Poetry Critique Thread

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Fred.

What I say amounts little to what I never may say,
like polishing dunes as do fine Yggdrasil ash.
And like a lubber, I'll fool the sky-tomato mix with the grain
- both or either the grains, now's the world out of land.
(My sail is a color, and the soup is warm too.
And the color is orange wishing you were here too.)
What's the time when you're lost? Time is hot as sand
when its gear tires chewing a day's bark off the main.
(The ship is all hull. There's no sense in it.
This is all a bad dream, I should wake out of it.)
Anticlea can embrace the wind, and I
have no warmth at sea, nor scent of orange.

>>9235150

takatakatatatak
takatatakatata
takatakataka
takatakkata
katakkata
kataktka
ataktka
aktkat
atkat
akk
ta
Violets are blue

How can I hone my sense of meter? In both reading and writing.

Do you ever write something, realize it was dumb and delete it?

That's what I just did, so instead to anyone else who writes something and realizes it was shit know that you aren't alone.

damn the one days
the maybes and the half thoughts
time stolen into twilight idealism
and love washed away by indecision
I shall be a braver man
one day
I won't be a broken man
one day
you'll come back to me
one day

tomorrow is holding steadfast on the horizon
and she never seems to arrive
the poor bastards in the back room
hoping for a fresh start
I'll stop breathing nicotine
one day
I'll find something to wake up for
one day
I won't see the spaces you used to occupy
one day

>>9235324
Two main things I've done that have definitely helped:

Firstly, I listen to a lot of very lyrically intense rap like MF DOOM and Ka. You start to pay a lot of attention to syllables and where rhymes are.

Secondly, and far more importantly, I've read and translated a decent chunk of the Aeneid, which has, save a few incomplete lines, Dactylic Hexameter for every line.

Working out the meter and trying to read the lines with allision certainty did the most for that sense. If you don't want to learn a dead language to learn meter, I just found out genius has the Dryden translation of the Aeneid, which is kinda cool.

https://genius.com/albums/Virgil/Aeneid-dryden-translation

Read it aloud.

Print out pages and learn how to mark spondees and dactyls.

Read it aloud.

Next line, and so on.

Try to read with meter before you put pen to paper after you have worked out about 20 lines or so using the procedure listed above.

Afterwards, work out the meter the slow way and see how off you are.

You get the idea by now I hope.

>>9235380
Thanks, anon. Will do.

This one I'm posting doesn't really have a point. I was having a nice evening and really wanted to capture the feeling of the day.

Today was a mild day for so late in February.
Spring sang early with a windy tributary,
which played away the cold decay of December.
There was a green-leaf applause for all to remember:

All the red-breasted robins chirping wildly,
in hopes of calling new love blindly.
And all of the dogs who's lonely, friendly barking
echo into the falling curtain of night.

And in my house seat I preside
by the window open wide
as a distant rushing wind
and a bellowing train blend
into a calming sort-of-static.

Watching the street with vague intent,
hoping to witness nothing at present,
cool air gently plays with my hair
and brightness of my marijuana cigarette.

>>9235358
I like this. It's got a good rhyme scheme and the subject matter fits the form. A couple lines are a little clunky imo, but nothing that really takes away from the piece.
Somber, yet distantly optimistic--a great emotional medium for poetry.

>>9235596

Not in poetic metre. Absolutely redundant. Anyone can break thoughts into lines.

>>9235941
Alright. Thanks for the crit.

>>9235343
>Do you ever write something, realize it was dumb and delete it?

Every time.

Fried Donuts

Fortunate enough for sleep, the young man is in the midst of what has recently been sworn off. He chases not the great mystics to the point of being led down what mostly becomes the story of the young woman he's take to, in drunkenness, climbing a ladder to get on top of the small, brick building with the insignificant windows they passed when she began telling it.
In clear view of the sharp and beautiful moon that characterizes the night, he wonders whether or not to kiss her on the mouth, or on the cheek, or whether to at all, and come Saturday, when he's not working behind a desk or towards gentleness, he and sleep reconcile in a way that won't easily tire.

>>9235358
I do not like the rhyme scheme.

Does anyone understand this? If so, what am I trying to say?

Some light, imperceptible
To the common scope
Factory boring filters
Absorb and choke, no hope

Rattle bone
It's will
Violence unknown
License to kill

>>9237986
>I'm 15
Did I get that right?
Also, you deserve to get shot in the testicle for rhyming "imperceptible" and "filters"

>>9237986
Did you mean its will or it is will?

>>9235299
Wtf

>>9237996
I didn't rhyme those. Its free verse

>>9237997
I meant its will.
I'm on my phone.

Baa danaa baa danaa daaaaaa.

>>9237996
No, I'm 30.

I only asked you to explain your understanding of it. No opinions on the actual poem.

I honestly think it's brilliant, but can never get a solid answer, because people like you just feel so little and need to throw insults around.

>>9238092
Well then I would have to guess your telling about a rifle and it's inability of violence on it own accord but the capability of violence in the hands of a person. With notes of the societal feud guns cause.

But it's really not that great. You could put it in a song and it would pass better than a poem. But lines like "factory boring scope" and "its will" and "violence unknown" hurt the piece and make me not believe you're 30. Or if you really are, you have a weak grasp of poetry. I also do agree with the other anon, the rhyme of imperceptible and filters does not work at all. You could use reticle instead of filter, assuming I'm correct about you comparing a literal scope to figurative scope.

>>9235150
I wanna fuck you like I love you
I wanna fuck you like you owe me money
I wanna fuck you like hate you

>>9235343
never
i have terabytes of archive tho

>Wrote this today. I will post the English version (that I translated myself) and then the original, in Portuguese.

