unlit

Spoiler

Nightshade finally got me to start writing poetry again, so I thought I might whip something together. I'm a bit rusty, so I wouldn't mind some harsh reviews.

in the death of
time,
we wake.
and in the shade of seas,
it’s like the light is binding us to our souls
(is flying in our faces, now
cradled in gunshots)
; linkedinshadows.

fire won’t bring us down.
i am the heart.
you are still sleep
ing beneath your stone.

what is he waiting for?
he sits by the door,
and cries.
everyone hates
him,
so he should come join us.
we’ll devour him.

This seemed to jump around in topics, to the point of not making sense...at least to me.

At the end of the first stanza, I'm not sure what's with the colon, and the next three words are all smushed into one. ???...and what is flying in your face, now cradled with gunshots?

The ending literally made me jump. It was so unexpected.

Overall, my general (and not negative, I promise!I liked it!) was that this was a very weeeird poem. One of those I could sit and stare at for hours and learn something new every time I read it. Whew. Rusty, my left big toe...Great job!

in the death of Capitalize 'in'. Bring 'time' up back into the first line
time,
we wake.
and in the shade of seas, 'and' seems like it's stuck in there for no reason. I like the imagery here, you're talking about the color blue/sky right?
it’s like the light is binding us to our souls
(is flying in our faces, now 'is'?? if you want to keep the meaning scratch 'is' and add 'now' to the end of the line.
cradled in gunshots)
; linkedinshadows. spaceoutyourwords,itdoesn'thelpyourpoem

fire won’t bring us down, , comma instead
i am the heart. , comma instead
you are still sleep
ing beneath your stone. is there a reason for the separation? No, not really. Sleeping needs to stay the same word. I really enjoy the last two lines, though. Very nicely done.

what is he waiting for?
he sits by the door,
and cries.
everyone hates bring 'hates' down into the line below and leave 'everyone' by itself
him,
so he should come join us.
we’ll devour him. Capitalize 'we'll'

Good luck! My favorite part of your poem is the last stanza. Kudos :]
-KatTrain

Persy keeps nagging me to come back. So. Here I am.
Saving my review spot right hurr.

Kafkaescence wrote:in the death of
time,
we wake.

Opening words of the poem inspire nothing in me but an attempt at being deep, and it falls completely on its head. I believe this poem will be a bad forray into experimentalism and post modern tendencies towards meaning.

Kafkaesence wrote:and in the shade of seas,
it's like the light is binding us to our souls
(is flying in our faces, now
cradled in gunshots)
; linkedinshadows.

fire won't bring us down.
i am the heart.
you are still sleep
ing beneath your stone.

what is he waiting for?
he sits by the door,
and cries.
everyone hates
him,
so he should come join us.
we'll devour him.

And I'm right. You know this is not as good as it could be. You should at least.

"your are still sleep
ing beneath your stone."

No. Where's the subtle grace of poetry here? Where's the unique life in an experimental poet's touch within this all too obvious line break? We have "purpose/idea made" and then "answer/idea elaborated", and then this communicates nothing except you think you're witty.

You've successfully grouped ideas and words together without inspiring any emotional attachment, without revealing anything about life, except for theoretical possibilities and actions.

Remember, Experimental Poetry must make no sacrifice in its pursuit for perfection: yes it embodies idea, but it's true power? Creating a new manner to express emotion and sensory detail, which is therefore the purest and rawest form of a poet's vision. A poet's real ability to speak and be heard, and to leave the listener/reader pondering over and over.

Leave this poem be, look at where you're dictating to us and just telling, telling, telling. Stop telling and figure out how to speak your vision of writing, and of life.

I'm quite disappointed, to be blunt. It has your name(style) written all over it, but it doesn't have your level of awesomeness.

I'm just gonna quote cause it's easier, and I'm tired, and I wanna get some other stuff done, and it's efficient. And I'm using and a lot. ;D

Kafkaescence wrote:Nightshade finally got me to start writing poetry again, so I thought I might whip something together. I'm a bit rusty, so I wouldn't mind some harsh reviews.I thought about liking his post XD
in the death of
time,
we wake. I agree with Meanmrmustard on this one(it's like what I always try to do; be complex and mysterious
and in the shade of seas,
it’s like the light is binding us to our souls
(is flying in our faces, now
cradled in gunshots) The shade of seas is flying in your face? The sea is in the verb of a bullet leaving a gun? That doesn't make sense. Needs more nouns or pronouns or whatever they're called. ;D
; linkedinshadows.What? Parenthesis? Completely breaks the style. And what's linked in shadows?

fire won’t bring us down. what's this us now? were you enduring some sort of hardship with a friend/partner?
i am the heart. and the other is????
you are still sleep
ing beneath your stone.bring that ing up, it just does not make sense to me...maybe the other was useless garbage, lying under a rock?

what is he waiting for?I don't' know :9
he sits by the door,
and cries.
everyone hates He? Who? You? The partner?
him,
so he should come join us.
we’ll devour him.

