Young Poets

[heslopian]

Sex and death are what occupy us.
Our sadness is the sadness of the young.
We do not think with bitterness.
Bitterness is accrued like experience.
(Maybe they are one and the same.)
What we have is straightforward anger.
Melancholia like a disease.
A rash with no root staining the flesh.
The skin pillow our mother's pinched.
I'm not a poet because I'm depressed.
Nor am I depressed because I write verse.
Life is a series of coincidences.
Many among us will abandon our pens.
Transcend the arrogance of youth.
(It was only a way of filling the time.)
Others will balance talent and content.
Work and write and die in happiness.
Maybe achieve that bitter quality.
Earn the right to be world weary.
A few will never escape the sadness.
Like those who stay thirteen forever.
Now and again they'll still produce.
Subsisting on a routine of medication.
Until they leave as delayed suicides.
I hope I'll belong to the second section.
But I would make do with the first.

I fear that I am destined for the third.

[billy]

i never got the chance to post yesterday due the the doctor being late
i have a bit of work to do on the site then i can play catch up. i have to say before do a
full crit of this one, that it's a good POV write.

[heslopian]

I look forward to reading it Billy

[billy]

sorry i too so long getting to the poetry, got caught up with the japanese disaster

Sex and death are what occupy us.
Our sadness is the sadness of the young.
We do not think with bitterness.
Bitterness is accrued like experience. great line
(Maybe they are one and the same.)
What we have is straightforward anger.
Melancholia like a disease.
A rash with no root staining the flesh. another good line
The skin pillow our mother's pinched.
I'm not a poet because I'm depressed.
Nor am I depressed because I write verse.
Life is a series of coincidences.
Many among us will abandon our pens.
Transcend the arrogance of youth.
(It was only a way of filling the time.)
Others will balance talent and content.
Work and write and die in happiness.
Maybe achieve that real bitterness.
Earn the right to world weariness.
A few will never escape the sadness. the 4 ess's for me could have been broken up in different parts of the poem.
Like those who stay thirteen forever.
Now and again they'll still produce.
Subsisting on a routine of medication.
Until they leave as delayed suicides. like this line a lot
I hope I'll belong to the second section.
But I would make do with the first.

I fear that I am destined for the third.

my only nit is the ess lines, because the rest of the poem is either non or slant rhyme, the ess lines really really stick out, for me the fact the do takes something from the rest of the poem, they make me forget the good structure of it and make me think of ess. just the ess rhyme.

now the good points for me;
i found it to be a great POV poem the poet tells us he's depressive and indirectly that as well as having a love of poetry it helps him cope. he points out some the feelings he has outside poetry and mixes them with his want or need to write in such a way as to be good at the craft he's chosen. he sees how others use poetry maybe as a crutch and wants not to be classed as the same. though his low self esteem ponders the the thought.

for me i's a write full of insight and trepidation, in places it feels a little blasé but those parts work for me this is a poem about the inner self of the writer, either fact or fiction, it makes no matter. it creates a person that be can be felt and to some extent understood (in part) it has a bit of all of us in it. it's about hope aspiration, fear of failure.
i enjoyed the read of it very much.

the narrative you bring to a poem is something special i think.

will reply to the other poems after shopping.

[heslopian]

Is it terrible that I only heard about the tsunami today? I so rarely keep up with the news. I kind of agree with you about the "ess" lines, but I don't know how to replace them without damaging the poem's integrity, if that makes sense.
I'm glad you otherwise like the structure of the piece. To be honest I chose it mostly because I was beating my brains out trying to write a line which didn't seem forced, so ended up in frustration stripping down my style as much as possible.
Thank you for all your kind words. This poem was a bastard to write, so it really means a lot.

[billy]

you could use different words;

Work and write and die happiness.
Maybe achieve that real bitter quality. Specially change bitterness because it's already been used twice in L3, and 4.
Earn the right to be world weary.
A few will never escape the sadness.

[heslopian]

That would work. God I feel like a retard now. I'll make the changes once I've finished this.