>Lullaby of Rust, the Owl

Ho, ho, ho! Do not fear, ho!
Do not fear, little baby, ho!
I will keep your sweet dreams safe,
Ho, Ho! I will be your little angel.

I am Rust, the owl,
The guardian of the forest,
Since I have my nest in the night
No monsters dare to party.

See these carnivorous fairies,
My eyes, my sparkling beasts:
Evil ghosts do greatly fear
Those two golden panthers.

Ho, ho, ho! Do not fear, ho!
Do not fear, little baby, ho!

Dragon with saliva of lava;
Atrocious wolf, the gray death;
Black orchids, bats;
Grouchy bear and wild boar;

Nine-tailed fox;
Rats; elfish monkeys;
Slugs; toads; salamanders;
Frogs that sweat toxins;

Snakes with ruin for teeth;
Hairy tarantulas:
Do not fear them, baby, sleep,
Sleep the sweet sleep of the Buddhas.

I will keep your sweet dreams safe,
Ho, Ho! I will be your little angel.

I am king when after the sun drowns,
I am lord of the animals,
I watch over the black forests,
So do not cry anymore.

Ho, ho, ho! Do not fear, ho!
Do not fear, little baby, ho!
I will keep your sweet dreams safe,
Ho, Ho! I will be your little angel.


>Canção de ninar de Ferrugem, a Coruja

Ru, ru, ru! Não tema, ru!
Não tema, bebezinho, ru!
Eu vou guardar seu soninho,
Ru, Ru! Serei seu anjinho.

Sou Ferrugem, a coruja,
O guardião da floresta,
Por ter na noite o meu ninho
Os monstros não fazem festa.

Veja estas fadas carnívoras,
Meus olhos, faiscantes feras:
Fantasmas malvados temem
Essas douradas panteras.

Ru, ru, ru! Não tema, ru!
Não tema, bebezinho, ru!

Dragão com baba de lava;
Lobo atroz, a morte cinza;
Orquídeas negras, morcegos;
Urso e javali ranzinza;

Raposa de nove caudas;
Ratos; Macacos traquinas;
Lesmas; sapos; salamandras;
Rãs suadas com toxinas;

Cobras com ruína por dentes;
Tarântulas cabeludas:
Não os tema, bebê, durma,
Durma o doce sono dos Budas.

Eu vou guardar seu soninho,
Ru, Ru! Serei seu anjinho.

Sou rei quando o sol se afoga,
Sou senhor dos animais,
Eu vigio os bosques negros,
Sendo assim, não chore mais.

Ru, ru, ru! Não tema, ru!
Não tema, bebezinho, ru!
Eu vou guardar seu soninho,
Ru, Ru! Serei seu anjinho.

>>9238193
Nope, it's about a girls personality. She's goth. She doesn't like most people, so she's always quiet. But she has a great inner passion about the things she thinks matters. People see the way she dressed and automatically judge her. She really quick witted and she can throw an insult right to your face without you even knowing.
You know the saying, light only shines with those who share, her light is ultraviolet. Factory filters on a telescope can't see uv. It can also cause damage to your body without you even knowing, even kill.

I know I have the metaphor side of poetry, but I've received more feedback on how the bottom portion is too short. I'll try and fix that part. But I'm not going to change the top, I don't care if 2 sentences don't rhyme.

rushes flying under the lake. Nightingales singing underground.
Yes, my King. Paris hungry and leisurely just after the war. Yes.
America falling into history. Yes. Those silent winter afternoons
along the Seine when I was always alone. Yes, my King. Rain
everywhere in the forests of Pennsylvania as the king’s coach
lumbered and was caught and all stood gathered close
while the black trees went on and on. Ah, my King,
it was the sweet time of our lives: the rain shining on their faces,
the loud sound of rain around. Like the nights we waited,
knowing she was probably warm and moaning under someone else.
That cold mansard looked out over the huge hospital of the poor
and far down on Paris, grey and beautiful under the February rain.
Between that and this. That yes and this yes. Between, my King,
that forgotten girl, forgotten pain, and the consequence.
Those lovely, long-ago night bells that I did not notice grow
more and more apparent in me. Like pewter expanding as it cools.
Yes, like a king halted in the great forest of Pennsylvania.
Like me singing these prison songs to praise the gray,
to praise her, to tell of me, yes, and of you, my King.

>>9238445
Thrushes

>>9238433
Well do what you like, but regardless of what you think, unless you give it a title that helps it, the imagery is way too ambiguous. If it's about a Goth girl, you need a cue or something in there.
And don't ask for advice if you are going to shit on it. If two people think a rhyme is crap, and the bleeding heart who wrote it doesn't, who would you think is in the right? If this is for yourself, then leave it. If it's not, good luck.

>>9235299
?????

How do I get started with poetry? I've took interest while reading Hamlet's speech when he saw Fortinbras's army. Also, does it have to rhyme?

What the fuck is with this fucking shit """"poetry""""? Have any of you ever read any good poetry?

I call this the ballad of /lit/

Those bombastic babes
Barely, scantily, voluptuously clad busts
Call to mind a litany
Love —or denial, if you must

You could, if you might, have the might
Look straight into their eyes,
Past the soul
Like a soldier’s stare goes far beyond
What he beholds
Doing this only to forestall
That inevitable glance
Into carnal caverns and chasms betwixt bosoms

But relent!
If your gaze glazes over
They, too, will notice you—
You’re not looking at them
Your mind’s eye unwrapping
They unwrap you too

Damned both ways
They’ll always know
I’d rather a gentleman, though,
Than a scoundrel’s make
Though the latter fulfills his desires
Far more often than I might partake

>>9239196
i like it a lot. Nice; all i have to say.

>>9235596
The rhymes are a bit too easy and obvious. I say a bit because I think they can work but there needs to be some work on the meter/content for them to work, it's more than possible.

