I Am In/Stead

[Deor Ana Log]

I am lastly lucid and dread being

/led Pondering “who am I when I’m dead/asleep?”

I savor seabound, silent rooster’s screech Follow family found

during delayed dreams Fighting to fade into flickers of melodic memory

I am the art, act, ache wanting to/lead Pretending my becoming/forgotten self lies 

below floating sea I perceive before and after slipping by/past Soiling my soul masquerading as a 

garden wreath I worry, when I wake I won’t wait with “me” Wailing simulating silent tears 

soaking sealocked tree Glamorizing growth sprouting out of single/seed I am little/lovely 

labor grasping life-sized lead Stating syllables nulling sentence’s I conceive, ruby, 

amber, seaweed invisible out/bleed I try, I try, I try to echo more than 

keep/dream Dreaming, “when did lifestart to need”? I hope/I survive

 in this forever fake/fantasy

Weaving/I am 

who I am 

instead 

of me I 

 before

/lament 

and after

/lament, 

“Who am 

I to 

lead/me?”

I/can’t

IMPORTANT NOTE: The forward slashes can be read one word after the other, or you can choose to read a word out of the two. For example: I really like writing/poetry!

[tun]

I get the feeling that you want to write poetry, but that you are not saying the things that you really want to say because you are too aware of expectations and audience, and the 'idea' of 'Poetry'. Poetry is when you say the things you want to say but without caring about Poetry. Poetry is just an idea. You are the real thing. You are far more important and real than Poetry. I think that the centralized format signals this 'caring' (about Poetry). I think that you feel as if poetry is something special and out of the ordinary. It isn't. It is just the things that you really want to say. That is all that it is. Poetry is not work - it is effortless. It is not 'caring' - it is 'not caring'. It is not difficult. It is terribly easy. There is nothing to learn. It is the first words that come to you. Those are the only real words a body can ever have.

[Deor Ana Log]

I disagree, because published poetry and writing in general in almost always revised the made better. You are saying that improving upon writing with an criticism you get, makes those words not matter anymore. I think you don't have a problem with me or I Am In/Stead, you have a problem with professional poetry in general. And that is not something I can help you with.

[Quixilated]

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I get the feeling that you want to write poetry, but that you are not saying the things that you really want to say because you are too aware of expectations and audience, and the 'idea' of 'Poetry'. Poetry is when you say the things you want to say but without caring about Poetry. Poetry is just an idea. You are the real thing. You are far more important and real than Poetry. I think that the centralized format signals this 'caring' (about Poetry). I think that you feel as if poetry is something special and out of the ordinary. It isn't. It is just the things that you really want to say. That is all that it is. Poetry is not work - it is effortless. It is not 'caring' - it is 'not caring'. It is not difficult. It is terribly easy. There is nothing to learn. It is the first words that come to you. Those are the only real words a body can ever have.

Hello, tun, please take a moment to read over our site rules. In the critique forums, please only critique the actual poem. Critiquing the poet (or their beliefs, ideals, philosophy, etc) is not permitted in any of the poetry forums outside the sewer.  Feel free to put comments like this in a pm (for private advice), or in the discussion forums (if you want others to weigh in), or in the sewer (if you want an audience).  In the workshops, all comments must ONLY and strictly be about the actual content of the poem, as in, how to help the author workshop the poem into its best possible version. 

Thank you,
Quix/admin

[tun]

I disagree, because published poetry and writing in general in almost always revised the made better. You are saying that improving upon writing with an criticism you get, makes those words not matter anymore. I think you don't have a problem with me or I Am In/Stead, you have a problem with professional poetry in general. And that is not something I can help you with.

