TSM Poetry Corner

[godthedog 0]

Same here.

 

'cept I also don't care what criticisms I get from an insecure, lesbian Republican who's too afraid to match up with my kick-ass poetry.

they weren't really "criticisms." a criticism is more helpful and qualified than, "these are awful." the purpose of this thread is, obviously, to share work and be productive about it. marney did neither. it's the equivalent of walking in on a creative writing class in the middle of discussion, saying "you all suck!" and leaving. it doesn't really help the process, all it does is hurt some of the more fragile students & leave the rest going, "....quoi?" if she wanted to offer some of her own stuff, fine. if she wanted to give a hint of "you've done too much of _____, try going in another direction with _____, find another word for ____," great.

[Firestarter 0]

if she wanted to offer some of her own stuff, fine.  if she wanted to give a hint of "you've done too much of _____, try going in another direction with _____, find another word for ____," great.

Something ending with "I will never forget their wonderful sight, my trees" isn't worth my time. Nor is a rambling, whiny cross between a Kerouac soliloquy, a pop psych relationships seminar, and a Cardigans song, nor any of the other crap I've seen here. If I had to spend three or four hours correcting basic grammar, there'd be little time left to address creative sterility and artistic myopia. I don't get paid for this.

 

Try to be as helpful and productive as you please, if that's your inclination. Of course, if you're all going to "help" each other, with your tone-deaf ears and your complete lack of anything resembling taste or sense, the revisions will doubtless be as ridiculous and incompetently crafted as the originals.

 

I saw a thread I thought might have potential and I was disappointed. I voiced my opinion. Sue me.

 

PS. Good writing, whether it be poetry or prose, isn't deeply affected by a lack of synonyms. If a writer has to be told "find another word for ____," either his work isn't worth wasting time on in the first place, or your "helpful... qualified" and "productive" criticism isn't worth the pixels that compose it. The other suggestions you offered indicate such fundamental flaws that the entire piece should be scrapped if either is applicable.

 

Stuff your pseudointellectual feel-good writing workshop bullshit in your shoe and shut your mouth.

[Guest Choken One]

SHOUTING A WHISPER

 

Your words float tenderly in the air all for me to decipher

Blue eyes gaze eternally through the sound waves crashing into me

Say what it is that you want as it were for that I can not set my soul free

And you’re left though not your fault, shouting a whisper

 

 

 

Long so long that I’ve blamed all instead of embracing it whole

Excuses my only vice I used them all so selfishly the lies became authentic

Need to hope, do you suffer I’m the whore out of touch, settled in schizophrenic

How could all this agony and somberness be your only goal?

 

 

 

Love to let you down, willing to try and shed my skin and start again

Try and say what I can feel I know that I am nothing more then what was there before

Reject everything told unto me, never was a plan, sought deep into my core

Fortified within by only contempt for what was given to me, God’s only stain

 

 

 

Your words; a riddle for me to discover, so many things slipped through this ear

Listened to the sounds within the white chamber of horror, childhood entangled by a wire

I don’t want to see no dancing monkey, dejected and scarred don’t see a need for desire

The stain remains to be seen, through the eyes I would neglect every word I hear

 

 

 

Desperate to reach some sort of conclusion, I’m just left out here in the cold

Unwilling to accept my place, felt so ashamed of what I was made to be it seems

The funniest thing was that I only felt secure within my own dreams

After so long fighting the truth, I began to comprehend what I was told

 

 

When I was a child, I used to think everything made no sense, profoundly insecure

Sheltered myself within pillars of apathy, energy embraces my fragile delicate will

After spending time ignoring the reality of what this place is, your words become still

Hideous emotions shrouded all I ever truly felt and now all in whole is completely pure

[Firestarter 0]

Hideous emotions shrouded all I ever truly felt and now all in whole is completely pure

And my point is made.

 

Christ Jesus. Seriously, godthedog, are you SERIOUSLY asking me to try to be "helpful" when I'd have to subject my eyes to this sort of garbage? For the love of God, Montresor - even if you chained me in a vault and walled me up with such excrescences I'd break my own fingers before I condescended to write real "criticism" of this puerile nonsense.

[Giuseppe Zangara 0]

Hey, I'm curious. Those of you who've posted your stuff in this thread, please list some of your favorite poets, as well as some of their poems.

[Guest Fire and Knives]

Stuff your pseudointellectual feel-good writing workshop bullshit in your shoe and shut your mouth.

I hardly disagree with the sentiment, but seeing various approximations of this sort of venom in every other post makes me wonder what you get out of posting here. That's not intended to be a flame; I'm genuinely curious.

