This is your place: another blackout drunk,
mouth dry of metaphors,
eyes bloodshot and sensitive.
This is your place: buried beneath words,
quiet as lilies by a gravestone.
A piece of you left for dead on a page.
This is your place: far from the head table,
hidden in the coat check,
wine anesthetic against applause.
This is your place: hungover,
trembling hand holds cheap pen
only to steady while writing.
First Edit:
To Emerging Poets
This is your place: blackout drunk,
mouth dry with metaphors,
eyes bloodshot and sensitive to streetlights
that flicker like self-alleged genius.
This is your place: hidden beneath words,
quiet as flowers by a gravestone.
A piece of you left on a page,
some small part of imagined grandeur.
This is your place: far from the head table,
speeches describing their contributions,
wine sweeter than anesthetic, applause louder
than dead poets, who rot like everyone else.
Original: To Emerging Poets
This is your place, hidden beneath words
that sit quietly like flowers
atop a gravestone,
bulky with an extended epitaph.
Of course, you were just drunk.
Eyes bloodshot from blacking out,
mouth dry from metaphor,
one hand stained, while the other
is clean as unused paper.
This is your place, a piece of you
resting between pages, stiff, dry,
small part of something grander,
missed the moment it fell out.
Your skin becomes sensitive to breezes,
fingers desperate to know any touch,
brain imagines ironies where others
see only what is there.
This is your place, reserved at the head table,
speeches describing your contribution,
wine sweet as anesthetic, applause louder
than a mother comforting her dead son.
Hi Richard,
like the idea here, but wonder if there's maybe
a bit of 'swagger' missing from the language.
Some cut n paste suggestions below.
To Emerging Poets
Of course, you were just drunk. Eyes bloodshot from blacking out, mouth dry from metaphor,
- repetition of 'from' [Imagining] ironies where other see only what is there. [O]ne [ink-]stained hand, the other clean as [all that] unused paper.
[But,] this is your place, [poet,] hidden beneath words that sit quiet [as] flowers [by/before] a gravestone, bulky with an extended epitaph.
- 'bulky' doesn't fit at all, as far asI can see.
This is your place, a piece of you resting between pages, stiff, dry,
- 'stiff, dry' could stand improvement, I think [some] small part of something
- 'of something grander' is a bit weak
(though I see where you're going) grander, missed the moment it fell.
This is your place, reserved at the head table, speeches describing your contribution,
- 'speeches describing you contribution'
right idea but poor execution, I think.
? epideictic ? lauding ? paean?
Is the poet listening? wine sweet as anesthetic, applause louder than a mother comforting her dead son.
- Not sure that this last line does much, and
ending on 'applause' seems more satisfying, I think.
(06-15-2018, 11:15 AM)Richard Wrote: To Emerging Poets
This is your place, hidden beneath words
that sit quietly like flowers--I don't think you need quietly, it's already invoked. However quiet words is an interesting oxymoron.
atop a gravestone,
bulky with an extended epitaph.--this line feels... bulky to me, sorry. I think you could expand slightly on this, cut extended for me. What kind of epitaph, for whom? suggestion: --caught (up) by an epigraph that refused to die.
Of course, you were just drunk.--would cut just.
Eyes bloodshot from blacking out,
mouth dry from metaphor,--favorite line in this stanza, no coincidence it marks change in direction too.
one hand stained, while the other--stained with what? not ink, surely.
is clean as unused paper.
This is your place, a piece of you--would cut a.
resting between pages, stiff, dry,--stiff is good enough, but dry just feels too obvious for paper. cool, sharp, crisp? laconic, sardonic?
small part of something grander,--suggestion: grandeur (around) all of you,
missed the moment it fell out.
Your skin becomes sensitive to breezes,--breezes feels awkward, is it the plural maybe?
fingers desperate to know any touch,--lovely line.
brain imagines ironies where others--technically, I believe, it is whereas.
see only what is there.--what is there seems flat, not quite the right counterpoint to ironies.
This is your place, reserved at the head table,
speeches describing your contribution,--contributions, more likely.
wine sweet as anesthetic, applause louder
than a mother comforting her dead son.--oof, this is an unexpected line. For me, the abrupt subject change cuts the impact a bit.
overall, a really nice piece. hope you work with it a little, because i look forward to seeing the next version.