I did not mention 'revision'. The first words are the real words in the sense that Poetry is the act of identifying what the unconscious is saying/desires to say. A poem is written by the unconscious. 'Writing' is the process of identifying the real unconsciously originating words - of protecting those words from the ego. 'Revision' - if it exists, can only ever be that. I notice that you use the term 'Professional' and that is significant. It is signal. I mean to say; What do you mean by that word? The 'Professional' submits to human authority and to human ideas, is a member of an 'Association', etc. The 'Amateur' refers directly to the Divine and submits to no human authority or assessment. 'Professional' poetry is by definition, definitively not Poetry. Do you realize that? All Poetry is accomplished by the 'Amateur'.

[RiverNotch]

There's something deeply self-aggrandizing about this piece that I find just as deeply off-putting. First, the format: one of the first critiques I received in this site is that most modern English poetry is aligned left, not centered, only that critique is not quite true. Most English poetry in general is aligned left, from the earliest editions of Chaucer to Shakespeare's sonnets to Louise Gluck, and for a site like this, aligning left certainly makes a piece easier to critique line by line. When a poem is centered, it usually means three things: it's a concrete poem, which is certainly not the case here (if the goal was to imitate the shape of a tree, then it's a terribly stubby looking plant that's here presented); the author is inexperienced (albeit I've seen the author post pieces formatted elsewise); or the author thinks too highly of the work.

Then there's the choice of a first word. Not only is the very first word of the entire piece "I", but every line bar the penultimate begins with "I", while the penultimate is a question beginning with an interrogative that refers back to the self anyway.

Then there's the question of what that "I" is supposed to refer to. A quick search through both my memories and Google shows me that the more noteworthy "I" poems tend to refer that "I" to someone else, whether God in the Psalms, Humanity in Whitman, America in Langston Hughes, or at the very least Carl Solomon in Howl. This piece doesn't seem to go beyond the speaker---the best it does is refer to common aesthetic-psychological images of "the art, act, ache", "sea", "tree", so common that for this sort of poem we don't really see them as distinct objects anymore.

Then, somewhere in the middle of the piece, the mixed metaphors employing trite references pile on to such a degree that I'm simply lost, that I stop caring to connect everything to everything else. "silent rooster's screech" might be an interesting enough oxymoron, "soil my soul" may be some kind of wordplay on "garden wreath", but then "I wail simulating silent tears soaking sealocked tree", "I state syllables nulling sentence's scream", "grasping life-sized lead" (is it lead the metal or lead the rope?). It's simultaneously too much and nothing at all.

And, circling back to formatting, the slashes. The slashes! I suppose they're supposed to highlight a sense of dichotomy, of division between the Shadow and the Self, but very often---too often, really---they're just....there. "I....dread being/led" "I am little/lovely labor"

Yeah. Both too much and nothing at all. A very frustrating read.

[Deor Ana Log]

There's something deeply self-aggrandizing about this piece that I find just as deeply off-putting. First, the format: one of the first critiques I received in this site is that most modern English poetry is aligned left, not centered, only that critique is not quite true. Most English poetry in general is aligned left, from the earliest editions of Chaucer to Shakespeare's sonnets to Louise Gluck, and for a site like this, aligning left certainly makes a piece easier to critique line by line. When a poem is centered, it usually means three things: it's a concrete poem, which is certainly not the case here (if the goal was to imitate the shape of a tree, then it's a terribly stubby looking plant that's here presented); the author is inexperienced (albeit I've seen the author post pieces formatted elsewise); or the author thinks too highly of the work.

Then there's the choice of a first word. Not only is the very first word of the entire piece "I", but every line bar the penultimate begins with "I", while the penultimate is a question beginning with an interrogative that refers back to the self anyway.

Then there's the question of what that "I" is supposed to refer to. A quick search through both my memories and Google shows me that the more noteworthy "I" poems tend to refer that "I" to someone else, whether God in the Psalms, Humanity in Whitman, America in Langston Hughes, or at the very least Carl Solomon in Howl. This piece doesn't seem to go beyond the speaker---the best it does is refer to common aesthetic-psychological images of "the art, act, ache", "sea", "tree", so common that for this sort of poem we don't really see them as distinct objects anymore.

