07-04-2014, 04:53 AM
I'm going to go on a bit of a tangent, this is a bit of a rant related to a lot of poetry I see. Also my critique might not be immediately useful to this piece unless you are ready for a huge overhaul, but perhaps you will find these ideas useful somehow here or if not, then your future pieces.
So for example this is a twist:
We read the poem. It's about this subject matter, and goes towards A direction, it goes left a bit right a bit, but we basically kind of see the kind of scenery you do when you go through direction A, so a bunch of vegetation, maybe some wildlife, then at the very end it veers off to direction B which is a cliff and we realize that all along the driver was trying to commit suicide the whole way and we had no clue holy shit
How comes this to be? One way is that we the reader is completely fooled even though technically there's no plot holes that makes this sudden and swift change technically incorrect and essentially we've all been had even though there's been nothing in this poem all the way that implies the reader is suicidal. The other way is that the imagery throughout the poem is morbid and dark, and congruently relates to the mindstate of the writer but everyone basically everyone knows what's it going on and direction A pretty much acts as a cover or metaphor for B and when it ends it's just kind of, um yeah k.
If it's not clear neither extremes are good ideas. There are limitations to whichever approach anyway, but the thing in general is that there must be a strong and organic (I keep using this word but srysly) link between A and B. Right now it feels like your poem isn't sure what it's trying to do. You basically spell it out throughout the poem, and then in case people missed it you have to put up a signpost in bold font "BTW THIS IS USING MURDER AS A MELODRAMATIC METAPHOR FOR BREAKING A RELATIONSHIP VIA CHEATING OR WTEVER (i hope its not too trite or nothing)". Yes, I said this comparison is trite, but that's not a problem at all, the problem is that it lacks subtlety, and this is a completely fixable issue.
For starters I wouldn't do a complete stanza break before "of our hollow wedding vows". You might as well get a crayon and underline it twice to make sure everyone reads it. The way a twist should work is first it must feel right. It can't just surprise us, you can surprise people easily, just do something really weird right? Do something macabre, easy easy. No, it must feel right. A good "twist" or climax is one which is exciting and impactful and yet still feels right, and one that doesn't require lots of underlining to be strong is the best, and it's true your poem just puts so much focus on that one line that its delivery and build up feels like must be perfect.
Back to the tangent of twists, twists are perfectly fine they don't have to be gimmicky but in order for an A to B twist to work there must be an organic link, and what this means is something you'd find in say a Sonnet or Villanelle. For a sonnet, the 9th line is meant to show a different perspective that doesn't discredit the first 8, but rather shows a different perspective that works IN CONJUNCTION with those earlier lines to show a new perspective. With the villanelle each repetition of a good vilanelle is meant to shine new potential to that configuration of words by introducing more perspective. Right now your poem is such that the climax doesn't work because it doesn't offer anything new and therefore impactful. We basically know what it's about before the reveal, especially as it's a pretty common comparison, and the end doesn't give us anything.
And making it vague won't work either, because all it would mean is we go ???? wat oh. I see okay.
So in practical terms what you need is that the early parts must stand on their own, and then the climax must add additional meaning and perspective. Right now, we KNOW reading the early bits that it's a metaphor for something, even if we don't know what it's for we know it's something and we're basically hurrying through the lines to have you tell us what. That's not how you want people to read your poems. What you need is that the early lines must have substance on their own that can carry themselves, and we read this with a feeling about these growing icicles? or whatever (feel like you'd have to change a lot if not all of the imagery to make this work), we must read this and we must be able to visualize both content and emotion, so no just being able to visualize icicles as perfect weapons is no use to us if we don't know what is being murdered because now we basically know this is a game of "what's being murdered? is it a) love? b) childhood innocence? c) FREEDOM? d) an actual living organism? Of course some poems do just use this kind of answer begging format but in my eyes it's just so simple and blatant it has to be technically and fantastic and amazing to be of worth you literally have to carry the poem via amazing literary skills alone which always feels like it's making it difficult for no reason.
