Poet's Trance Alternative Edit

[Leah S.]

If you suppose I'm clinically depressed,
I don't appreciate your kind dismay.
So what? I haven't had a meal today,
or made my bed, or even gotten dressed!
(Obsessed, I'd just neglected to ingest.)
I mined for words to prove in the assay;
I dug up metaphor that would convey
the deepest nuance readers can digest.
So don't be worried that I've lost my mind.
I couldn't feel the hours passing by;
I never heard my stomach's aching groan.
I'd been transported to a place behind
the world, where time's an evanescent lie
and every glinting word's a precious stone.

It's very ambitious - and I mean that as a real compliment. My objection would be that you develop two conceits: the first of eating - or the lack of eating, and the second, obviously, of mining: and they combine in line 8; but nowhere else. You've also got two ideas - that the conceits/metaphors are carrying: emotional emptiness and literary creativity.

Classically, the idea is usually to condense the ideas into one conceit: this is the basic meaning and structure of metaphor. In a very real way the 'pleasure' that poetry, rhetoric etc give is this formation of 'condensed' structures. Shakespeare does it endlessly - look at his sonnets or, given your poem, this:

If music be the food of love, play on;
Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.
That strain again! it had a dying fall:
O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound,
That breathes upon a bank of violets,
Stealing and giving odour! Enough; no more:
'Tis not so sweet now as it was before.
O spirit of love! how quick and fresh art thou,
That, notwithstanding thy capacity
Receiveth as the sea, nought enters there,
Of what validity and pitch soe'er,
But falls into abatement and low price,
Even in a minute: so full of shapes is fancy
That it alone is high fantastical.



Two ideas; one conceit.

I think you are reading too much into my 'little song.' I was just so busy digging (mining) for words that I forgot to eat, get dressed, or make my bed. Maybe if I re-titled it "Prospector" ? Thanks though, I will go back and try and tighten up the image of the obsessed treasure-hunter.

---

I think this might be the last edit. I went with the mining metaphor all the way. Thanks to All esp. lacan123 

Poet's Drift

If you suspect I'm clinically depressed,
I don't appreciate your kind dismay.
So what? I haven't had a meal today,
or made my bed, or even gotten dressed.
(Obsessed, I'd just neglected to ingest.)
I mined for words to prove in the assay:
the lode of metaphor that would convey
the deepest nuance language might suggest.

So don't you worry that I've lost my mind.
I never felt the hours passing by;
I didn't hear my stomach's aching groan.
I'd gone prospecting in a place behind
the world, where time's an evanescent lie
and every glinting word's a precious stone.

Poet's Fugue

If you suppose I'm clinically depressed,
I don't appreciate your kind dismay.
So what? I haven't had a meal today,
or made my bed, or even gotten dressed!
(Obsessed, I'd just neglected to ingest.)
I mined for words to prove in the assay;
I dug up metaphor that would convey
the deepest nuance readers can digest.
So don't be worried that I've lost my mind.
I couldn't feel the hours passing by;
I never heard my stomach's aching groan.
I'd been transported to a place behind
the world, where time's an evanescent lie
and every glinting word's a precious stone.

Edit 1:

Poet's Trance

I haven't eaten anything today,
or made my bed, or even gotten dressed,
and if you think I'm clinically depressed
I don't appreciate your kind dismay.
I didn't feel despair, or lose my way,
but scrutinized each line to find the best
of rhymes; the secret metaphors unguessed
as yet; the stunning phrases to convey
the deepest nuance to my reader's mind.
I couldn't feel the hours passing by,
or even hear my gut's regretful groan.
I was transported to a place behind
the world, where time's an evanescent lie
and every glinting word's a precious stone.


First Draft:
This one needs to be whacked into shape. Spenserian sonnets are strangerian.


I haven't eaten anything today,
or made my bed, or even gotten dressed,
and if you think I'm clinically depressed
I don't appreciate your kind dismay.
I never felt despair, or lost my way,
I just kept looking for the very best,
the perfect rhyme, the words unguessed
as yet, the stunning phrase that would convey
the deepest nuance to my reader's mind.
I couldn't feel the hours passing by,
or hear my hollow belly's distant groan.
I was transported to a place behind
the world we know, where time's a lie
and every glinting word's a precious stone.