Already Gone

Already Gone

This page is too white to write on,
To defile with the strokes of this pen.
It was so perfect before,
It obviously isn’t anymore.

This room is too silent to breathe in,
To contaminate the quiet with noise.
My pen scratches sound like shattering glass,
It is, as of now, cacophonous.

This heart is too pure to question,
To pious to stain with sin.
But to err is human, isn’t it,
It cannot be holy, ever again.



I really don't know how I did on this poem. Critiques are very much appreciated!

Hi elephantwalrus.

Your first line was absolutely amazing. However, I thought that what followed it in the first stanza wasn't nearly so. We pretty much already know that the pen will defile it, so perhaps you could take a concrete thought and make that what would defile the page.

Your last stanza, to me, implies something sinful might be done. But what? I really think you should fill the poem with more innuendo. Give us at least a clue of what will be done... (sex, murder, etc.)

I think you did very well. The flow needs some work in places but generally, it's very smooth and you have some great imagery. Here's a quick line by line -

Already Gone

This page is too white to write on,
To defile with the strokes of this pen. [I think your introduction is perfect. It flows with a very natural rhythm and I love your choice of words.]
It was so perfect before,
It obviously isn’t anymore. [This second set of lines isn't as good. The rhyme isn't very effective and limits your language and rhythm. While the first part intrigued me, this is out of rhythm and very plain with the added confusion of a change of tense. Perhaps you could use some imagery to describe why it is no longer perfect rather than just stating that it isn't. For example, you could have something like 'And yet I allow perfection/ To be marked by my hovering hand.']

This room is too silent to breathe in,
To contaminate the quiet with noise. [Again, a really good start and I like the use of 'contaminate.']
My pen scratches sound like shattering glass,
It is, as of now, cacophonous. [And I like these two lines as well. This time the half rhyme works very well and the imagery is very well chosen.]

This heart is too pure to question,
Too pious to stain with sin. [Just a little typo there and I think this line might be smoother with another syllable. Maybe 'Too pious to stain with my sin' would work but that's just a suggestion.]
But to err is human, isn’t it, [I think this line is a touch colloquial but I like it.]
It cannot be holy, ever again. [I feel that this line could have a stronger impact but generally, it's very nice.]

Overall, I think you could add more imagery to this but you have a good start and it's an interesting poem.

I like the fact that this poem seems to jump right in and personal I got the feeling of loss, which the tile of the poem pretty much throws in the air. As I completed the first stanza I really felt like some who had just lost some thing in there life and had not released until then that it was “already gone.”

“This page is too white to write on,
To defile with the strokes of this pen.”
I love these two first opening lines there great they grab you and make you say yep I wana read more.

My biggest problem is with the second stanza. Although I get the meaning of it and I can see how it would work. It did not grab me as much as the first one did and seemed to go in a rather round about and obscure way.

“This room is too silent to breathe in,
To contaminate the quiet with noise”
after I read that aloud I got a better grip of it and I liked it.

“My pen scratches sound like shattering glass,
It is, as of now, cacophonous.”
Okay these two lines and especially the last line seemed to me not to fit in as well as the first two.

For me it’s the use of the word cacophonous. I would have used inharmonious to play upon the relation of silence and musical noise (good or bad.) I think this mainly because your last stanza goes on to talk of the heart, and therefore reading between the lines lust, love and passion.

“If music be the food of love play on, give me excesses of it” act one, scene one, twelfth night, Shakespeare
My thoughts on love and music..........
But that is just my thoughts!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I like the last stanza and overall i enjoyed reading the poem and diving into it by breaking it down and re reading.
Keep writing
Siphiwe

Hey, thanks for the input, guys! I've been trying to work out the last two lines in the first stanza, and the very last line, and I'm not sure if the new lines are any better.

As far as the last lines in the first stanza, I have "The ink mars the parchment’s surface,/And intrudes on its once-perfection."

And the last line I rewrote as "Innocence has long sense fled."

It's hard for me to see these new lines in the poem, because I got kinda attached to the original version. Do they improve the poem, make it worse, or don't change it at all?

Hello again! I think those are some excellent changes! I wouldn't have a comma at the end of 'surface' though and I think 'sense' should be since? But other than that, I think it's a good improvement.