>>9239538
Yeah I always hate trying out free verse, but I felt that since the poem had no 'point' and was to capture the start of spring that free verse would be good for it. I tried to keep it tight with internal rhymes outside of the end lines, but I can see it fell flat.
What do you do to help get with being easily able to determine stressed an unstressed syllables? I have a hard time with determining them for a lot of words and find myself looking it up constantly to be sure I'm right. Is it just practice and repetition? Or are there any useful tricks?

>>9239491
Thanks :]

The real title is "conversations with a girl"

O innocent Glaucus of the Argo!
The bosky turf revved immortality,
And though His scalened self senectuous,
Time has altered not the water of His.
To fade and to pass through modern tiding,
And not of the blue waves he takes hiding . . .
Woe is Glaucus of the sea--forced to see
Waves harsher than his cruel maiden Scylla
Better to bathe in Lethes of the sea
Than to live until Earth shall cease to be.


some okay stuff in this thread, some good stuff, some stuff I would think a 12 year old wrote, and some that makes me wonder why people try.

Significant as a stain -
Worthless; at your core
Lies your heart, ready to drain
Fron life it's marrow more.
Revolting, disgusting to touch;
Causing my hand blacken and wither,
Leaving ash in its place, giving much
Grief. No, I will not stay hither.
You consume our rock -
Ebbing our very lives away -
With the turn of hands on the clock,
Mocking us yet another day.
Long is the season which Man
Must till the fields, ripe
As a barren wasteland,
Left on a whim, no time for a gripe.
That counting! That infernal counting!
Hateful that it is. No, I am not
Even suggesting, or even surmounting
That it's being causes all things to rot.
Long, drawn out...one...two...
Grinding as a vehicle's gears, taking
Me here and there and over there, too;
With its noise it gives an early waking.
It stays not for a rest, a break, a stop,
Working it's way to a mountain top
Until it asks kindly for me to drop.

>>9238104
I assure you it's not even remotely close to being brilliant.

>>9238433
God you are just the worst.

>>9239599
I revisited a segment I had worked out about a month ago to get some practice on this. Thoughts?:

>The Forge

Drumsticks matched with matchsticks
drum erupting snares of embers.
Alternating and pulsating
orbs of rhythmic fires
conjure bursting storms of sparks
becoming twisters dancing spirals.

Summon me my will to be,
You frantic beating meter!
Tell me now, Hephaestus, how
Dionysus helps me neither!
This blazing pounding scares me not
of burning bloody ether.
Chaos born was Eros,
surely so could we together.

Twisting body-coals ablaze,
my thoughts can see no other.
Exhausted, forging hammers stay
and fires start to smother.
Cooling off, though not all froze,
my mind returns to me.
I strike a match and light a bone as
ash falls on a glowing screen.

Subtle sounds awake me from my sleep
A melody of a thousand stars have begun to creep
The skies become christened with the allure of this voice
An eventful awakening, to be heard, it is my choice

The oceans begin to shimmer as nature becomes mesmerised
By this enchanting mistress who wears no disguise
An enthralling voice with a hint of pleasure
The sun pulses, with no end, no measure

Majestic the trees stand as they salute this stranger
They are drawn to it, as if they know no better
The ones in the sky now touch the land
Even though their feet has never touched even sand

She encompasses all, and is the maker from one
The saviour of herself, her temptations and sons
Blind they are to what they have been given
A summary of her efforts, they are nothing but fiction.

>>9238445
make birds more intredasting

I was so close to being normal.
I was so close to being normal.
I was so close to being normal.
But I turned too late.
One turn to be exact,
walking on by in my Shape-ups™
I came to a carpet on the ground
in the middle of the road
and stepped onto it
sinking deep into the earth
until I was surrounded by light.
Suddenly, something pulled at my belt
and I discovered the sky below me
blowing wind into my stomach like beer.
A study in exaltation: I plummeted to death
wishing I ate more food in my life
so I could've had more of a cushion
to carry me home.

Written by an ex of mine, curious what /lit/ thinks

'please don't ever
hurt me,' you whimper into the softer side of his
neck. he knows exactly where to put his
hands on someone who hurts
everywhere. 'the only way I could ever
bruise you is by kissing you too
hard,' he says back.

you collect his moans like cut out passages from the
bible, he's the reason people get in fights about
god. he might not be a real
thing but there's no fucking
way the universe created your boy by
itself.

you want to scream that you
love him from every rooftop in every
city that is warless, every Spanish
town that doesn't have a
cross on the front
gate.

yes, you do believe the story about Jesus being draped from a
cross like your great grandmother's
laundry, but like the buckets being passed around at
church, not all of it was
holy.

he is splayed out on his
back in front of you, his shirt on the
floor and his arms out to the
sides. as you push down on his
hips he bites his lip until it
bleeds the colour he knows is your
favourite. 'the only way I could ever
hurt you is by holding your hand too
tightly,' you promise him, leaning into him like a
corner.

>>9240702
probably better than anything else in this thread

>>9240340
Because you don't understand it.

I just received all the information I needed after seeing the person that I wrote the poem about on Conan tonight. I had no clue she was going to be on there, and they even had a conversation about the way she says things. Conan actually said, I could picture you saying something to an adult and them wanting to die.

When I said it was brillaint, I was just talking about the metaphorical comparison.
>>9238585 I only asked if people understood it, and obviously people couldn't.

I never said, pretty please tell me it's good.

>>9240702
>>9240707
It is a great modernist piece. An interesting read for sure, and fairly original imagery (again, modernist) though not a very original idea itself.

