Poetry critique thread. Reply to others to get critiqued

Duly noted, thank you guys.

I know the last two lines are terrible. But I wanted to avoid using "metamorphosis" or at least avoid any sort of biological term

either post a piece you've written to show us why we should listen to your generic anger, or give detailed advice.

I'm
btw and I'm fairly comfortable that my piece isn't 'embarrassing'

Pretty conventional muh depression stuff but the part about suicide is cringe. Was that supposed to be ironic?

Does your real life first name start with the letter C?

im gay

Mine doesn't

slight edit

nope

I like this, but I have no idea why. The repetition of "lilting" is a bit annoying.

>why should I rhyme
>why should I follow any form
>why should I be consistent will meter
>I'm a fucking artist bitch
I'm not reading your unreadable cringey love letters you fucking cucks

here's some hyper-formalist poetry I'm working on if that's what you want. I made the meter myself

Hope nobody gets angry I didn't "criticize" any poems, I'm terrible at that. But as a whole I think each poem in this thread has a particularity that sets it appart in a good way. Yet. I'm an extremely nice guy and I can't really say bad things about stuff...

goddamnit, I meant thing* in the pic

>I should use archaic language and overdone themes because it's "poetic"
End yr life

no

shit, uploaded the wrong picture before. edit
yeah it's easy to write bad poetry but
>prescriptivism
not helpful.

There's a darkness inside the soul,
A darkness that is so cold -
I wish it was the night I knew,
for then I might just laugh with you.
I speak not of isolation,
Nor of hate frozen down to desolation.
I talk not of angst and the bitter lose,
zero too of pain one didn't choose.
It's a darkness that gnaws,
a darkness that feeds,
a darkness that knows
a darkness that needs.
A darkness that is,
a darkness that ain't,
a darkness that grows,
a darkness unfaint.
A darkness stark
a darkness old
a darkness blue
a darkness told.
A darkness there
a darkness then
a darkness now
a darkness when.
A darkness and
a darkness or
a darkness if
a darkness nor.
A darkness A
darkness a
Darkness
A

Tear me up.

Proposition: Life is a Pretty Girl Feeding Pigeons

As the movements of the sea-font
May mirror themselves in sprinklers’ turns,
So Life’s indifference may be found
In her, and in her pupils’ urns.

But starker are those shallow figures
Of doves’ or pigeons’ painted eyes;
Giaconda’s shallow as she lingers,
And as her Lie devours lies.

For after Summer comes, (when Life
Is fullest of her mysteries)
Comes Winter, when no eye may lift—
And comes directly, sans surprise.

No doubt, she is most true in Summer,
When strange inscriptions crowd the skies;
When palmy bread is set to simmer;
When hardy reptiles clasp her thighs.

But Winter, when the birds her cover,
And bread is scarce withheld
with shallow eyes,
She seems both heir and sovereign mother
To all that kills and dies.

When did you lose your genitalia?

Do your worst Veeky Forums I can take it

The Cat’s Tongue

Not any song he heard before,
Least not the rustling leaves long dead,
Nor call of instinct to explore,
Could lay his pensive thoughts to bed.
For all he knows of birds and fish,
Of flies and wings which flutter by,
Of grass and mice within the brush,
It fails in helping tame his eye.
Those little things he stops to see,
The sparks of dreams, imagination,
Remain as signs alone for he,
Estranged by human limitation.

You're a goddamn idiot.

I like your spondees. I feel like they're kind of hard to pull off without seeming too try hard. It makes me really sad to hear what should be considered the norm called "hyper-formalist"

Really enjoyed this user although it could use a little tweeking to make it sound a bit smoother

Great imagery. Could benefit from some addition of some structure/punctuation

What archaic language do you think is used exactly? Poetry needs some semblance of form

2edgy5me

has potentially but needs to be refined

Don't call him stupid,
He's fragile, you know,
He's beautiful
Tell him the churning sparks
Rapture in him,
Stem first blooming,
Pricking trenches raw
So the roots may stay

You love him like you forget to,
He is lonely,
He wilts in February
Remind him of summer
When he dies at night,
When he slows his veins
With the charr of rye
And tars his breath
To keep the rabbits out

Early garden,
He is addled, but
He grows in you

Looks ugly and sounds ugly.

Couldn't you have started with your own poetry? This is among Plath's better poems

That's an excellent poem, in my opinion.