 

As for Squirtle!'s question, my two favorites at the moment are d.a. levy and Charles Bukowski. Check out "Rebirth Blues" by levy and "my comrades" by Bukowski.

 

K.

[Firestarter 0]

seeing various approximations of this sort of venom in every other post makes me wonder what you get out of posting here

"People just like to fritter time away..."

- Jeff Vogel

[Red Hot Thumbtack In The Eye 0]

Hey, I'm curious. Those of you who've posted your stuff in this thread, please list some of your favorite poets, as well as some of their poems.

 

I don't recall having ever closely studied anyone's style or work.

 

Needless justification: I just do what i do and write what I think, and do it to fit a certain cadence and style that will work with the music it will be put to. I like it, and people around me like the music. For that, I'm successful.

[Ripper 0]

Something ending with "I will never forget their wonderful sight, my trees" isn't worth my time. Nor is a rambling, whiny cross between a Kerouac soliloquy, a pop psych relationships seminar, and a Cardigans song, nor any of the other crap I've seen here.

Hey...which one was Me!!!

 

 

 

Ripper - Any attention is good attention sez I.

[Spicy McHaggis 0]

...your complete lack of anything resembling taste or sense...

...and I love Blake.

 

A pretentious english major in this or some past life?

 

Taste...

 

my ass...

 

Something ending with "I will never forget their wonderful sight, my trees" isn't worth my time.

Your loss.

 

If I had to spend three or four hours correcting basic grammar...

Try me.

[godthedog 0]

Something ending with "I will never forget their wonderful sight, my trees" isn't worth my time. Nor is a rambling, whiny cross between a Kerouac soliloquy, a pop psych relationships seminar, and a Cardigans song, nor any of the other crap I've seen here. If I had to spend three or four hours correcting basic grammar, there'd be little time left to address creative sterility and artistic myopia. I don't get paid for this.

see, that's better. acidic as it is, it gives someone a small indication of why you think it sucks, rather than just saying "this sucks."

 

Try to be as helpful and productive as you please, if that's your inclination. Of course, if you're all going to "help" each other, with your tone-deaf ears and your complete lack of anything resembling taste or sense, the revisions will doubtless be as ridiculous and incompetently crafted as the originals.

 

I saw a thread I thought might have potential and I was disappointed. I voiced my opinion. Sue me.

i observed that your opinion was pointless and did nothing. sue me.

 

 

PS. Good writing, whether it be poetry or prose, isn't deeply affected by a lack of synonyms. If a writer has to be told "find another word for ____," either his work isn't worth wasting time on in the first place, or your "helpful... qualified" and "productive" criticism isn't worth the pixels that compose it.

not at all. i've come across a healthy amount of good writing that could've been more effective and polished if the author had chosen his words a little more carefully--doing active instead of passive verbs, condensing a seven-word clause into just a couple words, etc. joyce labored over finding exactly the right word, & look where it got him.

 

The other suggestions you offered indicate such fundamental flaws that the entire piece should be scrapped if either is applicable.

 

again, not at all. as i understand it, both those criticisms applied to t. s. eliot's original draft of "he do the police in different voices [the waste land]." but with pound's help and extensive revising, he got something worthwhile.

 

writing doesn't always come out perfect, or even good, on the first, third or fifth draft.

[Edwin MacPhisto 0]

...your complete lack of anything resembling taste or sense...

...and I love Blake.

 

A pretentious english major in this or some past life?

 

Taste...

 

my ass...

Wait, you're going to unload the skewers on her judgment because she likes William goddamn Blake?

 

I have entered the poetry bizarroverse.

[Ripper 0]

...your complete lack of anything resembling taste or sense...

...and I love Blake.

 

A pretentious english major in this or some past life?

 

Taste...

 

my ass...

Wait, you're going to unload the skewers on her judgment because she likes William goddamn Blake?

 

I have entered the poetry bizarroverse.

Dude, you start bringing the Clipse in a picture with Ronald McDonald, everywhere you go is going to a some kind of Bizarroverse.

 

*pictures Ronald on the grind*

[Guest Fire and Knives]

...your complete lack of anything resembling taste or sense...

...and I love Blake.

 

A pretentious english major in this or some past life?

 

Taste...

 

my ass...

Wait, you're going to unload the skewers on her judgment because she likes William goddamn Blake?

 

I have entered the poetry bizarroverse.

I was going to give constructive criticism until I saw that. Used up all the goodwill he had from his board name in one stroke, that did. Don't hate on Blake, kids.

 

Edwin, remind me to hit you up on AIM tonight. I finished a couple pieces I wanted you to go over and I will forget unless I just type this right now.

