02-21-2016, 01:44 AM
RN wrote: "The title being in all-caps is an editorial choice. It has no bearing to the poem's meaning whatsoever."
Yes, but that does not make it a good choice. Putting something all in caps makes it seem like one is shouting, is that the effect being sought, if not, change it.
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Some of this stuff I think you are just making up, or mashing up, or maybe misappropriating. mainly this idea of a potters field and "an ancient measure of life."
The only ancient measure of life I am familiar with is the number of days God set for man to live, which was 120 years. A potters field is a place where paupers' graves or common graves are.
So with that in hand:
"I know you can hear me ringing the bell, that ancient measure of life in the potter's field suspended"
makes no sense.
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Kant was a great on for writing long sentences, but he was a German philosopher. I do not believe writing extremely long sentences does much to benefit a poem.
As we lie in our rooms waiting for sleep, I know you can hear me ringing the bell, that ancient measure of life in the potter's field suspended, even with the whirring of the fan by your feet and the prowling on the roofs of the robber rats and the midnight owls whose cowls are the color of fallen leaves -- you know, lovers like us, lost in the cock's two crows, we all share the same coffin, all wait for the same Christ.
All other punctuation aside, this is a run-on sentence.
Complexity for complexity's sake, and obscurity for obscurity's sake, do not make for good poetry, just confusion. The title is "The Girl Next Door", which one would assume from the beginning is a love interest, yet more than half of the imagery and allusion has nothing to do with that. What is the point of writing if the clarity level is so low that all the readers just give up? That's what this is. At first it seems interesting, but the further one goes the murkier it gets until the reader says, "I give up, I don't get it."
I suppose I could comment more, but this one has just kind of worn me out. The bottom line, you make the reader work way too hard, you need to learn to meet you reader half way, which would involve using more commonly known allusions, real allusions. Not combining Roman and Christian allusions as though they came from the same source and so on. That would be a start. You have a lot of potential, but you really need to think more about how your reader will perceive what you right, we do not know what you know
Best,
dale
Yes, but that does not make it a good choice. Putting something all in caps makes it seem like one is shouting, is that the effect being sought, if not, change it.
____________________________________________________________________________
Some of this stuff I think you are just making up, or mashing up, or maybe misappropriating. mainly this idea of a potters field and "an ancient measure of life."
The only ancient measure of life I am familiar with is the number of days God set for man to live, which was 120 years. A potters field is a place where paupers' graves or common graves are.
So with that in hand:
"I know you can hear me ringing the bell, that ancient measure of life in the potter's field suspended"
makes no sense.
______________________________________________________________________________________________
Kant was a great on for writing long sentences, but he was a German philosopher. I do not believe writing extremely long sentences does much to benefit a poem.
As we lie in our rooms waiting for sleep, I know you can hear me ringing the bell, that ancient measure of life in the potter's field suspended, even with the whirring of the fan by your feet and the prowling on the roofs of the robber rats and the midnight owls whose cowls are the color of fallen leaves -- you know, lovers like us, lost in the cock's two crows, we all share the same coffin, all wait for the same Christ.
All other punctuation aside, this is a run-on sentence.
Complexity for complexity's sake, and obscurity for obscurity's sake, do not make for good poetry, just confusion. The title is "The Girl Next Door", which one would assume from the beginning is a love interest, yet more than half of the imagery and allusion has nothing to do with that. What is the point of writing if the clarity level is so low that all the readers just give up? That's what this is. At first it seems interesting, but the further one goes the murkier it gets until the reader says, "I give up, I don't get it."
I suppose I could comment more, but this one has just kind of worn me out. The bottom line, you make the reader work way too hard, you need to learn to meet you reader half way, which would involve using more commonly known allusions, real allusions. Not combining Roman and Christian allusions as though they came from the same source and so on. That would be a start. You have a lot of potential, but you really need to think more about how your reader will perceive what you right, we do not know what you know
Best,
dale
How long after picking up the brush, the first masterpiece?
The goal is not to obfuscate that which is clear, but make clear that which isn't.
The goal is not to obfuscate that which is clear, but make clear that which isn't.