Poetry

Feeling like Gertrude Stein
I press my feet
front of toe first like a full tire

Striving for Roman arches
mirror's movement creates a blob
imitating a starfish
internal exoskeleton becomes more exposed

I look pretty good
today

I wanted to start writing some poetry, or even some song lyrics but I'm unsure how to get started. Does anyone have any tips?

I thought reading poetry might help so I picked up a metaphysical poetry anthology and a Yeats anthology. How should I read these btw? Just read through each poem one at a time or analyse as I go or what?

>>7619443
>stopped from destruction, the despoilment of the land
If i'm scanning that sentence correctly, you're being redundant with destruction and despoilment, and they are quite ugly words
>fabric of my being
cliche
>leaving
you used this word twice, and in the same sense of: "cause (a thing) to be (a certain way)" which is, in my opinion, a juvenile use of the word and which could be avoided with simpler clause construction. I'm not certain about my prescription, but I know the use of the word in this way, and twice, sounds awkward.
>in pursuit of you
cliche
>fought for you
cliche
>idealistic idea
very silly and awkward to hear aloud
>flirtatiousness
there must be a better word--adding two suffixes to "flirt" overwhelms the original word
>web of lies
huge cliche

>>7620012
Don't analyze, just read for pleasure. It will be a long time before you can do anything else.

Caught between 5’2 and 5’4
i find myself lost in a siren’s eyes
and a seeker’s words
i could almost taste it
beautiful golden brown blurring my vision
a sweet inebriation
a sensual nervousness

Shameful
that it always comes out like this

>>7619934
i picture a clinching butthole

>>7620197
reads like soggy hash browns ... teen angst and all that jazz

>>7620281
well that's unfortunate

>>7620293
anything i could do to make it better?

>>7620303
To start - how does one feel like Gertrude Stein? Seems like a name drop without much thought put into what you're trying to convey.
Your simile of feet to tires is lost on me.
Striving to become a Roman arch or traveling towards one?
Blob is an ugly word. Just say it out loud to see what I mean.

===

Caught between 5'2 and 5'4...just say 5'3.
Learn economy. Read Transtromer for a lesson on brevity.
Beautiful Golden Brown brings to mind hashbrown or a giant steaming turd.

Work on your meter...say what your writing outloud. Take time to really listen to how they sound, what they communicate in feeling and weight. A good poem should communicate on multiple levels.

Total awareness is what's required. Refer to Rilke on depth.

Download a copy of twentieth century pleasures by Haas. The best criticism of poetry I've read to date.

>>7620345
I was referring to Gertrude Stein as in she was a better critic than an artist. The simile of feet to tires was even sort of wonky to me. Roman arch refers back to the feet, as this is a poem about dance. Blob, again, I will find a synonym for.

5'3 isn't accurate because the narrator doesn't have certainty on her height. Beautiful Golden Brown refers to her skin, should I find another way of expressing it?

I'll look into those other critical works. Thanks!

There are way too many dogs in this room.
Twisting, turning descending, up the roof,
A road, then a river, changing it looms.
Spins on the wall a sun, a flame aloof.

Laying there palate a taste of yellow,
Search for answers, the Chalice, sanity.
Now longing for sights normal and mellow,
All is now one, eyes hold no vanity.

The clock takes time, the ego does return.
Epiphany paid for, bought with mind’s pain.
Never again need reality burn,
But still Wonderland calls strongly again.

Enter once more the psychotropic tomb
Searching amid kaleidoscopic doom.

>>7620012
There's nothing to do but start writing. Write 1000 poems and burn them. Then start over. You'll get there in time.

Also - Yeats gives me hemorrhoids. Try the post-pound generation to start with. John Ashberry is a good place to start.

sequester the lesser jester
the Leicester molester
pesters the nesters of Chester

Song of the Seabeast

I was a captain, once, meaning
sometimes I had to cut throats
in hopes of keeping my ship
afloat; once gut my best mates
for the caviar in their gapes,
glugged the wounds with baby
paste. Before that,
I was a merman:
conch-shell eyes; silve- slick scales
in all the right places. Once, I kissed
Aquarius on the lips, land locked
her ship with a slip the tongue,
told her love tastes like the ocean.

She agreed, but said it was unbearable,
that it shipwrecked her airy vases
in all the wrong places: my slow red
weep out to sea was a pirouette;
the torrential spin spun off my tail.

