Purity of The World

[Queerventions]

Purity of The World

There is a certain purity to balance.
We balance love and fear,
black and white,
passivity and aggression.
With all the contradictions surrounding us
we can somehow bring about a coalition
of beauty, life, hate , war, art, 
and humanity.

Colorful but terrifying.
We're taught to fear predators,
lurking in every corner,
waiting to harm us.
But through the grayness of the clouds,
the stillness of the wind,
nature tells us to love her.
To Fear her.
And we obey.

Glass shatters and turns to crystal sand.
Or plates we use to make art.
That is our balance.
A balance found in all things...
natural,
all things human,
Because human creations
Are made from nature after all.
How pure...

[tectak]

Purity of The World
Hello queer,
be careful with this. There is a tendency to over-work a concept and begin believing whatever hypotheses come along in the creation. As a result, strange theorising moves in to statementalising to the detriment of the piece. In other words, the reader finds him/herself either agreeing or disagreeing fulsomely, so losing sight of the poetry...as anyone reading my last sentence will no doubt find is the case; but I am not claiming poetic endeavour. To be transparent, I disagree with the piece in almost all aspects. Now, on with the crit.
There is a certain purity to balance. When you add the descriptor "certain", as in a lady of a "certain" age, you lose veracity. There is a lazy, uncontroversiality about the technique. It says nothing with "certainty" because that is the nature of the word "certain". It is undefined but one expects to be believed. I do not. It fails at the outset.
We balance love and fear, They cannot be balanced anymore than speed and colour. They are not fungible, they are not comparable. You may balance love and hate, you may balance fear and trust, you may balance dark and light...but not love and fear. The rest of the balancing act relies upon the belief structure which you THINK you have established as fact. As I said at the outset...be careful. I am not convinced of the poetry, either. You are preaching a falsehood and so evangelical are you the poetic spirit is off on the wind. The listing of platitudes is causing the ship to heel. Now YOU must get the balance corrected or a puff will have you over. I can "feel" that you believe you are making a point but prose at this level becomes blatantly self-feeding. I am yearning for meter, rhyme, metaphor, hyperbole...hell, even a cliche would shout poet... all I am getting is "I say this and I say that".
black and white,
passivity and aggression.
With all the contradictions surrounding us
we can somehow bring about a coalition
of beauty, life, hate , war, art, 
and humanity. Sez who? Where? Give me an example. Give me ten examples. I am not saying there are none, indeed, there are many. So what meaneth thou?

Colorful but terrifying. pointless non-sentence. A thought-pop.
We're taught to fear predators, No. We LEARN to fear predators...it is a survival instinct. Failure to learn is the problem. This is a whimsical musing which you have not thought through.
lurking in every corner, Maybe, but if you are avoiding the cliche (around every corner) you are way too late.
waiting to harm us. Naively put, but that may be your point.
But through the grayness of the clouds, Sarcasm is not my way...but clouds of grey? I have heard that before somewhere (over the rainbow)
the stillness of the wind, Hmmm. I am unconvinced of still wind. Is still wind er...like...no wind?
nature tells us to love her. Yes to the romanticised ethos you are expressing but what a leap of conclusivety(...and if that ain't a word it should be). Again you miss the huge opportunity of expressing your thought by the imagery in language. Grey clouds and still winds don't do it for me.
To Fear her.
And we obey. I don't know what you are doing here. Capital letters popping up, non-sentences, false statements...all in six words. I guess that's an achievement of sorts.

Glass shatters and turns to crystal sand. I have no idea what this pseudo-scientific mumb-jumbo is supposed to mean to me. If you have a germ of an idea let it crystalise and grow. Say what you mean to say clearly. You are not following any poetic structures (or strictures to some) and so there are no conventions to bind you.
Or plates we use to make art. Beats me. Plates or sand, sand or plates, plates-sand, sand-plates...you pays your money you makes your choice.
That is our balance. Wha? Wh? Huh?
A balance found in all things... Now here it comes. All tied up in a neat bundle. Conclusion based on a false set of premises but then given the good old "circular error" much beloved by the error-trapping spreadsheet. A=B+A.
natural,
all things human,
Because human creations
Are made from nature after all.
How pure... Yuk.