Okay I don't want to be all vague so I want to give some examples (forgive if they are bad this is impromtu of course just trying to illustrate) So examples of how to do this: You have suburban imagery possible here, draw into that. How does suburban life relate to marriage and relationships? So as an example to make this twist work you can write a suburban scene of individuals, live and tangible, dealing with this threat or fear of murder or aftermath of murder, and as I said these must be things we can visualize and have substance. These characters or images of people and emotions seem to be people dealing with unwarranted? fear, and reeks of isolation? ego and id? reputation? their masks? their lies? their being sick of those lies but needing them anyway? Darla
prepares for the neighbourhood watch: red lipstick, mask
ara-- silhouette at the door, ready to kill with
James in the
dirty t-shirt he won't change.
20 minutes of arguments, 40 minutes smiles, then
20 more.
This is obviously a very prose and modern take on poetry that's not the same as your style but I hope you see what I mean, you need to create something that means something on it's own that gets added meaning when you sink it all in so they can go, wow. If you make it obvious, if all you write only has meaning after the extra key, if they knew it needed a key from the beginning, they will just flit right through it.
So in quickly drafted example, you have painted a picture that stands alone as a scenario with its own emotion, in a way we're fooled into thinking there's a real murder even though we know it's about more than the murder, then we can continue in this vein and expose the problems in this relationship and turn it back and show that this murder the title of the poem refers not to this thing that might not even be a murder (we might not ever specify it as murder maybe it was just robbery or other crimes right?), instead we realize that the murder refers to something that's been under our nose all along, and yet has been tantalizing and really feeling the whole way through, this murder of marriage vows, this dissolution of love, and promises, and not only that, we get to show this murder of holy wedding vows in more than just words (because that's ultimately a lot of telling) we get to SHOW them the dissolution while it is disguised as "plot device" for the "murder", but then this vehicle for the point turns out to be the point itself, and it reaches a moment where we have a satisfactory end that makes sense and the reader has been cognizant of throughout while still being now 100% clear.
I'll admit my example is a bit cliche as well, but you can kind of see how that allows us to basically show and sprinkle our literary magic to really milk the emotions and tableus that come from a dying/dead marriage while still retaining a "twist".
Okay technical edits:
Starting with the showpiece:
I'd nix the our. You don't need to specify "our". It just makes it clunky. It's heavy handed as it is. In general if a word doesn't contribute meaning, it must contribute flow or emotion. And in this case "our" doesn't really do anything on both counts (you can argue it, but I disagree and think it's obviously so).
I feel like a lot of the enjambment here doesn't make sense. I neither understand why you want to end lines where you do, nor why you choose to start lines with those words, and generally your reason to break a line has to be either because you want to create a visual pause, or to put emphasis on a new word.
If anything it should go like this:
or just
Okay my edits aren't good, and I have a very different stylistic preference from you, but what I mean to show is that line breaks should be more sparse or when it's used it should be more pointed. If you're not going to use it to jarr, then you should just avoid them in general and just go for punctuation ends:
Like there's 100% nothing wrong with putting it like this. There doesn't have to be this idea that poetry has to be choppy. Choppiness is stylization, stylization for the sake of itself is artifice, and it will be read as such. On another tangent I feel like lots of people writing poems go into it thinking poems must look or be a certain way or has an idea in their head and go for the aesthetic instead of allowing a way for your meaning and imagery and emotions to breathe out best.
I notice that these edits in general just seems like I hate line breaks but I really love them (too much) I just feel like they must have a specific reason for existing, and they should be there when a linebreak is what you need, not looking to fit them somewhere because you feel like a certain number of them is good, or because you want the length of the lines to be equal or something (well for the most part, I think visual shape of a poem can be relevant, but it's secondary I think, 95% of the time if a poem needs a run-on sentence the good line break spots will show themselves).
Anyway, as you can see I feel like there's some fundamental problems in this poem holding it back, and I feel like the imagery therefore doesn't work simply because of those reasons, and probably you're sick of me trying to pretend I know what's what, so I leave it here.
As I said in my last critique, this seems to be a bit more detailed than most comments offered here, I hope you understand that no malice is intended, and it's up to you to accept or ignore it, but if you wish I'm happy to explain anything I've said poorly.