Oh, hmm. He's just another entity(I get it now), and why is he joining you? It doesn't seam to make sense with the rest of the poem...

Oh...hmm. After reading MeanMrMustards review fully, I completely agree now. He has a point. Don't get all witty on us here! Or think your special 'cuz your a Jr mod now! *jealousy* Just kidding, but really, take another stab at this. Rewrite and I'll gladly re-review!

Hi Kafka,

I heard this piece stirred undiscovered maternal-slash-paternal tendancies in some users. Nonetheless I promised to review this and planned to do so to your request of harsh, and I'll thank you again here for your reviews on my pieces. Nice to see your poetry dwelling the forums. I think this is a step-in piece back into writing poetry, but it hold the same truth that I told you when I first reviewed your work, Drawn Onward was it?

Read this, what are you telling me that has any punch, purpose, deeper meaning?
Stringing words together because they sound nice isn't poetry, it's like, verbal knitting for my grandma. Put down the knitting needles for all your clever gimmicks and told statements and actually have a sit down with your writing. You have to see that poetry is about showing your reader something, communicating something past the literal meaning.

Your ability to play with words and experimentation with structure and line breaks is like painting walls that haven't been built yet. You can't construct a poem simply based on the fact you can cut the line here and there and omgthat'ssoclever. There has to be something for me, the reader, to hook myself onto and come out of at the end with something new. Something explored by you in which you had all my attention, physically and emotionally. Scientists don't experiment with chemicals before they understand and are capable to estimate the outcomes of the most basic ones. Writers don't experiment before they've settled into an understanding of poetry, or prose before experimenting and playing around.

I'm not telling you not to do things like:

(is flying in our faces, now
cradled in gunshots)
; linkedinshadows.

because it's well done really. The issue is all this stuff isn't effective because the poetry under the sparkles and makeup isn't strong enough to stand on it's own two feet. Write something with a little more depth, not something that makes me think about how skin deep it is when I've been up all day completing a year's worth of functions on 3 hours of sleep. Because in reality, I don't care what X and Y think about death. Why? I don't know the place, the feelings, the tastes, the sounds. I'm not in the moment with them, I'm reading words on a screen that's depicting some event I wasn't present for. You have to take me from Point A (being the present time, where I am in my head) to Point B (the concept, story, idea finalized and concrete in front of me) while making the ride inbetween smooth and take the nice path that winds through the flower patch. Show me what death looks like, how it feels, and how persona one and two feel about it in comparison. Does death look like, you left two fruits out in the sun for too long. Or something. Give me something that I can connect in my head so I can pinpoint somehow what it looks like, feels like, tastes like, sounds like etc. Otherwise you're spitting words dressed up in pretty outfits and tossing them my way expecting me to feel something for them and maybe, just maybe catch them and take them home with me. But it's not going to happen.

Best of luck, PM me anytime.


Kamas

Hiya Kafka.

I hope you'll forgive me, one for being late and two for not giving a complete review. I'm afraid I'll have to cut it a bit short as I don't really have time to ramble about something that's probably already been said, and also I'm just in a sour mood from being tired and what not, so sorry ahead of time for any harsh comments or whatever. You know it's not my normal thing, haha. Anyway.

I wonder what the words feel like inside of you as you're writing them - or if you really feel the words at all. Lately it seems your poetry has hit a downward slope, and I say that because your past few poems lack the substance that I know you're capable of producing. You've set a high standard for yourself, Kafka; you're intelligent, you have an excellent vocabulary, and you have the ability to let your imagination run wild. Unfortunately, you've failed to merge these gifts and meet that standard this time around.

To sum everything up, the experimentation with line breaks didn't quite work the way you intended it to. It wasn't very artistic at all, save for that bit about light in the end of the first stanza, and even that was questionable. Secondly, as I said before, your vocabulary when you are giving reviews or even speaking casually on some occasions is impressive, but did you utilize that gift of language in this piece? Surely not. Find the words that fit and be deliberate about placing them, don't just throw common words together and decide it looks good. There is nothing clever or captivating about this poem's simplicity - it's just bland, like eating styrofoam. Lastly, please, give us more substance, more depth, more meaning - an all-around better experience, if anything. That nitpick has been beaten into the ground already, so I won't say anything else about it.

So, in conclusion, good news and bad knews. (<<---- HAHAHA. "knews." so tired.)
The bad news is, I didn't really care for this, to be honest.
The good news is, I have complete faith in you when I say that you really can do better. I know you can because I've seen you do it. Just take the time to get back into the motions, and let your pencil do its thing.

- earendil