AGAIN.

Here's what I started with:

30,000 feet and steady, about to descend,
Skimming cauliflower cumulus,
Not-thinking,
Hearing the sounds of myself,
Hearing laughter in the nothing.
Recycled air and warm sun,
Streaming pillars of rainbows,
Casting gold on the graying whiteness, and
Throwing fire on the muted mountains below.
Infinity on ice.

Second draft:

30,000 feet and steady:
Skimming cauliflower cumulus,
not-thinking,
hearing the sounds of myself,
hearing laughter in the nothing.
Recycled air and warm sun;
tenuous pillars of rainbows gush from
gold cast on the graying whiteness,
throwing fire on the muted mountains below.
Infinity on ice.

Third and final draft:

Aloft and steady, ready to descend,
Caressing cauliflower cumulus,
Reflecting, hearing the sounds of myself,
Perceiving laughter in oblivion.
Peripherally, clarion sun through
Ephemeral, ethereal rainbows
Illumines gold on the graying whiteness,
And throws fire on mountains far below.

And I think now, having gone without looking at it for about three years, I'd chop it up even more, putting more emphasis on particular sounds and using more active verbs:

Aloft and steady, ready
to descend,
caressing cauliflower cumulus--

I hear only sounds
of myself,
perceive the laughter
of oblivion.

In periphery, clarion sun through rainbows
illumines gold on the graying whiteness:
mountains aflame,
infinity on ice.

...or something to that effect. It's really a very shitty poem to start with, so. ;> But that's how you learn. And it's really really really REALLY hard to learn how to sit down and go, "Well, gosh, how does the word 'and' in this line affect the mood of this stanza, and would I be better off without it?" But little things like that do matter, and the only way to learn how and why is to stop thinking of poetry as nursery rhymes or Shakespearean sonnets and start thinking of it as something infinitely, and necessarily, mutable.

[Anareth]

You know what happens when you write sestinas in English? You end up ripping out your hair because this language doesn't have enough words that rhyme for it. Apparently it works a lot better in Italian.

It's...cute. I mean, poetry about the Willet? And I have nothing against rhyme. It's just...well, my reaction to pretty much all the poetry here. And? (Bearing in mind I haven't written poetry since college, and what I did write was very tight, short-line free verse intended to be very, very visual. I wonder what ever became of whassername, though. Girl in my class--her poems were like...Fannie Flagg ("Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whiste Stop Cafe") books, condensed to about fifteen lines, only from her own life. She was good. Wish I could remember her name, and not just her face.)

[Taluria]

Well, thank you everyone, and I will take all suggestions to heart and work on it...