So for example this is a twist:
We read the poem. It's about this subject matter, and goes towards A direction, it goes left a bit right a bit, but we basically kind of see the kind of scenery you do when you go through direction A, so a bunch of vegetation, maybe some wildlife, then at the very end it veers off to direction B which is a cliff and we realize that all along the driver was trying to commit suicide the whole way and we had no clue holy shit
How comes this to be? One way is that we the reader is completely fooled even though technically there's no plot holes that makes this sudden and swift change technically incorrect and essentially we've all been had even though there's been nothing in this poem all the way that implies the reader is suicidal. The other way is that the imagery throughout the poem is morbid and dark, and congruently relates to the mindstate of the writer but everyone basically everyone knows what's it going on and direction A pretty much acts as a cover or metaphor for B and when it ends it's just kind of, um yeah k.
If it's not clear neither extremes are good ideas. There are limitations to whichever approach anyway, but the thing in general is that there must be a strong and organic (I keep using this word but srysly) link between A and B. Right now it feels like your poem isn't sure what it's trying to do. You basically spell it out throughout the poem, and then in case people missed it you have to put up a signpost in bold font "BTW THIS IS USING MURDER AS A MELODRAMATIC METAPHOR FOR BREAKING A RELATIONSHIP VIA CHEATING OR WTEVER (i hope its not too trite or nothing)". Yes, I said this comparison is trite, but that's not a problem at all, the problem is that it lacks subtlety, and this is a completely fixable issue.
For starters I wouldn't do a complete stanza break before "of our hollow wedding vows". You might as well get a crayon and underline it twice to make sure everyone reads it. The way a twist should work is first it must feel right. It can't just surprise us, you can surprise people easily, just do something really weird right? Do something macabre, easy easy. No, it must feel right. A good "twist" or climax is one which is exciting and impactful and yet still feels right, and one that doesn't require lots of underlining to be strong is the best, and it's true your poem just puts so much focus on that one line that its delivery and build up feels like must be perfect.
Back to the tangent of twists, twists are perfectly fine they don't have to be gimmicky but in order for an A to B twist to work there must be an organic link, and what this means is something you'd find in say a Sonnet or Villanelle. For a sonnet, the 9th line is meant to show a different perspective that doesn't discredit the first 8, but rather shows a different perspective that works IN CONJUNCTION with those earlier lines to show a new perspective. With the villanelle each repetition of a good vilanelle is meant to shine new potential to that configuration of words by introducing more perspective. Right now your poem is such that the climax doesn't work because it doesn't offer anything new and therefore impactful. We basically know what it's about before the reveal, especially as it's a pretty common comparison, and the end doesn't give us anything.
And making it vague won't work either, because all it would mean is we go ???? wat oh. I see okay.
So in practical terms what you need is that the early parts must stand on their own, and then the climax must add additional meaning and perspective. Right now, we KNOW reading the early bits that it's a metaphor for something, even if we don't know what it's for we know it's something and we're basically hurrying through the lines to have you tell us what. That's not how you want people to read your poems. What you need is that the early lines must have substance on their own that can carry themselves, and we read this with a feeling about these growing icicles? or whatever (feel like you'd have to change a lot if not all of the imagery to make this work), we must read this and we must be able to visualize both content and emotion, so no just being able to visualize icicles as perfect weapons is no use to us if we don't know what is being murdered because now we basically know this is a game of "what's being murdered? is it a) love? b) childhood innocence? c) FREEDOM? d) an actual living organism? Of course some poems do just use this kind of answer begging format but in my eyes it's just so simple and blatant it has to be technically and fantastic and amazing to be of worth you literally have to carry the poem via amazing literary skills alone which always feels like it's making it difficult for no reason.
Okay I don't want to be all vague so I want to give some examples (forgive if they are bad this is impromtu of course just trying to illustrate) So examples of how to do this: You have suburban imagery possible here, draw into that. How does suburban life relate to marriage and relationships? So as an example to make this twist work you can write a suburban scene of individuals, live and tangible, dealing with this threat or fear of murder or aftermath of murder, and as I said these must be things we can visualize and have substance. These characters or images of people and emotions seem to be people dealing with unwarranted? fear, and reeks of isolation? ego and id? reputation? their masks? their lies? their being sick of those lies but needing them anyway? Darla
prepares for the neighbourhood watch: red lipstick, mask
ara-- silhouette at the door, ready to kill with
James in the
dirty t-shirt he won't change.