>>9240740
If you have to explain it to your audience, then it's not good. I really don't see how you aren't grasping this.
What does the person it's supposedly about being on Conan and Conan's words have anything to do with the quality of a ""poem"" you wrote? I'd bet my left nut you could show that to Conan tonight, giving him no context on what it's about, and he'd probably guess what I did.
You're too lost in your own conceit. Just keep it in your personal collection. That way you won't get your feelings hurt, and you can be happy in your own little bubble.

>>9240752
Well love and poetry have gone hand in hand for just about forever. I liked her works, she love Franz Kafka's shit. I feel weird that in the original piece she had my name as the title however

>>9240740
Also, Aubrey will never be your waifu. Not even if you show her your poem.

>>9240702
I think you should have wifed her.

>>9240781
She was about 16 when she wrote this. I was 14. I don't think I was old enough for wifeage

Still should've done it her tits were divine

>>9240763
>I feel weird that in the original piece she had my name as the title however

Yeah. Hopefully the level of faith she portrayed having in you wasn't as literal as her imagery. I had to read it twice to be sure it wasn't a metaphor for her faith in Christianity but her using (Christian) faith as a metaphor for her love.

I'm a sentient piece of shit
o ya
yeah a sentient piece of shit
okay
cuz he's a sentient piece of shit
that's right
and a sentient piece of shit
o yah
smelly and full of it
you know
the sentient piece of shit
o no
who's gonna kill himself today
oh no
but gonna kill himself some way
some way
cuz he's sentient piece of shit
of shit
yeah a sentient piece of shit
oh yeah
so I descend demolished as the fourth reich
as a solipsistic pile of human feces that begs for attention
from groups of cells calling themselves things like Abe and Abby
till they die and people call them other things like grandma
so I sit in my musty apartment unit in boston
and admit to myself the only ting i know to be true

i'm a sentient piece of shit
oh yeah
who's quite frankly sick of it
of it!

>>9240800
Interesting point. I hope she didn't have that much faith in me because I betrayed it thoroughly.

This is the other work she wrote about me after we had fallen apart:

you remember his lips on
yours, how they felt like tar and you knew he was something
you did not want to stick to. the aftermath was like climbing out of a
net while covered in honey, he told you, smiling, how sweet you
were but you’re clenching your fists waiting for the
bees. sting me here and here and here and
here, cut off my hands so i never have to know what
losing your child before it’s fourth
birthday feels like.

when you were little, your
mother used to read you bedtime
stories about princes and dragons and lots of happy ever
afters. but where is the ‘after’ when your best friend
hates you? where is the
‘before?’

your therapist is reading you an
eliot poem in hopes it’ll calm you
down, in hopes you’ll replace memories of that
boy with bob
dylan and that couch with thoughts of empty
fields. every time it comes into your
head, bob won’t write songs about
you and the field screams ‘i am not
empty, i am
open.’

call you Vada, accuse you of being in
love with your teacher and killing your
mother; the first thing you ever ruined on
accident. you wish you were thomas
j, you wish you were genetically pre
dispositioned to crumble like a heart made of
sand when a bee sticks himself
into you.

your best friend won’t be your
best friend anymore and you’re ripping pages out of the
calendar and swallowing january
whole, there’s more ways to die than to stay
alive. suicides are their own
language, the suicidal are like
carpenters, they always ask ‘what
tools’ instead of
‘why build’.

you’re begging to the god your best
friend believes in to let you die
young. every minute of the
afterward feels like one more
tally on his list of worst
betrayals. satan is
smiling because you’re playing the game he
invented.

but what if the devil
doesn’t know he’s the devil?

it started out with a crash and a
blast and it ended in a mouthful of
bees.

Awake, Henry, to take your first breath hot
Between De Soto’s buried trails this swampy smoke
And heavenward single sun, so liveth by it:

Take up thy heritage!
Moldboard plow and right hand to wield
To scrape thy bread from ashen field

Thy meal as thy mother’s milk
Dreams of fire draped in wetted silk
Take too thy cursed lineage!

Whiskey wild in an earthen bottle

Left hand leave thy children hungry

Fetch them at the yonder trees for apples

Set them upon rivers for fish

And your feet upon your weed-grown earth
Look far from your cold wife's cold hearth

>>9235150
Here's something I've written recently. Put a lot of time into it:

we birds looking downwards on the madness
sometimes feel sorry for them
the multitudes of humans
spinning circles around each other in a frenzied and agonized dance
each person incredibly captivated and infatuated by their
own sphere of importance,
mesmerized by their fingers and
blown away by their own magnificent photographs

we always look to the people as a source of amusement
and (every once in awhile) an inspiration
because sometimes their interactions are unobtainable by the likes of birds
and a feeling of unfathomable jealousy surfaces
for an instant
from wingtip to wingtip,
falling from our beaks in a cry of childish sorrow, falling
falling, falling, down, down, down,
into the madness below

but then it disappears
and we are no longer envious of the creatures who stab each other with safety pins,
the points poisoned with incredulous exasperation,
the beings who only moments later obliviously pass each other in the grocery aisle
their beautiful eyes dimmed by the false philosophy
that nothing really matters anymore
and that their thoughts could never be influential enough
to be interesting

we fly over civilizations lost in the dust,
now only the ruins of memory,
politicians and poets and scientists
all engrossed in their oceans of unfortunate shortcomings
and disastrous public consequence,
divulging in the candy promises of idyllic radio broadcasts
that express the wonder and magic of the world,
but never go beyond letting everyone know about the excruciating pain
felt by so many

we birds occasionally try to give the humans gifts,
we leave feathers for them,
that (if reflected on properly) could define the mystery of a black hole,
or imitate experiences that people caught up in rollercoaster realities,
desperately require,
but our feathers are normally ignored,
and so all we can do is watch them
spiral and laugh and cry,
love each other and kill each other,
create things and destroy things,
all while existing within the confines of entropy

but what else could we expect from creatures lacking the means to fly?