Hey nozaki,
Thanks for the feedback. Some of wording suggestions should help make this a bit more economical and interesting. I've been very busy with work the last couple of weeks and will be for the rest of this week, so I'm hoping to get around to doing an edit some time next week.
This is your place, hidden beneath words
that sit quietly like flowers
atop a gravestone,
Or hidden behind the flowers at a gravestone.
bulky with an extended epitaph.
Of course, you were just drunk.
Eyes bloodshot from blacking out,
All a dream, or a half-dream, in the world but not of it? That theme?
mouth dry from metaphor,
The only line that sticks out. Singers' mouths can get dry from singing all the same songs.
one hand stained, while the other
is clean as unused paper.
Why not blank paper? Or has somebody already suggested that?
This is your place, a piece of you
resting between pages, stiff, dry,
small part of something grander,
missed the moment it fell out.
This missed the moment it fell out too.
Your skin becomes sensitive to breezes,
fingers desperate to know any touch,
brain imagines ironies where others
see only what is there.
This could be embellished. It looks thrown in just because it seems appropriate.
This is your place, reserved at the head table,
speeches describing your contribution,
wine sweet as anesthetic, applause louder
than a mother comforting her dead son.
Maybe: than a mother's comforting of a failed son.
or accepting of a failed son.
or acceptance
Hey rowens,
Thanks for the feedback. Some of your suggestions got me thinking about this, so I'm hoping that might lead to an edit some time soon. It seems like the ending needs some work based on all the critiques, so I might start there.
(06-15-2018, 11:15 AM)Richard Wrote: To Emerging Poets
This is your place: blackout drunk,
mouth dry with metaphors,--I liked it better when it was singular (metaphor). To me, it balances better with mouth.
eyes bloodshot and sensitive to streetlights--sensitive to streetlights is cool but kind of awkward in that why specifically streetlights? perhaps [rear against the streetlights]?
that flicker like self-alleged genius.--don't think self-alleged does much for genius.
This is your place: hidden beneath words,
quiet as flowers by a gravestone.
A piece of you left on a page,
some small part of imagined grandeur.--like self-alleged, I don't really like imagined. It works, though. Overall this fragment is almost interesting in a sort of bland way...
This is your place: far from the head table,
speeches describing their contributions,--disclaimer for grammar nazi, but their has no antecedent and is confused.
wine sweeter than anesthetic, applause louder
than dead poets, who rot like everyone else.--isn't everything louder than dead poets? I don't think you need to say poets to make your point, maybe [the dead ones]? Otherwise I rather like knot's suggestion of finding a way to end on applause.
all in all, i think you have made an improvement upon your original. i like the cuts that you've made to the images in this poem. i think a bit of refinement (you did change quite a lot) and some other crits will help greatly.
To Emerging Poets
(As an alternative title;
The Future of Poetry)
This is your place [poets]: [another] blackout drunk, mouth dry [on?] metaphors, eyes bloodshot and sensitive.
This is your place: hidden beneath words,
(if 'gravestone' why not 'buried' for 'hidden'?) quiet as flowers by a gravestone.
(Given the symbolism (and history) of
flowers on graves, could you be specific
about which flower?) A piece of you left on a page.
(maybe 'dying on a page'...or not)
This is your place: far from the head table, speeches describing their contributions,
I think perhaps your poet should be
listening to...
(personally, I liked the idea of him/her
listening [only] to your own voice) wine sweeter than anesthetic, louder, applause.
(maybe, 'anaesthetist wine, ...??....and applause?)
It seems very compressed, but lacks any real intensity or experiential richness. What are you saying to or of emerging poets? It seems you're telling them in very literal language that they are only drinking themselves to death for no reason. Maybe you could work on the symbolism of drunkenness as poetic reverie or drive. Maybe you're already doing that but it's not coming through. Poems like this sometimes come across as hopelessness on the part of the author, or satire. If you want to write about hopelessness, what is really cutting is to make it feel hopeful. Make a pathetic devastation of a sensibility.
Hey all,
Thanks for the feedback. You all gave some wonderful food for thought, and I need to let this one sit for a bit before attempting another edit.
Hey all,
I completed another edit of this one. I'm still not 100% happy with the ending, but feel free to let me know what you think of the whole piece.
