Poetry critique thread

Poetry critique thread
Post your poems here. Give critiques. You know how this works.
I'll start:

Memory—immortal atoll in the roiling of history
in the swirling of matter, the great grey sea,
which impervious stands to the stuttering surf,
in skirmish with stealthy decay.
Why does time not rot the meagre forts
that mind can build?
Why do spears engirdle rocks and
stark, petrified tree?
Who lives here to nurture,
to nourish unnourished,
to repair the rages of history,
to fight encroaching rot,
to ripen fruit, to burst its flesh,
to splinter pod and seed
the soil,
inseminate with nectar
and bring forth life again?
Who sets the work of antiquity to a
dank, infested order:
life-in-itself, a neighbourly jaunt
with death, and then a resurrection?
Because memories die too; they pale and expire,
their lifeblood seeps through streams
and veins; they feed remembrance
and medicate the constitution—
the pattern of life and death
imprinted on the body:
death in miniature
coiled in every living pore.
But lifeblood flows backwards
against the laws of nature,
against the nature of life,
and restores what is dead
and rotted to empty,
fragile husk washed by
the roiling of history;
replaces rocks forgotten;
regrows dead trees;
restores the spear palisade
from the greying depths of memory.

Parallelism is a loud device. dampening it by not highlighting the repeated word will help the look of the poem while retaining the same rhetoric

Your using a lot of big-vague words which don't do as much as you think they do.

>the great grey sea,

it shouldn't take two lines for a clear image, work on housing your concepts in things, later you can try to figure out how to make

> the laws of nature,

a compelling phrase, because right now the piece is bloated with 'concept' that you more scrap than delve into.

Your work isn't wholly without imagery, and that isn't lost on me. But the only image I see staying with me is the petrified wood (because I'm reminded of a piece of petrified wood my father gave me)

This long piece is actually pretty decent complex poetry. Do you like to read Hart Crane then?

My shadow falls upon the porch,
Of the temple where you lie.
My shadow fades upon the torch,
Of the beauty I draw nigh.


At night I walk the pediment,
To soothe an aching need.
I long for your disarmament,
I kiss you and I’m freed.

A giant’s bones are not enough
To keep my heart at bay;
A giant’s bones my own rebuff—
My love for you holds sway.


Always will I come for you;
Wait for me and see.
I love you, I love you, I love you.
My darling, my dear, marry me

Proteus

Adagio con moto - Largo e mesto

His crush-and-crackling soles upon the sand;
the seasweep shuttered to a bluegold band
by beaten grist and beads of broken rush,
recalling roused remarks amongst the gush.
Oak twig tiptapping pushpits through the shoal -
a stilted sinusoidal stumble-stroll -
absently gentrifying crab chalets;
crimped crests of chartreuse champing on gilt graze.

The trackless mire meets my heel with a burp,
releasing brackish breaths of sundried scum,
as caked-on crud unfolds into the earth
beneath his furrowed tread. Each rhythmic slurp
toned by streamspeech and mouths of slobbered plum,
his wife-and-mother plunged in childless birth.

>Memory—immortal atoll in the roiling of history
>...
>Because memories die too; they pale and expire,

The use of nigh, temple and torch suggest an antiquated life - the rhythm catches, especially on nigh, and the emotion is lessened by its disparity from modern life.

'At night' is almost unnecessary given the use of shadow and torch. 'Aching need' should be made concrete; 'need' is abstract.

'Heart at bay' could be changed to a image of being worn away, connecting it the walk of the previous stanza. 'Disarmament' doesn't fit with the defenceless connotation of lying in a temple.

'Always will I come for you' messes with typical syntax and suggests a struggling with the rhythm, as does 'I love you, I love you, I love you.'

This is really good. I would get rid of the word nigh and figure something else out and I would completely rewrite the last two lines. If you are going to keep them though, "my dear" has to go. "My darling, marry me." is not only more authentic to your time (no one says my dear anymore) but it fits the rhythm better.

Good job

Thank you. The poem was written in 1830 by a man who died before he could propose to the girl he loved. Hence the old words.

...

y r u saying thank you if you didn't write it

Deep does not impress me.
Every man holds the void -
inside. But one must learn
to look inside of that void ;
need not reflect its image.
The man who forgets the snakes in his garden -
gets bit.

r8 my poem, please

I
>There came upon Wayfarers, Tarsus faces old,
>Who proclaimed, "In Hrolf's hall, 'round table, must we've ate?"
>"Ah, it's you," we called, impression's fog unfurled,
>"Through bony bulwark we beheld, whose hight was never ours to know."

II
>Astray in Lappish wood, unknowing the paths that lie,
>Amidst the hell-cast caverns, marched our troll-blood form,
>When friendly pilgr'm passerby, our scaled eyes to behold,
>Leading us, they sang "You! You!", into their balmy home.

I
>Then produce for me, my friend, rose-tinted face yet unsold,
>With name long lingered on my lips, dear and enate,
>I know not such creature, no such name in all the world,
>The fruits of labor shriveled deep, we eat from failing seed we sough.

II
>Were we all not strangers, yet someone's son hereby,
>Born along the roads to Damascus, amidst the briny storm,
>We approach in caution, newcomers in ancient hold,
>Eagerly we shout, "You!" our countenance no more to roam.

purple neuroleptic, anti-antiseptic
quasi-posi-melancholic, ego-cynical-alcoholic
never one for the bucolic, sober-minded sane psychotic
changing static emblematic of the somber melodramatic
burning cold and freezing heat
ambitious deadbeat

I should not be exempt from the judgement of things
but what ails I complain are now odder that odd.
And what's best for me to die when all's collapse ahead of me
with reminding myself in gin that what matters matters.
Is it so? I've been troubling this thing for awhile.
What for? I've got fancy, but she won't dance with me.
These shoes are old and the lace burns, you see,
not that I know how to dance, not to smile, trance.
What is it that's in me that cannot set the chairs,
the table, tablecloth, polished silverware, the candle,
or what's in it for you? I'm of nothing ample,
but I certainly have a little more than something for you.