Maybe all the blood was an apology
from the ocean for thirst? An open
letter from a ghostfish to her Loch Ness
godmother seeking the gilded locus
buried in her bones? Maybe a basin
to call home? These days,
I’m just Dagon
in reverse: fish-head clamoring on peg-legs
for a hearse. My ship? Of course,
she set sail many years ago, by now
she’s surely sunken, or worse…

O Sea, O Sea, when shall I return to thee?
O Sea, O Sea, when shall I return to thee?

>>7620398

The line spacing was fucked. The lines "I was a merman" and "I'm just Dagon" should be spaced all the way to the right.

>>7620377
cut, cut, cut. your rhyming scheme is abababababa is monotonous and cause you to fall back on the usual suspects room-loom, yellow-mellow, return-burn...weak rhymes.

try liberating yourself with free verse - focus on what you're trying to communicate. welcome to the 21st century. may the force be with you

>>7620345
Gertrrude Stein was the shit and everybody says it and everybody knows it except those who do not know it perhaps because they were told by one not to know it. Those who say that they know it sometimes I wonder whether really yes they do know it or no they do not know it and whether or which things they have read which I know positively they have not read. They have not read. Gertrude Stein was the shit and everybody says it and everybody knows it except those who were told by one not to. Those who were told by one not to and those who have not read it I do not believe know that Gertrude Stein was the shit but everybody else says it or knows it or makes the air of saying and knowing it. Do they know it. Gertrude Stein was the shit and do they know it.

(my stein impression)

Why do none of these poems rhyme?

Obviously I know poetry doesn't need to rhyme, but I've almost never seen an OC poem on /lit/ with any form of rhyming.

Does /lit/ have something against it?

>>7620444
mine rhymes
>>7620397

>>7620445
This thread has much more rhyming than usual.
It's more an observation from seeing a number of these threads.

>>7619934
Second stanzas a little clumsy, not bad tho. "Creates a blob" and "imitating" don't fit

>>7620419
a rose is a rose is a rose is a rose ad infinitum

Here's a short one that I've once already posted:

Here I am, drifting in the darkness,
with all my lonely friends.
Watching the surrounding madness,
until the orange road ends.

aight I'm no keats but here's a thing. certainly a thing.

I don't bow to my captors
though they shake hands like gentlemen
This place is caving in

I was born and raised never to remember
The first passions of the flame
Which brought us together

It was no surprise, then
When I left you to die there
You could have expected

That winter we were closer
But I can't remember
The way you were,
The way we were, together
Whenever

It was four in the morning
You ran out into the snow storm
Like you wanted to die there
One of us would have died there

>>7620380
>"i dont like yeats, therefore you shouldn't either"
>unironically recommends ashbery over yeats, to a newbie

>>7620520
Perhaps Dr. Seuss then?

>>7620534
You're missing the point. Yeats is part of the canon and a fine place for a beginner to start. His poems are rewarding for readers of all levels. Perhaps more importantly, a beginner is much more likely to fall in love with poetry by meeting the lyricism and euphony in Yeats's poems than the abstruse references and almost prosaic verse of poems like "Daffy Duck in Hollywood" or "...by an Earthquake."

I can’t speak for tomorrow
with its casual permanence and
heavy presence
but today darkened eyes and froze
lips

Today awakened in a crack
of light through vinyl sheet
on my windowsill

Seated in formation I aged
and felt it
I performed wrinkling sleeves
and sweaty feet
I swallowed hiccup liquid and
bubbling juices
I spoke façade and eloquence
eating my fingernails

I sat in cool summer night air
swinging naked feet over my
ledge
I thought of jumping but couldn’t
scream

I made her cry and she
didn’t look back for she
wished I were dust or leaves
or the air instead

But I was me and I cried
confused tears on my ledge

The theater of desire is dark,
Resounding loud with voiceless loves
Releasing fervent shrieks into
The night, as limpid idols mount
The stage – a breast, a hip, a foot,
A tender cheek – encircled close
In blinding, shining mists - such warm
And lovely things that race and whip
Our blood, distract our thoughts, and seize
Our hearts with single-thoughted love
Such desperate hopes, now given furtive shape
Inside the theater of the mind

>>7620405
I see what youre saying but i enjoy writing sonnets quite a bit, ill try some free verse though

>>7620405
although your post is generally correct, that's not how you scan rhyme. Are you in high school?

