07-04-2014, 12:41 AM
Okay I'm like a new poster so I'm sure you'll take all this with salt yadda yadda, this is somewhat extensive from what seems to be the usual length of crit here but I hope you don't mind or take this personally or anything.
Unfortunately this poem feels quite forced. You've chosen non-contemporary diction and syntax, which is always dangerous, but it doesn't feel organic. It is up to you to decide whether this is true, but this seems very clear to me that this is a poem written by someone who does not normal use this syntax and is unfamiliar with it.
Speaking of which the imagery reminds me strongly of Do Not Go Gentle Into This Good Night.
The first two lines is quite confusing, and I think I never really understood by the end why you chose that specific way of phrasing. The question "they don't know?" is really out of place. That's also a good example of why the poem in general strikes me as strange. Look at any poetry from periods that uses the word "merrily" and you will find that they use questions very differently. In general their use of shorter sentences is extremely limited. Anyway "they don't know?" is furthermore difficult and flow-jarring because there's absolutely no idea for the reader how it's meant to be read. The general gist of your poem would fit somewhere along the lines of Donne or Shakespeare, in form and style, at least it seems like you basically borrow all their imagery, so it might do you some good if you insist on continuing in this vein to study their works in more depth and especially the way they construct their lines.
Another problem with the poem is that even though it doesn't seem to make syntactical sense, I had by the second line a very good idea where the poem is going, and that's in a bad way. "bird sing" "soft summer" (speaking of which soft summer basically = merrily, I'm not in the ban all redundancy and adjectives camp, but in this case everyone basically knows when you say soft summer you mean merry or happy or whatever, so what's the point of telling us that?) sorry for the tangent, but by "bird" "soft summer" and "come and go" I basically know that this poem is about time or the frailty of happiness or life or something like that, and while I don't believe that poetry or writing in general should be a puzzle, and in fact that's the very much NOT what I think it should be, a poem needs to be able to develop. There are a few ways to do this, first if you're going to go for mortality, you must first show us a convincing display of life and THEN let it wilt. Throwing birds and soft summer and the word merrily is not going to cut it. I know it's a huge cliche but I keep finding myself defaulting to "show don't tell" whenever I want to improve a part, and to be more practical, what you need to find is imagery or linguistic/stylistic plays on word that captures the essence of what you're trying to say in a way that FORCES THE READER TO PICTURE IT.
Basically everyone who knows anything about poetry is sick of comparing summer days or whatever. What is soft anyway? Is it feather soft? Or maybe linen, with texture? Actually feathers aren't even that soft, they have fucking spines on them, do you mean like down pillow feather or what because seriously if you're going to show us something and we jump straight to "yeah yeah I get it you're talking about happy days happy days, what's next" you're not really allowing readers to immerse.
Unfortunately, part of immersing readers is using language that act as portals and not barriers, which is why using non-contemporary syntax is in general dangerous. The majority of older poetry, say Victorian or romantic, even the most interesting and technically skillful, means absolutely nothing to a writer/reader who is unfamiliar with the language (of that time) but is otherwise perfectly proficient. But not only is this endeavour very narrow in application, you'd actually have to write in language that convinces me and doesn't constantly every line make me think "oh this guy thinks xyz about "old" english language" and pulls me out of it.
Speaking of which if you still just really love this style of poetry you should also read some Keats or John Clare. I think if you look into his poetry with a slightly more morbid viewpoint you can find some pretty interesting ideas to work on.
Okay I'll get on some more technical things, but I think all the technical issues do stem from this main complaint, which is inauthenticity of voice and imagery. Every time you repeat a word ("soft") in poetry in general you better have a good damned reason, and here you're making no play on the word and it just further convinces me that you're just tacking on words that mean vaguely what you're imagining this poem is about and seems to fit. Like soft + summer basically tells us soft + there's a sun shining, that's what summers have, so if you start the second sentence with "sun shines soft" you basically just said the exact same thing again.
Oh yeah, back then when they spoke like this the correlation between star and sun is like... not like we know now. Um arguably that's a problem, but whatever.
"From whence we came" is another cringe worthy use. Like I talk to people who actually use the word "whom" thank god, but a word like "whence" is basically the tryhard sign, and unless used in a way that is self-aware it generally falls really really flat. Also again, from whence we came and where we pass to end I assume you basically mean "everything" , like "life passing before our eyes" kinda dig, but unfortunately this "from whence we came" doesn't actually make us visualize anything.