20 minutes of arguments, 40 minutes smiles, then
20 more.
This is obviously a very prose and modern take on poetry that's not the same as your style but I hope you see what I mean, you need to create something that means something on it's own that gets added meaning when you sink it all in so they can go, wow. If you make it obvious, if all you write only has meaning after the extra key, if they knew it needed a key from the beginning, they will just flit right through it.
So in quickly drafted example, you have painted a picture that stands alone as a scenario with its own emotion, in a way we're fooled into thinking there's a real murder even though we know it's about more than the murder, then we can continue in this vein and expose the problems in this relationship and turn it back and show that this murder the title of the poem refers not to this thing that might not even be a murder (we might not ever specify it as murder maybe it was just robbery or other crimes right?), instead we realize that the murder refers to something that's been under our nose all along, and yet has been tantalizing and really feeling the whole way through, this murder of marriage vows, this dissolution of love, and promises, and not only that, we get to show this murder of holy wedding vows in more than just words (because that's ultimately a lot of telling) we get to SHOW them the dissolution while it is disguised as "plot device" for the "murder", but then this vehicle for the point turns out to be the point itself, and it reaches a moment where we have a satisfactory end that makes sense and the reader has been cognizant of throughout while still being now 100% clear.
I'll admit my example is a bit cliche as well, but you can kind of see how that allows us to basically show and sprinkle our literary magic to really milk the emotions and tableus that come from a dying/dead marriage while still retaining a "twist".
Okay technical edits:
Starting with the showpiece:
Quote:of our hollow wedding vows.
I'd nix the our. You don't need to specify "our". It just makes it clunky. It's heavy handed as it is. In general if a word doesn't contribute meaning, it must contribute flow or emotion. And in this case "our" doesn't really do anything on both counts (you can argue it, but I disagree and think it's obviously so).
Quote:The suspect
had been spotted
around the neighborhood in the past
coming for others,
but it was our season now.
I feel like a lot of the enjambment here doesn't make sense. I neither understand why you want to end lines where you do, nor why you choose to start lines with those words, and generally your reason to break a line has to be either because you want to create a visual pause, or to put emphasis on a new word.
If anything it should go like this:
Quote:The suspect had been
spotted around the neighborhood, had been
in the past, coming for others,
but it was our season now.
or just
Quote:The suspect had been spotted
around the neighborhood in the past,
coming for others,
but it was our season now.
Okay my edits aren't good, and I have a very different stylistic preference from you, but what I mean to show is that line breaks should be more sparse or when it's used it should be more pointed. If you're not going to use it to jarr, then you should just avoid them in general and just go for punctuation ends:
Quote:The suspect had been spotted around the neighborhood,
in the past, coming for others,
but it was our season now.
Like there's 100% nothing wrong with putting it like this. There doesn't have to be this idea that poetry has to be choppy. Choppiness is stylization, stylization for the sake of itself is artifice, and it will be read as such. On another tangent I feel like lots of people writing poems go into it thinking poems must look or be a certain way or has an idea in their head and go for the aesthetic instead of allowing a way for your meaning and imagery and emotions to breathe out best.
I notice that these edits in general just seems like I hate line breaks but I really love them (too much) I just feel like they must have a specific reason for existing, and they should be there when a linebreak is what you need, not looking to fit them somewhere because you feel like a certain number of them is good, or because you want the length of the lines to be equal or something (well for the most part, I think visual shape of a poem can be relevant, but it's secondary I think, 95% of the time if a poem needs a run-on sentence the good line break spots will show themselves).
Anyway, as you can see I feel like there's some fundamental problems in this poem holding it back, and I feel like the imagery therefore doesn't work simply because of those reasons, and probably you're sick of me trying to pretend I know what's what, so I leave it here.
As I said in my last critique, this seems to be a bit more detailed than most comments offered here, I hope you understand that no malice is intended, and it's up to you to accept or ignore it, but if you wish I'm happy to explain anything I've said poorly.