POETRY CRITIQUE THREAD

Thoughts?

Starts so slowly, just a place to stay
Somewhere warm where they can spend their days
Air is stagnant and he feels unclean
Hair hangs greasy and he smells obscene
Something's happened and it's not so good
Broken bottles in the face of love
Mottled flesh under the harsh strip-light
Nylon sheets to keep them warm at night
Once it's started it can never stop
Fills his head with a dark damp fog
In the distance is a constant cry
Growing louder as the years go by
Days get longer and he starts to drink
Spews his stomach in the kitchen sink
Tells his children they should have respect
Tells his wife that she's a nervous wreck

He hates his wife and he hates them all
He hates his wife and he hates them all

Ah, there he is.
That motherfucker.
What a tool.

Kek'd hard

A younger son was born of noble line
and by Apollo's voice was named Illfated
so shook and disturbed he left princely land
to find some wisdom in assured end
and on great voyage to world's bounds
Illfated journeyed to three sisters old
and for his labour to this man
another path for him was told:
a king once found a nectar skin
and never drank its magic
because possessed with greed
he kept it in his coffers
and in his coffer's rubble
the skin remains till today
Illfated seek this nectar wineskin
for it contains immortal life:
and drink deeply of its depths
and you will find your legend
and so Illfated found these ruins
and found the magic wineskin
Illfated opened up his treasure
he turned it over end and found
a golden crown to be a king.
a lovely wife, a wedding ring
a poem and tragedy,
and noble king's head on a pike
so most afraid he pulled away
and princely head set forth after
and ate Illfated's poetry
the head consumed his wife
and ate his crown and finally
well full returned to wineskin
and of the fragments left of legend
Illfated craft this story
and died a long life later
no hero great but only man

i just wrote this what do you think?

I sang of leaves, of leaves of gold, and leaves of gold there grew:
Of wind I sang, a wind there came and in the branches blew.
Beyond the Sun, beyond the Moon, the foam was on the Sea,
And by the strand of Ilmarin there grew a golden Tree.
Beneath the stars of Ever-eve in Eldamar it shone,
In Eldamar beside the walls of Elven Tirion.
There long the golden leaves have grown upon the branching years,
While here beyond the Sundering Seas now fall the Elven-tears.
O Lórien! The Winter comes, the bare and leafless Day;
The leaves are falling in the stream, the River flows away.
O Lórien! Too long I have dwelt upon this Hither Shore
And in a fading crown have twined the golden elanor.
But if of ships I now should sing, what ship would come to me,
What ship would bear me ever back across so wide a Sea?

t. me

this also. its about the time i battled sauron in a wizard duel so its very personal to me. pls no bully

He chanted a song of wizardry,
Of piercing, opening, of treachery,
Revealing, uncovering, betraying.
Then sudden Felagund there swaying
Sang in answer a song of staying,
Resisting, battling against power,
Of secrets kept, strength like a tower,
And trust unbroken, freedom, escape;
Of changing and of shifting shape
Of snares eluded, broken traps,
The prison opening, the chain that snaps.
Backwards and forwards swayed their song.
Reeling and foundering, as ever more strong
The chanting swelled, Felagund fought,
And all the magic and might he brought
Of Elvenesse into his words.
Softly in the gloom they heard the birds
Singing afar in Nargothrond,
The sighing of the Sea beyond,
Beyond the western world, on sand,
On sand of pearls in Elvenland.
Then the gloom gathered; darkness growing
In Valinor, the red blood flowing
Beside the Sea, where the Noldor slew
The Foamriders, and stealing drew
Their white ships with their white sails
From lamplit havens. The wind wails,
The wolf howls. The ravens flee.
The ice mutters in the mouths of the Sea.
The captives sad in Angband mourn.
Thunder rumbles, the fires burn —-
And Finrod fell before the throne.

your boyfriend is gay

Keep writing. Solid style.
I'm not a fan of some repetitions you went for, like "of leaves, of leaves of gold, and leaves of gold" since it can get somewhat monotonous on the tongue. It feels like the main problem with what I'm reading is the nature of imagery vs the way it's portrayed. The former is naturally abstract, while the latter too... direct, I suppose? Some verses feel like they drag on for too long. If you want to go for massive verses in terms of syllables that's up to you, I just feel like your narration would benefit from shorter verses. For example,

But if of ships I now should sing, what ship would come to me,

Conventionally you could've gone for 2 8-syllable verses had the 2nd part been longer. Repeating the words that convey the image you're trying to get across is somewhat redundant.