This is mine, now I offer some short critiques.

If this is meant to be ironic, fine. It doesn't convey much if anything to me.

I feel the four beginning verses would be much more powerful in an ABAB scheme.

>recalling roused remarks tiptapping pushpits
>stilted sinusoidal stumble-stroll

These are clever, but mind your balance - do not do what you do at the expense of your image. Isn't that why you're writing poetry? Or do you do like most do here and take a random image or picture from the mind and adulterate it to fulfill a "lexical" fantasy?

Otherwise, you seem to know what poetry should sound like. I suggest rewriting the entire thing in simple, shave off unnecessary words, then add some more, work it like clay.

This sounds sincere, but antediluvian. The other poster has good advice, use it.

The dude already said it wasn't his poem. Use of the word antediluvian was beyond unwarranted.

My mistake for not reading the thread.

Voice
Tattered velvet
Torn silk
She tells me her stories
I unravel
when she speaks
Eyes
Almonds,
chocolate drops in each one
I've got a sweet tooth
All I need is one glance

Lmk what u think

do you prefer 'reek of ruddy rockweed' to 'recalling roused remarks' ?

In my infatuation of you, little half lover,
I exist as a patchwork of losing beasts.
From the spare sparrow smile that is ever flown
winging its way towards my Mother Moon
shedding its purpled shadow of worry
over this cold prairie face,
to these rodent hands of mine that scamper, restless,
within this crown of hair drying like wheat
under the haunting of a passed wreathed sun,
(Nervous and drowning in the dusk they want to nest in the softness of your own).
Each part of me, atoms and Adam’d,
strives to forget this tired space between us
yet understands that you are only a half lover,
and the rest is learning predator, forming winter.
A silverfish tongue writhes, working,
earning little flashes of teething moonlight,
These, it hoards like pearls in the started night.

Why are there so many poems around with convoluted syntax and some old words scattered around, trying to sound like some dude from the 1800s? Do people think it makes the poem deeper? Do they think they need this to sound serious? Are they showing off, or trying to pay homage to their idols?

What is the point of metering out Stephen Dedalus's movements and thoughts? Just a literary experiment, or do you think it adds something to the episode?

the "my" in the second stanza confuses me

lel rekt

is this bait

>(Nervous and drowning in the dusk they want to nest in the softness of your own).
>Each part of me, atoms and Adam’d,

the first lines jarring, the second half of the second line is cliche

>teething moonlight
>drying like wheat
excellent, more of this

that's all the critique I needed to hear

Two globes forever white pierce
into that which the others know not.
It spoke to him, in devil's tongue,
asking of him terrible deeds he could not conceive,
but somehow did.
Manic screams shook the air incomprehensible
and he never knew his was in their mix.
Withered in soul and thought, the husk was left
tending to it's earthly affairs, poorly.
But while the wind whistles through it,
hollow sounding and vague,
I hear their remnants
a little louder each day.

How you gonna have a poem with 13 lines and only one (ONE!) super basic image.

I'm to tired to critique as a writer so I hope you don't mind if I just rock out some vague responses as a reader. Basically I'm not gonna be as specific.

I like what you're trying to say, but it doesn't seem like your willing to put the work in to say it. I don't feel anything reading this. You have a good premise to work on, a good foundation, build on it and around it.

I wanna see what you see when you read what you just wrote, but since I can't, you have to help me.

You do well when you venture out of the ordinary in your use of language.
>within this crown of hair drying like wheat
>under the haunting of a passed wreathed sun,
Loved this. Do more of it. Make your imagery more succinct throughout and it'll be more impactful. Get your feelings and images across in as few words as possible.

This morning she was infuriated with me
because I cheated on her in a dream.
She poured herself a fresh cup of coffee
and dumbed the rest of the pot
down the drain.
God, I hate how much I love her sometimes.

SUp bitch
I dreamt about my anger
Like a coward

I dreamt about infidelity
Which makes me bad.
A figure in the diner we argued in asked,
“Why are you being so calm?”
I let my face run red, let spit leave my lips.
My veins bulged against down feathers

I dreamt about spite
Which makes me mean

I looked at a stranger and we sweat
And the mirror fogged.
Revenge is a lovely thing when it doesn’t count,
Anger and pleasure mix well when rules don’t apply

I dreamt about living alone
Which made me afraid

A bag filled with one coat
75 miles takes 9 hours with my eyes closed
I’ll allow myself bravery in a sleeping bag
Leaned against a tree I’ll never get to.

Edited.

Proteus

Adagio con moto - Largo e mesto

His crush-and-crackling soles upon the sand;
the seasweep shuttered to a bluegold band
by beaten grist and beads of broken rush,
reek of ruddy rockweed amongst the gush.
Oak twig tiptapping pushpits through the shoal -
a stilted sinusoidal stumble-stroll -
absently gentrifying crab chalets;
crimped crests of chartreuse champing on gilt graze.

The trackless mire meets his heel and burps,
releasing brackish breaths of sundried scum,
as caked-on crud unfolds into the earth
beneath his furrowed tread. Stiff rhythmic slurps
toned by streamspeech and mouths of slobbered plum,
his wife-and-mother plunged in childless birth.

\\

As the chapter is inspired by Proteus, I use the image as an germ before transforming not the image itself but its connotation. The character is changed from a young man to the old; from yearning to be touched to leaving his wife in childbirth; from a questioning of life to the mindless creation of it.