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9/10/2019 2:38:44 PM
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High critique please and a thank you
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A delicately spooky vibe, but it’s missing something to deepen it. I want to say clarity - my mind was to busy trying to understand what was being presented to lose myself in the potential horror.
The goal of the piece seems to be to evoke horror by using both the unknown and the effect on/ reaction of the watchers. I think this is still a good direction to explore artistically, so will need to examine more closely what else might need work.
Reiterating the term “the watchers” and “the Watcher” so frequently I think might be an artistic mistake. ‘Might’ being the important word in that sentence. In some works frequent repetition can deepen it; I believe there is a little spoken of genre of poetry called trance poetry that relies on certain techniques to induce light trance-like states, and I believe frequent repetition is one of the techniques employed. (You’ll be happy to know Poe’s poem Annabel Lee is considered a trance poem, if it is read with the appropriate tone and cadence). However, in this instance, I think the repetition flattens the poem rather than deepens it; perhaps not so much because of the repetition itself but because it is a repetition of something uncertain that the mind continues to stay active trying to figure out. Keeping the mind stuck on a question keeps it alert and agitated rather than letting it sink into a pleasent familiar certainty.
I would change ‘the Watcher’ to ‘I’; make the poem first person. In this instance this is to use the first person perspective as a vehicle for the reader to live within the work vicariously. The ‘I’ becomes the reader’s avatar.
I would make the title of the poem ‘The Watchers’, and use the phrase perhaps more sparingly in the poem, and only after the watchers have been described. Giving us a description of the watchers settles the mind a bit, gets it to stop asking questions whenever you say ‘the watchers’; we can picture it. I would suggest people from very different walks of life, nothing in common except the fact they are all watching the well. Giving them individualities that are so different, but contrasting it with the unifying act of watching the well creates a tension and keeps the focus on the well, because then the mind begins to wonder, what is it about the well that has brought all of these people that shouldn’t be together together. It begins to give the well its character. It deepens the strangeness of the situation. Also, the diversity of people will also contrast with the plainness of the well. This is an indirect characterization of the well - it’s power to effect so many different people (which attests to the idea the reader isn’t safe either)
The well must be treated as it’s own character. In addition to the indirect characterization by adding detail to the watchers, I don’t think it would hurt to be very descriptive of just how plain the well is. Describing it in detail will allow the reader to authentically feel it is a plain well themselves. It is not necessarily wrong to say simply it is a plain well, but follow it up with a stanza describing the well. The narrator is the protagonist and the well is the antagonist in the story. The well merits a bit of drama, even in its plainness.
The description of looking into the well and the smell I think is good as is, though it’s not entirely clear if it is simply gross at the bottom or exerting a supernatural force. The unknown is most powerful here, and that is good, but if it is plain horror rather than supernatural power, this needs to be tidied up a bit, maybe.
Your ear for the sound of your lines is good. The meter is written instinctually rather than by craft. When you become more familiar with crafted meter, and gain skill in scansion you’ll be better able to examine the meter deliberately for yourself. In the meantime, a good trick is to read your work aloud, noticing wherever doesn’t flow smoothly, or trips the tongue, etc...
Would be fun to see the next draft of this!
edited by superlativedeleted on 9/10/2019
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9/12/2019 7:42:22 PM
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High critique please and a thank you
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Sure thing. All of my feedback is just for exploration and consideration. Author gets final say.
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9/13/2019 2:14:20 PM
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HIGH CRITIQUE PLEASE! RUTHLESS FEEDBACK ONLY
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Please allow me to put on my black galoshes, banana-yellow rain coat, hat, and open my clear vinyl umbrella, just in case I end up in the splash zone of this delicately-phrased stormy evening.
Lots of different suggestions; difficult to organize them, as some are made irrelevant by others.
Your use of sound seems very deliberate. You seem to either using syllabic verse, or iambic tetrameter with some acrobatic substitutions. There are a few lines that have 9 syllables rather than 8. Also, please note, lightning and lightening are not the same word; once you correct the spelling you will be a syllable short in that line.
You also seem to have an instinct for moraic meter, at least in terms of artistic timing in your phrasing. You might wish to study it deliberately, though it is not commonly adopted in English poetry; though a lovely tool to have at one’s disposal.
