Catharsis

Capitalism bastardizes culture.
Scientists have found the soul,
it's shaped like a dollar sign
and is ugly while pretending to be beautiful.

The Venutians would be ashamed,
looking down from on high,
of our television eye transmitting,
and our disgruntled docile self perceptions.

Media no longer serves to educate.
It remains to remind the masses
how ugly they are and how all the fear in the world
is right on their doorsteps, waiting.

Art is dying in a pool of it's own waste.
Replaced by money the root of all desire,
desire the root of all suffering.
Samsara is no place for an artist's despair.

Pink cherry blossom petals, falling in slow motion
against a brilliant white backdrop, tumbling
and pirouetting ever so gracefully
around one another.

Spirit and flesh sit down among them
and play a friendly game of chess.
They say nothing for they are content,
in their silence.

There, I've gone and created something beautiful,
and justified my existence for another day.

Now I love the message of this poem, but please split it into stanza so it's easier to read. Great message wish i could say more. Just keep fighting good fight.

Great poem, my only complaint is the same as my predecessor's, split into stanzas it would be easier to read.

Stanzas have been added. Now please, anyone, tell me your critiques on the ideas of the pome, instead of the grammar and structure. Although, those comments can often times be helpful, and quite important, I'm only concerned with ideas at this point.

for me, this just wasn't poetic enough. it didn't flow. it was a series of ideas put across using big words but it just didn't feel like poetry. the phrase "disgruntled docile self perceptions" jumps out at me - this is too wordy, too many harsh sounds for it to sound like a poem to me.

the description of the soul as a "dollar sign" was good but then the next line was redundant, it feels unncessary - you summed it up already, that last line makes it read like you are trying to fit in as many images as possible. maybe keep that line for another poem or work it somewhere else in the poem, but it just doesn't seem to fit right there.

because of this, when you start describing "pink cherry blossoms" the image seems out of place as this is quite a poetic (albeit, i think, a bit cliched) verse and a soft image, compared to the rest of the poem.

i liked the second last verse, it gets the message across without being too heavy and the imagery is good.

i didn't like the ending, for me those were the least poetic two lines of the poem. my suggestion would be to try and work on making the poem softer, less wordy, without compromising the message.

i hope that made sense, i'm not much of a critic i wouldn't say!

This reads like you had an idea for an essay, but didn't want to spend the time working within the structure, composing full sentences and what not, so you thought you'd just make it a poem, because then you can bypass conventions of paragraphs and whatnot and just say what you want to say. Only it doesn't work like that. This isn't a poem - there's nothing remotely poetic about it (except maybe that random, cliched cherry blossom stanza). Show, don't tell. If you want to tell people something directly, you put it an essay. If you want to be subtle and exclusive with it, put it in a poem, or a fictional piece that perhaps parallels the situation you think we are subjecting ourselves to. Make use of literary elements, of satire, irony, and searing slogans. This isn't a poem, and it's not an essay either. The point of a poem is to say something in images, or sounds, or something subtle, because you think it will be more powerful that way than as a direct explanation. The point of an essay's stuctural limitations is to force you to think through what you're saying, and to organize evidence to defend/persuade/explain your point.

I'd either try this as an essay, or find something specific within it to write a poem about. Or both. Keep the essay or the poem focussed and concise, but also make sure you have thoroughly elaborated your point, while still making it interesting. Also, this poem is a little long, and it tries to conquer too much stuff. If you choose to revise it, consider trimming it down and giving it a more narrow focus.

Seeing as how I'm a pessimist, I love this poems idea and would like to say that, in terms of ideas it was pretty cool. I don't agree with the thing about an essay though because I really don't see anything wrong with this, though I have an untrained eye.

This was beautifully done, the way you made the first stanzas with their technological words sound poetic and then wrapped it up with something as pure as the last two stanzas. The last stanza should have been in four lines like the rest though, just to make it prettier on the eyes.

The first two stanzas were all harsh. Harsh sounds, images, and ideas. The last part, with the gentle cherry blossoms, was soft and gentle. There was no transition. You went from screaming I HATE CAPITALISM, THE MEDIA, ADN MODERN SOCIETY IN GENERAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!! to singing about cherry blossoms, which, to be honest, didn't even have a meaning there.