Poetry needs to invoke sensations.
"twisting flesh" is another cliche, actually let me just list all of them:
"birds sing" what birds? what sound? give us the sound! "soft summer" like I said what kind of soft, rough but giving linen? soft of warm flesh feeling almost of sweat? "moments come and go" really just like that? "shines softly and sweetly" "sudden flash" what like a camera flash? a yellowy sun-flash? is it an explosive flash where we cover our eyes, or the kind of flash where there is no sound at first because you are entirely deafened and everything is in slow motion? "whence we came" "pain and loss" "twisting our flesh" let us picture it, which parts of our flesh, is it flesh of hands being bent back by someone overpowering us, or is it the earth the trees enveloping us like in antichrist or something? "souls" soul is one of those words where 99% of the time I'd just completely drop in most poetry unless you're dealing with the concept of the soul in some religious or metaphysical way "stoop and bend" like what, like even "willow" would be good but that's pretty cliche as well.
"Blind men clutch at porous walls to know" Yeah that is the line that also REALLY reminds me of the Dylan Thomas. Great poem, do you know it? Well.
btw I did actually think "porous walls" is a good imagery. Unfortunately all I managed to do is picture living walls from some kind of horror film. Oh well. Still, I hope you look at that as how it contrasts with the imagery in the rest of the poem and see why it has an effect on me when the rest doesn't.
Then you go back to fricken singing birds and sunshine sweet, like you realize when you say sweet we don't actually think sweet, nobody actually thinks of sunshine as sweet, my favorite way of envisioning sunshine is like thinking of sunshine warming our backs like towels fresh out of the dryer or something like that. Sweet? How is sunshine sweet? Also I still don't know what these birds are singing. Are they like the same birds from before? Are there one kind of bird only, or like you know. I feel like there needs to be cats. For once I'd like to hear your cats meowing in the background as you sit on the lawnchair with your book, feels way more "sunny and nice" iyam.
btw "compound and overgrow" doesn't really fall into this because it's not a commonly used phrase but at the same time you're not actually milking potential imagery value from this. Overgrow? nice actually very nice, compound... compost? Yes? yes! I smell potential. Sadly this potential is given exactly 3 words. You could use this as a pun, as a reference, whatever, but you missed it. Show us how this vegetation (acting as metaphor for pain and loss) literally compounds? grow? how do they grow, don't even "use grow", that's kinda boring, or if you want to stick with a boring word like grow, extend the metaphor, grow like what, like nails on your fingers that grow out to the side, like your body in your favorite shirt you can't fit in anymore (obviously an example that doesn't work with the style of your poem, which relates to my problem initially).
Okay skip to the end:
"I'll seek to know eternal destiny!"
As much as I hate it this is pretty accurate, people used to love ending poems with a statement with an exclamation mark. I hate it. The thing is this is generally when the statement is profound in some way. Like I said you start up a poem with a powerful imagery or situation, and you must move from it, and that final movement is underscored here, but when I already kind of expected this kind of finale it really makes it weak. And yes this happens with a very specific Donne poem that does this as well, but I didn't like it when he did it, and I like the guy, so there.
Like concepts of "eternal destiny" is just such a flaccid bit of words that don't mean to us. It might seem like a lot of poems you may be imitating use a lot of melodramatic and immaterial words like this, (or as the other poster mentioned turning things like Beauty into allegorical figures) but you have to understand that for them there is a WEALTH of background to those allusions that they have spent a lot of time studying through the classics. You cannot draw on that reservoir if you haven't read it and when you don't live in a context where those references mean anything beyond the surface meaning. The literary cannon is a living thing and you must engage with it, not just take bits and pieces when it fits in your puzzle.
Personally I would recommend a few things: Read more, and try poetry about more immediate things or subject matter and style that you're more personally familiar with. As far as I am concerned this poem can be written by someone living in London or a place where there's barely any sun or flowers or birds and so on. I only feel mechanical re-representations, not actual experiences and sensations. When you say "a moment of beauty's time" I honestly don't see any beauty.