You also have an ear for quality of vowels and consonants. Much of your word choice in this work focus on tension, sometimes even at the expense of literal accuracy. For instance the first line:
My eyes touch your lips and whisper-
look
Now, literally, the eyes are not touching the lips, nor do they have the power to whisper. (Ignoring meter or syllable count) it might have been more accurate to say:
My gaze rests on your lips, and I whisper -
look...
But of course all the tension has gone out of the line. In this field of composition ‘eyes’ is a very tense word; there are no words around it to soften its intensity, other than the word ‘my’ (can you imagine the line: eyes touch your lips...? off the charts intense). the throat starts in an open position and gets tightened down like a screw as it glides through the diphthong all the way to the buzzing ‘z’, throat stretched, mouth closed. In fact you ramp up its intensity with the word ‘touch’.
We go from a very electric coiling up with the word ‘eyes’ to the (ex)plosive release with the ‘t’, and we end with the very intense ‘ch’ that mirrors the fricative quality of the ‘z’ in eyes.
There is a lot of hunger in the t, something bold, unapologetic, something compressed that can’t wait to be released in the word ‘touch’.
‘Your lips’ is the first softening of the line. The ‘i’ in lips is such a fragile sound compared the beginning of the line, it sounds almost trembling. A very short, precise sound. The word ‘mouth’ is a tote bag compared to the word lips, and doesn’t offer room for ambiguity. Lips of course is the better choice.
You repeat the ‘i’ with the word ‘whisper’ which heightens this vowel, this quality of trembling tension.
The ‘L’ in ‘look’ picks up the consonance with ‘lips’. There are no random ‘L’s in the line to water down the association between ‘look’ and ‘lips’. The vowel is deep in the throat, not a petty or casual vowel, and the ‘k’, like the ‘t’, releases the energy, though this time into the pregnant pause.
Sonically, it’s a very functional phrase that conveys the hunger and craving of the persona.
However, in terms of writing, it might be worth asking, is it saying something new, or retelling something in a fresh way, or are lines like this fundamental to hunger? Letting hunger write itself in the first draft is fine, but hunger tends to write itself in predictable ways, often one-dimensional. Hunger is a very familiar note. Is there a different way to approach it that gives the reader the sense the persona has had experience similar to their own but from an elevated perspective, one that also lifts the reader into a more meaningful awareness of their own experience: “oh, I never saw it this way before”?
So the author must decide whether to sacrifice literal accuracy for tension, or try to find a way to sacrifice neither.
The tension is fairly consistent throughout all four stanzas.
Very conflicted about stanza three. Rain and window panes just feels like a crutch, though it seems to be applied in an audaciously, and amusingly novel way. Line eleven’s lightning tickling to the core is good, and line twelve is good. I would brain storm other ways to phrase line ten.
Though, I will say ‘a sudden burst of rain hits the...’ is really well executed meter in terms of capturing the forcefulness of the release; the trochee is perfectly timed. the “chord progression” of vowels in ‘su..’ ‘bur...’ ‘rai...’ is especially excellent as the throat can physically feel the swelling and tightening before the rain hits.
But, perhaps there is something else they could hit? Some blushing lilies in the garden, dry wash (undergarments?) hanging outside, swollen apples in the trees beginning to lose their green, the roof of a car someone drove home from college, the vinyl top of a tent surrounded by miles of fir trees with as many secrets as needles, etc... really brainstorm. Don’t waste the opportunity to deepen the metaphor on window panes; you can say a lot by carefully choosing what the rain is hitting. The rain and window pane cliche is, of course, sadness, so unless you’re invoking the cliche but simply in a new mode, I would choose a different object.
The clock thud didn’t work for me. I wasn’t sure how to place the meaning or the sound into the meaning of the poem in a significant way.
The polaroid angle of the poem I liked because it was unexpected. Though the last line of the poem seems morally ambiguous - is it setting up blackmail, is it just to enjoy later? The polaroids add a really intriguing element of uncertainty, a lack of safety, the risk of being discovered, will trust be betrayed, etc... I have mixed feelings about it, because it makes it engaging to wonder, but the thought the polaroids might lead to some undesirable end or power play makes the persona suddenly unlikeable, or too human - though not necessarily in a way that’s bad writing, so not sure what to say here other than simply reflect back my impression.