I'll critique a few in my following post

This is for my girlfriend. Her surname is finn, which means fair in gaelic


Conthrom siad abair

Its true, as told around
I find you rightly fair
For a pale beauty crowned
As vibrance which ensnares

You being fine is much
Is more then looks alone
Persona bright and such
Is taken not on loan

A smile lasting long
Internal beauty quaint
It budding, shall prolong
The least of dull complaints

-the money tree-


Someone gave me a money tree.
I planted it a few blocks away.
Everyday i must tend to my money tree,
hoping it grows big and wide, and makes me rich.

But caring for the money tree is not a simple task.
Sunlight and water do not nourish it.
Only blood, gasoline, sweat, and tears make it grow.
And those things don’t always come cheap.

Plus everyone is trying to steal from my money tree.
It’s small and pathetic right now,
but hey, money is money.
So I had to build fences around it, and keep guard all day.

Now I sit around, surrounded by barbed wire,
with the smell of blood, gasoline, sweat, and tears in the air.
Every once in a while, the greasy old tree coughs up a 20,
and i run to the corner store to buy fresh gas and syringes.

>>9240835
I like the third stanza. First and second stanzas have some typos. The content is not for me to judge, perhaps she will like it, but you place a very strong emphasis on beauty (overly so in my opinion)

The rose floated on the horizon
like a lilypad in the Nile river
blessed by Aphrodite's aunt
Flow, named after her namesake.
The skies bellow with yellow frostflakes
continuing onto the point unknown
we call tomorrow but ignore today
until death claims our lovers again.
And again we decry the crying masses
of hurt inside our swollen bellies of hope
that we filled with a distilled idea
born from a want for things to be better
like the greener grassed neighbors yard
mowed by Lucifer the sun and saint
fallen like photons from stars unknown
whose destinations we call home
over and over again
we call home.

>>9240830
Not all that aesthetic. A decent piece of writing. An abstract idea as such doesnt necessarily Make it a poem. At beginner to intermediate a poem will have a meter and a rhyme scheme. I found poems without them edgy, but that is me personally. Maybe im jaded by slam "poet" telling a story with a rhetoric and calling it a poem. But anyway, I'm self admittedly a poor critic of a piece of writing like yours

>>9240702
Not a fan

>>9240607
Work on your flow. Not sure how to do this is free verse. Kind of just happens when in meter

>>9239964
Flow could be improved. Unless you are trying to not Make it particularly smooth

>>9238355
I would read it to my children before bed. Reminds me a little of Lorca.

>>9240872
Thank You. Well, it's kind of for her birthday. So that's what the emphasis on beauty is about. If you know what I mean, not meant to be a masterpiece, pretty straight forward with the rhymes and focusing on my perception of her beauty

What do you think i should do with the first two stanzas? Also thoughts on not exactly sticking to the meter?

>>9240827
It's funny how between your posts and those poems, quite a large picture can be painted of you, your ex, and your relationship from inception to right this moment. Your posts are the reason I write. The humanity inbetween the lines of anonymity.

>>9240835
It's nice, and something I'm sure she enjoyed/would enjoy, if she doesn't find it cliche.
>You being fine is much
>Is more then looks alone
Those two lines detract from the flow, and would be my only suggestion to (quickly) fix by making it
>You being fine is much
>It's more than looks alone
Changing is to it's and then to than (obviously the latter isn't up to opinion, it's a typo). But that's just my two cents. Like I said, I think it's pretty good.

>>9240892
I think it is very sweet of you to make that for her birthday, and as such, I'm sure she will like it.

I like the "as vibrance which ensnares" line, I only wish that the rhyme could fit more perfectly with the "rightly fair" bit (because it has that connection in meaning).

I would say fix the typos (*It's *than) but otherwise it is a solid piece of work and I'm probably not qualified enough to say anything more.

I know some people are sticklers about meter in poems, but I've really never had too much of an issue if someone deviates from it

I quite like the Arthurian tone of the whole piece

>>9240914
I forgot to post with my trip, whoops

>>9240914
I wish I were on better terms with her because this thread has helped give me a new appreciation for the intricacy of her work. I want to encourage her to keep doing it, but I think I will have to do so anonymously

You keep writing too my friend, I think that is a very good mindset to have about the process

>>9240929
Do it anonymously man. Either she's a flare for the dramatic, or else you gave her her first real heartbreak. Put your own emotions aside, because if you as yourself help her, it'll just fuck with her head.

>>9240924
I really appreciate the feed back. Thank you for the spelling errors youve spotted out. I really fail to find them, saved me a lot of trouble. I really do appreciate it. Been writing in meter only as of late, still testing the waters of not strictly adhering to it

>>9240945
Keep at it my man! You've got some potential

>>9240939
I did. Thank you for the advice

>>9240971
Np

>>9240878
>>9240804
>>9240650
I can't make up my mind. What does everyone think of these?

I accept that it's bad
I'm just starting to learn so harshly criticise me pls.
I don't really know what I'm doing or understand poetry but I thought it'd be fun to learn. Some parts even I can tell don't work but I like the story I've made.