Do you know what syllables in particular should be stressed? Because as is, lines two and four don't cooperate with each other very well.

lol sad I didn't catch that, but instead thought they were borrowing from her. :(

I like this, but I think the last line needs some reworking or punctuation (I mean, it's far too ambiguous what you're feeling...)

Here's one I wrote this morning

Humming roar of engines
And paradise birds singing
Fills the quiet morning
Of the minute hand's meandering
Measur'd in cups of tea and
Longing looks of leaving.

There's too many '-ing's I know, haven't quite finished but would appreciate any comments!

a drab butterfly
draped in a perverse knowledge
steeped in soliloquy
the certainty of perpetuity
the ferocity in tenderness
ringing
ringing
...
ringing
STOP!
an unyielding landscape
a fleeting midsummer morn
the sparrow's song
spiraling obstinately
suggesting
solace
in disquiet

I wrote this after reading alot of Final Harvest and basically trying to emulate Dickinson. I also don't write a lot of poetry.

Though my life has always been
But a little trifle
I find I cannot emphasize
How much progress has been stifled

Though I would love to hear
Sweet satisfaction in my ear
The present sound of -
Discontent
Will always make me lament-

For the future that never was
For the past that’s lost
These things they do consume me
The sun that wanders in the sky
Forever-lost!

I dont know how much you care about meter but youre very close to having some nice iambs going there. Not sure why measur'd is shortened, that technique is usually used to conserve syllables. As a it stands it could use a bit more substance to it. The real zinger line is the "longing looks of leaving" because it is the only one to really provide any emotional insight, but it hasnt been set up very well. Also not sure if "quiet" in the third line is intentionally contradicting.

My disposable kodak is out of focus
and my Bible themed Jumanji
is spraying locusts
after my last turn
waiting for a Caligula dice roll
or a pop from CERN.

The peppercorn tree in my
parents front yard
is riddled with squirrels
unlike my bed with girls—
"the self-reflective all laugh alike,"
said the audience with a mic
moving slowly towards the exit signs
placed above empty elevator shafts
filled with pools of ravenous piranha
and surplus Mardis Gras confetti.

Anyway, you can leave grandpa,
the world's already forgotten you.

Thanks! I've been trying to work on using meter, so glad it's coming along.

Cheers, I'll try and set it up better and yeah the quiet was intentional

Tip: when you're stuck, just say something about the weather or birds or some other outdoors shit. e.g.

The mockingjay warbles
The warm scents of spring

>Haiku version
Molecular dance.
Of shared breath and neverdeath,
An endless balter.

>Original
Dance.
Shared breath and neverdeath,
Be, please.

The Incongruous Triptych

The average person checks their phone
300 times a day
and is a 28 year old Chinese male
named Muhammed.

Nobody likes Jazz Fusion,
Lisa Simpson,
just Metroid.

And I don't know what you heard about me
but I'm a motherfucking G-I-M-P,
said Kennedy's coin.

Kill me
later
you dirty two-faced no-good double-down trader
of time for waste,
done in the holy name of haste
for which the patient dine deliriously
counting the number of times they haven't counted time in numbers
padding themselves on the silverbacks
pounding their chests full of silver
miserly waiting for doomsday,
the teleological suitor of smiles
that looks just like a cow's colon
(:

Tonight the vast sky of the Sahara
Is shrouded in a cloak of winter stars -
A thin haze of them,
Like shadowy ghosts of the sky.

The chill, red sun has sunk below, as
Dawn’s famous afterglow deepens, ripples.
Evening’s disembodied light drifts into soft moonglow,
Lost in the hush of mindless clouds.

In this flat, barren wasteland,
Dunes of sand are permanent waves, warbling
Towards the horizon where low mountains lie:
Guardians of the African desert.

These distant monuments are eclipsed by a far greater presence -
A lion, ancient apparition of this earth.
Aglow in foam-pale light, it hovers like a phantom, &
Gently muses over a figure lost in dreamscape.

There, on soft sand, the sleeping gypsy rests,
Wandering neglected sections of her mind,
Having searched for some elusive treasure,
A holy temple at the desert’s edge.

Illuminated by distant moonlight soft,
She is renewed under its gaze.
Her shawl wears the colors of rainbow,
Vibrant as a prophet holding the promise of rapture.