There is a strong overtone of power in the persona’s desire throughout the poem. The persona is confident, very experienced in the waters that the partner is being lead into, waters that might cover his/her head. There is a quiet element of danger, unequal-ness. Which is perhaps why the Polaroid thing skews as a set up for a potential power play: you can’t deny it, I won’t let you, etc...
There is not much romance in the persona. At no point in the poem did I feel the partner was cherished or that love was involved. There was lots of passion, but it felt performed with a kind of smugness or braggadocio. Almost a “see, I was right” quality. The poem doesn’t feel it is about the partner or witnessing a sudden discovery of freedom; it is focused entirely on the persona’s ambitions for the partner.
The quality of the persona has entertainment value, and the honest humanness of the persona is much preferable to something sanitized and unreal. However the way the moment is expressed doesn’t allow me as the reader to share in the freedom or finding of self that the partner may be experiencing.
All we know of the partner is that it is reticent and needs polaroids as forceful/ undeniable reminders of who it is.
The poem doesn’t characterize the partner clearly. The participation seems willing but ambivalent.
The real poetry is entirely in the partner. Why it is hesitant, has mixed feelings, what it’s dealing with in its life that has obstructed its souls freedom, what is it inside that impels it to go out on a limb anyway, the all important potentially life-ruining trust the partner gifts the person they are letting in, the angst is confronting a mirror of oneself in the polaroids. All of these things are deeply human moments that reach far more deeply into poetry than whatever the rain is hitting. One is poetic craft, the other is Poetry.
The passion doesn’t lie in storm; the passion is the drought, and what has blossomed.
Good luck. Would be fun to see draft two.
edited by superlativedeleted on 9/13/2019
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9/13/2019 3:52:22 PM
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Better With Time
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Better is a subjective term.
Sex simply loses its shine; and love is what keeps you alive.
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9/13/2019 3:52:25 PM
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Better With Time
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Better is a subjective term.
Sex simply loses its shine; and love is what keeps you alive.
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9/15/2019 3:38:36 PM
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Critique please
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In terms of poetry it’s like a lemon flavored candy drop/ throat lozenge, fun, super sweet, designed to get the reader through a brief moment. It stays on the one-dimensional plane of affirmation, rather than diving into the three-dimensional depth of the human experience. Likeable, yet impersonal.
It is perfectly what it is intended to be. There is no reason to believe it’ll be poorly received or not communicate the thought that is plainly stated within it. Other than the need for linebreaks there is really no need to edit it further, unless the author was hoping it to be a different kind of poetry.
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9/19/2019 12:50:58 PM
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Missing You- Need Critique
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“I want to bloom like cotton” is one of the best phrases I’ve ever read on Poetry Soup. It is perfect for a love poem. The sharp, dried husk breaking open and all the soft, white, cloud of cotton “blooming” out of the hardened shell. It is an absolutely brilliant phrase, and you MUST keep it. It is real poetry; something authentic that show original experience with the sensation.
Drunk on your eyes, eyes like jewels are cliches. Maybe try to find more original ideas.
Perhaps rewrite the poem from the perspective of the cotton plant as it falls in love with the light, the rain, the soil, and finally its heart breaks open and all the cotton comes out.
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10/1/2019 4:28:17 PM
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Cherokee Man
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the rhymes between race, erase, raised are brilliant given the context of the theme. the word play between man and woman doesn't quite work for me as it comes across as more like a pun, but I'm assuming it was done this way to emphasize inclusion.
(as an aside, if you order them as erase, race, raised, saying them in that order, one can feel a palpable tension grow, first the shortening from two syllables to one, then the mouth lingering on the very harsh 'z' sound in raised. The transition between all three is like a narrowing of the eyes.)
i think the entire poem is too rushed. it would be nice to see it fully fleshed out.
i would make the first five lines one stanza and make a line break.
After line five the poem's clarity begins to break down; the combination of omitting punctuation and choosing not to use complete sentences makes it very difficult to know where one phrase is beginning and ending. Though, it seems that in many cases this may be intentional as changing the association between a particular line and the line preceding or succeeding it changes the meaning of the phrase with either being equally plausible.