>The Wonderful Night of Mister Green
Once upon a time, in the land called Thyme
There lived a man, with a jewel, coloured lime.
What a wonderful shade, everyone would agree. He was the envy of many, since he had plenty.
This jewelling individual was quite oddly named, some even dare say it quietly changed.
“Mister Green!” the children would proclaim. “Teach me, not he, I am ever such a worker bee!”
He would respond quite gleefully “But I, my child, am no teacher, only just a wild kind of jeweller”
You see this was not quite fact, as Mister Green was a cracked, thwacked, humpbacked Devil in act.
Down in his basement was he ever planning, something that would be quite damning
The land of Thyme was under threat, from the sinister mister, an unknown Baphomet.
The plan he was planning which indeed was damning, it would bring back the evil upon the lands.
From the forgotten planes, known as Vlistervane.
This horrible place, which it was indeed, stored many creatures, that if should flee, on their spree would most likely sentence their station to damnation.
---
On one starry night, a breakthrough was in sight.
Mister Green forged a device, which could transport in a trice.
“My friends from Vlistervane, you will be here tonight!” The transporter was prepared with no reporter in sight.
So he began, the terrible deed. What a beautiful light, Green was jollied
Flinging Flashes, fantastically firing, how awe-inspiring was this event
Oh my, what a wondrous sight! How hard to describe, ‘twas ever so bright,
From the light came a fright, and in Greens sight, ineffable horrors did take flight.
The jeweller was in shock, most would mock. The demons approached and encroached on this cockroach.
This was his end, he could not pretend, to survive he’d need, well a godsend.
One would not come, he caused this down send. The land of Thyme was indeed close to its end.
Hell came to Earth. Its people watched as it burned. They could do nothing but stare as their world began to turn.
Such is the outcome of playing with fire, but fortunately Mister Green did right by one flower,
Those ghouls, and critters, and demons who came from the plane known as Vlistervane now did indeed have one final domain.
And slowly but surely did the world come crazy, the land of Thyme, was now out of time.
ohhh mama, my stress levels.

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41KB, 637x415px

>>9237986
I dont really get it, but I like how it sounds aesthetically (second half only)
>>9240865
pretty interesting, but not a fan of the wording stylistically

>>9240865
I really dig that conceptually and I appreciate the humor element. Something about the metre in the last stanza really doesn't do it for me though, and it feels sketchy around "Hey, money is money." too.

Rather than
>But hey, money is money.
>So I had to build fences around it, and keep guard all day.

Maybe something like

>But hey, money is money.
>So I had to build fences around it,
>And then I kept guard all day.

I held a baby in my arms that day
And saw the strangers stare and peek
I am the protector and creator
Of a child I dare not speak

Honey skin and light eyes,
My mind is filled with feral sparks
A veil of cotton will melt their hearts
One stumble and a cold remark

Only a glimmer of freedom remains
These arms are tired and full of pain
I am the creator and destroyer
Of a child I'll never see again

>>9240835

Pretty good. Getting this type of poetry right is tremendously difficult. You've at least managed to render it readable. Keep it up.

Which poets do you like, by the way?

>>9240891

Thank you very much, you are very kind. Did you read it in Portuguese too, with the rhyme and metric preserved?

Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew.
It’s the same when love comes to an end,
or the marriage fails and people say
they knew it was a mistake, that everybody
said it would never work. That she was
old enough to know better. But anything
worth doing is worth doing badly.
Like being there by that summer ocean
on the other side of the island while
love was fading out of her, the stars
burning so extravagantly those nights that
anyone could tell you they would never last.
Every morning she was asleep in my bed
like a visitation, the gentleness in her
like antelope standing in the dawn mist.
Each afternoon I watched her coming back
through the hot stony field after swimming,
the sea light behind her and the huge sky
on the other side of that. Listened to her
while we ate lunch. How can they say
the marriage failed? Like the people who
came back from Provence (when it was Provence)
and said it was pretty but the food was greasy.
I believe Icarus was not failing as he fell,
but just coming to the end of his triumph.

>>9235380
Aeneid is pretty useless if you don't read it in latin metric, which is totally different by the modern idea of it

>>9235324
read william carlos williams. he renders colloquial language into nice syllabic structures.

most meters are bunk. rules for other languages forced into so-so forms.

better to develop an ear for the natural cadence of your own language. meters won't help you with that. maybe iambic pentameter but even then it can sound artificial.

>tfw got a C- for this

What name do I have for you?
Certainly there is not name for you
In the sense that the stars have names
That somehow fit them. Just walking around,

An object of curiosity to some,
But you are too preoccupied
By the secret smudge in the back of your soul
To say much and wander around,

Smiling to yourself and others.
It gets to be kind of lonely
But at the same time off-putting.
Counterproductive, as you realize once again

That the longest way is the most efficient way,
The one that looped among islands, and
You always seemed to be traveling in a circle.
And now that the end is near

The segments of the trip swing open like an orange.
There is light in there and mystery and food.
Come see it.
Come not for me but it.
But if I am still there, grant that we may see each other.

>>9235324
just read a lot of poetry. not kidding

>>9235324

Buy the book

>Shakespeare's Metrical Art

It will help you a lot.

Guys this is mine. it's a translation but i tried to make it sound good
pls no bully

Virgin Mary
enters in town
the procession
long
long
longer
(endless)
a gunshot - eyes in the sky
and the white phosphorus fires
and red of magnesium
and those rockets halfway
they whistle
screech
they look like little foxes
with their tails on fire
which weep
and run

>>9241998
Cheers. Fan of Keats for a style similar to the one I wrote. Ezra pound fan as well. But I like the density of poem typically, something with allusions and such. Like I'm a huge fan of the wasteland by elliot

Spiritual malaise and mayonnaise
baste my fingertips against your lips
speaking words of a deafmute in June
catapult a whirlwind of methane, jejune.
The asphalt and glitter play bingo
with warped air trapped in a penny's limbo
copper wired and pulsing with inert ecstasy
peddled by a Samoan man named Brick.
But as I sit here and think about us
I remember that you owe me about tree-fiddy
for that Snickers™ bar I tied you over with
like the chains binding me to the bread.

I search my mind for music
but only find white noise
screaming to me of my privilege
weighing me down with guilt.
So I let out a screeching cry
and post a song to the ether
about the marginalization of peoples
far removed from the history of victory
that I must stand remiss in the shade
so that other trees may grow
as I have done since long ago.