Okay hope you find this useful, I don't know if this is considered really harsh or something, but anyway I don't mean it maliciously, if you don't like it feel free to disregard, or alternatively we can discuss the finer points if you're interested. Have a good day.
Unfortunately this poem feels quite forced. You've chosen non-contemporary diction and syntax, which is always dangerous, but it doesn't feel organic. It is up to you to decide whether this is true, but this seems very clear to me that this is a poem written by someone who does not normal use this syntax and is unfamiliar with it.
Speaking of which the imagery reminds me strongly of Do Not Go Gentle Into This Good Night.
The first two lines is quite confusing, and I think I never really understood by the end why you chose that specific way of phrasing. The question "they don't know?" is really out of place. That's also a good example of why the poem in general strikes me as strange. Look at any poetry from periods that uses the word "merrily" and you will find that they use questions very differently. In general their use of shorter sentences is extremely limited. Anyway "they don't know?" is furthermore difficult and flow-jarring because there's absolutely no idea for the reader how it's meant to be read. The general gist of your poem would fit somewhere along the lines of Donne or Shakespeare, in form and style, at least it seems like you basically borrow all their imagery, so it might do you some good if you insist on continuing in this vein to study their works in more depth and especially the way they construct their lines.
Another problem with the poem is that even though it doesn't seem to make syntactical sense, I had by the second line a very good idea where the poem is going, and that's in a bad way. "bird sing" "soft summer" (speaking of which soft summer basically = merrily, I'm not in the ban all redundancy and adjectives camp, but in this case everyone basically knows when you say soft summer you mean merry or happy or whatever, so what's the point of telling us that?) sorry for the tangent, but by "bird" "soft summer" and "come and go" I basically know that this poem is about time or the frailty of happiness or life or something like that, and while I don't believe that poetry or writing in general should be a puzzle, and in fact that's the very much NOT what I think it should be, a poem needs to be able to develop. There are a few ways to do this, first if you're going to go for mortality, you must first show us a convincing display of life and THEN let it wilt. Throwing birds and soft summer and the word merrily is not going to cut it. I know it's a huge cliche but I keep finding myself defaulting to "show don't tell" whenever I want to improve a part, and to be more practical, what you need to find is imagery or linguistic/stylistic plays on word that captures the essence of what you're trying to say in a way that FORCES THE READER TO PICTURE IT.
Basically everyone who knows anything about poetry is sick of comparing summer days or whatever. What is soft anyway? Is it feather soft? Or maybe linen, with texture? Actually feathers aren't even that soft, they have fucking spines on them, do you mean like down pillow feather or what because seriously if you're going to show us something and we jump straight to "yeah yeah I get it you're talking about happy days happy days, what's next" you're not really allowing readers to immerse.
Unfortunately, part of immersing readers is using language that act as portals and not barriers, which is why using non-contemporary syntax is in general dangerous. The majority of older poetry, say Victorian or romantic, even the most interesting and technically skillful, means absolutely nothing to a writer/reader who is unfamiliar with the language (of that time) but is otherwise perfectly proficient. But not only is this endeavour very narrow in application, you'd actually have to write in language that convinces me and doesn't constantly every line make me think "oh this guy thinks xyz about "old" english language" and pulls me out of it.
Speaking of which if you still just really love this style of poetry you should also read some Keats or John Clare. I think if you look into his poetry with a slightly more morbid viewpoint you can find some pretty interesting ideas to work on.
Okay I'll get on some more technical things, but I think all the technical issues do stem from this main complaint, which is inauthenticity of voice and imagery. Every time you repeat a word ("soft") in poetry in general you better have a good damned reason, and here you're making no play on the word and it just further convinces me that you're just tacking on words that mean vaguely what you're imagining this poem is about and seems to fit. Like soft + summer basically tells us soft + there's a sun shining, that's what summers have, so if you start the second sentence with "sun shines soft" you basically just said the exact same thing again.
Oh yeah, back then when they spoke like this the correlation between star and sun is like... not like we know now. Um arguably that's a problem, but whatever.
"From whence we came" is another cringe worthy use. Like I talk to people who actually use the word "whom" thank god, but a word like "whence" is basically the tryhard sign, and unless used in a way that is self-aware it generally falls really really flat. Also again, from whence we came and where we pass to end I assume you basically mean "everything" , like "life passing before our eyes" kinda dig, but unfortunately this "from whence we came" doesn't actually make us visualize anything.
