to someone beautiful and tired

[HairyTwink III]

to someone beautiful and tired (V2)

The sharpness of your wit untested
By their blunt adoration. (you tell me they’re relentless)
The glimmer in your eye’s detested
In their awful trepidation. (now your lids swing shut and your head lulls low and still your fists are clenched)
You fear their fear and hate their lust
—misplaced and undesired. (“Let us taste! Let us touch!”)
They never rest (tag in/tag out) so you never rest (raw coffee beans and a teaspoon of sugar 6x a day)
You’re just so damn tired. (now you slip. But you won’t fall)
 
I think I know some of your pain,
Some of your truth and the disdain
You hold for those who would misname you. (Let us speak, let me hear)
I’ll keep your names on my tongue (can you remember all of mine?)
You’ll rest easy tonight with your phone by your ear
We’ll keep the line open. I can hear you snore on speaker.

to someone beautiful and tired

The sharpness of your wit untested
by the bluntness of their adoration
the glimmer in your eye detested
by them in their constant trepidation.
You fear their fear and hate their love
-- misplaced, uncalled for, undesired --
still they assail you as up above
in your fragile roost you grow tired.

(now it slips
it's bound to fall
keep your eyes open
and your wings spread)

I think I know some of your pain
a sliver of your truth and the disdain
you hold for those who would misname you.
You look like you could use a friend
on whom you can (for now) depend
to speak your name until the end.

[matsunosuperfan]

to someone beautiful and tired

The sharpness of your wit untested
by the bluntness of their adoration
the glimmer in your eye detested
by them in their constant trepidation.
You fear their fear and hate their love
-- misplaced, uncalled for, undesired --
still they assail you as up above
in your fragile roost you grow tired.

(now it slips
it's bound to fall
keep your eyes open
and your wings spread)

I think I know some of your pain
a sliver of your truth and the disdain
you hold for those who would misname you.
You look like you could use a friend
on whom you can (for now) depend
to speak your name until the end.

Hi and welcome! My first suggestion is don't rhyme. It's quite restrictive and is making you choose words and use funny syntax just so you can rhyme (the glimmer in your eye detested / by them).

My second suggestion is to give us more concrete imagery to motivate the abstract generalizations. Or to make the abstractions more personal and concrete themselves. The poem is written to "someone" but need not be so general as to apply to ANYONE - I think that lessens the emotional impact. Like Mary Oliver didn't just say "you do not have to be good," she said

You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert

Feel me? Thanks for sharing your poem, glad to have you here <3

[wasellajam]

Hi, first I love the title. Some notes:

to someone beautiful and tired

The sharpness of your wit untested
by the bluntness of their adoration
the glimmer in your eye detested
by them in their constant trepidation.
You fear their fear and hate their love
-- misplaced, uncalled for, undesired --
still they assail you as up above
in your fragile roost you grow tired.
I could use a some tweaks for clarity's sake, something like

The sharpness of your wit's untested
by the bluntness of their adoration, or ;
the glimmer in your eye's detested
in their constant trepidation.

The rhyme works well and is interesting until "up above", just no to the double just for form, and the next line is awkward, would normally be said "you grow tired in your fragile roost." It needs reworking.

(now it slips
it's bound to fall
keep your eyes open
and your wings spread)
Sympathetic advice and the loss of rhyme speaks a different more personally involved voice.

I think I know some of your pain
a sliver of your truth and the disdain
you hold for those who would misname you. Nice slant rhyme.
You look like you could use a friend
on whom you can (for now) depend meh, cliche.
to speak your name until the end. This line fails, doesn't say enough for me. And these three rhymes don't live up to the potential of your opening.

I'm not sure why she's up on that throne, the poem might gain from a little more insight into how she got in that position. Looking forward to seeing where you take this. I hope my notes are helpful, thanks for posting.

[HairyTwink III]

Thanks for the feedback!

This poem really started as part of a quick sonnet writing exercise (8/6 rather than 4/4/4/2 – my continental European is showing). I still like the idea of a sonnet that’s kind of about the opposite of a sonnet’s usual subject (how beautiful and desirable the addressee is) – or rather about the addressee’s struggles with that ‘desirability’. So, I want to keep some of (or at least some kind of allusion to) the original form and its classic conventions. By the way, this has to be sth that loads of people have already done. Can anyone think of some good examples?