 

K.

[Firestarter 0]

i observed that your opinion was pointless and did nothing. sue me.

Nope, you're perfectly within your rights to make that observation. Of course, I subsequently pointed out that I wasn't interested in "helping" any of these people, because their scribblings are so sophomoric as to have little or no potential, so your observation was fairly irrelevant. Still not objecting to you making it, just saying - I'm not helping them improve? So what? You're criticising me for not doing something I never intended to do, never said I would do, and will never have an interest in doing? Well, I think you're a schmuck for not being a nuclear physicist... how's that relevant, you ask? Well, it isn't, which is kind of my point.

 

joyce labored over finding exactly the right word, & look where it got him.

Irredeemable crap like Ulysses?

 

writing doesn't always come out perfect, or even good, on the first, third or fifth draft

Very true, but you have to admit that a writer must have the sense right in the first draft. If the concept itself is infantile, whiny, worthless, or all three and more, the execution doesn't matter.

[Firestarter 0]

Wait, you're going to unload the skewers on her judgment because she likes William goddamn Blake?

 

I have entered the poetry bizarroverse.

I was going to give constructive criticism until I saw that. Used up all the goodwill he had from his board name in one stroke, that did. Don't hate on Blake, kids.

William Blake was a goddamn genius. The Mental Traveller is almost transcendentally good, on a level with Auden's Lady, Weeping at the Crossroads and Death's Echo. Plus, he's quoted in one of David Gemmell's books, and Gemmell is one of the best writers living - not just scifi/fantasy writers, but writers period.

[EL BRUJ0 0]

Thumbtack's posts make me curious about hearing his stuff.

 

Hey, AoO. I can actually picture someone growling out those lyrics while blastbeats and distorted guitars assault my ears.

 

Here's my pitiful contribute to this thread.

 

 

Firsttorn

 

Plucked upward from the

cut-up muscles, bloody head

gives a wombless cry.

[Nighthawk 0]

Here's one I wrote:

 

Ode To A Toothache

 

Pain is as I feel

I can’t… can’t focus

Can’t tell what’s real

Right about now I’m thinking

Maybe wishing

For that lethal injection

I have no objection

To the welcome embrace of death

Maybe… maybe then I could get some rest

Some release from this hell

I’m locked up tighter than any cell

I would gladly put a gun in my mouth

I want to scream, but I can’t call out

All I can do is lie and wait, wait for some relief

I need to escape, I can't take another delay

But the doctor, all he can say is wait til the next day

I would kill that motherfucker, kill him with a quickness

To alleviate my sickness and relax my tension

I’m looking for needles, gas, Novocain to put my pain on suspension

Get this motherfucker out! Get it out of my head

Rip it from my body, kill that bitch dead

I’ll pay any price, do anything for relief

I hate everything, fuck the world.

Fuck my teeth.

Yeah.

Fuck my teeth.

[Red Hot Thumbtack In The Eye 0]

Here's one I wrote:

 

Ode To A Toothache

 

Very appropriate since I'm finger fucking a cavity in one of my teeth right now.

[Edwin MacPhisto 0]

joyce labored over finding exactly the right word, & look where it got him.

Irredeemable crap like Ulysses?

You had me at Blake. Now you must fall off a bridge.

 

Before I try to defend Ulysses from the merciless onslaught, can I get a concession for the more 'natural' works, like Portrait of the Artist, or at least "The Dead"? I know lots of people who hate Ulysses, but everybody loves "The Dead"! Right?

 

...Right?

 

::whimper::

[Firestarter 0]

I like The Dead, yes, but it's not remarkable for its artistry or craftsmanship; it's the characterisations that make it good. Same with Dubliners. Tennessee Williams runs into the same qualification. There's nothing finer than his swift sure outlines of Blanche DuBois and Brick Pollitt, but his plotting, pace, climax, and resolution in almost every play he ever wrote flat-out sucked. Cf Arthur Miller, who had a (marginally) less sure hand in the all-important details of personality, but whose plays proceeded with the sense of inevitability - the feeling that "this could happen no other way" - that marks the best stories.

[Giuseppe Zangara 0]

Hey, I'm curious. Those of you who've posted your stuff in this thread, please list some of your favorite poets, as well as some of their poems.

Because far too many people who write poetry never actually read it themselves. They think anyone can do it; studying what came before you is essential. So much shitty poetry exists because very few people care about the past (or the present).

[Nighthawk 0]

I agree completely, which is why what I put above is a direct style representation (rip off) of muMs.