Poetry needs to invoke sensations.
"twisting flesh" is another cliche, actually let me just list all of them:
"birds sing" what birds? what sound? give us the sound! "soft summer" like I said what kind of soft, rough but giving linen? soft of warm flesh feeling almost of sweat? "moments come and go" really just like that? "shines softly and sweetly" "sudden flash" what like a camera flash? a yellowy sun-flash? is it an explosive flash where we cover our eyes, or the kind of flash where there is no sound at first because you are entirely deafened and everything is in slow motion? "whence we came" "pain and loss" "twisting our flesh" let us picture it, which parts of our flesh, is it flesh of hands being bent back by someone overpowering us, or is it the earth the trees enveloping us like in antichrist or something? "souls" soul is one of those words where 99% of the time I'd just completely drop in most poetry unless you're dealing with the concept of the soul in some religious or metaphysical way "stoop and bend" like what, like even "willow" would be good but that's pretty cliche as well.
"Blind men clutch at porous walls to know" Yeah that is the line that also REALLY reminds me of the Dylan Thomas. Great poem, do you know it? Well.
btw I did actually think "porous walls" is a good imagery. Unfortunately all I managed to do is picture living walls from some kind of horror film. Oh well. Still, I hope you look at that as how it contrasts with the imagery in the rest of the poem and see why it has an effect on me when the rest doesn't.
Then you go back to fricken singing birds and sunshine sweet, like you realize when you say sweet we don't actually think sweet, nobody actually thinks of sunshine as sweet, my favorite way of envisioning sunshine is like thinking of sunshine warming our backs like towels fresh out of the dryer or something like that. Sweet? How is sunshine sweet? Also I still don't know what these birds are singing. Are they like the same birds from before? Are there one kind of bird only, or like you know. I feel like there needs to be cats. For once I'd like to hear your cats meowing in the background as you sit on the lawnchair with your book, feels way more "sunny and nice" iyam.
btw "compound and overgrow" doesn't really fall into this because it's not a commonly used phrase but at the same time you're not actually milking potential imagery value from this. Overgrow? nice actually very nice, compound... compost? Yes? yes! I smell potential. Sadly this potential is given exactly 3 words. You could use this as a pun, as a reference, whatever, but you missed it. Show us how this vegetation (acting as metaphor for pain and loss) literally compounds? grow? how do they grow, don't even "use grow", that's kinda boring, or if you want to stick with a boring word like grow, extend the metaphor, grow like what, like nails on your fingers that grow out to the side, like your body in your favorite shirt you can't fit in anymore (obviously an example that doesn't work with the style of your poem, which relates to my problem initially).
Okay skip to the end:
"I'll seek to know eternal destiny!"
As much as I hate it this is pretty accurate, people used to love ending poems with a statement with an exclamation mark. I hate it. The thing is this is generally when the statement is profound in some way. Like I said you start up a poem with a powerful imagery or situation, and you must move from it, and that final movement is underscored here, but when I already kind of expected this kind of finale it really makes it weak. And yes this happens with a very specific Donne poem that does this as well, but I didn't like it when he did it, and I like the guy, so there.
Like concepts of "eternal destiny" is just such a flaccid bit of words that don't mean to us. It might seem like a lot of poems you may be imitating use a lot of melodramatic and immaterial words like this, (or as the other poster mentioned turning things like Beauty into allegorical figures) but you have to understand that for them there is a WEALTH of background to those allusions that they have spent a lot of time studying through the classics. You cannot draw on that reservoir if you haven't read it and when you don't live in a context where those references mean anything beyond the surface meaning. The literary cannon is a living thing and you must engage with it, not just take bits and pieces when it fits in your puzzle.
Personally I would recommend a few things: Read more, and try poetry about more immediate things or subject matter and style that you're more personally familiar with. As far as I am concerned this poem can be written by someone living in London or a place where there's barely any sun or flowers or birds and so on. I only feel mechanical re-representations, not actual experiences and sensations. When you say "a moment of beauty's time" I honestly don't see any beauty.
Okay hope you find this useful, I don't know if this is considered really harsh or something, but anyway I don't mean it maliciously, if you don't like it feel free to disregard, or alternatively we can discuss the finer points if you're interested. Have a good day.