I also like the idea of a second more intimate voice that breaks up the form and adds some tension.
I tried incorporating your feedback (re: unnatural syntax, some of the forced rhymes & specificity) and ran with that idea in my edit. Let me know what you think

[wasellajam]

Thanks for the feedback!

This poem really started as part of a quick sonnet writing exercise (8/6 rather than 4/4/4/2 – my continental European is showing). I still like the idea of a sonnet that’s kind of about the opposite of a sonnet’s usual subject (how beautiful and desirable the addressee is) – or rather about the addressee’s struggles with that ‘desirability’. So, I want to keep some of (or at least some kind of allusion to) the original form and its classic conventions. By the way, this has to be sth that loads of people have already done. Can anyone think of some good examples?

I also like the idea of a second more intimate voice that breaks up the form and adds some tension.
I tried incorporating your feedback (re: unnatural syntax, some of the forced rhymes & specificity) and ran with that idea in my edit. Let me know what you think

I’ll read your edit tomorrow, just want to say there are a ton of modern sonnets all over the site. You might start in the practice threads, here,

[wasellajam]

While this is an interesting edit it didn't work for me, I haven't gained any more understanding. Some notes:

to someone beautiful and tired (V2)


The sharpness of your wit untested
By their blunt adoration. (you tell me they’re relentless) (...) doesn't add anything, we already know this,
The glimmer in your eye’s detested
In their awful trepidation. (now your lids swing shut and your head lulls low and still your fists are clenched) adds but conflicts with the resistance to intimidation. Confuses me and I can't find a further clue.
You fear their fear and hate their lust
—misplaced and undesired. (“Let us taste! Let us touch!”) fine but, also, already said.
They never rest (tag in/tag out) nice addition so you never rest (raw coffee beans and a teaspoon of sugar 6x a day)raw???
You’re just so damn tired. (now you slip. But you won’t fall) meh

I think I know some of your pain,
Some of your truth and the disdain
You hold for those who would misname you. (Let us speak, let me hear) (...) already said.
I’ll keep your names on my tongue (can you remember all of mine?) Lovely, adds something but I'm not sure what.
You’ll rest easy tonight with your phone by your ear
We’ll keep the line open. I can hear you snore on speaker. This line makes me think of a baby monitor even though you told me phone. These two lines area a big improvement, a keeper for me, but I don't understand why she's finally resting easy.

So, I hope in time or edits I will understand more, maybe another reader is getting it. Interesting swing at it.

[matsunosuperfan]

I agree with wasella, this poem is still making me work too hard for bare comprehension. A lot of infolding/extension/complication before the context has been fully established. 
Still think you should ditch the rhyme, still find all the rhymes to be holding the verse back. 
More to the point, the first stanza is still full of poetic no-no's: 
-mostly direct editorial 
-rhyme feels forced into place 
-relies on lots of abstract nouns to tell us what it's all about (wit, adoration, trepidation, fear, hate, lust, misplaced, undesired, so damn tired). 


"I think I know some of your pain,
Some of your truth and the disdain"   -- this is unambiguously very bad, you want to really reject the impulse that produces this kind of language

I think the last 3 lines of your new draft are worth building on, and the rest can comfortably go straight in the bin. Okay "let us taste, let us touch" was a cool intrusion. The coffee bean stuff I found just kind of annoyingly arbitrary but maybe it has a place in a different form of the poem. 

All the rhyming lines are pretty ineffective, as they just say what they mean, but with some awkward masculine rhyme thrown in. 

It occurs to me that the poem operates almost entirely in generalizations, which is probably its biggest flaw. I think the last few lines feel comparatively so much more satisfying/like a relief when we reach them at last, because the speaker is FINALLY being particular.

Last, some good advice that I forget who I am stealing it from: the 2nd person works best when you write it as if it were the 1st person. Maybe another significant contributor to the kind of "uhhh no thanks" feeling I'm getting from this draft has to do with the pervasive sense of artifice in the poem's structural conceit. Like, I'm implicitly asked to imagine the speaker saying these things to "you," but "the glimmer in your eye's detested in their awful trepidation" is a pretty tiresome thing to imagine sitting through listening to.