My past is with me
but that is history.

>>9244141

It stinks

>>9245187
okay but why

>>9245207
Not him but i think that it's too prosaic. I dont know, poems should be more evocative and in-your-face. Try to cut as many useless words you can, they make the poem heavy. The metaphor with sound is cool, you should keep it, but make it sound more direct and less "explained"

>>9243090
Honestly you deserved that C-
>>9242936
Pressing enter now and then doesn't make it a poem bro
>>9241771
This one is nice

Every year the same old tale
Civil arson, saviors fail
Happy is that happy does
Pretty sure I never was

Major Tom to Ground Control
Tinker, tailor, soldier, soul
I sold my home for nothing less
Than magic beans of happiness

One day, you will be one
Who lived in the then, in the gone-past
One day, will have come and gone
When we rocked you to sleep, gave your soul to rest

Your deeds, your truth, your life since the Flood
Roams on and beyond in your grandchildren's blood
Your heart and your breath, and the name that you left
Are yet beauty and song when a love is bereft

Y'all niggas need to write in a meter

Its hard to get started but you will write better poetry

At least in my opinion. I could see how some people would feel held back by the meter

I promise I'll go back one I get to my labtob to give critique, but for now if you guys want to read mine

The memories rot--
strewn about my fathers things
and my mothers dust

>>9246140
Very nice, reminds me of Yeats.

The pacing and length work well with your theme.

The only critique I have is that the "One Day" at the beginning of the second and third lines comes off a little awkwardly, and the pauses set off by commas in general set off the flow a little bit because they're not parallel with the others.

Good stuff tho

>>9246174
I find most poetry written in metre to be boring, repedative, and trite. I've found very few writers who can bring with metre the intensity I find enjoyable in poetry.

Poetry reads much better when each line is paced separately to increase or decrease intensity.

That's only my opinion tho.

I really don't know what to say or critique because there's a lot in this thread. Most of you, I see, do a good job in my eyes. Except those who are pretentious twats. You know who you are.

He lights a cigarette

he lights a cigarette
sucks the fire out of
not really interested

old wounds on hand
UV’d skin, piss-hue
IV rot, fourth degree

pyramid-aged face
parchment limbed
ashes coming soon

>>9247015
also

Ache

this fleshy cosmos machine of mine
is running
on ibuprophene and dopamine
it keeps running
from serfdom and boredom

into the land of non-nausea
& free euphoria paper bags
to be liberated
by the decree of a Holy See
become allowed to
freely watch TV marathons

until I run out of dope amine
and my perpetually mobile machine
is shackled back into beddom
sticky migraney molasses
can’t wait

File: so powerful.jpg (40KB, 910x600px) Image search: [Google]

40KB, 910x600px

Ooga booga

Look at me, I'm King Nigger!

Okie doke!

>>9245987
Yes, Jack Gilbert is not a trained poet

>>9246174
I have an MFA (yes, I know, waste of degree, but fully funded so) and I fell out of love with meter and academic poetry. It's bullshit when forced. I like poetry that is written, because it has to be. Not poetry written for the sake of sounding pretty or impressing with nice words. That's meaningless.

Is this any good?


THREE WISE MEN descended upon mankind.
White was their robes and each thought noble their mode.
Their well withered faces and genteel smiles made for ernest finds.

THE FIRST wise man;
preached a platter of gods: one for the fishermen,
the huntsmen, wisemen, mother-of-men… Till gods outnumbered praying men,
so the concept of one singular God make much more practical sense.

“But,” asked many a devout man, “Which god should the capital‘G’ God be?”
The first man could only weep, as they waged jihad to find Him.
Could only watch, as the broken bodies symbolised the truth
of his utopian gleam. His logic naive and inchoate.

THE SECOND wise man;
appealed to logic to make the world make sense.
Using some corporeal intangible by which ideas had ‘form’ which only mind could see.
It worked just fine, till the masses reconnected with their old friend: Causality.

“What need do we have for forms?” proclaimed curious men, “When cause and effect
Suffices to explain all? He lies! He lies! He lies!”
So the second man was sent to court. There he endured the prosecutor
That revealed him to be nothing more than a well intentioned fraud.

THE THIRD wise man;
spoke to the inner animal in the men
a patter of hyperbolic hyperbole that snared the masses to come to stop, affixed—
In disbelief of the very Spectacle that was to unfold. Audacious and Bold—
But like all in acts, the curtain fell— The guy gone so sudden, that the crowd couldn't even applaud

“Wut? Was that really it?!”
“Yep!”
“SRSY?”
“Lol Kek. A refund pls.”

AND SO mankind was lost.
The men foundered for some kind of force
that they could utilise to set them some great cause—

“THE FOURTH wise man will come,” the men all clung
to the Delphic and dreamlike, their hopes and wishes
Projected to an external object
Never once realising that man would always be there for man.

So
— In wait, He, man, awaits,
The Fourth, The Forgotten, The Great,
The Final True Godhead.

>>9246174
why would using a meter created for the cadence of another language make for better poetry?

like sprung rhythm, it just makes the writing really oblique. which makes the 'terrible' sonnets work but everything else pretty underwhelming.

write is sapphic form and you'll get a bad poem 9/10. in fact, it was the form promoted by the 'bad poets' movement in the early 90s for that reason.

Wrote this a few days ago... It feels dated already but I would appreciate any feedback... (part of a bigger poem about a trip I went on this summer)

I felt the moon, how tethered by looks
Of jousting jade, how she drew tides
From moistest nooks of my dry mouth.
She pleads the stern conductor of

The astral railway, fixed above,
To bend my time-rode course to hers.
I feel him too; a coarse men whose
Brow never falters, never bows-

No rest in the engulfing shapes
Of lonelyness. My love for him
How rapt I am with, as I am
To that one I have long bethroed,

Death! Nothing crawls which will not wed
You come their walking hour; no
Such lover could pound on rings
Of flesh that is not breath of your

Silken bower; no roses, no
Chords, no wines, no lisp nor lips,
No reveries that are not
Spent from your supreme dower!

