Rewrite! (First Post for feedback yay)

[DivineMsEmm]

Rewrite!

~~~

Michael

I put you on a pedestal even Gods wouldn't reach.
Now you're gone and I have just a few memories
of when you wooed me with your silly smile
your musical charm and every time I said yes
to your beer night I meant yes to wanting you.
But you didn't date friends, like my senior prom date
and now you're gone, asleep forever
torn from my life without warning
leaving me wondering who you really were
and why I didn't know your faults
or maybe I just ignored them.

~~~

Aubade After "Box of Crayons"

Lots of crying, lots of laughing, lots of healing,
Seventeen at Dan's house,
another twelve online -

we take turns offering memories of you.
Clay K threw some glasses to shoot the
Black Label in your honor. Passing the glass
like we did so long ago.

6am internal clock woke me from deep sleep - too deep
to dream. But you crept in like you always did
wooing with your memory, sweet-talking
with a shot of Jack until I woke to the truth.

The sun was breaking through the snow clouds,
Dan was shoveling the walk and I remembered

we weren't twenty again,
you were really gone
singing off-key with the blue jays
that left a mess on my windshield.

Aubade After The End

I put you on a pedestal even Gods wouldn’t reach –
couldn’t reach.
You’re gone and just memories stay:
when you wooed me with your silly smile

your musical charm and every time I said yes
to your beer night I meant yes to you.
But you didn’t date friends and now
you bequeath me a job

wondering who you really were
and why I didn’t know your pain
or maybe I just ignored it.

Seventeen gathered at Dan’s house,
another twelve online to take turns
offering memories of you

shooting Black Label in your honor
passing the glass as we did
so long ago.

My 6am internal clock woke me from deep sleep – too deep
to dream. But you crept in like you always did
wooing with your memory, sweet-talking
with a shot of Jack until I woke to the truth.

The sun was breaking through the snow clouds
Dan was shoveling the walk and I remembered

we weren’t twenty again and
you were really gone
singing off-key with the blue jays
that left a mess on my windshield.

[milo]

Hello and welcome to the site.  I am only going to respond to your first poem here.  I will try to loop back and respond to the second later if I have time.

I have two pieces that are related and I need some input on how to merge them. Thank you!
~~~

Michael

I put you on a pedestal even Gods wouldn't reach.

"put you on a pedestal" is cliche.  "Gods wouldn't reach doesn't really help even if it wasn't cliche - we all know what it means to "put on a pedestal".

Now you're gone and I have just a few memories
of when you wooed me with your silly smile
your musical charm and every time I said yes
to your beer night I meant yes to wanting you.

This whole section here is rather prosaic.  It reads more like a diary entry than poetry.  There is nothing really special about the verbiage, the imagery, the line breaks - really anything.

But you didn't date friends, like my senior prom date
and now you're gone, asleep forever
torn from my life without warning
leaving me wondering who you really were
and why I didn't know your faults
or maybe I just ignored them.

"torn from my life without warning" - "didn't know your faults"  - these are more tired phrases piled on but never really developed.  Why would it be important for our narrator to know the "faults"? How does this connect to the poem?

hmm - it actually it continues as more of a diary entry.  I don't ever develop either positive or negative feelings for your narrator or for the object of their love as they are never really developed.  There is nothing to distinguish them from every other couple on the planet.

i think you should consider developing this through imagery instead of tired cliches and platitudes.  I also think you might want to consider using more interesting language, sonics, etc.

Good luck!

[Todd]

Hello and welcome to the site! Okay so you're looking to merge these. Let me see if I can help you with that and give you some other feedback.

Merging ideas: The Aubade/Crayons poem is where you deal with the death.  The Michael elements that you blend in probably should deal with the speaker's conflicted or unrealized relationship and nothing more.

I'm not going to attempt the merge here. I'll just pare both down to their essentials as I see it with some commentary. If this was in Serious I'd probably give you a line by line. In this case, I'm simply going to show cuts and deal with it in chunks.

I have two pieces that are related and I need some input on how to merge them. Thank you!
~~~

Michael

I put you on a pedestal even Gods wouldn't reach.
Now you're gone and I have just a few memories
of when you wooed me with your silly smile
your musical charm and every time I said yes--These lines conceptually belong here, because they are the relationship not the event. Silly smile and musical charm though need to be drawn out more with imagery to make them more than shorthand tags. They convey emotional power in their present form.
to your beer night I meant yes to wanting you.--My first line of this poem as a stand alone might start with every on the line above and include this line (probably need to have a break in there somewhere. This is the first line of interest.
But you didn't date friends, like my senior prom date
and now you're gone, asleep forever--asleep is a pretty common way to describe death. I'd try stretching yourself a bit.
torn from my life without warning--Just repeats without adding much.
leaving me wondering who you really were
and why I didn't know your faults
or maybe I just ignored them.--So these last lines imply there really was warning and he did himself in by his lifestyle, or depression, or something.