And while she sleeps, her weary soul is glittered with jewels,
A sparkling palace with a thousand gleaming mirrors,
Where she feels the pull of heaven’s gravities,
And her dreams are veiled under the blanket of the sky.

Early morning drunk but sobering,
Some twilight state: euphoric, ecstatic-sick,
Kyle with his arms around his slender shoulders (maybe too young)
Reclined on bed on floor.

There were troubles connecting,
I had troubles connecting, body not there yet.
Inexperience laid paved stones irregular,
Wet mouths on half-shorn breast,
On towering steel,
Manifest destiny in dark halls,
In back booth light shows.
Skin on fresh-shaved skin without sight,
Without sound save the endless call of the cosmic hum,
The eternal grasping for real interaction.

Walking on streets: empty and disused,
Used bottles,
Half-smashed cigarettes smoking in twilight dawn song,
Papers, tickets, wristbands,
Prescription pill highs not faded,
Apartment buildings, uphill,
Perspiring in young summer daybreak.

Nascent relationships bloom by night, photosynthesize
Darkness in bulbous vegetation; nothing good will come
but impermanent goodness,
regretful but benignly glowing in
The false sun.

I am not my mother, nor my grandmother;

Though they are flowing into me,
Into me;

I am not them; and i will not take this beating. Beating down, beating down like the rain

Beating down like the rain without a sound

I like this - I really liked the start, rather strong and direct to the point.

I feel the last line could be stronger; rain is a bit clichéd, but that's fine, just something more descriptive. Good though!

Déjalo, déjalo, déjalo, déjalo
Ay, ay, ay, ay
Y de repente: una guitarra
Ay, ay, ay, ay
Tinta en los dedos, ceniza en los pulmones
Para al pensar, en desaparecer,
Pareciendo pared
Palpitando el placer
De: no permanecer
Ahí, ahí, ahí, ahí
Moviendo un ula-ula invisible,
Gira su cintura
Al ritmo de los tambores
Frente a un público invisible
Un do, tré, cuá
Debe limpiar, en cuanto salga...
El Sol: ja! ja! ja! ja!
La mugre que acumula a su alrededor
Dejando sucio el interior de -
Él, él, él, él
Va, va, va, va
Suena una guaracha
Sin cesar.

Made me laugh. It's funny in the way that it's stupid, not some sort of anti-joke (or poem).

Then a furrow of dustlight
Enters then barely crawls across the chambers
Just enough for us to make out
The Spanish dogs in formation
The pluming organ swells coiling around their tongues aloll
Held in the slow pulse of anticipation

And in the light their teeth and yours
Are the same shade of white
And I ache for the bite.

bretty gud, but the first three lines are way too saccharine IMO

Work in Progress. I think the end needs work maybe?

OP here. Thank you for recognizing the piece. Just wanted to see how stupid the poetry community on this board really is.

I don't know what to make of this

i want off this planet

A man with nothing left,
A true man, well said;
A man with nothing left,
Has no fear of death.

For to be himself,
He must lose any thirst;
To be a steel,
He must tremble first.

And now this iron man,
Has nothing left,
Except the will,
To conquer!

Tremble, therefore, tyrants of the world,
Tremble before man.
A man with nothing and no one left,
Wretched man, blessed man.

...

>tretheway
Who the fuck is TrethewAy?

Antes de mi viaje, emprendedor invisible
Será mi deseo, caldera en mis entrañas risibles
Que sean las imágenes que retraten mi novela
Historia de olvido e infinidad desconocida
En mis días que habré aceptada y mal bebida
Y encendido en luz oscuridad de vela
Lujo entero en vecindad de mi alma

Al saber que la lluvia es buena y trae calma
Veo lo suave y se destila en mis manos agrietadas
Por sostener alas que nunca volaron
Que son cenizas en el espejo de las ramadas
En ramas rojas, hojas de navajas cremaron
La sombra que dejé en la rama alta.

