08-20-2015, 03:38 PM
Both of you are saying that everything is too vague. That's the biggest pointer I'm getting from this. One problem is that I actually wrote this poem with the idea of purposely making it vague in mind. But maybe it didn't really suit the subject matter very well and ended up hurting the poem. I will probably redo the whole thing in a major way sometime later! I'm just writing here to thank you guys for the critique.
What's funny is the quips about the 'insulated' since I did make and effort to draw attention to it. Everyone seems to realize that their attention is being drawn but they don't really get it or like it. I just liked the idea of being insulated since that's kind of how we all are. So the car is alone in the night with darkness everywhere but the city, and the person is even more alone inside the car. But as it's gotten such confusion I'll probably have to do something about it. Which is kind of sad as 'insulated' and 'alone' are the two words that were shoved in there by surrounded with commas to show a kind of kinship with the speaker and the vagrant.
@fluorescent: Most of what you have trouble with is vagueness and word choice... it seems. I'll take note and see what I can do. I actually really enjoy it when some poems do little throwbacks to other poems. Larkin's 'Sad Steps' has the title being a reference to a poem. Ginsberg's 'A Supermarket in California' has a ton of very offhand references to Whitman with either little plays on Whitman's lines or actual structure of the poem. So in this case I think that the burden of knowledge is on the reader, but maybe I should try to incorporate it a little more smoothly in the poem so that it still makes sense without really having to know the source material.
@MattVoscinar: Is the first line all that bad? I know that grammatically it might not be the most clean thing to write but I can read it just fine. The flow of the line goes smoothly over my tongue when I say it out loud. I'm also fond of the 'car clutters softly' ^^ So when people were having trouble with it I was extremely sad. The harsh alliteration I have to agree with. Looking back at it, I did overdo it. I always like leaving more questions than answers ): but this is probably one of those occasions when it was done poorly and to no real effect. I didn't even realize that the second HAD ABAA I thought that it was ABAC. But I suppose the strong a sound in flames might still have that effect. It seems I will have to work with the fluidity. Thank you for saying that the end was nice.
Thank you for the replies! I will try and edit when I can steal some time.
What's funny is the quips about the 'insulated' since I did make and effort to draw attention to it. Everyone seems to realize that their attention is being drawn but they don't really get it or like it. I just liked the idea of being insulated since that's kind of how we all are. So the car is alone in the night with darkness everywhere but the city, and the person is even more alone inside the car. But as it's gotten such confusion I'll probably have to do something about it. Which is kind of sad as 'insulated' and 'alone' are the two words that were shoved in there by surrounded with commas to show a kind of kinship with the speaker and the vagrant.
@fluorescent: Most of what you have trouble with is vagueness and word choice... it seems. I'll take note and see what I can do. I actually really enjoy it when some poems do little throwbacks to other poems. Larkin's 'Sad Steps' has the title being a reference to a poem. Ginsberg's 'A Supermarket in California' has a ton of very offhand references to Whitman with either little plays on Whitman's lines or actual structure of the poem. So in this case I think that the burden of knowledge is on the reader, but maybe I should try to incorporate it a little more smoothly in the poem so that it still makes sense without really having to know the source material.
@MattVoscinar: Is the first line all that bad? I know that grammatically it might not be the most clean thing to write but I can read it just fine. The flow of the line goes smoothly over my tongue when I say it out loud. I'm also fond of the 'car clutters softly' ^^ So when people were having trouble with it I was extremely sad. The harsh alliteration I have to agree with. Looking back at it, I did overdo it. I always like leaving more questions than answers ): but this is probably one of those occasions when it was done poorly and to no real effect. I didn't even realize that the second HAD ABAA I thought that it was ABAC. But I suppose the strong a sound in flames might still have that effect. It seems I will have to work with the fluidity. Thank you for saying that the end was nice.
Thank you for the replies! I will try and edit when I can steal some time.