Shadows

I'm... not sure what I think about this?

I don't see how the stanzas fit together. On their own, they're amazing, beautiful, but as a whole piece--and perhaps I'm just too stupid--I don't see them fitting together. There is probably something I'm missing? I believe in your genius.

My favorite stanza was S3; that is a superb metaphor, Bradshaw. The only thing I can actually complain about is, "I set my gaze the way I used to choose a patch of night and patiently wait for stars to fall." What? This is too hard for me to understand. It's something you would understand, the person you are speaking to would understand it, but your reader...? And that might be why I don't like this poem. You're playing with your navel, Bradly, and it is is scaring me...

But just a little. It's still beautiful in so many ways, I just think you could pull it together tighter, make the strings attach, and give it more of a punch. You're an amazing poet--and who am I to be speaking about poetry?--so take it as you will.

I kind of have to agree. I can see how taking any stanza of this poem and turning it into its own poem would be great, but as it is its way too serparated from itself. I feel like it's an inside joke that I'm on the outside of.

I think the first two stanzas can be thrown together and make sense, but they need some kind of bridge between them or after them to show the connection of them. But, the other two are very unconnected with the first two. Although I do love the third and fourth stanzas the best, indeed.

I love the analogy of the last stanza, but I wish it were developed more. Now it's just kind of there...and doesn't seem to hold much purpose. But, with a little help from more lines I think it has a serious potential to be great.

I love the first stanza, how it's worded. The forth stanza, I don't know. The should be there but aren't bit doesn't seem as carefully worded as everything else, and the the way I used to in the next line is confusing. Do you mean used to as "formerly"? Even so, I think you could expand it because it doesn't mean much to me right now.

Each stanza is nice individually, but altogether, it seemed jumpy. Not choppy, but like it kept jumping from one thing to the next. I think you could tie everything together a bit more.

I didn't really understand this - but I'm young[er] and poetry is often hard for me to understand.

I love this line:
I set my gaze the way I used to choose
a patch of night and patiently wait
for stars to fall.

Beautiful, just beautiful. That puts a great image in my head.

Also, this line:
(Right now I'm out of toothpicks and memory
is stuck between my teeth.)

Wow; you really blew me away with that. Genius metaphor there. ^^

Some days I wish I had twenty-four hours
left to live, that way I wouldn't have time
to regret all the things I've done.

Forgive me, but this stanza doesn't seem as original as the rest of your poem.
It's NOT emo, but it seems [to me] to be wobbling precariously close to the brink of an overused theme. People now a days are always prattling on about their horrible lives and how they're going to kill themselves, or they wish they could, blah blah blah.

Overall, this was very, very good. You have a knack for making beautiful stanzas that always make me wonder after I've read them. And I wish I could have come up with a more helpful review, but...I can't. This is pretty much flawless.
Great work!
-Ayra

I'm actually quite disappointed--you've done better, a lot better. I agree with Suzie/others in that it's disjointed. My main problem is that I can't get a good grip on it. The relationship, or at least the extent of the relationship, between "I" and "you" is uncomfortably unclear, and I feel that this resulted from the poem is too personal. Don't get me wrong, some of your most emotional, personal poems are incredible, but they were good because they were accessible, whereas this lost the reader between the first and second stanzas.

I also think that your talent with sound and rhythm really didn't come out in this one. What I like most about your poetry is its natural feeling and flow. This was a little chunky and awkwardly phrased--I especially disliked the third stanza.

It needs to be...less broad. Maybe Via's suggestion is best; focus on one stanza and develop it more. Best of luck!

-Colleen

Hi all,


Thanks for your generous responses.

For those not in the room at the time, this is a response piece to a poem by Stephen Mueske (not a terribly well-known poet, mind) entitled, "Lights." Hence "Lights" and "Shadows."

Since reproducing his poem here would be a copyright infraction, I'll simply say that his piece centered on the question: "What is a shadow lit upon / by light?" and his work probed not only the question itself but also questions of textuality--that might explain the "shadiness" of the transitions from one bit to the next. If they were illuminated (that is, if I were to do what Via suggestd), they wouldn't be shadows anymore.

Doesn't mean they wouldn't be better, just that it was out of the scope of the intent. Ah well--win some, lose some (mostly lose).


Cheers!
Brad

Incandescence wrote:For those not in the room at the time, this is a response piece to a poem by Stephen Mueske (not a terribly well-known poet, mind) entitled, "Lights." Hence "Lights" and "Shadows."

Because that's totally what I think of when I hear "Shadows." "Why, obviously. It's a reference to Stephen Mueske."