While
I sit
in some lecture,
My mind drifts off-
Behind my eyes there is Elsewhere.
Other shores under different suns. Daydreams of buying a nice place in Tangiers
or attending swingers parties in the Caliphate.
There. Staring off into space, while in that
classroom, I may find myself in the
ultraviolet aisle of a Walmart® searching
for the new Chex-Mix® that has valium in it.
My weary head might sink back into
other visions. I could be sitting on a waterbed while watching Seinfeld;
The episode where Jerry woke up and found that
he had turned into a cockroach.
Scenes that feel like actual memories might approach me.
There was that time when someone handed me
a pamphlet for the Cult of Cthulhu. I didn’t read it.
This continues on and on and on from now until
my mind can no longer wander.
I sit and think of how many lives
I’ve lived outside of this room,
and other rooms,
and outside of myself.
This nebula of Absurdity vibrates
back to form and line and order.
My geometries go back to being Euclidian.
The pilot comes over the intercom and announces
an upcoming assignment for the course-
and I leisurely float
back down into
that
class.

Something has stop working
with my feeling, nothing
is what I hear, I see, I...

God's dung and us, parts
of the same being
Being... Being!
Deng!
And what we should do?
Eat? Drink? Sex? Sleep?
No more. No more!
So we're confused, without
a way and a destination to go by
Hay hay hay chica!
Fuck god and it's scum
Are we free or are we just
slaves of dust?
Dah! Dahhhhh!
Nah!
Wait! No more poetry
No more! Ah! This sucks!

I'm mundane and boring
like a tissue wad
people pass me by on the street
and don't even notice they don't notice me
like most things
so I'm in plentiful company
what with felled trees and Jupiter's teapots
which makes me feel more alone
to be in this place full of anonymous people
places and things
nouns to turn to sand through the hourglass of time
where oases look like empty space
and gravity pulls all to its deep black center
waiting at the end of the line
we mistakenly call the wonder of life
while we wonder about our mistakes
gently pursuing some distraction
to for one more day shelve the knife
cutting the embroidery away on the curtain
that blocks the black from scuttling in
and making itself at home in poor form
in my form of forms
dead and deformed.

Genius wins,
Talent plays,
losers commentate.

I gotta guitar all my own
I gotta quarter for the telephone
I ain't headed down this highway all alone
One two three and maybe four
Honey, they're knockin' on my door
I know you're gonna miss me when I'm gone

Got no daddy but I got a ma
Think she lives in Arkansas
Maybe I'll go see her some old day
It ain't like she'd really care
It ain't like she'd pay no fare
But I might just blow on through there anyway

Headed down to Alabam
Cause some trouble if I can
Aw, buddy, would you like to come along?
It's a place I never been
And you know I could use a friend
They say they'll give us twenty bucks a song

I gotta guitar all my own
I gotta quarter for the telephone
I ain't headed down this highway all alone
One two three and maybe four
Honey, they're knockin' on my door
You know I'm gonna miss you when I'm gone

i find this plath poem cringe

There was once a young lad from Veeky Forums
Who thought himself a fountain of wit
He tried his hand at a poem
But wound up bemoaning
That all he could write was pure shit

srry for misspell headmaster
pls don't hit me with the ruler

Now THIS is the kind of farmgirl gf I wanted.

I like all but the first line. You should talk about what solipsism feels like without ever having to use the word, "Solipsism"

I know Veeky Forums deletes lineation in posts, but if this poem doesn't use lineation it would really work in this poem's favor. I really like the idea of this poem though.

Sounds folksy! The last line makes this poem. Maybe try more experimentation with the words you use in future poems.

A little archaic, Quixote.

is there an image anyone in this thread has, like some sort of Veeky Forums recommended beginner poets/poetry books

Harvey's a hard Arbor Day martyr barber with ardor.
Arbor Day gets harder with Harvey as a martyr.
Marty drinks Bacardi with hard martyr barber Harvey.
Marty lacks ardor but works at a harbor.
Harvey works harder than Marty with his job as a barber.
Hard martyr barber Harvey carves no-ardor Marty out of marble.
At the end of Arbor Day the hard martyr barber Harvey and Marty drink Bacardi at the harbor

It's meant to be read out loud and make your mouth hurt.

I like it, but some of the line breaks are questionable in my opinion.

"My heart lays motionless, basking in an unrippled lake of sorrow.
Gazing at the clear lilac skies in hopes for descrying when we once were.
Our love is but only a few light years away,
and what I would give for that presence once more."

