12-25-2013, 07:26 AM
rowens--that's my favorite thing ever--never though I'd read "you're a tight-ass pussy" on a poetry forum. But there's something in there to chew over . . .
Last night, I was at a karaoke bar south of Fort Worth, Texas, and I paid the KJ ten bucks to let me stay 10 minutes past closing to record a song from a musical I've been writing. I didn't know that others would stay past, too--boyfriends of bartenders and waitresses who were excited to get home, mostly.
So, there I am, not knowing that there's a hostile audience, trying to get a sense for how an unfinished song would sound with good acoustics. And, you won't be shocked to discover, I was roundly jeered.
Maybe you'd be surprised to know that it hurt. I've got an unfinished song from a musical that I aired accidentally to a bunch of guys who didn't want to be there in the first place, and they wanted, very understandably, for the music to stop *immediately*. But there was a little triumph, too, because there were 90 seconds where they quit jeering. And that's the 90 seconds I'll keep.
A comment like, "this sucks," is, in fact, useless. We're oriented to one another here as the drunk boyfriends were to me in the bar. And if they'd managed to shut me up quickly, I'd be saying, never doing that again.
Press on. There's no such thing as a worthless poem, just as there's no such thing as a useless comment. Granted, in theory, someone could say, "that sucks," and keep on browsing, but that's not been my experience here.
I was poised to leave this site, too, for the same kind of emotions, and I would've, too, if there was a better feedback forum out there. But there isn't. So, that said, here's my edit of what was quoted by tectak:
(12-19-2013 07:08 AM)71degrees Wrote:
Sitting in a yellow booth
at an all-night diner,
I feel clean, like the spoon
I use to stir hard sugar
into my coffee
Outside, a cab;
two people exit,
one street side
The man in a gray overcoat
waves limply to a woman,
disappears to my left,
steps pointy, like a compass
The woman poses, almost grainy,
as if another picture will never
be taken of her again
or at least until another
nameless woman is left
by an anonymous man
in a gray overcoat
with only one anonymous
onlooker as proof
she even existed
---
Am I really supposed to add all the punctuation for you? Holy shit, man!
If you want evaporation at the end, there's a mark for that: ellipses. It's _._._._ to indicate a trailing off, not three collapsed periods, btw.
What are your colors doing here? Sitting in a yellow booth, I would feel covered in urine, just like I do reading this poem!--just kidding
Last night, I was at a karaoke bar south of Fort Worth, Texas, and I paid the KJ ten bucks to let me stay 10 minutes past closing to record a song from a musical I've been writing. I didn't know that others would stay past, too--boyfriends of bartenders and waitresses who were excited to get home, mostly.
So, there I am, not knowing that there's a hostile audience, trying to get a sense for how an unfinished song would sound with good acoustics. And, you won't be shocked to discover, I was roundly jeered.
Maybe you'd be surprised to know that it hurt. I've got an unfinished song from a musical that I aired accidentally to a bunch of guys who didn't want to be there in the first place, and they wanted, very understandably, for the music to stop *immediately*. But there was a little triumph, too, because there were 90 seconds where they quit jeering. And that's the 90 seconds I'll keep.
A comment like, "this sucks," is, in fact, useless. We're oriented to one another here as the drunk boyfriends were to me in the bar. And if they'd managed to shut me up quickly, I'd be saying, never doing that again.
Press on. There's no such thing as a worthless poem, just as there's no such thing as a useless comment. Granted, in theory, someone could say, "that sucks," and keep on browsing, but that's not been my experience here.
I was poised to leave this site, too, for the same kind of emotions, and I would've, too, if there was a better feedback forum out there. But there isn't. So, that said, here's my edit of what was quoted by tectak:
(12-19-2013 07:08 AM)71degrees Wrote:
Sitting in a yellow booth
at an all-night diner,
I feel clean, like the spoon
I use to stir hard sugar
into my coffee
Outside, a cab;
two people exit,
one street side
The man in a gray overcoat
waves limply to a woman,
disappears to my left,
steps pointy, like a compass
The woman poses, almost grainy,
as if another picture will never
be taken of her again
or at least until another
nameless woman is left
by an anonymous man
in a gray overcoat
with only one anonymous
onlooker as proof
she even existed
---
Am I really supposed to add all the punctuation for you? Holy shit, man!
If you want evaporation at the end, there's a mark for that: ellipses. It's _._._._ to indicate a trailing off, not three collapsed periods, btw.
What are your colors doing here? Sitting in a yellow booth, I would feel covered in urine, just like I do reading this poem!--just kidding