Was this too harsh in tems of merit-mashing or am I just a lousy interpreter? There is something sinuously smooth about the thinking progression in this but it is obviously flim-flam after a third reading. It actually says very little of importance but to get this much out of the scrabble bag is probably a cause for celebration. Look, it is not  making me envious...that's all. Clarify the core metaphor, cut off the water-shoots because they weaken the poet-tree and will suck the sap out of the message.
Best,
tectak  

[crow]

I wanted to note, with apologies for the lack of analysis, that if the context is the Pride movement, the concepts of wind and color may reference the rainbow flag. The concept of purity may be to the Christian notions of celibacy and "traditional" marriage. From there, it's easy to extrapolate to human rights concerns more broadly. Glass, then, is the glass ceiling and all such peculiar constraints on equal treatment. If that's the lens, then fear and love equate intuitively. It'd be the majority fear of the other versus the individual love within a relationship. Again, apologies for commenting on a comment. It's poor form, but I hope not terribly so.

I should say, too, that the description of nature as fearsome is a neat turn, and makes me think an Italian sonnet might be an appropriate means of expressing the idea. In that medium, fear would be fear of the other in the octet and would turn to fear of punishing natural preferences in the sextet. The notion would be that the majority fear of difference is outmatched by the individual's power, when that power is funded by love. The notion of purity would be better realized, too, because purity would turn with fear, from the octet to the sextet. The majority view is that purity is found in self-negating celibacy and tradition, and that view fails when pitted against the individual's pure desire for self-expression via love in a relationship.

Lastly, the typos are inexcusable, especially when they're as minor as spacing errors. Please correct them ASAP, as they decimate your credibility, a dear possession in a poem that's easily seen as errant human philosophy made into poetry only by the device of line breaks. Any errors invite the reader to dismiss the work as masturbatory nonsense. Along those lines, consider platters, platens or pans as a proper sub for "plates."

[Caleb Murdock]

Purity of The World

There is a certain purity to balance.
We balance love and fear,
black and white,
passivity and aggression.
With all the contradictions surrounding us
we can somehow bring about a coalition
of beauty, life, hate , war, art, 
and humanity.

Colorful but terrifying.
We're taught to fear predators,
lurking in every corner,
waiting to harm us.
But through the grayness of the clouds,
the stillness of the wind,
nature tells us to love her.
To Fear her.
And we obey.

Glass shatters and turns to crystal sand.
Or plates we use to make art.
That is our balance.
A balance found in all things...
natural,
all things human,
Because human creations
Are made from nature after all.
How pure...

I feel like I understand this poem.  I see it, however, as more of a statement than art, and the artistic aspects of poetry are what make it poetry.  There is repetition in the poem -- specifically, lists ("love and fear, black and white, passivity and aggression"; "beauty, life, hate, war, art, and humanity").  Lists just don't belong in poetry.

I don't think you are making it clear what the "balance" is in the third strophe.

Ultimately, I feel that the poem doesn't say much.  The message of the poem is positive and inspirational but fairly ordinary.  The ending isn't strong.

From your picture, I am guessing you are young.  Your penchant for speaking plainly is a positive thing, and I think you'll grow into a good poet with practice.  (If this sounds condescending, it's because I'm old, and age has its privileges.)

[Lizzie]

What I love about this is that you're wrestling with the big topics, the important themes. Unfortunately, I can't say that I understand much of it. It seems to circle back around for you very neatly, but I've gotten lost -- I've derailed. I need more concrete metaphors and images, or I can't understand what you're getting at.

I feel like I just went to church -- like I got fed a lot of lofty platitudes, nodded to them because they seemed to have the ring of truth, and then went on about my daily business unaffected.

What I want is for you to TAKE ME TO CHURCH! You can't just tell me that something is, you have to show me in a way that's compelling.

I think you have good ideas, you're just struggling to get them transposed to the page.

What kind of effect were you hoping to have on the reader?