Poetry Critique Thread Post your poetry and discuss or provide

>>8588385
I like how there's a single fancy word per stanza (not really). The change of direction in the first one is obnoxious. (Beckons ME, placed upon THEE) Not exactly bad, but it halts the first reading, you don't want that. The syntax in general is pretty unpleasant to read, and makes it difficult to be motivated or interested enough the sufficient time to think deeply about what you want to say. And even there it's nothing out of the ordinary.

Not bad, overall, but it can be better.

>>8588434
Thank you. I agree with the syntax, what do you recommend to amend the flow? As for the "fancy" words, I didn't mean to make it seem like that, those were just the words that seemed appropriate. How to avoid this appearance?

Fairly new to poetry, as you can tell.

>>8588497
I love you still, vladimir. Well, I read it again, and I think you could arrange the syllables in a more enticing way, so to speak. In the very first verse, for example, you have three words with these syllable count: 1-2-4. That kind of aesthetic, and I mean, the feeling of a progress, could work out for this poem, as it is sort of narrative, in the way that it has an initial statement that changes. Hell, the word progress is even there. And I don't mean EVERY verse has to be that way, but certain ones. Like, say, the third verse of the first stanza, since the second and fourth already have a rhyming scheme, you can add this progress effect to the other not-rhyming verses (example: "Every second, a reminder". Punctuation is a powerful ally.) Also, the "fancy" words aren't a problem Per se, just an opinion that doesn't require change, as long as they stay appropiate. And of course, as long as it's consistent. You also have a nice phonetic dinamic going on, now that I notice. Perhaps it was just the seemingly unmatching verses contrasting with a rhyme scheme. On this second look, I have to say I like it more, honestly. Nicely done for an amateur, I'd dare to say.

Live on, big money, huge love.

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>>8588385
the rhyming feels extremely forced. Especially, the final couplet. your one slant rhyme has a good sonic quality, but the rest are very "spoon, moon" sounding.

the rhythm could use some work, due to the use of comma/dash occasionally making the lines stutter

>>8588434
lol please to post which are the fancy words

like for one is it pendulum? or thee? beckons maybe?

>>8588729
Tantalizing, Feckless, and lucubrating. The last couple of verses are so small that it doesn't really feels out of place in there. Maybe that's the reason the ones I mentioned felt kinda off. Again, not a -mistake-, just an opinion, as it can distract someone else as it happened to me. Not a big deal.

Look, it's him again
Awake in the morning fog,
missed his ride to school;
it's gonna be one of those days

Look, it's starting to rain,
the clouds have darkened,
droplets scattered,
unstable on his right knee

Work is taking toll,
Young bodies turn old,
But everybody gotta keep it on
The line must go on...

>>8589504
This is good

Is there light enough to penetrate the dusty
Cobwebs that weave in and out
In and out of the beams of this house, its roof
And floorboards musty with happy decay
Of the years uncounted and uncountable?

A battered trunk weeps softly in the corner
Over there by the sweaters and half-forgotten
Pictures embarrassed by the scene.

>>8589504
>But everybody gotta keep it on
>The line must go on...
Cringe.

>>8589798

Criiiinge! haha cringeeeeeeee

Disclaimer: new at this, no idea what I'm doing.

I know
It's sometimes hard to hear
Through the thick of wintry gloom
And the graveyard air
Where my soul huddles
Shrouded in the pale roar
Of nothing

But know, dear
It remains in me
A tinny melody, sung
By a single jay
Whose words I can't share
Because in truth
They are nothing but
Your name.

>>8589790
I think there is some real potential here
But I get caught up on -
'Penetrate' maybe something like sweep through to go with the dangling webs. But I can see the desire to 'break through' the dim.
Moreover, happy decay? Yea I get that but instinctively I'm like decay - death - not happy times.
The pictures is what got me most interested. Like these pictures can't change. If the people are smiling in them, then it will seem like they are smiling at the deterioration of their home... Get what I mean? Like 'this was our home.' Rather than them being embarrassed... But! That's not to say there can't be embarrasment present. After all who isn't embarrassed when taking a photo. I would love to see this realism explored while simplifying a text a bit. Because I had to reread it to actually get into it. But still lovely idea with great potential.

>>8589790
This is my favorite in the thread so far, but I think that while some of the ideas are interesting (pictures being embarrassed, decay being happy), they don't necessarily inform one another in an interesting way. It feels more like a series of similar observations. I also think you could do a better job of building up the imagery in more concrete terms alongside the anthropomorphic philosophizing.

>>8589844
If I got this right - he is a husk with 'her name' being all that's left of him and he acknowledges this at her grave? I always feel that the easier you make it for the reader to get what you are trying to get across the better, but this imagery in itself is very I dunno... I like it. It's ... Poetic. Somber but honest. Anyways in my first reading I was thinking 'is he having a conversation with someone in a graveyard...' Second reading 'is he a ghost' so u know.

Just wrote this today. Would love feedback.