"Samsara" was a word I didn't know (which is a bad thing, by the way, unless everyone else knew and I'm just stupid), and dictionary.com says

1. Buddhism. the process of coming into existence as a differentiated, mortal creature. Compare nirvana (def. 1).
2. Hinduism. the endless series of births, deaths, and rebirths to which all beings are subject. Compare nirvana (def. 2).

Which also doesn't fit. Nor does it help your transition into the cherry blossoms.

"Venutian" is also a word I don't know, and it stumped dictionary.com, which offered as substitutes: Venetian (someone from Venice), Venusian (hypothetical inhabitant of Venus), and venation (the arrangement of veins). None of those really fit, except (perhaps) Venetian, if you are holding them up as a standard of good media.

Art is dying in a pool of it's own waste.

The possessive form of "it" is "its," with no apostrophe, so that you can tell the difference between "belonging to it" and "it is." That is my pet peeve in grammar. Please fix it. Even if you ignore everything else I say, PLEASE FIX THE APOSTROPHE!!!!!!!!!!!!

Also, disgruntled + docile is almost an oxymoron. Unhappy but quiet, I suppose is what you meant. That phrase seemed a little cumbersome to me. Too wordy. In fact, the whole first half was too big, heavy, wordy...

I think it needs some serious attention to flow. Big words, while impressive, must be worked carefully to fit together. Transitioning from one idea to another is okay, but the key word there is TRANSITION. Take your readers by the hand, lead them down a path from the first topic to the second. Right now, you're grabbing our hands and sprinting through woods, letting us smack into trees.

I agree with chocolatechipmuffin here; it was too wordy and little in-your-face. Even if you have a message you're trying to get across, poetry should be subtle. You don't want to scream your point at the reader, you want to sort of pass them notes.

The bits I've crossed out are phrases that "tell" rather than "show" and are really taking away from the poem because they're just trying to get a point across:

[s]Capitalism bastardizes culture.[/s]
Scientists have found the soul,
it's shaped like a dollar sign
[s]and is ugly while pretending to be beautiful.[/s]

[s]The Venutians would be ashamed,
looking down from on high, [/s]
of our television eye transmitting,
[s]and our disgruntled docile self perceptions. [/s]

[s]Media no longer serves to educate.
It remains to remind the masses
how ugly they are and how all the fear in the world
is right on their doorsteps, waiting. [/s]

[s]Art is dying in a pool of it's own waste.
Replaced by money the root of all desire,
desire the root of all suffering. [/s]
Samsara is no place for an artist's despair.

Pink cherry blossom petals, falling in slow motion
against a brilliant white backdrop, tumbling
and pirouetting ever so gracefully
around one another.

Spirit and flesh sit down among them
and play a friendly game of chess.
They say nothing for they are content,
in their silence.

[s]There, I've gone and created something beautiful,
and justified my existence for another day.[/s]

As chocolatechipmuffin said, the jump from "SOCIETY SUCKS" to "Oooh, pretty things, yay symbolism!" was uncomfortably large. The "samsara" wasn't really justified, either. What does reincarnation have to do with this? I'm sure you wanted it to have a role, but it wasn't working for me.

I really liked the thing about the dollar sign; that one little part says so much in such a great voice.

As BFG said, you could try an essay if you still want to say things like "Capitalism bastardizes culture."

Colleen

The cherry blossoms did have a meaning, ccmuffin. If you would have read the stanza before it, and the last two lines you might have glimpsed that meaning. The cherry blossoms themselves have no real significance other than being a beautiful backdrop among which spirit and flesh could play their contented game. And samsara is not irrelevant if you actually take the time to get a correct definition for the word. Samsara, according to buddhism, is the illusion that discolors all earthly perception. And a Venutian, in this case, does happen to be a hypothetical inhabitant of Venus.
The harsh tones that pervade most of the poem were the direct result of myself being in a cathartic mood, which would make sense, considering the name of this poem, is in fact Catharsis. The sudden change up at the end was only the calm wake after the storm. This is not a proffesional piece of work. It is a mood sprawled over a piece of paper, then arbitrarily split into stanzas.