Peeling Away the Wallpaper

Peeling Away the Wallpaper

A flowery façade feigns a feeble
Ignorance of depth, but when you
Strip off all the paper—delve beyond
Learned behavior, taught ideals,
Insecurities, and the chiming church
Bells of conformity—what is left?
But a bare and lonesome wall
Lacking luster; yet of its singular
Texture, the hand discerns
And the paper conforms.

It has a very nice rhythm theme in it- though it wanders a bit.
We're talking about wallpaper and suddenly you say something about churches and insecurities. And then bells. And suddenly back to wallpaper.

Other then that, no gripes 'cept on the last two lines. The last line seems cut short, the lack of syllables. "Texture, the hand discerns/And the parchment conforms" sounds more interesting.

Just my opinion. I'm wondering on the changeoftopic-changeoftopic thing. I suspect it's something of an inner joke, but it's interesting.

Overall- 8/10.


~sumi

We're talking about wallpaper and suddenly you say something about churches and insecurities. And then bells. And suddenly back to wallpaper.

Well the fact that we're talking about wallpaper and then insecurities is because it is a metaphor.

A flowery façade feigns a feeble

I didn't like the alliteration here. It made the poem sound superficial and that you were going just for sound, and the sound really wasn't successful. It was somewhat childish.

I was a little confused with your poem because it both condones and condemns conformity.

Bells of conformity—what is left?
But a bare and lonesome wall

Here you say conformity is necessary, or else we're nothing but dull vessels. It's contradictory to a lot of sentiments that are anti-conformity. I find that intriguing.

the hand discerns
And the paper conforms.

And then you have these lines. The finality is eerie, but well done I would say. But because of this effect, it also condemns said conformity, which you condoned earlier. Was there some irony I missed? Were these your intentions?

I'm the first to admit I'm not the best critiquer of poetry, so take everything I said with a grain of salt.

Baroness Ink wrote:Other then that, no gripes 'cept on the last two lines. The last line seems cut short, the lack of syllables. "Texture, the hand discerns/And the parchment conforms" sounds more interesting.

Thanks for the input. I'll consider changing those lines.

Baroness Ink wrote:Just my opinion. I'm wondering on the changeoftopic-changeoftopic thing. I suspect it's something of an inner joke, but it's interesting.

Well, it was intended as an extended metaphor... yet as you have aptly shown me, it doesn't work if the reader doesn't have any idea that it is a metaphor. While I wish this were not necessary (good art stands on its own), I shall provide you with a bit of information. Recently two friends of mine decided to "psychoanalyze" (not actually the best description, but I can't think of any other word that works) me, and through a series of questions they attempted to delve past any superficiality (unconscious defense mechanisms and such included) to find the core of my being, my "self" or "soul" if you will. That makes it sound much more mystical and mysterious than it really is. The main point is, the process of peeling off the wallpaper is only a metaphor for this situation. I could not come up with any other way to do it and not be excessively ambiguous.

I hope this helps.

EDIT:
In response to Trident - I am very intrigued by your interpretation of it, especially because I didn't intend a lot of what you interpreted specifically, but the way you explained it makes sense. The alliteration, to get that out of the way, was somewhat required (this is an English assignment). As for the conformity and such, the ideas were not intended to be connected. One ("the chiming church / Bells of conformity") was merely my growing up with belief and religion forced upon me by my parents. The other ("yet of its singular / Texture [...] the paper conforms") was about the metaphorical (and also literal, for that matter) wallpaper fitting itself to the individual texturing and nuances of the wall. I encourage different interpretations, but my intent (in this part of the poem) was not a message of conformity but rather of how the same environmental factors do not change people in the same way, because people are not all the same.

I rearranged the line breaks so that some of the near-rhyme is at the end of lines now and it has a more consistent meter (long short long short ect., with 10 syllables on average for the long lines and 7-8 syllables for the short lines). Please tell me if this is an improvement, and also critique it as a whole.

Peeling Away the Wallpaper, Revised

A flow’ry façade feigns a feeble
ignorance of depth, but when
you strip off all the paper—delve beyond
learned behavior, taught ideals,
insecurities, and the chiming bells
of conformity—what is left?
But a bare and lonesome wall lacking luster;
yet of its singular texture,
the hand discerns and the paper conforms.

While using alliteration in that first line shows an ability to use literary techniques, I'm not sure it was really justified. As Trident pointed out, it seemed to be just going for sound (or an A on said English assignment, but poo to that).

*rereads Trident's comment* Okay, so I'm not the only one who thought that the poem contradicted itself. Your explanation didn't really help me there...try to go into the poem when you know exactly what you want to say.

Don't try to cover everything about conformity or lack thereof in nine lines. Just pick one little aspect and deal with it. You don't have to come out and say it, either. Subtlety is very important in poetry, and I felt that this one was a little too message-loaded for me. Stick (haha) to the wallpaper metaphor; I felt like you might've had something there.

cadmium wrote:Don't try to cover everything about conformity or lack thereof in nine lines. Just pick one little aspect and deal with it. You don't have to come out and say it, either. Subtlety is very important in poetry, and I felt that this one was a little too message-loaded for me. Stick (haha) to the wallpaper metaphor; I felt like you might've had something there.

Alright. Well, while I'm going to think over your comments as well as Trident's, I'm not really sure I know what to change because as with Trident, you didn't understand the poem the way it was intended. The most I can gather from this is that I didn't do a good job of portraying what i was trying to.

try to go into the poem when you know exactly what you want to say.

The poem is autobiographical. It is about me. It is not about conformity in any way except in relating very directly to my life. It is about the feeling you get when you have tried so hard to fit in and meet people's expectations that, upon searching for yourself, you are unable to distinguish your 'self' from the myriad of imitations claiming the title. I'm sorry for being difficult, but I just feel like either I wrote this terribly, you didn't understand it, or both, because otherwise I don't comprehend your (Trident's and Cadmium's) critiques in the slightest.

I realise this is an old post but I was intrigued when reading the replies.

My first interpretation was that it was purely about the nature of conformity. In my mind every line was filled with ideas on conformity. Unlike Trident, I didn't see any condoning of conformity though. I believe what he was saying was that the use of bells condoned it but then the bare wall condemned. I hear bells as loud and overpowering things that often all chime together which in my eyes is conformity. Even in your case, you said that Religion was forced upon you, this can be seen because you were expected to follow the church bells (if that makes sense).

I didn't really mind the flow of it. I just read it as one line, stopping where i felt like it. That's one of the many beauties of poetry though isn't it?

I enjoyed the poem and the comments were really interesting, very thought provoking. Good work

i liked the poem
1. you lost way a bit by talking about churches
2.i liked the flowery alliteration
3.you used some great words
4. it was very creative
5. flow could have been improved but it was still good
keep writing!