I kid.

that might explain the "shadiness" of the transitions from one bit to the next. If they were illuminated (that is, if I were to do what Via suggestd), they wouldn't be shadows anymore.

But that, I think, is taking it too far. Obviously when one stanza fails to transition to the next there's a feeling that something's missing, but I don't think the response to an obscure (?) work really justifies it, at least not here. You might number your stanzas to create a division between them. I'm really not sure what to do with that.

-Colly

To quote Guy Picciotto on their album, after Nevermind came out:

[quote]
It was like our record could have been a hobo pissing in the forest for the amount of impact it had...
[quote]

Change "record" for "poem" and you have my reply. It's really deep, but I guess too deep to see while I am in your shadow

Cade--


Again I can only refer you back to the Mueske poem. The problem, in hindsight, is that what everyone is responding to is only half the deck of cards--an unfair imposition on my part, no doubt--and the effect is somewhat like reading and responding to Lacan without a knowledge of Freud.

Alas, merely a mistake to post here.


Cheers!


Rjjr_vectra--


Thanks for responding. My shadow is unfortunately like that of a groundhog's and not present in this piece. The shadow you are lost in is the one cast by Mueske's light on the figure of Baudelaire.


Take care,
Brad

Some days I wish I were a fable--I'd be satisfied
knowing that soon you'd outgrow
believing in me.

A lick of metafiction, bless you. This was my favourite stanza, belief like a spiders web, broken by a brash breeze and busting bullets. That something can be created or destroyed by belief, there's a world-weariness to this, sort of an existential contented feel. Childish and ancient simultaneously. Your phrasing is perfect, no wankery, no angst, just this pure flit of thought. Love it.

Some days I wish I had twenty-four hours
left to live, that way I wouldn't have time
to regret all the things I've done.

This doesn't have so refined an idea, it's clunky, and really almost superfluous. Your phrasing is crap only because your content here sounds like the plot to some tearjerker with 'heartwarming' in the by-line. That was harsh. It's not actually that bad, I just love the first stanza so much.

(Right now I'm out of toothpicks and memory
is stuck between my teeth.)

Characteristic of your poetry and prose to some extent, your physicality with abstract ideas. You use it well, it's lovely, it grounds your work while having some- Frida Khalo, it's Frida Khalo, it's got this raw verisimilitude, it feels so harsh, so honest, and yet there's this magic realist element to it to, only so much as it makes emotion palpable, it is realism from a perspective. That makes no sense, so imagine me making vaguely sexual hand gestures to explain it.

Always, I am looking for things that should be there
but aren't. I set my gaze the way I used to choose
a patch of night and patiently wait
for stars to fall.

Bah! That's so perfect in the Khalo thing. The mechanics of this stanza enchant me, but the infatuation of the first stanza is yet to be matched.


To me, the stanzas work together. It's all about belief and the mutable nature of all things. The comfort that one is a temporal thing, of the definite parameters of oneself. And yet it's not a definite thing, nothing is infallible, though the persona dreams of himself falling away, depends on that to deal with the damage of his own existence, yet he has doubts for memory sticks to him, the belief comes and goes, cannot be led, cannot be depended upon. But that's probably nothing to do with it.

Loved it.

Be good.

Okay, I get what you were trying to say here but what I can't understand is why you named this, "Shadows"? I just don't get it.

[s]Scratch[/s] kindly take away the second stanza please. Too mushy and irksome for your sake.

Some days I wish I were a fable--I'd be satisfied
knowing that soon you'd outgrow
believing in me.

I hate you. This is grudgingly AMAZING.


Cheerio <3 JACE

I can't believe I'm gonna say this Brad, but I wasn't much a fan of this. It could of been the disjointedness. Or just I plain have not got a scooby what's it about. My favourite bit was that metaphor about toothpick very original. Overall: You can do much better. What this peice lacks is the thread between each stanza clicking it all together so we see the idea you're showing. Also never got why this was called Shadows.

Good luck
VSN

Woah. I have to disagree with everyone on here... this was one of your best. Yeah. I was blown away by your impressive metaphors, "I wish I were a fable", "Right now I'm out of toothpicks and memory is stuck between my teeth"... Beautiful imagery, beautiful comparisons. I would suggest, however, taking away the parentheses from the third paragraph, as they distract from the actual words inside, and could be done without.

"I set my gaze the way I used to choose
a patch of night and patiently wait
for stars to fall."

This ending should encompass much more explanation. I suggest you add more punctuation, to make the reader stop when they read this. Just like this, I can't understant what is the connection between the "gaze" and "the way I used to choose a patch of night".

Overall, though, this was exceptional.