>>7620405
It's a Shakespearian sonnet, you nitwit. It's meant to rhyme like that.

i'm a trans pony
i listen to David Bowie & Morrisey
die cis scum
i have a webcam & a tumblr
my opinion matters
i wake up every morning
feeling weird about my genitals
respect my pronouns
haters gonna hate
my mom's a lawyer so
fuck you

>>7619443
4
>>7619934
3
>>7620197
3
>>7620377
4
>>7620398
4
>>7620419
8
>>7620515
3
>>7620516
4
>>7620638
4
>>7620935
4
>>7621166
5

>>7620419
bwahahaha ROFL

>>7620638
I like this but it could be better. The second to last stanzas probably the weakest. Overall I feel like you're in the same place as me skill wise so I can't give you much real critique other than its good but has flaws.

>>7619443
Moss crest single file
Industrial steppe, Wire cossacks.
Man on a horse, in fur and leather cracking
thin electric above their frigid heads.
All of them are bones. They feel the cold.
Lightning Caucasus. Guerrillas in the
treeless mountains. They chew a crooked root
and starve themselves, wandering uphill, till they meet
a figure, fur coat, pointed boots. For climbing fences.
The wood in my mouth has shredded and my
tongue is bleeding. I want to put my bag down
but I keep walking.
Out the trees
Single file step em hard—fast. Don’t slip
don’t trip. Soviet offcast rifle cup your head.
Pistol caress man jaw line.
They violence fun. On the freezing ground. On
the kicked up trampled dirt, choke him out long &
solid. Cartilage crackle drop him down. No clothes.
And macho naked, must be twenty something,
thick and ragged. Half shave. Dripping opaque
icy riverside—liquid ledge. Him step like insect.
Not love him but close enough.
Month back city gone, left us stepping.
Suede coat crusty, seamless. No shirt beneath.
We eat animals.
Dead needle ground lay with moss. Forest here
and dark. Bird between the trees, angelic
wingbeat crackle. Him twist like whip again.
No wolves here.

Shitty beginner here, looking for tips

The autumn, this year, has a deep blue air
No sadness, nor fear, could impede her stare
A union of solitude and peace, is to look at Sara by the Window
While the sky is mute and fierce, and this pale light glows

>>7621520
1) punctuate. it is my opinion that this will help you, since you're already writing in clauses
2) I dislike the personification of autumn as female--or does "her" refer to Sara?
3) solitude and peace are too conceptually close together to call attention to them as separate with your word "union"
4) pale does not correspond with deep blue, unless the pale light is something else--what is it, then? need more clues, your readers are in the dark

>>7621589

Thanks for answering.

2 "her stare" refers to Sara, maybe it's confusing
3 while writing I pay more attention to the sound than the words, my fault
4 I was trying to go on, but I gave up

q is a MAN (with a bigbigbelly)
thaT TOMsqAUree fool he the jollyr guy
O, say ([[[[c/d h/ pl/y a d'amore?} whenAwhere
i sixteen, put it in'r hicky
FFFFFFFOOOOOOFFFyes, it fits, like my glove compartment
in
my
Ma
Zd
A

File: W A E N D O E B A U X.png (46KB, 1137x731px) Image search: [Google]

46KB, 1137x731px

https://www.dropbox.com/s/0ykyzk305lybo4e/pesto%20and%20grounddog.pdf?dl=0

most recent thang ive put out, pic related

recently i thought:
does my dog remeber her
brothers and sisters?

>>7621642
Thanks MC Ride

>>7622011

i spend most of my time underground now,
but i live my life mostly in cycles

—where i leave my apartment,
or at least don't mind not leaving,
then start to feel like i "get" the "realness" of "it all".
then i oscillate.—

when i'm underground i can occasionally find tunnels.
i take them up to the Han-Dee Hugo's to buy food.

>>7619443
i tried making poetry once or twice
i thought it was good, then I looked over it and it was rambly as shit and was trying too hard
havent tried since

Tomorrow waits for me,
Not begging nor pleading
Upon its arrival
Of my conscious mind
And yet it further
Calls, steadfast, resolute,
Omnipotent in this
New day that is my own;
But the tide of the past
Leaves old worries upon
What could have been, what is.

the too-high heels go click clack click clack
down the boardwalk,
worn by the pretty girls
who know you’re the type to ask em for a number
so they can give that cute little half frown
and spit in your face
with
a
grin
Inhaling, I try to project my thoughts through the short distance between us
and their bouncing between particles getting lost in the chaotic order
of sweet beautiful psychics
m.i.a
they were only for me anyways
I close my mouth quickly around the escaping smoke
lest it take a part of me with it

>>7622462
I don't necessarily like this particular piece but I think you're probably a cool dude and would probably be willing to read more of your work.