I'm wondering if you really want your takeaway to be how did I miss the signs, as opposed to, if there was an us would it have made a difference. I get both possibilities from this. 


The piece is asking for more imagery, and a bit more focus in my opinion.
~~~

Aubade After "Box of Crayons"--is box a crayons multicolor shot drinking event? (that's what I took but I'm starting to lose my cultural reference points. An Aubade may be overstating the relationship between the speaker and Michael. I like the idea of an aubade. I haven't got departed lover from this though.

Lots of crying, lots of laughing, lots of healing,
Seventeen at Dan's house,
another twelve online - --This part doesn't draw me in.

we take turns offering memories of you.--This could be an opening line
Clay K threw some glasses to shoot the
Black Label in your honor. Passing the glass
like we did so long ago.--This could all be pared down without losing much

6am internal clock woke me from deep sleep - too deep
to dream. But you crept in like you always did
wooing with your memory, sweet-talking
with a shot of Jack until I woke to the truth.--This could be much more imagery driven. This is a marble block of words needing to be chipped away at to have any punch to it.

The sun was breaking through the snow clouds,
Dan was shoveling the walk and I remembered--These two lines have promise. If you're going to have an expansive long line style that is trying for prose poetry. This is closer to what you need.

we weren't twenty again,
you were really gone
singing off-key with the blue jays
that left a mess on my windshield.--I think you can work with this ending. If the cause of death was a car accident than this has a good sense of completion. You may need one or two other very subtle touchpoints earlier to give it the resonance it needs.

Just some thoughts, I hope they help some.

Best,

Todd

[DivineMsEmm]

Ahh, yes, the dreaded cliche - I get it - that's why I wanted some new eyes for these pieces.
I also had this critiqued by my local writing group yesterday, and got some specific advice on honing these pieces in - got more feedback from the story I told ABOUT the pieces, and how could I get that story into the entirety of the piece.

So I'll do some heavy work on these pieces - and I bet they'll be halfway rewritten.
If anybody has specific language or arrangement you think would work, that would help. If the piece really isn't saying anything at all, let me know that too.
Critique is helpful for me if it is specific.

Thank you!

[vtsai01]

The first poem makes me think of someone who killed oneself and now you're sad... Specifically the line, I didn't know your faults. Maybe the person seemed so content that you didn't suspect it?

The second poem makes me think that you had a good relationship with the person but now the person is gone. Why?

Are you talking about the same person? Or are you trying to write a poem about fleeting people? I think it's best to choose one or the other idea in order to combine both poems together if they are related. Another thing would be to think about how to space the lines because based on the poems' stanzas, they really do come off as separate poems. So, my question to you more or less is, how are these poems so related for you to want to merge it as one? What exactly is your idea that you want to resonate throughout the whole piece and how can you make it visually, and rhythmically alike?

[DivineMsEmm]

Hi there,
These two poems are about the same person, that's why I would like to merge the ideas somehow - focusing on a new essay at the moment, but this weekend will be diving back into this piece.
Thanks for the feedback!
--Emily

The first poem makes me think of someone who killed oneself and now you're sad... Specifically the line, I didn't know your faults. Maybe the person seemed so content that you didn't suspect it?

The second poem makes me think that you had a good relationship with the person but now the person is gone. Why?

Are you talking about the same person? Or are you trying to write a poem about fleeting people? I think it's best to choose one or the other idea in order to combine both poems together if they are related. Another thing would be to think about how to space the lines because based on the poems' stanzas, they really do come off as separate poems. So, my question to you more or less is, how are these poems so related for you to want to merge it as one? What exactly is your idea that you want to resonate throughout the whole piece and how can you make it visually, and rhythmically alike?