08-19-2015, 08:25 PM
I will not critique your poem, Mr. tectak, but get it critiqued by you. "You may get away with unadulterated prose just out of RTF school masquerading as poetry on some eulogy sites but not here". You should not "think that meterless, rhymeless text makes poetry". These are your words, aren't they? So let us examine your poem by your own standards. What is this first stanza of yours, if not 'unadulterated prose"? Let us write it out without the line breaks. Here it is: "Fear brought me here. He binds my hands, my chest, my thoughts. The man who shares me holds the cords that tighten, choke and keep me tied. But who am I? My soul, a broken glaze on dull and blood-crazed, sunken eyes, I do not recognize". Now who would say this is not prose but poetry? Do you think the line breaks, the colons and semi-colons or the inverted syntax at the end, will make it poetry? And, by the way, you are very much against inverted syntax. So why this inverted syntax: "My soul...I do not recognize"? As far as rhyming is concerned, I could not discern even an attempt at achieving it. But didn't you say that 'rhymeless text' does not make poetry? Again, I could not find any evidence of meter either. The first very elementary thing to do in this regard is to count the number of syllables in each line in this stanza. My count is as follows: 12, 11, 15, 14. So the very first test of meter fails when applied to your first stanza. I am not an expert at delineating stressed and unstressed syllables, but even with my little knowledge in this regard, I can say that there is no rhythmic pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in your poem. If there is, please let us know how. So where are the rhyme and meter without which, as per your own statement, the writing is not a poem at all? You are also a stickler for 'poetic' words and expressions. How 'poetic' is "given name"? Is the word 'given' even necessary? And why, at the end of your poems, are you always referring to some extracts from some report? Is this your idea of originality?