12-12-2014, 12:22 PM
Trollgirl, as you have no prior experiencing critiquing I will let you know that what you wrote was not a critique. Please read the articles in areas that you are unfamiliar with.
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"Please keep in mind I am using this as a spoken word piece, but it may also appear as a paper copy."
If you have to preface your poem with an explanation of how one must think about it, then it is not ready to be posted. It is either a poem or it isn't, whether you are going to read it somewhere has nothing to do with it. If this is a "poem" for slam poetry, and you are trying to construct it to get the best possible reception so you can win, that has nothing to do with writing poetry, that has to do with putting on a good show, and your poem is no longer a poem, but a script. We do not critique scripts here, we critique poems, so we do not need to be aware that this is a "spoken word piece". We also do not need instructions on how to critique a poem. I was critiquing poetry 17 years before you were born, so I'll ask you to kindly keep your instructions to yourself.
In terms of the poem. The worst time to write a love poem is when you are in love, this is because the person will stuff the poem full with every love cliche he can get his hands on: case in point above.
When the writer decides to rhyme for a few lines 8-14, most of the rhymes are forced.
"You're more than work, and more than play,
so lets relax and take a day."
As one can see, the second line has little to do with the preceding line, even though it is set up as though the first leads logically to the second, all for the sake of the simplistic rhyme of "play" and "day". Of course it would be difficult for the second line to follow the first as the first is fairly nonsensical. The second line does not even finish the thought, "take a day", take a day what? a day off, a day from the store for .59 cents..
Here is my version.
You're more than bitter more than sweet,
come home and I will wash your feet.
"make our colors vibrant," She should be sure and pick up vibrant colors at the paint store unless she has a magic wand or something.
"Lets let the rain start a beat.
Heat it up, pick a cup, lets erupt."
"Lets let the rain start a beat." Man you must be powerful to decide if the rain is going to start a beat or not, are you the rain god?
Heat it up, pick a cup, lets erupt." Heat "it" up. Heat what up? the rain? The beat? The cup? Oh, here's a place for a senseless rhyme.
"Heat it up, pick a cup" What does heating it (whatever that is)up, have to do with picking a cup?
Beat him up, his name is duff. That makes more sense than "Heat it up, pick a cup"
"I want to hear you singsong all day," Are you sure you know what singsong means?
Definition Singsong, used as an adjective: "monotonous in rhythm and in pitch." (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/singsong?s=t)
well at least pingpong is an actual word, I was expecting bingbong, of course "pingpong" is written as either ping-pong or ping pong.
(http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/pingpong?s=t)
"angels are our spot light." I was not aware that they served in that function. Maybe I can rent a couple out for a party I'm having next week, do they bring good luck with them keep demons away. I have such trouble with demons, I can't understand why?
"Let this day be long." Yes indeed, time travels much slower when you are miserable. Good thinking.
Well I guess I'll stop there, although there is still a line left, but this is mild critique.
Having gone over this poem a few times now, I can say with a fairly high degree of reliability that had one taken your instruction to heart it would have not meant a thing. In fact I see nothing here that would have compelled you the write such a thing. There are certainly bad choices, but there are no choices that indicate that a choice was made between where one might go, and where one would go if it was to be read aloud, that is to say to enhance the sonic quality of the piece in some way. So see, you could have saved yourself the trouble and I urge to seriously consider never giving instructions again. It may feel imperative at the time, but in retrospect we nearly always see, it was not.
As I already said the worst time to write love poetry is when you are in love, another bit of information about love poetry is, that it, along with religious poetry, is undoubtedly the most difficult poetry to write...well. Generally no one will listen to me on this next part, I know I wouldn't, I'm sure I would have just taken it as a challenge and failed miserably. But here goes, wait until you have been constantly writing for 5-10 years before trying to write love poetry. If you intend to persist, I recommend trying to do so without the love words, the words that always seem to appear in love poetry. Some are: Love, heart (or any words that could remotely be a synonym, same for love) any body part (this includes internal organs) either specifically or alluded to, this includes sex parts, the colors blue, red, pink, black, gray, or grey, sun, rain, any of the seasons, any words that are a synonym for couple, break, breaking, breaks, ache, longing, longs, feel, emotions, emotes, weeps, cries, orgasmic (or any word that is remotely similar) money, silver, gold, jewels, or anything of great value, the oceans and /or seas (or words that describe them), nothing that sounds anything like a song lyric, or anything to do with any of the arts, god, angels of any kind, the devil, suffering, eternity, heaven, hell, and time. This is not a complete list but I don't feel like writing a full one as nobody will ever use it anyhow.
If you insist on writing Love poetry, I suggest reading some Rumi. http://archive.org/stream/BM011999rumi/B...i_djvu.txt
So at least you'll have an idea about what good love poetry looks like.
If you do read Rumi, you are allowed to use the word "beloved" once per poem.
