Young Writers Society

April 3

This was great, Jack. The second stanza was my favorite, I think. I wasn't so sure about the third stanza. I can see its meaning as to be disruptive, but it felt too disruptive for "a glance or two". Perhaps you could write it so that it doesn't slow down the wonderful mood you have set up?

#4. the humanistic legacy

Deference is a pleasure earned
not forced, no chains I gladly take in silence
except to bathe beneath sweet stars
and whisper unbelievably at majesty;
space so dark and fearsome and yet
beauty hides in doubtful quarters:
it is void but it is everything.
My mind too small to grasp the secrets
imperceptibly displayed, the cogs
that twist and turn and make
the universal paradigms.
Despite the mountain climb ahead
the peak is not yet masked by cloud,
a slim chance avails; I will not break
and feign slim faith to invisibility
when brilliance pervades this ground,
angelic mystery in every corner,
enough wonder to fill a lifetime
and not to waste on frail promises.

Salutations, rear-admiral sir!
Alright, April 1. I do not like Eliot the person. But as a poet, he's rather good. As for April, it is cruel to some, at least in a way. He was writing from the Cumaean sybils pov so you can't argue with him over it. Also, he was growing old himself and had begun to fear that he would lose both his potency as a poet and as a man. So really, watching everything rejuvenate and seeing all the animals in the season of sex, he felt left behind. He was, in fact, less of a man than you then. You need a better argument, I'm afraid.
However, I'd like to preserve the personification of Spring in the last stanza. It was the only part where I felt you weren't talking to that anti-semitic genius.

April 2: I just put my hands in the air and did a little backflip because I didn't know what else to do. I also noticed that it fit well with the tune of Wake Me Up When September Ends which I obligingly put on karaoke for your poem.

April 3: Sweet! I'm happy I read it. At least I caught the drift because April 4 was lost on me- i don't see what deference and where deference and to who deference. It was good, but I'm sure even Eliot wouldn't get it.

Keep going admiral sir, land is not too far...... I'm sure you won't be stopping this so I'll catch up with it later. Thanks for the read.......and as a parting encouragement I'll let the sybil do the talking:

And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.

I love this line:
O O O O that Shakespeherian Rag—
It’s so elegant
So Intelligent.

#4 - I think I figured out why I have so much trouble reading your poetry? Not that I don't enjoy it, but the words just crash in my head and seem nonsensical. It has no setting! Or, what I mean to say, I can't get an image of something in my head. I kind of could, like when you mentioned the mountain. But it was just there for a second. And not all poetry has to create a mental image, but I guess that helps me to understand what it is talking about if I can visualize it. This isn't something for you to work on, just me babbling...

Deference is a pleasure earned
not forced, no chains I gladly take in silence
except to bathe beneath sweet stars

I don't understand the what-ever it is here. "No chains I gladly take in silence except to bathe beneath..." Why would you take chains to...go outside? I don't know! I don't understand your poetry. It really doesn't work out in my brain, at least these past few, so it's real hard for me to critique. If I can't make sense of it in my head, then I'm incredebly useless...

Sorry! I'm note even sure what I'm saying. You can hit me later, if you would like, for being silly and making a nonsensical post.

No, that's a worthy criticism. #4 is rather meandering and confusing. Those lines you picked out need work. However, please remember this is NaPoWriMo and I'm not editing as I go along, I'm just writing it and posting it. The original purpose of the "chains" was to indicate being forced to worship and being engrossed involuntarily by the beauty of something.

Don't worry, it's not nonsensical -- I can usually portray the visceral but have always struggled connecting them with concrete images to aid a reader.

#5. The 21st Century or Why I Like Postmodernism

Without a form it is easy to write
Random words and empty lines
Hidden deep beneath adverbial trite.

Tercets and sonnets and limericks
Need work, wit and intelligence
Often a little more than quick cheap tricks.

Luckily the art of poetry
Is not dimmed by living openly
for it does not need to mean, but be.

#6. the tools of the trade

Into my head they come
but I do not know wherefrom

Misty, undefined and raw
waiting to become a little more

A place to fit and express
their razor sharp lingo finesse

It is I, the imperfect architect
that fails to fit and intersect

6:

Overall, I didn't like this as much as some of your other stuff. I think that the last two couplets were much stronger than the first two, especially the first. I know you needed something to introduce your subject, but the first line especially didn't really grab me. I think I'd tweak it a bit and see if I could come up with something else.

5:

Love it, especially the way the form compliments the subject matter.

Keep it up.

Jas

I loved the last couplet in 6. The rest was a little bland, but the last two were solid.

The first two lines of 5 I liked, as well as the the conclusion drawn by the last line. Hopeful.

Other than that, there's nothing specific I can point out, just say that while much more concrete than 4 was, you had those few lines that really stood out, and the rest was filler for lines that could stand on their own -- but that's what NaPo is all about! Therefore, poems well written.

#7. dreamlike

In my mind I deconstruct you
shift and shape and complicate
you, switch and flip and disinflate
you; then I move quick to subdue

the parts I do not like to use.
In my mind I reconstruct you
build a creature of perfection
pick and mix for me to choose

until I have my own sweet way.
Brief goddess of temptation
let me worship your completion
for sadly near the break of day

you will fade into the night
and leave me naught but words to write.

How are you so damn brilliant? This is like poetry heaven! I've never read anything like what you write before. You're writing a poem every day, posting them mostly unedited I imagine, and still they're so unutterably incredible! Nobody can write like you, Jack, not ever.

Ooh, Jacko, I really like number five! It's very different from your usual stuff, but thoroughly enjoyable. Short and sweet. I love the title too. *eats*

I didn't really connect with six, but I liked seven. The title is sort of blah, but the poem itself is great. I'm really enjoying these shorter poems of yours so far. Keep it up! You can doooo eet!

7-

This is really good, as usual. I especially like the first line, which really drew me in as it's so unusual and precise, and love the couplet at the end. The rhythm is perfect and the rhyme wraps it up nicely. I love how all your words serve to move your poems forward rather than just being there for the sake of it. Keep it up. You rock.

Jas

Thanks amigos.

---

#8. toothless

Tarnished by the slightest of assaults
and yet you stand like a fortress
on a rocky hill. You are the winter
of my discontent, not snow-tipped
but dulled by murky weakness
till inevitably you crack and falter

so easily before the wind. So tall
and strong yet fragile as the breeze,
the sharpness spoiled by submission;
your bones so withered with atrophy
I struggle to keep your standing.

If you were not so inherently entwined
with I, your bones connected to my own,
our veins pumping the same blood --
I would have killed you long ago.

#9 number nine

with words as pale as moonlight
he paints a paradox so pretty,
they worship the perplexity
and fail to see the funeral
so rich and dead before their eyes.