My first poem for critique - Dichotomy

[Cbobgo]

Hi everyone just joined yesterday and have been enjoying reading everyone's poems and critiques. Here's my first one, don't hold back.

It's my least poem-y poem - no flowery language, no metaphors, no rhymes. But it seems to work.

I'm considering adding a 3rd stanza, with character 1's reponse to character 2. But it seems pretty obvious and not necessary to spell it out.

What do you think?


Dichotomy


i bare my soul
tell you
i care for you so much
that i'm willing to let you go
because that's what you need
denying my own need
for you

you reply
“I'm touched”
Then tell me
about a video game
you are no longer playing
and how its helped you
be more productive

[UselessBlueprint]

Poem-y things are generally what makes a poem, well, poetry.

I'll leave some review of the content aside for now, and only focus some technical items.
Poetry does not value wasted space, and you haven't used much space at all, which is good. That said, I still think that the use of space here is not very efficient.
I tend to nitpick over line-breaks. Every line-break needs a reason, not just because it "feels right" or something like that. If those are the reasons to start a new line, it might as well be all a single line. You'll find differing opinions over that, but I get completely distracted by excessive line-breaks that don't add poetic value.
Punctuation and some consistent capitalization might be helpful, especially in your first four lines.
And lastly, it might help to include some "poem-y" things. It fills the space with more valuable meat, letting you trim out the excess fat without losing any weight.

Hi everyone just joined yesterday and have been enjoying reading everyone's poems and critiques. Here's my first one, don't hold back.

It's my least poem-y poem - no flowery language, no metaphors, no rhymes. But it seems to work.

I'm considering adding a 3rd stanza, with character 1's reponse to character 2. But it seems pretty obvious and not necessary to spell it out.

What do you think?


Dichotomy


i bare my soul
tell you
i care for you so much
that i'm willing to let you go
because that's what you need
denying my own need
for you

you reply
“I'm touched”
Then tell me
about a video game
you are no longer playing
and how its helped you
be more productive

[Cbobgo]

Thanks for your input useless, I will play around with the line breaks and punctuation and see what I can come up with.

[billy]

Hi Bob, first off; thanks for the feedback you're doing and the posting.
2nd, the poem:

the poem does tell us of a dichotomy of sort; the problem is it tells us of a dichotomy. the 1st stanza comes across as pretty weak, too weak for a dichotomy. while the 2nd stanza is better, it's still very weak. the metaphor/simile/imagery you didn't use, you need.at present we're listening to you tell us the poem. we want to see it.
the 1st stanza can be shown as;
i care for you but i may leave you if you don't change.

the 2nd;
you're still the same but lying about the fact.


imagery can expand an feeling or emotion. for example;
i bare my soul like gorilla bares its chest

though [i bare my soul] is a cliche. watch out for cliche, the first stanza is arguably one. make what you write original. don't be despondent, the idea is a good one. from it you can edit what you have into a good poem.

Hi everyone just joined yesterday and have been enjoying reading everyone's poems and critiques. Here's my first one, don't hold back.

It's my least poem-y poem - no flowery language, no metaphors, no rhymes. But it seems to work.

I'm considering adding a 3rd stanza, with character 1's reponse to character 2. But it seems pretty obvious and not necessary to spell it out.

What do you think?


Dichotomy


i bare my soul
tell you
i care for you so much
that i'm willing to let you go
because that's what you need
denying my own need
for you

you reply
“I'm touched”
Then tell me
about a video game
you are no longer playing
and how its helped you
be more productive

[Cbobgo]

Thanks Billy, I will take what you have said and see what I can do with it.

In my real life, my writing is scientific/technical so I am predisposed to eliminating everything extraneous. Will take some work to add stuff in.

[Todd]

Bob, welcome to the site! So, yes you've written something non-poemy. Some comments below:


Dichotomy


i bare my soul--the problem with using no poetic elements is that you run the risk of just making flat statements without any emotive power (which you can usually get from imagery and metaphor). I'm not saying you need to add the elements but I bare my soul comes off flat and slightly melodramatic and somewhat cliche. The statement is not enough. You need to use some incident to demonstrate this baring of the soul. What can you do to show this?
tell you
i care for you so much--again a flat statement telling me not showing me.
that i'm willing to let you go--this is again slightly cliche if you love them let them go. You can escape this with less flat reportage.
because that's what you need
denying my own need--again this is one layer above where it should be. We have this abstract need but nothing concrete to specify it.
for you

you reply
“I'm touched”--again reportage misses opportunities to show by the activity what the person actually thinks
Then tell me
about a video game
you are no longer playing
and how its helped you
be more productive
[/quote]

Just some thoughts. Hope they are helpful.

Best,

Todd

[Cbobgo]

Thanks Todd. I will definitely work on more showing less telling