I read it and I think it is really good.
The did not really flow.

But anyway, it was really nice!

I like this poem. It had incredibly language, beautiful images, an interesting concept, amazing assonance (The page os too white to write on, to defile with...)

But the structure really was kind of... well, awful, compared to the rest. And I have to say, structure is one of the hardest to fix, but I could try and see what structure fits me, and then you could use that to see what structure fits you.

This page is too white to write on,
To defile with the strokes of this pen.
It was so perfect before,
It obviously isn’t anymore. This obviously breaks the rhythm, and thus, structure of the poem. You insert a rhyme in a poem that has no other perfect rhymes in, and that not only confuses us, but it's also disappointing. I agree with Kitty: You should change that last line of stanz. 1 into a line that describes why it isn't perfect.

This room is too silent to breathe in,
To contaminate the quiet (this word has too many vowels, and it breaks the attention, especially with a noun. Won't silence do better?) with noise.
My pen scratches sound like shattering glass,
It is, as of now, cacophonous. Y)ou did a good job here, but the first third line of the stanza flowed well, interrupted by the sort of a puzzle fourth line--which is bad, except the last words.)

This heart is too pure to question,
To pious to stain with sin.
But to err is human, isn’t it?
It cannot be holy, ever again. I really don't like the structure, the rhymes, the rhythm, and even some of the phrases in this stanza. The first two sentences are good, but the last two just break everything. Isn't it? What? Why did you include isn't it? It doesn't work at all.

Overall, this was good. A suggestion would be to change the formal outlook of this poem and break the lines more often, to make it contemporary. Sore of like:

This room is too silent
to breathe in--
To contaminate the stillness
with noise.
My pen scratches sound like shattering glass,
Its harmony is now
cacophonous.

Alright, I worked on it some more. Here it goes again:

This page is too white to write on,
To defile with the strokes of this pen.
The ink mars the parchment’s surface,
And intrudes on its once-perfection.

This room is too silent to breathe in,
To contaminate the muteness with noise.
My pen scratches sound like shattering glass,
And to exhale is now cacophonous.

This heart is too pure to question,
Too pious to be stained with sin.
But to err is human, is it not,
My innocence has dismally fled.


Well, what do ya think? I tried my hardest to work in the suggestions, but I'm not particularly pleased with the result. I'm still working on some lines that just seem awkward now, but maybe its just me. The poem lost some internal repetition that I wanted there in the process. Is is better or worse then before?

NICE! I really like it now. It's excellent.

There are only two problematic lines now:

"And intrudes on its one-perfection."
I think it's that last word that makes this line really chunky. You should have a word that half-rhymes with surfaces, something like "on-pen". like )and I am just scribbling this down from the edge of my mind):

The ink mars the parchment's surface,
Intruding the perfection with no trace.

"My innocence has dismally fled"
???
What does this line mean? It only opens more and more confusing, lengthy questions that puzzle the reader immensely. This personification makes it seem really,,, amature. "Dismally fled" sounds like you were flipping through a thesaurus to find a perfect ending. End with an image! End with alliteration! End with a bang! This line was a withdrawl from the main concept of the poem immensely. Change it!

Otherwise, this is excellent. GREAT JOB!

I liked the whole flow of this, it worked very well and it made me think that I am extrememly jealous of you; I've been here a while and I still have trouble with flow and things like that.

The imagery worked well with the whole concept, which in my eyes put across the point of a struggling author that has writers block. It's not a majorly different idea but the way you've put it has made it very original and just a pleasant read.

I liked the first two lines of your second stanza/verse as it worked very well and literally took my breath away with the beautiful way of which you've put the point across. The way you say that breathing messes up the flow of thought by adding noise astounded me and you're such a new user too.

I am truly jealous.

Well, I will continue to work on it. Thank you everyone for your time, criticisms, and encouragements!

I thought that was a great poem.

I loved how you did not tell the reader exactly what was being written on the page or what sin was about to be committed. It left us to think about what was planned. By letting us imagine the possible outcomes, we were able to really view the blank paper as our own that we can write whatever we want on it.

Great, great job. I loved what you did with it.