11-30-2012, 04:36 AM
hadden, here's the thing (and others may disagree with me):
In giving a critique, I think what you've done is build something very effective in a multimedia sense. It would be less effective without the video, and less effective unspoken on the page. In a sense, the video has let you cheat. You can show images by video whereas in writing that's the job of a poem's imagery. Unspoken without your delivery this comes off way more bloated than a streamlined poem would read. I want to be clear that with all the elements you gave it was effective and good. Pulling out of that context though, I would say this. When you had the video pan away from you to an image and you think that image or some aspect of it was important to enhance what you are saying than you need to build that imagery into the poem. If you'd like me to go through and point out a line by line redundancy for you or areas that fall short if this was purely written I can, but its a long piece, a lot of effort, and I'd like to validate that that is what you truly want.
I think of this piece sort of like a song. It can be successful but when analyzed outside of its context the changes I would recommend would be pretty sweeping. The end result won't work as well in the video as what you presently have because the video would make some of the imagery irrelevant. Does that make sense? Let me know (not that I'm the end all be all of critique).
In giving a critique, I think what you've done is build something very effective in a multimedia sense. It would be less effective without the video, and less effective unspoken on the page. In a sense, the video has let you cheat. You can show images by video whereas in writing that's the job of a poem's imagery. Unspoken without your delivery this comes off way more bloated than a streamlined poem would read. I want to be clear that with all the elements you gave it was effective and good. Pulling out of that context though, I would say this. When you had the video pan away from you to an image and you think that image or some aspect of it was important to enhance what you are saying than you need to build that imagery into the poem. If you'd like me to go through and point out a line by line redundancy for you or areas that fall short if this was purely written I can, but its a long piece, a lot of effort, and I'd like to validate that that is what you truly want.
I think of this piece sort of like a song. It can be successful but when analyzed outside of its context the changes I would recommend would be pretty sweeping. The end result won't work as well in the video as what you presently have because the video would make some of the imagery irrelevant. Does that make sense? Let me know (not that I'm the end all be all of critique).
The secret of poetry is cruelty.--Jon Anderson