The pigeon who calls himself an eagle,
how God blesses Americans
and tortures the rich and preposterous—
borders bind the 3rd planets fat like twine
in the slow-cooking oven of history
and out pops a disco ball sprayed in gold—!
How gooey and chewy the center unfolds—!
Of mother's achey and valve stinted ticker,
of father's fizzling and drained propane grill,
of sister's myriad playthings pickled by touch,
of brother's terrarium of buried winged wishes—
the coastal critters go postal in my vacuum
eating away a hole in my apartments damp drywall
and somewhere somehow the CEOs David Carradine
discovering how twilight fades into an obscurity
that burns even the brightest minds of today
whenever that is, however it may.
C4: blow-up the spryless spies,
bingo.

is this between the spy and medic from tf2

genuinely beautiful

I need to eat
and I need to shit.
I need to drink
and I need to piss.
I need to need
and I need to wish.
I want to need
but don't want this,
this desirous tug-o'-war tri-team
ripping me asunder
taking my number
and making me number;
so kill me later,
always later.

never played it

but basically it's between my suicidality and perpetual tendency to procrastinate by turning my attention to others while admittedly poorly attempting profundity and comedy and cleverness

Only good one in this thread.

"Afterwards"

Hung on my finger, this teardrop of fat lazes,
convulses. It protrudes
against my skin, like a child's ever-lasting belly

submerged in its thirst. An extending
bellow made sound by
its fuliginous junction.

Pouring
beneath is a pitcher of faint
apple juice: under
its sweating and yellow light, I bottle it steadily until the sun rises.

In waiting,
my gaping eyes bloom in jaundice
as patches of grass.

It's time to walk to Walgreens fuck
to buy some shit for stupid cat
He fills his box with turds and piss
More than I poop in a month
costing me eight bucks a day
to cover it and stop the stench

I hate you cat
When I come home
my house smells like your rancid poop
You fucking stupid horrid cat
You defy entropy with shit

You permeate my fucking life
with stink of cat's damn smelly ass
I want to sit inside my room
and not be raped by your piss smells

I'm going to fucking throw this cat
I'm going to hurl him into things
But he's a cat so he won't know
That what I'm mad at is his shits

>To touch a Woman
>By Karêi Rhyce

No ice is colder
No water wetter
No fire hotter
Than your skin’s touch.

You never grow older
You only grow better
And clearer like water
I love you so much.

No words can say
No images show
That you are really the one

But I look away
Keep my head low
Or you will notice and run.

Were you to ask me now, I would not tell
The road I took to go from Primrose Hill.

Instead, I could tell you about its sky,
The blue behind the grey, the hasty clouds,
Impatient as the rain that came and went,
Announcing itself as it left the stage.

Indeed, I could tell you about the road,
The other one, that leads to Primrose Hill:
The riverside that outlines Camden Town
And extends the hubbub of its market;
Tunnels, bridges, graffiti on the walls,
And boats resting on water black from dirt.

And even more I could tell you: the church
In the corner of a street, made of stone,
Its frame as bible black as solid cloud.

And I could tell you about Primrose Hill:
The green darkness of the grass, moisty earth,
So soft it yields under the children’s feet
Yet budges not to hawthorn or foxglove,
Nor to the oak with the weight of the crows,
The shadows of its leaves, another cloud.
Nor to the Hill itself, whose mighty bulk
Supports the stony sky, and grants a view
Of London’s skyline, limiting the earth
To the perspective of the horizon.

And as it gently rained I heard the crows,
The rustling wind, the voice of William Blake,
The graveness of his tone recalls his talk
With the spiritéd sun at Primrose Hill.
Yet I remember not the sun, but night,
The night of New Year’s Eve, my first night there,
In stranger’s land, among far stranger tongues.
But Primrose Hill distinguishes us not;
It shoulders all: the sky, the clouds, the rain,
Three hundred people there, a bench, myself.

But were you to ask me what road I took,
I wouldn’t tell, I could not tell, I have forgot.
I posted this like two weeks ago in a critique thread and got some constructive criticism. Let me know what you think of it.

Soon I'll hoist this crooked spine towards canvas
And in that motion attempt to shed years
Oh dispondency, oh misplaced madness
I yearn to set a pace that shakes these fears

How does one become so simply fragile
Reduced to surviving upon fantasy
For far too long I've echoed selfish song

Determined towards alleviation of
The weight of anticipating all things
My mind mutters fragmented thought
"Please, commence or break me further!"

Enjoy the time you waste they declare
Learn to suck this veiled sugar cane
Convincingly excited and poised to create
I tear at my collar for air