Dale
Dale
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
"Please keep in mind I am using this as a spoken word piece, but it may also appear as a paper copy."
If you have to preface your poem with an explanation of how one must think about it, then it is not ready to be posted. It is either a poem or it isn't, whether you are going to read it somewhere has nothing to do with it. If this is a "poem" for slam poetry, and you are trying to construct it to get the best possible reception so you can win, that has nothing to do with writing poetry, that has to do with putting on a good show, and your poem is no longer a poem, but a script. We do not critique scripts here, we critique poems, so we do not need to be aware that this is a "spoken word piece". We also do not need instructions on how to critique a poem. I was critiquing poetry 17 years before you were born, so I'll ask you to kindly keep your instructions to yourself.
In terms of the poem. The worst time to write a love poem is when you are in love, this is because the person will stuff the poem full with every love cliche he can get his hands on: case in point above.
When the writer decides to rhyme for a few lines 8-14, most of the rhymes are forced.
"You're more than work, and more than play,
so lets relax and take a day."
As one can see, the second line has little to do with the preceding line, even though it is set up as though the first leads logically to the second, all for the sake of the simplistic rhyme of "play" and "day". Of course it would be difficult for the second line to follow the first as the first is fairly nonsensical. The second line does not even finish the thought, "take a day", take a day what? a day off, a day from the store for .59 cents..
Here is my version.
You're more than bitter more than sweet,
come home and I will wash your feet.
"make our colors vibrant," She should be sure and pick up vibrant colors at the paint store unless she has a magic wand or something.
"Lets let the rain start a beat.
Heat it up, pick a cup, lets erupt."
"Lets let the rain start a beat." Man you must be powerful to decide if the rain is going to start a beat or not, are you the rain god?
Heat it up, pick a cup, lets erupt." Heat "it" up. Heat what up? the rain? The beat? The cup? Oh, here's a place for a senseless rhyme.
"Heat it up, pick a cup" What does heating it (whatever that is)up, have to do with picking a cup?
Beat him up, his name is duff. That makes more sense than "Heat it up, pick a cup"
"I want to hear you singsong all day," Are you sure you know what singsong means?
Definition Singsong, used as an adjective: "monotonous in rhythm and in pitch." (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/singsong?s=t)
well at least pingpong is an actual word, I was expecting bingbong, of course "pingpong" is written as either ping-pong or ping pong.
(http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/pingpong?s=t)
"angels are our spot light." I was not aware that they served in that function. Maybe I can rent a couple out for a party I'm having next week, do they bring good luck with them keep demons away. I have such trouble with demons, I can't understand why?
"Let this day be long." Yes indeed, time travels much slower when you are miserable. Good thinking.
Well I guess I'll stop there, although there is still a line left, but this is mild critique.
Having gone over this poem a few times now, I can say with a fairly high degree of reliability that had one taken your instruction to heart it would have not meant a thing. In fact I see nothing here that would have compelled you the write such a thing. There are certainly bad choices, but there are no choices that indicate that a choice was made between where one might go, and where one would go if it was to be read aloud, that is to say to enhance the sonic quality of the piece in some way. So see, you could have saved yourself the trouble and I urge to seriously consider never giving instructions again. It may feel imperative at the time, but in retrospect we nearly always see, it was not.
As I already said the worst time to write love poetry is when you are in love, another bit of information about love poetry is, that it, along with religious poetry, is undoubtedly the most difficult poetry to write...well. Generally no one will listen to me on this next part, I know I wouldn't, I'm sure I would have just taken it as a challenge and failed miserably. But here goes, wait until you have been constantly writing for 5-10 years before trying to write love poetry. If you intend to persist, I recommend trying to do so without the love words, the words that always seem to appear in love poetry. Some are: Love, heart (or any words that could remotely be a synonym, same for love) any body part (this includes internal organs) either specifically or alluded to, this includes sex parts, the colors blue, red, pink, black, gray, or grey, sun, rain, any of the seasons, any words that are a synonym for couple, break, breaking, breaks, ache, longing, longs, feel, emotions, emotes, weeps, cries, orgasmic (or any word that is remotely similar) money, silver, gold, jewels, or anything of great value, the oceans and /or seas (or words that describe them), nothing that sounds anything like a song lyric, or anything to do with any of the arts, god, angels of any kind, the devil, suffering, eternity, heaven, hell, and time. This is not a complete list but I don't feel like writing a full one as nobody will ever use it anyhow.
If you insist on writing Love poetry, I suggest reading some Rumi. http://archive.org/stream/BM011999rumi/B...i_djvu.txt
So at least you'll have an idea about what good love poetry looks like.
If you do read Rumi, you are allowed to use the word "beloved" once per poem.
Dale
Dale
How long after picking up the brush, the first masterpiece?
The goal is not to obfuscate that which is clear, but make clear that which isn't.
The goal is not to obfuscate that which is clear, but make clear that which isn't.