08-15-2012, 01:33 AM
braggman,
I think tectak covered most of the points I would have hit on. "space is curved by desire" is an excellent line as noted. I guess maybe it sucked all the energy out of your mind though as the next two stanzas are generally as bad as that line is good.
Unlike tectak I take "trapped here by the burden
of my own gravity."
to mean, trapped in your own seriousness. However, However, while puny, it is probably not a good place to use such as puns and serious moments don't really enhance each other.
I think except for a brief note to explain stanza five, stanzas three and four could be done away with.
I don't see much reason to keep stanza six as it is just more or less a recap. The meat of the thing, the idea that you have encounter each other as almost lovers in past lives, that you have this awareness, but she doesn't, and that your own timidity will keep you from pursuing her and that you are torn between desire and fear. That idea of star crossed lovers and the pathos of it is the point you wish to impart, as that is the emotional crux of the thing.
I think what you want to keep in mind this that cleverness does not necessarily a good poem make, and that cleverness, excessive wordplay, and multiple metaphor describing the same thing are generally to be avoided (I know this from much repeated experience as I much given to the temptation myself. Sometimes it is almost like surgery to take out something I perceive as particularly clever or witty I have written, but I have to admit that it weakens the poem, since the poem is not about have clever I am, but about a certain truth I am trying to impart
)
Dale
I think tectak covered most of the points I would have hit on. "space is curved by desire" is an excellent line as noted. I guess maybe it sucked all the energy out of your mind though as the next two stanzas are generally as bad as that line is good.
Unlike tectak I take "trapped here by the burden
of my own gravity."
to mean, trapped in your own seriousness. However, However, while puny, it is probably not a good place to use such as puns and serious moments don't really enhance each other.
I think except for a brief note to explain stanza five, stanzas three and four could be done away with.
I don't see much reason to keep stanza six as it is just more or less a recap. The meat of the thing, the idea that you have encounter each other as almost lovers in past lives, that you have this awareness, but she doesn't, and that your own timidity will keep you from pursuing her and that you are torn between desire and fear. That idea of star crossed lovers and the pathos of it is the point you wish to impart, as that is the emotional crux of the thing.
I think what you want to keep in mind this that cleverness does not necessarily a good poem make, and that cleverness, excessive wordplay, and multiple metaphor describing the same thing are generally to be avoided (I know this from much repeated experience as I much given to the temptation myself. Sometimes it is almost like surgery to take out something I perceive as particularly clever or witty I have written, but I have to admit that it weakens the poem, since the poem is not about have clever I am, but about a certain truth I am trying to impart
)Dale
How long after picking up the brush, the first masterpiece?
The goal is not to obfuscate that which is clear, but make clear that which isn't.
The goal is not to obfuscate that which is clear, but make clear that which isn't.