08-16-2012, 02:14 AM
Thank you all. I'm pleased that I put forward a piece that troubled me. The more there was wrong with it, the more I received comments to help with other works that I care more for that may fall into similar pits. As you most spotted this was two poems. One that sat unfinished for three years with a curved space line at the end. It was just a fragment until I picked it up earlier this year and tried to make it a spurned love poem.
Besides the difficulty with the execution, I think the concept was ill suited for a poem as it required explanation of the primary metaphor which was missing. The explanation would have been even more dull and heavy. The concept was two particles that came to have some near miss interactions as if they had a common destiny. Particles become energy, and back to matter, and so on. I tried to have multiple relations over time. I agree with penguin that 4 is too many, but they weren't intended as similes, they were intended as literal states of matter/energy that each had passed through. But that stanza wasn't working, as I knew when I was writing it, yet I had no ready solution.
Mainly the science puns and references both carried it along and killed the whole thing. Very good observation Dale that cleverness does not a poem make. Spot-on issue to point out to me on a first meeting. As if you knew me well. Point taken. I fail in that department more often than I'd care to admit. But I still love a clever line.
This poem will probably not see a rewrite as it has some conceptual flaws. If I did the first stanza would be gone. "Children infer" would start the second one. The fourth would be pared down. Then again I might just take the ice cream stanza and turn it into a tanka to stand on its own. Thanks for the comments. Exactly what I was looking for. I will put up a newer one next time, one that has fewer issues. I'm glad I chose this one to start as it had much excess that needed comment.
Besides the difficulty with the execution, I think the concept was ill suited for a poem as it required explanation of the primary metaphor which was missing. The explanation would have been even more dull and heavy. The concept was two particles that came to have some near miss interactions as if they had a common destiny. Particles become energy, and back to matter, and so on. I tried to have multiple relations over time. I agree with penguin that 4 is too many, but they weren't intended as similes, they were intended as literal states of matter/energy that each had passed through. But that stanza wasn't working, as I knew when I was writing it, yet I had no ready solution.
Mainly the science puns and references both carried it along and killed the whole thing. Very good observation Dale that cleverness does not a poem make. Spot-on issue to point out to me on a first meeting. As if you knew me well. Point taken. I fail in that department more often than I'd care to admit. But I still love a clever line.
This poem will probably not see a rewrite as it has some conceptual flaws. If I did the first stanza would be gone. "Children infer" would start the second one. The fourth would be pared down. Then again I might just take the ice cream stanza and turn it into a tanka to stand on its own. Thanks for the comments. Exactly what I was looking for. I will put up a newer one next time, one that has fewer issues. I'm glad I chose this one to start as it had much excess that needed comment.