On a Saturday in December
Somewhere past Bolinas or Inverness
Or some other silky Spanish stone of a proper noun
The three of you left Highway One, northbound
Toward boring brush discerned by silly sounds
(Pampas grass, chaparral, or lobed sea rocket)
All about the inscrutable yellow rock
That rises from the sand in humdrum mounds
Unfeeling face with humble bramble crown

And that immaculate lake beyond the last bend
(Which could have been anywhere)
Rippling like a photograph
(But was somehow here, on the very edge of the endless sea)
With its terribly taut bowstring of a rope swing
Nonetheless swaying slightly in the breeze

And in the very moment you let go
Ten thousand years of superlative sunny afternoons slip by

And later, standing on a great golden bluff
Watching the sun set over the Farallons,
You try to remember whether,
As the water closed in above you,
You felt at all afraid.

>>8589881

literally no reason to shove in 'inscrutable', 'humdrum', 'immaculate', 'terribly', etc

'terribly taut bowstrong of a rope swing' isn't the best

I feel like you probably think too much when you write

>>8589879
Thanks for the feedback. I'm glad you understood basically what I was going for, but I'll to work on making it more clear. Maybe I leaned too heavily on the graveyard stuff. In my head the point was that despair has left him a husk with only her name as a bright spot, but also that despair makes it difficult for him to share that fact with her. The graveyard was just supposed to represent his inner state.

I am a fey stunt run in a half mad day,
walk down the wake haggling teat for tat.
Now's way the moon high and, life's yolk fried,
spills sin like milk by the gutter-slide.
Ah, it's too cold for what dirt's worth I pay
but, said on again, nothing's wrong with that.

This, climbing without aim at a high hill,
all of this is the loneliest blue I look back onto the city with.
All that is strung is cut silent,
winds scatter sky-up to no swift Harmony.
Messenger clouds march into a sad adjective above
and elsewhere the stars I do not know.

The workings are so shallow under the sun that I may see wet feet from beyond men's rough image in the night's river.
Let it engulf me at home, I say, just as well as it whelms the world over,

and so I spear in it,
out, down by Cocytus.

As I walk upon my country floor the
Stygian night opens the door--trail
Rain welcomes my visit, I see it hail
Effervescence dances for me only

My friends--they elicit my smile--crocodile
Alas! Flesh, it dies--never to return
But, O, nature! You wouldn't leave me, ever
I, progeny not of my own, but the fern

The stamen pleases other life, it's true
Just like this cold, coated night, so accompanied
Like a bat I seek the fruit of life--heed!
Apollo rises. I'll return tomorrow

For Gaea listens-- she feeds me, clothes me, ever
A beggar asking for my care, Gaea, I, ever


This is a nice thread, when did /lit/ provide criticism?

>>8589504
You didn't rhyme days

The fear I feel
As I kneel
As I kneel
On these crimson stones so black with paint
Can only seem out of place Amid
The arid sacrilege of the shores of night.
Goodnight fair night
Goodnight and farewell.
For out the day comes gaudy night
With roses clenched in morbid fetters
Lonely beyond Knowledge.

The human heart is as a catfish
Broiled on a bed of rice
The rice of mortality

people who write about 'Stygian night' etc... do you realise you're writing pastiche? It's basically the Bob Ross of writing. I get that it's fun and semi-creative, but please don't show it to anybody.

As I look up at the sky
My mind starts trippin, a tear drops my eye
My body temperature falls
I'm shakin and they breakin tryin to save the Dogg
Pumpin on my chest and I'm screamin
I stop breathin, damn I see deamons
Dear God, I wonder can ya save me
I can't die Boo-Boo's bout to have my baby
I think it's too late for prayin, hold up
A voice spoke to me and it slowly started sayin
"Bring your lifestyle to me I'll make it better"
How long will I live?
"Eternal life and forever"
And will I be, the G that I was?
"I'll make your life better than you can imagine or even dreamed of
So relax your soul, let me take control
Close your eyes my son"
My eyes are closed

>>8591134
What are you talking about? Allegories like Greek mythology are perfect for poetry, it's the romantic embodiment the words can represent. To each his own, I guess

>>8588385

Thinking of ways to achieve
Uninterrupted divine peace
Thoughts circle in loops
Which deteriorates my mood
Pseuds have tried telling me
Fake truths
Instead I locked myself within a cage
To attempt to repress my rage
Distressed to find a shortcut
Discovered it on my wrist
All I had to do was slit it
Blood came out hissing
Ignore that line, it was just a vision
Eyes position never stay stagnated
As they're twitching with minimum patience
Always trying to taste creation
Many pseudonyms are the truth of my relations
But even tho I said so I never stay caged in

Feb. 4th
>Tobias Berou
>What's happening, man?
>I'm contacting you to see how the plan
>is getting along. Also, did you remember to pack
>that towel dyed black in my cleaning gear sack?

