07-29-2014, 12:47 PM
Haha this is fun! Thanks for the feedback guys.
Easiest question first -- my user name is simply my real name (a novel idea, I know).
As to the poem itself, just two responses seem to fully confirm what I already suspected or should have guessed -- that the poem is abstruse to the point of pointlessness.
By "taut" I certainly did not mean to suggest "taught," and while I see how "flickering" may evoke flames, I am of the humble opinion that a thread could also be said to flicker without being metaphorical.
The feedback from both posters has helped me to realize that the title, which I previously felt was a good fit, is in fact quite problematic since it introduces the "thread" and leads one to read the poem as being about a thread (in retrospect this is obvious of course). In fact, I conceived of the poem as being about "calm," with an untaut thread as a metaphor for calm.
Pardon the self-indulgent working through of my thoughts here. I have rarely shared any poetry before, and certainly have never received such specific feedback, so I'm going through the revision process with pronounced deliberateness. Furthermore, I have yet to develop any proper understanding of what audience I am writing for, or whether I am, in fact, writing for anyone beside myself. Something I maybe should have thought about before posting this thing.
Easiest question first -- my user name is simply my real name (a novel idea, I know).
As to the poem itself, just two responses seem to fully confirm what I already suspected or should have guessed -- that the poem is abstruse to the point of pointlessness.
By "taut" I certainly did not mean to suggest "taught," and while I see how "flickering" may evoke flames, I am of the humble opinion that a thread could also be said to flicker without being metaphorical.
The feedback from both posters has helped me to realize that the title, which I previously felt was a good fit, is in fact quite problematic since it introduces the "thread" and leads one to read the poem as being about a thread (in retrospect this is obvious of course). In fact, I conceived of the poem as being about "calm," with an untaut thread as a metaphor for calm.
Pardon the self-indulgent working through of my thoughts here. I have rarely shared any poetry before, and certainly have never received such specific feedback, so I'm going through the revision process with pronounced deliberateness. Furthermore, I have yet to develop any proper understanding of what audience I am writing for, or whether I am, in fact, writing for anyone beside myself. Something I maybe should have thought about before posting this thing.