[Giuseppe Zangara 0]

Man, I've seen some bad poetry. I helped put together a literary magazine in high school--teenagers are the worst at expressing their pain creatively (though that should suprise no one). I used to date a girl that edited the lit mag of the university I attend; a lot of crap made into print, while the rejects were downright horrifying.

 

Most of the stuff in this thread reminds me of that.

[godthedog 0]

Nope, you're perfectly within your rights to make that observation. Of course, I subsequently pointed out that I wasn't interested in "helping" any of these people, because their scribblings are so sophomoric as to have little or no potential, so your observation was fairly irrelevant. Still not objecting to you making it, just saying - I'm not helping them improve? So what? You're criticising me for not doing something I never intended to do, never said I would do, and will never have an interest in doing? Well, I think you're a schmuck for not being a nuclear physicist... how's that relevant, you ask? Well, it isn't, which is kind of my point.

meh. faulty analogy. my point was that at that point, one could've contributed to the thread in 2 ways:

 

1) offer criticisms of already-posted work

 

2) offer examples of one's own work

 

which is why, in addition to saying "i was wondering that myself," i offered up something of my own, inane & meager as it was. having done neither, what you posted was an example of posting masturbation, whose only point was to serve the one posting. and as p. j. gibson told me, masturbation is a private thing. when done so that others will notice, it tends to be off-putting.

Irredeemable crap like Ulysses?

THIS i want to see the reasoning for. i've come across people that don't like 'ulysses', but even they grudgingly admitted its good points. i'd like to know how exactly nothing in it is redeemable.

I like The Dead, yes, but it's not remarkable for its artistry or craftsmanship; it's the characterisations that make it good.

i'd argue the same for 'ulysses'.

[Firestarter 0]

my point was that at that point, one could've contributed to the thread in 2 ways

I didn't feel like making a touchy-feely "contribution." Fuck off.

[Angel_Grace_Blue 0]

Firstly, I call Kibagami to contribute a poem, perhaps the one Zed PMed me called "Half-Life". I mean, Z called you the fucking pyschopathic poet of chat, now live up to that title! If you want, since you are much larger than I am.

 

Now, on to things of a poetic nature. I have written many a poem in Dadaistic style, because I'm too lazy to put much effort into rhyme schemes and meter. So, here's one I sorta won an award for (Huzzahs to me, if it is deemed acceptable!)

 

Song of a Sunset

 

The hippopotamus larvae skim on the surface of the pond.

A bushel of trout waits for the fifth caller.

Blue jeans in the dryer, no babies in the cupboard.

Porcupine-headed Furies envelop the novice musical chair player.

Distant yodeling echoes off the ocean floor.

Discarded sandals are made useful by hobos.

Brits on heroin vomit up lentils.

The distant visage of a waffle comes into view.

On Wednesday, the Mounties are on gopher patrol.

Alka-Seltzer on tuna salad with corn pie.

Dolphins and midgets comprise the hopscotch team.

Fathers shoot their sons while clocks melt away.

The magnets are stuck to triceratops.

Teatime is ignored by the upper-class mole people.

Philosophical mimes are beaten senseless by elkish goblins.

Matadors are vanquished by mighty jalapenos.

Bacterium live in the shorts of Norwegians.

Fruit salad is used to embalm rodeo clowns.

Italians wearing yarmulkes drink bourbon from fez hats.

The small one who whispers shall be eaten tomorrow.

Twelve prophets have gotten swirlies today.

Fish-flavored Tic-Tacs® bring on death’s sweet release.

The Northern winds freeze shrews in their cabbage huts.

Latin goat-milkers crusade against Turkish wine stewards.

Flemish decongestants are the best on the market.

This last line is just filler, much like croutons in a hat.

 

Oh, and Kiiba, thanks for mentioning my haiku (Excess blading has rendered me incapable of figuring out if it was praise or not, though).

[Guest Fire and Knives]

It was. And I don't particularly like Half-Life, especially since I couldn't tell you what I was consciously thinking about. It's not a drug poem or anything (I only write when I'm sober) but I really can't decide what the hell I was talking about.

 

I'm working on a lengthy piece right now called "The Sunrise" I might post later.

 

It isn't really about a sunrise, by the way. I don't do nature.

 

K.

[Nighthawk 0]

my point was that at that point, one could've contributed to the thread in 2 ways

I didn't feel like making a touchy-feely "contribution." Fuck off.

God, Marney is sexy. I shouldn't say it, but... you know.

[Guest Fire and Knives]

I've only met a handful of women in my life that were articulate enough to be sexy based on their mental attributes alone. One of them is my girlfriend. The rest are lesbians.

 

I haven't really drawn anything from that. I'm just saying.

 

K.