Feb. 17th
>Tobias Berou,
>I'm contacting you
>because our friend's fled, and I'm not sure where to,
>but I searched his apartment and I've turned up some clues.
>His keynote's in August. The next move is on you.

The man is not
The fly
The rot
Of an person.

>>8591676
I dig it, I feel like you should be open to more vocabulary though. Lot of it is juvenile, and there are explicit words for the mood conveyed


Made this one a couple days ago, would appreciate any sort of criticism

Vulnerary is my pen
Satisfactory is my den
Agglomerated paper balls
Fill my bin, countless books fell

Most concoctions puerile
All of them amendatory
An outlet my pen provides
One story may leave glory

>>8592034
Lol, learn to write with smaller words before Thesaurusing out like that.

>>8592034
nice flow dude, thanks for critique

>>8592034
>>8592098
JK hahaha it's a bit pretentious

distant clouds
looming
brewing rain
ominous shroud
I’ll fiercely
pierce the vein

I’m driving a car with no window
and I’m heading for the storm
the wipers just don’t function
but I’m gonna face whatever’s taking form

gilded clouds
in the slanted sky
glancing, I belay belief
listen now
as I sing a song
that breathes its own relief

I flew on a plane and looked out the window
and the sky was clear before and after me
then I realized the same has always been so
above every storm that’s over every land and sea

Prattling folk pick aughts from a book
Tethering weight to their words with a look

Shit softly, we're watching
Shit softly, we're talking
Shit softly, none care for your weird

Hear the name in thunder
and like lightning hurled
from hell,
Fell apart these words
as such speech must mend
to tell.

Deadblack fields christen
sight and sound anon,
pale fire burning chars
digits felt so long.

Vanquished not by minutes
and suffering doth extend,
misery to misery cures
misery's suffocating end.

Stopped in time and space,
yet passing seconds buy,
purchase on our warming joy,
yet frozen as we try.

This tapestry to fall
as soon as it begun,
stranger in eden made
strangerer in tongue.

>>8592377
I like this a lot.

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>>8588385

Hey, I wandered in from /pol/ to help make some changes around here
Time, bully--tantalizing
Clocks sweep languid
Across a windswept plain
Every second a reminder
Of the limit placed on faggotry

Fuckless does a life appear--
unwept, carried without thought to
a grave woven, unmade-
it beckons me still.

So I progress my living
Unbound by the tyrant time
In fact, I accomplish more
Lubricating thoughts--my climb
to chambers holy where

James is now my chattel--slave
"Excite me" says I, butthurt

ready for the flood

What are some good books to help improve your writing?

>>8592409
Ulysses

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Riches I hold in light esteem,

And love, I laugh to scorn,
And lust of fame was but a dream
That vanished with the morn. And if I pray,
The only prayer
that moves my lips for me
is, "Leave the heart that now I bear,
And give me liberty!"

Yes, as my swift days near their goal,
'Tis all that I implore

In life and death, a chainless soul,
With courage to endure.

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1

It's past darkness, and half the world's asleep
Chatter's resigned to the cricket's chorus
And green frog's croak, the sense of that which creeps
Disquiet in my belly, senseless touch.
Encased in a prism without its shape
The Moon and Sun are rising from the East
Ecstasy is tasted from Cape to Cape
Sense as unintelligible as beast's
Cries in a native tongue, firm the water
Breath untaken and payment never leased
- Copper's the toll, each before and after.
Nevermind. But a canvas to my paint,
My love, and pain, it makes a Pagan Saint.

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2

Shall I attempt to gives this love a name?
To take what's so adorned and make it plain
And strip cyan sea bed and make it tame
Announce the pulsing thoughts that were in vain.
Declare that love persists when out of breath
Make clear this nameless ecstasy within
And say see on my breast it breathes undeath
And is at once divine and weighed with sin.
Although remains unknown I am at ease
For rather I did give this name a love
It is Siane, the name itself does tease
Of all things base and all that's wild above
What need is there for love to have a form?
For love's but thunder, her the screaming storm.

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3

I take it back, refute it all
That hope again survives the fall,
That beauty is in some new place,
That dreams exist worthwhile the chase,
It seems to me a self told lie
That love alone suffices by
And light atones where joy must die,
That sorrow ends upon a sigh
Oh no it must return again
-No nihilism's quite this bland,
How can I be so emtpy still
And yet not have a heart unfilled.

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4

I met a girl tonight
who seemed by all accounts
desirable in form and mind
and whose eyes seemed to search for mine
out among the others
looking with a soft intensity
and complexion that betrayed
no pretense or cruelty
but instead formed marble
with curiosity.

The hours swam away
spilled into our cups
liquor and laughter.
We peers stood sculptured
with smile and camaraderie
before the time stamped flash
captured us in
that perfect ignorance
clad in each others arms.

The ink runs from the polaroid
but the image remains
timeless as sand
scattered millennia and
forgotten rocks
stolen up from the Levant
by the hand of God.

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pt 1 of 2

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>>8593871
pt 2 of 2