Predicament

Interesting dilemma: love and words,
or love for words, as fancy dictates such.
Both as exciting as soaring birds,
who love flying, I dare say, just as much.

But whom do I love more, my words or he?
Given that I would have to make the choice.
And what of all who love their art like me?
Choose architects, painters, and those with voice?

Interesting dilemma: words can fail
but so can he, although, not as often.
From whom does greater happiness entail?
Oh, but both cause heart and knees to soften.

In the end, I fear, I have only this:
which of the two, my dearest, can I kiss?

-----
Yeesh. My first sonnet, and probably my last.

Hi, I'm anti-pop, and I'm going to be reviewing your work today!

Interesting dilemma: love and words,

or love for words, as fancy dictates such.

Both being beautiful as soaring birds,

who love flying, I dare say, just as much.

Try not to use periods when writing poetry. Just leave the sentence; like this: "or love for words, as fancy dictates such"
As for the rhyming, I myself am not a fan of ABAB. It takes a really talented person to pull off that scheme, I think, unless you force the rhyme. Which, to be quite honest, the last line comes off as forced. It worked, though, and it fit well.

But whom do I love more, my words or he?

Given that I would have to make the choice.

And what of all who love their art like me?

Choose they? Painters, sculptors, and those with voice?

The second and third lines were brilliant. I really think so; but the first and last could've definitely been worded differently. Would you really say, "do I love he?" or, "Choose they?"

Interesting dilemma: words can fail

but so can he, although, not as often.

From whom does greater happiness entail?

Oh, but both cause heart and knees to soften.

This is my favorite stanza. "From whom does greater happiness entail?"
One thing: second line has one too many comas. You can probably remove the second, and it will allow the poem more fluidity.

In the end, I fear, I have only this:

which of the two, my dearest, can I kiss?

I laughed out loud when I read this last part! XD



All in all, I really enjoyed this poem. The comparisson between your love of your works and your love of 'him', is a very original and unique idea.

Keep up the good work!


*anti-pop

Here as requested, kissthewitch!

Quote: Interesting dilemma: love and words,
or love for words, as fancy dictates such.
Both being beautiful as soaring birds,
who love flying, I dare say, just as much.

'Being beautiful' sounds off. I understand you have a rhythm to follow but please rephrase it, maybe to 'both as beautiful' or something that would fit into your intended scheme. Being beautiful is just bad English, which you as a writer normally keep consistent.

Avoid from using ABAB, it's very basic and can slow down the poem a lot, people only tend to utilise it when their rhyming is forced.

The most well known poetic device is rhyme. Rhyme can add suspense to your lines, enhance your meaning, or make the poem more cohesive. It can also make it prettier. Don't overuse rhyme. It's a crime. In fact you don't have to use rhyme at all. Other poetic devices include meter, metaphor, assonance, alliteration, and repetition. If you don't know what these are, you may want to look in a poetry book or search the internet. Poetic devices can make a poem or, if they bring too much attention to themselves, they can ruin it.

Right, I like this. You have some good ideas and some beautiful moments within imagery and allusions. Favourite line:From whom does greater happiness entail?
Oh, but both cause heart and knees to soften.

Okay that was too, but it was the most meaningful part and could be interpreted in so many different ways.

You now need to work on using concrete imagery and vivid descriptions.

Love, hate, happiness: these are all abstract concepts. Many, maybe all, poems are, deep down, about emotions and other abstractions, but it's hard to build a strong poem using only abstractions - it's just not interesting. The key, then, is to replace or enhance abstractions with concrete images, things that you can appreciate with your senses: a rose, a shark, or a crackling fire, for example. The concept of the objective correlative may be useful. An objective correlative is an object, several objects, or a series of events (all concrete things) that evoke the emotion or idea of the poem.

Really powerful poetry not only uses concrete images; it also describes them vividly. Show your readers and listeners what you're talking about--help them to experience the imagery of the poem. Put in some "sensory" handles. These are words that describe the things that you hear, see, taste, touch, and smell, so that the reader can identify with their own experience. Give some examples rather than purely mental/intellectual descriptions. For example: "He made a loud sound" versus "He made a loud sound like a hippo eating 100 stale pecan pies with metal teeth".

For a first sonnet, I think this was a good attempt. You have some amazing ideas, you just need to piece them together more fluently. If you need more help, just PM me!

-Sarah

kissthewitch wrote:Interesting dilemma: love and words,
or love for words, as fancy dictates such.
Both being beautiful as soaring birds,
who love flying, I dare say, just as much.

But whom do I love more, my words or he?
Given that I would have to make the choice.
And what of all who love their art like me?
Choose they? Painters, sculptors, and those with voice?

Interesting dilemma: words can fail
but so can he, although, not as often.
From whom does greater happiness entail?
Oh, but both cause heart and knees to soften.

In the end, I fear, I have only this:
which of the two, my dearest, can I kiss?

-----
Yeesh. My first sonnet, and probably my last.

Don't give up....you have tons of other sonnets...you made an English sonnet(Shakespeare, ha?) that is very similar to Spenserian(i think that's his name). Why not try some other....
I even counted the syllables and guess what: YOU PASSED. I don't know about the accents but i think they're OK! Great job....

Ooooh I really adore this, a lot.

I sort of skimmed the above and saw that Castle was talking about abstractions. I actually don't mind the abstractions of love and words because it seems very fitting to me. You're not discussing how love makes you feel, simply the existence of it, and you leave it blank enough for me (also a lover of words!) to impose my own feelings upon it. I do think I would prefer some vivid description in place of "Beautiful" but this can easily be fixed.

I like how simple it is, and how entirely honest. Not to mention, relatable, especially for a group of writers. I do think I like how it does that. You don't put too much, or rather so much of yourself into it that I can't connect to it. You leave it just the right amount. I don't really feel anything from it (your beautiful description could change this!) but it does make me think, which is a wonderful thing.

I like your second stanza, but I wish the question of "What about others?" was more important to me - it seems like filler, albeit beautiful filler. Either try to connect this more to the speaker, or the reader, or...ha, you could even leave it alone, I just want it to mean more.

Interesting dilemma: words can fail
but so can he, although, not as often.

I like the reality you add, however in my own experiences words fail a lot less often than man! Think of it not only as the words we write but the words we read. I'm almost wanting to ask if you could flop the two, and say that words never fail, though this is my opinion. Words only fail to come out of me, that's my own problem, but a good book is always lovely and unchanging, right? ^_~ This is really much more opinion than anything else.

I love your ending! Though I have to say I'd go for words any day. ^_~ This is my opinion.

Absolutely wonderful poem, overall, just me nitpicking. It's good to see something fresh regarding the love of writing, and so honest, as well. If you have any questions feel free to message me!

i love it. write some more.

Urhm... I have no knowledge whatsoever on any sort of sonnetry. But I am an experienced poet. So here's my say: Your use of the colon after 'an interesting dilemma' is kind of heavy. Colons seem heavy for this light and airy poem. Very, very airy. A bit too airy and light, even a teensey bit flaky for me. A lot of dare-says and mores and such....kind of flaky. I realize this was probably in order to meet the meter requirements for a sonnet, but it just sounds... *yells to readers: I'm a blond, so don't be insulted!* kind of dumb-blond. I've read some of your work. It's very intelligently written. This one just seemed less sophisticated. I can see if you want to try another sort of poetry. I know I may sound really harsh, but... your other things are better-written. This isn't my type of poem either. Keep writing!
Cheers!
--Voxina