I see you've established some form of resonance across some of your verses, but that's exactly the problem longer verses face; the effort one puts into proper phonetic coherence is often diluted, even lost in just how long they get.

I think you'd benefit strongly from dividing your poems into proper stanzas, because as it is the narrative element mostly treads on and it gets somewhat boring. Line breaks into proper stanzas would let your narration feel more balanced and captivate your reader's attention, because then mentally they would be dividing the contents of your poem, and that's some memorization you WANT them to have.

Tl;dr shorter verses, line breaks, avoid so many repetitions (repetitions are great for hints of monotony, boredom and despair in my opinion, just not in this case)

>I sang of leaves, of leaves of gold, and leaves of gold there grew

literally the most aesthetic line you pleb

underage detected

stop calling others plebs when it's obvious you have no grasp of your own poetics and are just parroting the sensibilities and cadences you picked up from stevens and whitman

You know it to be true

Just my thoughts, if you refuse criticism because you're too scared of growing beyond a broad, false sense of aesthetics that's on you

nah screw you

"Therapist"

I'd rather you weren't a flirt.
That way, I won't have to wonder
what a day at the beach would be like
with you.

Sun on your hair and,
the sand on your cheeks,
your sweet voice reeling me in;
now water's on my feet.

A coconut falls,
brings the smell of your perfume,
and I am brought back to
this cream hospital room.

There you sat next to me,
fitting this splint on my finger.
"Tell me if it hurts,
so I know where to fix it."

I hadn't held a hand like hers in so long.
It'll do fine, I said;
I should be able to adjust.

I started getting into poetry a few months ago so please no bulli ;.;

Business with a friend

He was given the time and place
For our awaited meet
He likes to watch as I do chase
My dreams and bruise my feet

I traveled the world aimlessly
but He stood rendezvous
I try not to think how time flees
As He counts to his due

I walked in my room and beheld
My old awaited friend
He nears me to this end
And so thus I was felled!

I need a better punch line for the last stanza

Ok here is a second one

The art is so too high
For others see not my insides
But that is where our beaute be told
Along our inner secret folds.

How can any other love be
on the face I can’t see?
Within them the same joy I feel?
It too much too be real.

my art is now my own
For only me, My love be known
And only I can see
What lies, in wait, worlds around me

I like the message of this one but maybe I could make it more clear. I want to say how much I love something and how there is no way other people can love it. I’ll never have proof because I can’t feel what they feel or even know for certain if they feel the same.

Ok I will indulge my self and post a third one. This one is edgy and I think I may just scrap it and try again.

There is a hole in my room becoming whole soon

There’s a hole in this room of mine
It beckons, to be fed
I try to look away, but led
To stare in it’s black eye

It wants the memories that cling,
to my walls, and dressers.
It says for me to bring--
The last of my treasures

The hunger drives it mad I know,
and it’ll close when tis full
I’m assured, but its needs
Grow, and I think I can’t succeed

My friends do say please stay away
But I with question, loom
Others offered to share the room
But they themselves turn stray.

I know, One day the Hole, the floor
And I will be no more.
As all falls wards abyss
Except I, tethered to ceiling - bliss

OP is a faggot
Not a bunch of sticks
He's genuinely queer
He likes sucking dicks

FTFY

>people arent qualified to have their own opinion

very spicy user. you are truly insightful

Don't know if you anons are only pretending to be retarded poetry critics or what but are very clearly Tolkien poems that user copy and pasted

1
Where now the horse and the rider? Where is the horn that was blowing?
Where is the helm and the hauberk, and the bright hair flowing?
Where is the hand on the harpstring, and the red fire glowing?
Where is the spring and the harvest and the tall corn growing?
They have passed like rain on the mountain, like a wind in the meadow;
The days have gone down in the West behind the hills into shadow.
Who shall gather the smoke of the dead wood burning,
Or behold the flowing years from the Sea returning?

2
All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.

3
Roads go ever ever on,
Over rock and under tree,
By caves where never sun has shone,
By streams that never find the sea;
Over snow by winter sown,
And through the merry flowers of June,
Over grass and over stone,
And under mountains of the moon.

Roads go ever ever on
Under cloud and under star,
Yet feet that wandering have gone
Turn at last to home afar.
Eyes that fire and sword have seen
And horror in the halls of stone
Look at last on meadows green
And trees and hills they long have known.