For instance:
raised by a white man
without Cherokee blood
grew old in my blood
'Without Cherokee blood' could simply be emphasizing the that white man had no Cherokee ancestry, or it could be more specifically the persona felt the absence of this community; essentially the same, but grammatically different.
without punctuation or a pronoun like 'I', it is not clear that the verb grew applies specifically to the persona of the poem; it is also possible that, in a poetic sense, the white man grew old in the speaker's blood as well. Perhaps this semantic ambiguity was intentional, but the fact it was intentional is not clear.
Also the line 'memories not to be told' could either be about ethnic memories, ancestry that is forbidden to speak of it could refer to memories from growing up with the white guy that are forbidden to speak of.
Again, 'Now known by the tribe' could either refer to a restoration of the memories of ethnic identity or it could refer to the persona becoming known by the tribe and reconnected with his community. But the lines 'as a white guy/ without the blood' seem to suggest the tribe considers the persona to be "white" because the persona wasn't raised as a cherokee, or it could be the beginning of a subordinate clause.
the ambiguity is cleverly crafted, but it is a bit distracting trying to sort it all out, not in an academic sense, but a grammatical sense.
the themes you're talking about have tremendous merit; it's a really complex and layered thought you've chosen, identity in the context of history, identity in the context of the present, self definition of identity, social definition of identity, wanting to return home but being marked by the journey back that was beyond your control. This poem is really just a quick sketch to get the lines and gestures down. It's time to start working on the paintings.
Throw this burning spark of poetry into the heap of papers on your writing and let the fire write upon all of them. Set the desk on fire.
good luck.
edited by superlativedeleted on 10/1/2019
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10/11/2019 4:48:47 PM
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Blank Verse
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Meter is composed of metric feet. In pure meter, a metric foot will always have at least 2 syllables - therefore, in pure meter the number of syllables in a line will always be an even number, because it is made up of units of two syllables each. Some of your lines have 9 syllables, some have 11.
A pure metric foot will always have no more than one stressed syllable. It may have one or two unstressed syllables. In pure meter you chose a metric foot and use it to build the line, without altering the foot. For example
An iamb is an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable: remark, a toad, robust, the mail - are all examples of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable, so they are iambs.
If you have only 1 iamb it is called iambic mono-meter; if you have 2 iambs it is called iambic di-meter; if you have 3 iambs it is called iambic tri-meter; if you have 4, it is called iambic tetra-meter; if you have 5, it is called iambic penta-meter; etc...
So, if you decided you wanted you to use 10 syllables in each line, you might choose iambic pentameter: 5 iambs eaching having 2 syllables gives 10 syllables each line:
The sleepy cat decided napping’s fun.
If you do not observe a standard pattern of syllables and stresses, it cannot be said you are using meter at all because there will be no evidence you’ve composed the line using metric units.
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10/11/2019 4:52:21 PM
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Blank Verse
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This is a VERY basic explaination. There are other metric feet besides the iamb, and there are many metric flourishes that break the rules of pure meter to produce artistic effect. A poem does not have be pure meter to be metric, but it must observe the rules of meter all the same.
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10/11/2019 5:51:12 PM
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howl of despair
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I think the strongest ideas are ‘forgiveness unspoken’ and ‘death without dying’
I think using complete phrases/ sentences would make it stronger.
i would invest more time in what you’re wanting to say. Experiment with coming at it from different angles. Maybe play with the idea of sound and silence; you use the word howl which is sound, but you also say things are unheard or unspoken, which is silence. Is the howl begging for a sound to answer it? Is silence just a howling that has lost its voice? How is silence like death, but not like death? Is silence a form of death? Is howling a form of being alive, trying to stay alive, trying to battle against the silence? Does howling win the battle? Is howling heroic even if it goes silent in the end - if it goes silent is it the silence of a literal death, or a temporary death? Does a howl that grows horse and goes silent one day regain its strength and howl again? Is a howl satisfied by an echo, or must it be an original sound? Will any sound satisfy it, or only the sound of forgiveness? Can forgiveness be given through silence or can it only be given with sound? If the howling is answered with forgiveness, will it go silent and will that silence be life instead of death? Can silence be both life and death? Are all silences the same?
Good luck!