Then, somewhere in the middle of the piece, the mixed metaphors employing trite references pile on to such a degree that I'm simply lost, that I stop caring to connect everything to everything else. "silent rooster's screech" might be an interesting enough oxymoron, "soil my soul" may be some kind of wordplay on "garden wreath", but then "I wail simulating silent tears soaking sealocked tree", "I state syllables nulling sentence's scream", "grasping life-sized lead" (is it lead the metal or lead the rope?). It's simultaneously too much and nothing at all.

And, circling back to formatting, the slashes. The slashes! I suppose they're supposed to highlight a sense of dichotomy, of division between the Shadow and the Self, but very often---too often, really---they're just....there. "I....dread being/led" "I am little/lovely labor"

Yeah. Both too much and nothing at all. A very frustrating read.

Good idea Notch! I've reformated it to look like a tree!

[busker]

I don't get the point of forward slashes in a poem. If you want the line to be, well, the next line, then just write it out as the next line.
The whole piece comes off as gimmicky and there is no payoff in the text of the poem itself to the reader, for all the hard work of reading what's been written.

"Soiling my soul masquerading as a
garden wreath I worry, when I wake I won’t wait with “me” Wailing simulating silent tears
soaking sealocked tree Glamorizing growth sprouting out of single/seed I am little/lovely
labor grasping life-sized lead Stating syllables nulling sentence’s I conceive, ruby,
amber, seaweed invisible out/"

Is just gibberish, sorry to say.

[Deor Ana Log]

I don't get the point of forward slashes in a poem. If you want the line to be, well, the next line, then just write it out as the next line.
The whole piece comes off as gimmicky and there is no payoff in the text of the poem itself to the reader, for all the hard work of reading what's been written.

"Soiling my soul masquerading as a
garden wreath I worry, when I wake I won’t wait with “me” Wailing simulating silent tears
soaking sealocked tree Glamorizing growth sprouting out of single/seed I am little/lovely
labor grasping life-sized lead Stating syllables nulling sentence’s I conceive, ruby,
amber, seaweed invisible out/"

Is just gibberish, sorry to say.

Here is the poem in the original format for easier reading; the reason I changed it was due to someone elses recommendation. Also it is not gibberish, it is poetry that can be interpreted in many different ways. Whether you agree with the quality or not, lets both agree on that.
                                                                                  
                                                                                 I am lastly lucid and dread being/led

Pondering “who am I when I’m dead/asleep?”

I savor seabound, silent rooster’s screech

Follow family found during delayed dreams

Fighting to fade into flickers of melodic memory

I am the art, act, ache wanting to/lead

Pretending my becoming/forgotten self lies below floating sea

I perceive before and after slipping by/past imaginary

Soiling my soul masquerading as a garden wreath

I worry, when I wake I won’t wait with “me”

Wailing simulating silent tears soaking sealocked tree

Glamorizing growth sprouting out of single/seed

I am little/lovely labor grasping life-sized lead

Stating syllables nulling sentence’s scream

I conceive, ruby, amber, seaweed invisible out/bleed

I try, I try, I try to echo more than keep/dream

Dreaming, “when did life start to need”?

I hope/I survive in this forever fake/fantasy

Weaving/I am who I am instead of me

I chant before/lament and after/lament,

 “Who am I to lead/me?”

I/can’t

[patrickoday]

A lot of very critical things have been said about this poem. I can understand much of the criticism, there is some merit to what everyone has said. That being said, if you want the audience to enjoy or have a better chance at understanding what it is that your mind has conjured up, I think you should try giving just a tad more thought into maybe how to construct your words so that others may more easily bask in their meaning too. I think in the state of this poem now, it is very confusing and difficult to see the big picture clearly.

As far as the format, I don't understand why it is bothering others. Sure it is not traditional, maybe the author just wanted to do something different. Does it really change the meaning of the words?