This is your place: another blackout drunk,
mouth dry of metaphors,
eyes bloodshot and sensitive.
This part always seems overdone. I think of Climbing out of a ditch of words, the sunlight in your eyes.
Something less dead.
This is your place: buried beneath words,
quiet as lilies by a gravestone.
A piece of you left for dead on a page.
It seems too easy. Maybe lost among the checked coats, or some other place. There's more than obvious, which stands out. There's obvious, that's old news. And there's less than obvious, which could be similar to more than obvious, but can be a regressive exaggeration, the kind where hardly anything is being said, a kind of inverse, perverse, hyperbole.
This is your place: far from the head table,
hidden in the coat check,
wine anesthetic against applause.
Holds cheap pen: This kind of minimal wording is minimal in what it does. Though it does cast a sense of fragility or clumsy, teetering between consciousnesses of hangoverness. It could come to this point in the poem and work if only there was more richness and thickety before you got here.
This is your place: hungover,
trembling hand holds cheap pen
only to steady while writing.
I see the person tottering the whole time, hungover the whole time; drunkenness as a metaphor, a literal metaphor, for poetic spirit and poetic being, but not much drunkenness. The poem can be the drunkenness while the poet depicted is the hangoverer, or the hangoveree, but the language could be more drunken. And by that I don't mean sloppy, but wild and free. And rich. Rich with richness. Drunk on poetry and the world, the hangovered world.
Hey rowens,
Thanks for the feedback. I'm plan on letting this sit for a bit before attempting another edit. I like your point about the language needing to be more drunken.
Some balance between drunken exuberance and somber dryness; you have the dryness, but's all a little underwhelming. Dryness, drabness, and yet the sun. That seems to me what you're getting at. But maybe I'm insisting too much on the sun. My own experience and ideas of drab brightness.
You can accept a poem as it is, and criticize it. These works in progress always seem alien to me. Or I want them to. I want the poet to come up with something that I wouldn't.
just some small thoughts. honestly, i think prefer the last edit a smidge more: mostly for the dead poets line, but only barely. good work, really. it's been lovely watching this change.
(06-15-2018, 11:15 AM)Richard Wrote: To Emerging Poets
This is your place: another blackout drunk,--hard to imagine this as a place.
mouth dry of metaphors,
eyes bloodshot and sensitive.
This is your place: buried beneath words,
quiet as lilies by a gravestone.
A piece of you left for dead on a page.--I would cut for. 'on a page' is bit weak, maybe there's a way to connect it to the other stanzas as they're all about writing things on pages.
This is your place: far from the head table,
hidden in the coat check,
wine anesthetic against applause.--would change against to for
This is your place: hungover,
trembling hand holds cheap pen--it bothers me that this is the only active verb in the poem, sticks out like a sore thumb for me.
only to steady while writing.
First Edit:
To Emerging Poets
This is your place: blackout drunk,
mouth dry with metaphors,
eyes bloodshot and sensitive to streetlights
that flicker like self-alleged genius.
This is your place: hidden beneath words,
quiet as flowers by a gravestone.
A piece of you left on a page,
some small part of imagined grandeur.
This is your place: far from the head table,
speeches describing their contributions,
wine sweeter than anesthetic, applause louder
than dead poets, who rot like everyone else.
Original: To Emerging Poets
This is your place, hidden beneath words
that sit quietly like flowers
atop a gravestone,
bulky with an extended epitaph.
Of course, you were just drunk.
Eyes bloodshot from blacking out,
mouth dry from metaphor,
one hand stained, while the other
is clean as unused paper.
This is your place, a piece of you
resting between pages, stiff, dry,
small part of something grander,
missed the moment it fell out.
Your skin becomes sensitive to breezes,
fingers desperate to know any touch,
brain imagines ironies where others
see only what is there.
This is your place, reserved at the head table,
speeches describing your contribution,
wine sweet as anesthetic, applause louder
than a mother comforting her dead son.
Hey nozaki,
Thanks for the feedback. I like you rewording suggestions and will give them some thought when I attempt another edit. I need to let this sit a bit longer before attempting another edit though.
rowens,
I completely get what you're saying. I think part of my struggle with this piece is that the entire image of a drunk embittered poet might be bordering on cliche, so I am trying to be careful with where I go with this.
