I tried a little something different with this one. I'm still not entirely sure what I think of the results.

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You comfort me, I love you.

You hurt me, I hate you.

You want to be with me, I love you.

You're never here, I hate you.

You lift me up, I love you.

You tear me down, I hate you.

You treat me well, I love you.

You ignore my pleas, I hate you.

You smile at me, I love you.

You're angry with me, I hate you.

You honor me, I love you.

You mistreat me, I hate you.

You tell the truth, I love you.

You feed me lies, I hate you.

You stand up for me, I love you.

You let me suffer, I hate you.

You care for me, I love you.

You ignore my soul, I hate you.

You say the right things, I love you.

You never do them, I hate you.

You make me live, I love you.

You let me die, I hate you.

"Simple and straight !" yet beautiful it is . The constant conflict between the two -"I love you " and "I hate you " were a good plan to choose as they keep the reader indulged for what comes next.The way the poem had started is just right but as we proceed it must grow with deeper emotions. the closing lines are also good but i thing the 4 lines before it could be better than this for the poetry to end . And as you chose simplicity for this poem.... let me tell you that elaborating a bit is actually possible with that.....(at least for ourselves to be a little happier with what we did ). as you mentioned that you yourself werent sure about it .

Humans are two faced and whimsical in nature, man's inconsistency is a nuisance indeed. I would agree.
The way you set up the poem definitely reflects the motif of duality, and the structure you lay out reinforces that in a creative way. cool.

I guess the drawback of the structure is the fact that it is so narrow and long; you beat it to death, essentially, and exhausted its parameters
so much so it distracts me by how much you emphasized the structure, I hope that makes sense

To make things more interesting, you can try reversing the expected response:

(03-08-2018, 03:01 PM)TemporaryForever Wrote:  You comfort me, I hate you.

You hurt me, I love you.

You want to be with me, I hate you

You're never here, I love you.

You lift me up, I hate you.

You tear me down, I hate you.

You treat me well, I love you.

Not only is this more interesting, it lets us know you're directly captured and shaped by a relationship, for better or for worse
(you might have not been aiming for that intent, just food for thought)

You might also want to extract the most compelling aspects of your ideas and distill them into a shorter length
that will add more impact overall, and specify your theme 

Hey,

I think Cloud has hit the nail on the head with the suggestion to reverse the I Hate You and the I Love You. Really good shout there. I like the simplicity of this, I do however think that brevity would work with a piece like this, why? Because the repetition becomes tiresome by the end of the piece. I also think that you need to try and combine and utilise some more flowing imagery within the piece to really draw the reader in. I think you could create stanzas out of each couplet that show the reader the reasons behind the comfort or the hurt for example, and still utilise the repeated refrains of I Hate You and I Love You.

Regards

Johnny

I think the idea you have is a nice starting point for a poem. The issue you have is that the poem is almost entirely abstract. Concrete nouns that deal with tangible objects create imagery which gives your poems emotional resonance. Abstract nouns deal with qualities like truth or love and hate in this case or comfort or pleas. Their innate ambiguity robs them of this emotional power. There usually needs to be something added to ground the ideas and make them interesting. Or all you will be left with is an interesting concept that doesn't deliver. I'm not saying abstract constructions can't work in poetry they can. Look at what Jacques Prévert does in his poem This Love as an example of mixing abstract and concrete nouns to add imagery around the idea of love. I hope that's helpful. https://hellopoetry.com/poem/15468/this-love/

Best,

Todd

Love/Hate,

Your poem reminds me of a relationship with someone that captures the change in good and bad times and how another person can have such a hold on us, an intense relationship. This captures a relatable yet challenging experience with love.

(03-08-2018, 04:52 PM)cloud Wrote:  Humans are two faced and whimsical in nature, man's inconsistency is a nuisance indeed. I would agree.
The way you set up the poem definitely reflects the motif of duality, and the structure you lay out reinforces that in a creative way. cool.

I guess the drawback of the structure is the fact that it is so narrow and long; you beat it to death, essentially, and exhausted its parameters
so much so it distracts me by how much you emphasized the structure, I hope that makes sense

To make things more interesting, you can try reversing the expected response:

(03-08-2018, 03:01 PM)TemporaryForever Wrote:  You comfort me, I hate you.

You hurt me, I love you.

You want to be with me, I hate you

You're never here, I love you.

You lift me up, I hate you.

You tear me down, I hate you.

You treat me well, I love you.

Not only is this more interesting, it lets us know you're directly captured and shaped by a relationship, for better or for worse
(you might have not been aiming for that intent, just food for thought)

You might also want to extract the most compelling aspects of your ideas and distill them into a shorter length
that will add more impact overall, and specify your theme 

Wow...that is actually a really good idea! Thanks!

(03-08-2018, 03:01 PM)TemporaryForever Wrote:  I tried a little something different with this one. I'm still not entirely sure what I think of the results.

-------------------

You comfort me, I love you.

You hurt me, I hate you.

You want to be with me, I love you.

You're never here, I hate you.

You lift me up, I love you.

You tear me down, I hate you.

You treat me well, I love you.

You ignore my pleas, I hate you.

You smile at me, I love you.

You're angry with me, I hate you.

You honor me, I love you.

You mistreat me, I hate you.

You tell the truth, I love you.

You feed me lies, I hate you.

You stand up for me, I love you.

You let me suffer, I hate you.

You care for me, I love you.

You ignore my soul, I hate you.

You say the right things, I love you.

You never do them, I hate you.

You make me live, I love you.

You let me die, I hate you.

Hello TemporaryForever

I appreciate the boldness of your post.  Something seems to be missing.
If you are going to ignore visuals, I would eliminate the repetition of love
and hate in the piece, this would give the title more power and eliminate
the monotone, encouraging the reader.

-nibbed

The narrator loves and hates without question. There's nothing in between. Is it supposed to be humorous? Simple is often good, but I'm sorry, I think this poem is overly simplistic. It's too black and white for me, whether written it in its original form or reversed as has been suggested. I actually thought the "I" in the poem might be pet cat or dog. Or possibly a child.

I don't know, I like the repetition, but I feel that it might be done a little too much. I would make it a little shorter. Also, I feel that you should do a bit more with specific feelings and such, in that it kind of brings out a bit more of the dual, positive negative thing. So, I'd say just make it a little shorter and focus more on diction.

This is good. I like what cloud said about reversing the "hate you" and "love you" 's. Also maybe shorten in a little and focus on just a few feelings. 








































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