12-14-2015, 03:40 PM
Ronsaik - I am curious what sections you feel qualify as “teenage angst” and/or “pop new age.” I wrote plenty of both in my formative years and had thought I’d rather moved beyond it. I suspect what’s throwing you off is the fact that the poem’s written in 2nd person and doesn’t describe a scene, or really have images of any kind, and it’s kind of stream-of-consciousness and there’s no punctuation. I also suspect that you missed the sarcasm, the piece isn’t intended to be quite tongue-in-cheek but its not exactly sincere either.
Dukealien - the lines in the second stanza are not meant to be read as connected. “Pretend your soul” means aproximatly “pretend you have a soul,” pretending as an act of creation. I get the confusion though, it’s just close enough to sound awkward, and without punctuation there’s nothing to indicate the full stop after “your soul.” I’ll have to think about this.
If the last line is cliche I would think the deliberate cliche in the line before it would nullify the effect, but I don’t know, maybe my irony isn’t coming through.
Rayheinrich - the “deep shit” line has come and gone in a couple edits and I remain uncertain about it. I’m honestly not sure if the incongruity works. I wonder if the fact that this seemed like a welcome break from some “new age” stereotypes means that my irony really isn’t coming through.
As for the title, it’s an inside joke, largely with myself. There are people in existence who would get it immediately, but there are not very many of them. To be honest, I like deliberately cryptic, obtuse titles. I’ve read enough early modern poetry to be fairly skeptical about their utility, and I think that if your poem can’t stand alone without the title to act as a decoder ring you have more serious problems.
I feel kind of bad that you guys seem to have put a lot of thought into what it might mean, so I’ll go ahead and give it away. “Largo” was the nickname of rock climber and widely published adventure writer John Long, I believe it came out of his days in Yosemite with the Stonemasters and it was a joke on how much more heavily built he was than most of the men and women he climbed with. Although I respect him as both a climber and a writer he has a habit of proscribing his stripped down, journalistic, Tim O’Brien, style to everyone else that I find especially annoying.
Another note: the indented and dashed lines were originally strung together, appearing as such
Deaden your senses
Close your eyes plug your nose cover your ears rip out your tongue
Leap gladly into a lake of fire
I prefer how what I posted looks, but the original better indicates how I intend it to be read.
Any input there will be appreciated.
Dukealien - the lines in the second stanza are not meant to be read as connected. “Pretend your soul” means aproximatly “pretend you have a soul,” pretending as an act of creation. I get the confusion though, it’s just close enough to sound awkward, and without punctuation there’s nothing to indicate the full stop after “your soul.” I’ll have to think about this.
If the last line is cliche I would think the deliberate cliche in the line before it would nullify the effect, but I don’t know, maybe my irony isn’t coming through.
Rayheinrich - the “deep shit” line has come and gone in a couple edits and I remain uncertain about it. I’m honestly not sure if the incongruity works. I wonder if the fact that this seemed like a welcome break from some “new age” stereotypes means that my irony really isn’t coming through.
As for the title, it’s an inside joke, largely with myself. There are people in existence who would get it immediately, but there are not very many of them. To be honest, I like deliberately cryptic, obtuse titles. I’ve read enough early modern poetry to be fairly skeptical about their utility, and I think that if your poem can’t stand alone without the title to act as a decoder ring you have more serious problems.
I feel kind of bad that you guys seem to have put a lot of thought into what it might mean, so I’ll go ahead and give it away. “Largo” was the nickname of rock climber and widely published adventure writer John Long, I believe it came out of his days in Yosemite with the Stonemasters and it was a joke on how much more heavily built he was than most of the men and women he climbed with. Although I respect him as both a climber and a writer he has a habit of proscribing his stripped down, journalistic, Tim O’Brien, style to everyone else that I find especially annoying.
Another note: the indented and dashed lines were originally strung together, appearing as such
Deaden your senses
Close your eyes plug your nose cover your ears rip out your tongue
Leap gladly into a lake of fire
I prefer how what I posted looks, but the original better indicates how I intend it to be read.
Any input there will be appreciated.