OP: "I LIKE TO REDUCE ART TO SOMETHING EASY I LEARNED IN MIDDLE SCHOOL THAT I CAN UNDERSTAND. "

If you miss or don't understand patterns in freeverse, and the only organizing structures you can think of are meter and rhyme that stay stagnant the whole poem you are sadly, sadly, reducing poetry to one thing.

isn't freeverse just prose?

I sat and smoked a cigarette and watched the world pass by,
And wondered where in all this world exactly where stood I?,
No love, no cash, no job, no joy, nothing of my own,
For all the lessons learned in life,
I've only learned to be alone.
Life is for the living, at least thats what is said,
But whereabouts does my life stand,
When internally I'm dead,
See here I sit, almost unseen,
An old book upon a shelf,
Now you better like my poetry or you can kill yourself.

A call for social justice

A son of man is on earth
in our time and public squares
praying loud a vibrant call
to give on earth milk and honey

preaching that we chosen shall
have no sorrows left to bear
our oppressors will be stopped
and not loved among us
that we the oppressed are first
and will not slave suffering

they have taken the cloaks
straight off of our backs
we will take our things back
and sell them for silver
we will give to the needy
and sound the loud trumpets

we do not forgive these debts
we will break our long fast
break the bow of Israel
and anoint ourselves princeps
take our rightful treasures
gifted by our loving groom

us a chosen nation by
virtue of our local church
circumcised through water

The job of the author is to make it easier for the reader to understand him. There's no fucking point writing in Latin for an English speaking audience and no fucking point being obscurantist.

Ya wrong. Art at its core is not pattern plus meaning what the fuck are you talking about.

Not sure if this is cringe trash or if its doing something well?

Rollin Rollin

Rollin rollin
struttin hunched in pockets
talkin to himself
laughin, smilin at those voices
keepin them at bay
Spent a couple hours it felt like
waiting for a roll (boerie)
finished in minutes
walkin hunched walkin lost
drunk road uphill
then over these walls
ankle breakers if you aint with it
over and down and forward on hands
push through a door and sleep
still feeling drunk

We real cool. We
Left school. We

Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We

Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We

Jazz June. We
Die soon.

How many dawns, chill from his rippling rest
The seagull’s wings shall dip and pivot him,
Shedding white rings of tumult, building high
Over the chained bay waters Liberty—

Then, with inviolate curve, forsake our eyes
As apparitional as sails that cross
Some page of figures to be filed away;
—Till elevators drop us from our day ...

I think of cinemas, panoramic sleights
With multitudes bent toward some flashing scene
Never disclosed, but hastened to again,
Foretold to other eyes on the same screen;

And Thee, across the harbor, silver paced
As though the sun took step of thee yet left
Some motion ever unspent in thy stride,—
Implicitly thy freedom staying thee!

Out of some subway scuttle, cell or loft
A bedlamite speeds to thy parapets,
Tilting there momently, shrill shirt ballooning,
A jest falls from the speechless caravan.

Down Wall, from girder into street noon leaks,
A rip-tooth of the sky’s acetylene;
All afternoon the cloud flown derricks turn ...
Thy cables breathe the North Atlantic still.

And obscure as that heaven of the Jews,
Thy guerdon ... Accolade thou dost bestow
Of anonymity time cannot raise:
Vibrant reprieve and pardon thou dost show.

O harp and altar, of the fury fused,
(How could mere toil align thy choiring strings!)
Terrific threshold of the prophet’s pledge,
Prayer of pariah, and the lover’s cry,

Again the traffic lights that skim thy swift
Unfractioned idiom, immaculate sigh of stars,
Beading thy path—condense eternity:
And we have seen night lifted in thine arms.

Under thy shadow by the piers I waited
Only in darkness is thy shadow clear.
The City’s fiery parcels all undone,
Already snow submerges an iron year ...

O Sleepless as the river under thee,
Vaulting the sea, the prairies’ dreaming sod,
Unto us lowliest sometime sweep, descend
And of the curveship lend a myth to God.

I think what OP means, but is unable to put into words, is that linebreaks in free-verse poetry are almost always basically arbitrary, although the poet may think he's devised a clever method of reasoning for the structure. Especially the amateurs of Veeky Forums are fooling themselves.

Nah it has a sort of sense of drunkness and craziness. I would divide it up into couplets or other kinds of sections and give it more structure. It's just kind of hard to read if it's all bunched up. I think structure is actually a neglected part of poetry. For example I find chiastic structure such as in the bible very interesting.

Alright thanks, I'll do that. I'll check out chiastic structure, too.