Love Is Not Enough

[rorrick]

I might edit this later, but it's too fresh to put metaphors and similes to right now...I appreciate the feed back, and will use it in the future and for future writes.

Love Is Not Enough


Losing you
is like a death
hard
to let go
of
the past
and
never agains
the future
and
never wills

I let you become
my everything
my world was
of your love
for me

you
were the air
I breathed
the water
I drank
the food
I ate
the shelter
I needed

I hate
how much
I love you
I can see
in your eyes
feel
in your embrace
the person
you long to be
and
it tricks me
into believing
that’s who you are

but you’re not

my hope
for you
is no longer
enough
to endure
the hurt

it’s become
too much
for my heart
to bear
the
resentment
that
resides inside

your words
will never
be enough
to override
your lack
of
actions

you failed
me
and now
you
must
go

[addy]

Nice to have you posting your stuff in the forums rorrick . This is a nice attempt... your artistic choice of formatting effectively projected a sparse kind of pain. One thing I have to say... perhaps 'losing you" is not the proper first line for this at all, since as the story unfolds we realize that the narrator in fact gave up his/her lover intentionally.

There are a few parts that I think you can spruce up with more imagery... there are some points where you end up with rather literal explanations of your feelings, in a manner that is acceptable to prose but isn't vibrant enough for poetry. For instance: "your words will never be enough to override your lack of actions"... override sounds so technical, and for me hurts the mood of the piece. Little changes like that, i think, would make a big difference

Thanks for the read

[billy]

first off, hi

one of the best things an aspiring poet can learn is how to say old things in a new way. much of what you say has been said in a similar or same way many times already. often we write this way because we've read it before (usually in a place where people say oooo that's bloody lovely)

another best thing an aspiring poet can do is try not to use phrases that tell us things. i hate how much i love you, i can see in your eyes. show the hate, show the love, show what the emotion is without just saying i (emotion of choice here) you. simile, metaphor, and analogy are your best friends. i hate you like fire hates water,. my hate is sticky marmite. my hate for you is Arctic permafrost.

i almost forgot. always edit

[rorrick]

Ohhh, I am so going to love it here. This is exactly what I have been looking for. I can't wait to post my less literal pieces for critique. This site is going to make me strive to be a better poet. I suddenly feel inspired and excited again. Thank so much for the honest feedback.

---

Nice to have you posting your stuff in the forums rorrick . This is a nice attempt... your artistic choice of formatting effectively projected a sparse kind of pain. One thing I have to say... perhaps 'losing you" is not the proper first line for this at all, since as the story unfolds we realize that the narrator in fact gave up his/her lover intentionally.

There are a few parts that I think you can spruce up with more imagery... there are some points where you end up with rather literal explanations of your feelings, in a manner that is acceptable to prose but isn't vibrant enough for poetry. For instance: "your words will never be enough to override your lack of actions"... override sounds so technical, and for me hurts the mood of the piece. Little changes like that, i think, would make a big difference

Thanks for the read

That makes so much sense. You are right...it's not losing someone...it's choosing to have them gone...wow! Eye opener.

You are right about being literal and of course the word override.

Thank you for pointing those out to me!

---

first off, hi

one of the best things an aspiring poet can learn is how to say old things in a new way. much of what you say has been said in a similar or same way many times already. often we write this way because we've read it before (usually in a place where people say oooo that's bloody lovely)

another best thing an aspiring poet can do is try not to use phrases that tell us things. i hate how much i love you, i can see in your eyes. show the hate, show the love, show what the emotion is without just saying i (emotion of choice here) you. simile, metaphor, and analogy are your best friends. i hate you like fire hates water,. my hate is sticky marmite. my hate for you is Arctic permafrost.

i almost forgot. always edit

You, of course, are right...this is one of my more literal writes, because I just wrote from my heart, rather than from the art...but then, that is why we edit, I guess. I can't wait to see what else I can learn from here.

Thank you for the feed back!

[billy]

we have an eclectic group of people with differing views, just pick what you think can help..

[Wildcard]

Hi rorrick, Good to see you posting

It seems like this may be a very personal piece for you. It has a lot of strong emotion but seems to state the case a little too directly in my opinion. There is a lot of angst between the lines and maybe combining some imagery that denotes these feelings might help to 'illustrate' some of these feelings without the need to be so specific.

I also feel that some punctuation is needed. I see that you had used any in the poem and I respect that some make that choice (I have before), but in the first stanza I felt that the odd usage of plurals (on never agains and never wills) could benefit from correct punctuation as I found a little clumsy as-is.

Of course this is all JMO

Thanks for sharing and welcome to The Pig Pen

[Todd]

Hi, good to see you posting. A couple comments:

You may want to consider starting with S4. It feels like a stronger opening and the "but you're not" plays well off the current S3.

The other thing to think about on rewrite would be to help the reader get below the surface a bit. We are told that there's hurt, resentment, lack of action, etc but without being brought in closer it lacks emotional power for anyone other than the writer. That's what I'd think about working on.

I like the look of the poem and the pace of it. I'd just like more emotional intensity--even if it's just the intensity of someone hollowed out.

Best,

Todd

[Erthona]

Rorrick,

Indeed, there are many things that are lacking. Unfortunately cliches in love poetry is not one of them!

This is purely personal, but it seems to me that love poetry's (at least as this starts off as) difficult enough as it is without also saddling it with the center justify and italics of the Gothic romance novels.

It is unfortunate that we have such a small vocabulary when accessing the idiom of romance. I often have to remind myself when I am reading Keats, that for him this was not cliche. I guess it would be a matter of flattery to say building only slightly7 upon the edifices of the ones who had gone before, the later three romantic Poets, created the idiom nearly single-highhandedly.

As Todd notes and I concur, showing rather than telling is generally preferred as it brings a greater depth to the piece, and allows the reader to become emotionally invested. Of course learning to do so is one of those common struggles we fight and never win. It does become stronger towards the end as you transition from romance to grief and determination.

This is a moderately traveled theme. Finally reaching the point in a "love" relation with a self destructive personality that practical problems of survival are forced to be confronted, or else the other removes themse4lves in some way. Despite this( and this is not meant as criticism, just something to maybe give this a little larger scope), I have always found this stance a bit disingenuous. We say we love a person, and this is why we wish them to change, even though we knew from the beginning this is how they are. It just seems that a large portion of these types, are destined for early death,, and I wonder if that is, in some way how that it is suppose to happen, and we are much less loving than we think are by demanding they should alter from a course that they often seem unable to break. It's just a though. Sometimes however, that sort of thing leads us closer to our emotions about it, at a time when we must be doing to opposite. I know that they have little in the way as far as a capacity to love, but I often wonder if they have not robbed us of that also.

Dale

[rorrick]

Okay, I hear ya.

I want to post something else, that does what you have said...we'll just pretend that I was testing this site...yeah, that's it...I was testing you all to see if you were ego strokers like some of the other sites haha!

[Erthona]

You're suppose to say you were working on a new technique, using the idiom of the contemporary love poem to show a clear delineation between love and grief. Thus it would not only be a distinction in content, but also one of form

Oh Yeah, we'll stroke you!!!!

Do yoou mean all those sites we got kicked off of for hurting people feelings? :angel:

Welcome to the site!

Dale

[rorrick]

Haha, well I don't always do what I am supposed to do

Stroke me huh? Promise?

I don't hurt people's feelings, and I wasn't banned from anywhere, yet...I am truly an angel...maybe with a crooked halo that horns have grown around, but certainly an angel.

Thanks for the welcome!

[Erthona]

OK angel!!