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10/11/2019 6:07:22 PM
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Critique honestly please
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Title: Deathly Living
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10/11/2019 6:46:47 PM
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Feel free to criticize this pantoum poem.
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I find pantomimes a challenging form; im sure I’m not the only one.
None of the poem really makes any more sense than fall leaves floating by on a current.
It feels like it’s been put through some sort of poetic encryption machine where the imagery is meant to obscure and obstruct rather than clarify and deepen.
Without a proper context, the counterpoint between silent walls and roaring thunder is just sort of gratuitous artistry than renders describing walls as silent redundant rather than revelatory.
‘The sweetness’ is left entirely abstract. the walls are at least something concrete, but one is never sure what walls they are either. The water similarly flirts with the concrete but is never defined, perhaps a waterfall (roaring thunder), but one is never sure, could easily be a white water rapids, or could just be ripples moving across the surface of a pond. ‘Following breed of mountain’s delight’ borders on simply gibberish. Presumably you’re describing water cutting a path through a mountain pass. ‘Grazed in the oak of nature’s meet’ is likewise approaches the realm of gibberish. Presumably the verb ‘grazed’ is being applied to ‘the water’ but even this does little as the subject ‘the oak of nature’s meet’ lacks such clarity it is as if random words were drawn from a hat. the preposition ‘in’ blows all that is presumed, but still not understood, entirely out of the water and into the sky, in an awe inspiring display that can only be compared to an unintentional rocket launch leaving a vapor trail of light and steam that disappears into the distance of the great unknown. The water(?) that grazes is IN the oak??
Pine trees do not have tendrils.
Wasn’t familiar with meet as a noun, but even after looking it up, I have absolutely no clue what a ‘nature’s meet’ is.
All this being said, it is clear you have a lovely literary voice/ persona. I’m not sure why you want to deprive it of the power of plain spoken ness and the ability to be understood
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10/11/2019 6:59:26 PM
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Need some help with this one :)
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Suggested edits:
(Found poem 1)
My body is a liquid
that keeps your glass half full.
The need for symmetry
overdraws our story.
Like you said
those expectations were my mirroring.
(Found poem 2)
The planks of the stage were creaking.
I only heard the music.
Your repulsion stepped out to the scene,
absolved of liability.
You prepared a clean exit
as you continued to introduce roles in this performance.
I will not stand
in front of an empty grandstand,
and I turn the light off.
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10/11/2019 7:21:54 PM
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Honest Critique please
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Great attention to meter.
I think without the note I would have no clue this is about surviving domestic violence or narcissism.
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10/12/2019 3:56:01 PM
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howl of despair
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The questions posed in my response were not questions raised by the poem. I was presenting them rhetorically to give the author possible directions to explore.
The poem reads as a pre-write. It is not effective on its own.
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10/14/2019 12:00:21 PM
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The Dog
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Well oddly enough the word disturb isn’t the only word with the root -sturb as its core, and in both instances they share similar ideological concepts.
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10/14/2019 12:21:34 PM
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I'm Not a Poet
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Really interesting.
Okay, so it is in the contemporary family of sonnets: 14 lines; you even have a volta; consistent rhyme scheme.
Your meter is interesting. You seem to be using an impure tetrameter, though occasionally you a lame foot or extra syllable on some of your lines - although you are consistent in mirroring these alteration in the line they are paired with by rhyme. The tetrameter works well for short lines that communicate tension, anxiety, and it matches your theme well. It is really fun you switched to pentameter for the final couplet. The change of voice is great for giving the envoi.
The idea is good. The way you’ve structured the thoughts the observe the volta is good. However, the lines themselves are lacking something. The voice is a bit like reading a text book. Maybe work on the voice the lines are written in.
Good luck
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10/15/2019 5:47:51 PM
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I'm Not a Poet
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Technically it’s a very fun poem. I love the thoughtfulness that went into the craft of it.
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10/16/2019 2:21:30 AM
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Critique please & thank you! :)
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I think it is a strong start.
I would remove the last two lines. End with the bathroom walls.
Explore ways to tighten up your lines/ phrases, and explore your line breaks further. For example;
Pen quivers above the page.
Thought
drips
hesitantly,
like sweat in the heat of fear.
I would remove the phrase ‘that holds my words’ and simply end the line with ‘paper’.
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