For poets who want unrestricted constructive criticism. This is NOT a vanity workshop. If you do not want your poem seriously critiqued, do not post here. Constructive criticism only. PLEASE Only Post One Poem a Day!!!
9/11/2017 4:13:07 PM
Jack Webster
Posts: 255
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you use figurative language, metaphor and simile as an integral part of expressing the musing, so it is a poem. The rhyme scheme is very strong because the syllable count of the lines is very short, so the rhymes are especially noticeable that close together, so the very regular rhythm of the rhyme scheme creates a very musical/ lullabye sound. Also, your phrasing is very well matched with the line breaks, so the rhythm of the phrasing is heightened by the line breaks and this also adds to the musical quality. It could be put to music, but that doesnt negate the poetic use of figurative language.
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9/12/2017 12:47:54 AM
Darren White
Posts: 31
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I agree with Jack Webster. I only want to add that parts of what you write are 'telling'. You could cut a few stanzas here and there and STILL your message is a good one. This means there are too many words here and there. As an example to make it less abstract: what would happen if you left out this stanza? "Perfectly played
you’ve planted the guilt
how dare we believe
what we think we have felt" Try it out 
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9/12/2017 3:47:31 PM
Judith S
Posts: 3
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Jack Webster & Darren White ... Thank you for taking the time to read my work and for the awesome encouragement and excellent suggestion. I have no training in writing poetry other than my grandmother teaching me to rhyme and count syllables at a young age. This is the first I submit here. This type of rhyming flows easily out of me and I do find that I can get very wordy. Sometimes short lines ... sometimes longer, but I tend to start with the intent of making it short yet ending up with a long piece. I'm also a huge lover of music and believe that much of what I write can lend itself nicely to lyrics. So thank you for THAT encouragement as well. Judy
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9/12/2017 7:13:49 PM
Jack Webster
Posts: 255
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That's so beautiful that your grandmother passed on poetry to you, Judy! What a rare gift!
It sounds to me like what you're describing is your inner ear feels the rhythm and meter, and your words come out intuitively. There is no doubt in my mind this is the fruit of the work you did with your grandmother scanning poems for syllables and rhymes.
The short syllable counts were perfectly fine for the piece. The piece was expressing fruatration, agitation, a state of high energy. I think your inner ear naturally felt the tension of the short phrases.
With your highly developed inner ear, you might very well enjoy Mary Oliver. She doesn't use regular meter and end rhyme, but her poems are wraught from a highly refined awareness of prosody, repitition of rhythms, artful line break, instress, etc... She's highly accomplished, and the prosody of her poems is exceptionally lush and rich. Both reading her poems for leisure, or scanning them is always a joy. If you're not already a fan of hers, you might look her up. Her book "Dog songs" is a spiritual experience.
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9/12/2017 7:17:48 PM
Jack Webster
Posts: 255
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Also! Remember the term Lyric Poetry exists because this form originated from the old greek lyric poets that performed their poems to music!
It seems more and more modern lyric poetry seeks to eschew its musical heritage, but this is its birthright. It is in its blood.
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9/12/2017 10:55:21 PM
Jack Webster
Posts: 255
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I've read many poems that are descriptive that succeed in altering my emotional, spiritual, or intellectual relationship/ awareness of reality. The poet is in a constant state of inner dialogue with reality/ the perception of reality, and the poem is a vessel to capture/ pass on a moment of awareness, direct experience of reality at a human level (at whichever level it occurred).
there are many emotional "poems" that do not add to the perception of the human experience. One might be tempted to say there are poems and then there is Poetry.
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9/14/2017 9:40:29 PM
Jack Webster
Posts: 255
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Oh, gosh. I wasn't comparing your examples. I don't know who Henley & Frey are. I know Poe & Ginsberg.
I find your desire to quantify the value of Poetry through attendance and how much people pay for their seats disheartening.
I remember sitting in on a university lecture that a friend was attending and the guest speaker was a scholar of Shakespeare. His findings were that had Shakespeare been left to his own devices, no one would have heard of him beyond his own generation because he was completely without ambition. Had it not been due to the diligent propagation of his work by an ambitious and opportunistic publicist/ promoter, neither you or I would have ever known Shakespeare ever existed.
Similarly if Emily Dickinson's friends had not collated, edited, and promoted her works after her death, she may have passed entirely into obscurity.
Choose any famous poet and say "what if..." and they disappear from history.
Many of the mentors of very well known poets are entirely obscure except for the diligent academic and scholar. Popular poets are simply the shining peak of a mountain as the sun passes by into darkness.
Poetry exists as an abstract entity. You can attempt to quantify its excellence in units of empty chairs vs. empty wallets, and there would be a margin of truth to it, but to say that is the entire sum of Poetry renders it a whore.
edited by superlativedeleted on 9/14/2017
edited by superlativedeleted on 9/14/2017
edited by superlativedeleted on 9/14/2017
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9/15/2017 10:07:38 AM
Bob Atkinson
Posts: 294
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Good discussion Jack. Find it odd you're unaware of Henley and Frey, two of the most popular poets of our time.
Google: poetry critic
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9/15/2017 2:00:17 PM
Jack Webster
Posts: 255
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The expanse of poets is an ocean; I'm just a salmon swimming out to sea, most familiar with the little nexus of streams I was born in.
My personal thiasus of poets are mainly corpses, their spirits living on in white sheets
of paper,
(My, how they still sing and dance!)
I prefer poetry that has a discernable or audible meter/ prosodic attentiveness, even if its free meter. A deliberate use of sound. I don't find this quality frequently in modern or contemporary works. A nylon tent suffices to keep out the wind and rain, and is useful when traveling light, but living in one would not be palatable.
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