It was Salinger and mystery,
The erasure of our lives
An easy out, an easy mark
A self-proclaimed victory

The Pynchon nerds were bent backwards
Misrepresenting who they were
Counting grad schools in their dreams
Ignoring what we are

An island built in a retention pond
Of lies and smut and snuff
A camouflage of intentions
Before the coming of the dawn

>>7622471
Thanks, man. Any advice?

>>7622047
yw bby

Without warning, without a signal
Without a hint as to what grand upheaval
Displaced the man from his fragile throne
A solitary seat upon a mind not his own
He stood and shouted and screamed and cried
Bloody words dribbled out his mouth like flies
"I am not alone, I am not deceased!
I lie awake above the graves of the weak!"
The strongest of words that he ever spoke,
Thoughts and illusions that he ever awoke.

og freestyle on da spot u feel me??

Come after tonight
we'll live and puke
and i will fill you up
until you cannot breathe

shove my fist into the box
grab handfuls with blood soaked meat hammers
and smash it into my face
pellets cascade into tears

satiation is a goal of
those who fixate on the moribund
there will be no tears now
only dreams...

This one's about eating gorilla munch

>>7621057
leave shakespeare to himself and spare us.

>>7622489
wait this is about /lit/ isn't it

you cheeky bastard

He left yesterday, and took more
than he arrived with. My soul
withered, tired, beaten, living
in a foriegn land.

Her smile was all teeth.
A proud, wealthy dentist hung
tonight, for show, she was
a dynamic portrait

Of hate, and love. For all
that mess still waiting
to be sorted out. Drink now
we are still open.

His return. Her smile. Their
mutual existance brought home
by an embrace. Fear held close
solitude's unforgiving tounge

Spoke to them earlier. Nothing
to say. Would quicken communication
of what we shouldn't say. Hide
my love. I trust you no more

How come everybody thinks writing a poem that looks and feels like a poem's the quick road to being profound?
Or even believable? Let's be meaner to mere words?

Will someone pls review this, no one ever looks at it.

Vapid blocks of grey littered
The vast stretch of green fields.
Sheets of shining white glass
Fillled the now decadent curves
Of once heavily laboured land.
In the far distance, solitary
Cattle grazed their lives away.
Upon this scene of tired
Ulster sat a little fellow:
A blackbird of honest voice
Who sang soft melodies of
Playing children and dying men.
This harbinger of happy days spoke
And for a moment I thought
That not all in this world
Are blind to the beauties of life,
And I myself was not alone.
But as the sun declined
And the moonlight rose,
We both returned to our affairs.

Just for you, and someone else:

While the night leaves swollen bellies
And the sun treads streams to dust
Dilated pupils dream of rest
But I go on, because I must.

Got to go home to eat and rest
This night has put my heart to test
And while my feet are ache and sore
My mind still dances, she wants more

But home's a perfume
And your scent here's still strong
I'll stay for a while
But then I'll be gone

Down till up until I get bored.

>>7625257
a masterpiece of subtle trjiumph, and bittersweet loss, like eating a chocolate cake with jam.


>>7624985
I dig the style and rhythm as well as the ending, the imagery in the beginning is a bit too overladen for my tastes.

>>7624767
Seems to artificial for genuine emotions.

>>7624654
I dig it.

>>7622717
The rhymes are a bit dull and not particularly exciting, but that easily happens when freestyling. Maybe try ABAB for a little more of a challenge next time.

>>7622462
I genuinely feel this.

Never have I quite surrendered
What the gospel said I should
But then again I just obtained
A mystic box of steel and wood.

I like those most:
>>7625257
>>7619934

Then
>>7620935
>>7622288
>>7622462
Then
>>7624654

>>7620516

I got a problem with drugs.
I got a problem with people.
I got these meetings for one,
and these drugs for the other.

>>7625257
I like all of it apart from:

>Got to go home to eat and rest
>This night has put my heart to test
>And while my feet are ache and sore
>My mind still dances, she wants more

The first line feels mundane and expository, the second feels like it reaches to rhyme with the first, leaving the couplet feeling disingenuine, as if you had an idea of what you wanted it to contain, structure-wise, and the content was secondary. Third line's fine apart from 'ache', just feels jarring, but the fourth again feels like a forced rhyme (probably wouldn't be so bad without the preceding rhyme), and the mind dancing feels cheesy, and the personification of mind as woman feels out of tone with the rest of the poem. Still great though, just I'm not a fan of that stanza.