And yet she was, as if white stars
On wild water gliding had once
Been coalesced, formed shifting broth
And skimmed from it her creamy skin.

Her slender motions, simmering
With contained toxicity, flowed
About while shawls of thickened light
Trailed as inevitably as time trails

Itself. The spectacle! The host!
A million groveled moths arose
And chained toward the hospice of
Her moonlit grove. How soft she spoke

To me... Or rather she conjured;
Words to her were billows of deep
Eternity, so hissing with the
Thump of long dead loves belated.

What I was getting at with the meter is that is gives you something redeemable about your poem

If it's shit (kinda most stuff in this thread, sorry but keep up the practice) at least you've got a meter so you have some flow

Poor poetry (we all write it when we start out) becomes less poor with a meter

It was legit piece of advice for someone starting out, it makes you think more when writing. Poor free verse poetry comes off a bit plebby on my opinion

This one is bad I know, but I think I was for once able to come up with a couple decent lines. What do you think? Is the message clear to you at all? I am most dissatisfied with the couplet, and am still playing around with a couple things.

Now Sin is free of meaning, let us go
From Orphic grue decanting on the waves
To where more Universal Rivers flow,
Going to fetch back obscurer shades and nameless graves.

My sultry soul, my inaccessible
Bundle of Clouds, between screenlight and pitch
To find grey Waste and there to toll the bell,
Thrusting the peacock’s scream and eyes back on the Bitch,

Reviving those dire words when direness has
Eluded us long and borne us waiting late;
We whirl, as once Salome, and trespass
Beyond where even God and Homer sat in state

And sit no more; we hail the coming Time
When Torment’s trees again grow ripe and sway with the sublime.

>>9248463
But how can someone writing shit poetry even have an interesting meter?

Writing meter is an art in itself and good meter should not cover your bad poetry, because it is not just some easy cover to put on your thoughts, it requires some stretches of syntax that are just as much of an aquired skill as is imagery.

>>9248524
this is good

>>9248565
Sorry, I'm not articulating myself really well. Helps with building a flow or any sense of aesthetic. Which is what I see from a lot of these poems

I will agree it's hard. Fucking oath it's hard. But you will develop more by writing in it then just throwing out free verse

>>9248604
Well that I agree, but I think its because Free-Verse is nothing but lazyness if it does not have an intent, a thought behind it that most beguinning poets are not erudite enough to have.

Another snippet from a narrative poem...


Distill this venom fill'd fever of
Insipid window panes! Oh what
Sublime essence would bathe most everything
With flavors fallen from danc'd paradise,
And raze this dull expanse of hoary life!
Though deathless plastic fiends would cease
In drowning, mounted on a sheet
Of heaven's gown the asphalt heath
Dissolves and parts with wounded world.
The frames of hell and eden break
And uncontained by hope and fear
What dazzling fire trails toward
The place of glaciers and black hail!

>>9246105
i like it

Rip your asshole
Apart
Let alcohole
Become a part
Of you
By poring it
All over

>>9248994
edgy

The Hermit's Mantra

Only love, or lack thereof,
I give my heart to take.
Only love, or lack thereof,
Can cause the heart to break.

>>9248524

The ending is weak, but the rest pleased me.

Not exactly poetry, but rather a flow-of-consciousness thing I just wrote:

The world takes its strong medicine
Swallows it down
Chokes it back up
Loathes the taste
Says "drink, drink, get well"
But the medicine cures nothing
The medicine is fire

The world teaches itself to hate
Because it's what the doctor ordered
Hatred, split, and suspicion
Take two of these, and call him in the morning

Sick, sick
A fever dream
A gently cooled forehead on a damp pillow
It's you, it's me
In that hospital bed
With tubes in our arms
And hate in our blood

>>9250247

'the heart to break' - I've heard that countless times, and one of the chief joys and virtues of poetry is being original. Aside from that, your poem is pretty good.

It was my chin into which you sank your teeth,
or was it my shoulder, my cheek or my neck,

or was it my nape's furrow or my bottom lip?
You who had to go way way up on tiptoe to bite—

there was a bite, the bite. Whatever it bit.
By morning there was no swelling or toothmark,

no ring-moat anywhere. Were blood drawn,
it was drawn back in and sent through the body

where it bled to itself. The bite bled inside.
A bite can bite so deep, it can cut in two...

By Wednesday, my left eye began to turn deep green
flecked with amber and scarlet, bespeckled in gold;

my mouth my mouth was gradually changing shape,
my mouth was fuller and somehow grew wider;

my cheekbones first they locked, and then unlocked,
my hands shrunk to half their size, nails painted dark;

my hands shrunk to half their size, half their size
as yours grew bigger and your eyes turned blue.

>>9240762
Sit down and think for a fucking second. Isn't that what art is supposed to do?

Here I am thinking it's too obvious.

>>9240775
I don't care, I barely know her.

>>9240762
You're the one who jumped to point out negativities. I just asked if people understood it, guess I need to dumb it down a little.

Some random person telling me it's not good doesn't bother me. This is why I don't have many friends. All they ever say is I like this, I hate that. I don't care about your opinion on something. I want to talk about the underlying story. I hate negative people. When I say hate, I mean I feel bad for them. Living in their bubble, thinking their opinions matter. When they don't.

>>9251850
Holy shit man, I think you might need help.

Need I repent for my wet dream
of one of my best friends?
Seeing her since makes me
feel uncomfortable
especially when she hugs me