Published January 5, 2008
Deep, throaty rumble,
Sounds echoed: amplified,
Metallic, harsh, screech, din.
Angry drivers sounding horns
Selfish humanity.
Calm countryside, dew soaked grass,
Beast weaves its way through,
Dark blot on innocent landscape,
Congestion, waiting, now late,
Day begins again.
Mighty roar, great cry,
English courtesy challenged now,
Motorway beast starts to stir,
Rude words, angry shouts,
Rush hour rage.
I'm trying to move away from rhyming poetry like this because I'm not going to learn anything if I don't try new things. I think it's a bit too much like chopped up prose though, or maybe just a bit uninteresting. Any comments will be welcome!
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*Throws up hands* I agree with all said above!
The biggest problem with this poem is this poem! How odd, eh? We all appreciate the description, and there is a definite place for description in poetry, but all this description is killing me!
Description is only an issue when it takes over the purpose. A poem of just description is pointless. There has to be a point that the author is trying to make and that is lacking here. Here the reader just sees description, more description, more description...and then the end. There has to be something to tie the poem to the reader for them to like it.
Good luck!
As Cade said, there are a lot of adjectives. There are a lot of adjectives, but not enough imagery. Imagery, rhythm, rhyme and meter, are what help make a poem memorable. These are also your tools. You can maniupulate them to discreetly provide the meaning. Being too direct can be a mellower--it can make people think "well that's it, I'll not read this again; I don't get much from it that I don't already know and see". More often than not, what makes good poetry and fiction, distinguished poetry and fiction, is defamiliarization and profundity.
)
So, go back to the poem (remember: it is usually good to take a break--maybe a week--away from something you've just written, so you can go back with a fresh perspective) when you're ready. Consider not so much adjectives--though they, like every other type of word, are a tool--but imagery and sound.
Metaphor
Simile
Personification
Repetition
Assonance
Consonance
Alliteration
Onomatopoeia (if I've spelt that right
You can make the rush hour more poignant. How does the rush and rage sound? What words can be best demonstrate this by reflecting the actual sounds of the motorway? Get a dictionary and thesaurus, if you feel these might help. Try www.dictionary.com and work from there if you want. Read the poem aloud to hear the sound, hear the imagery. You can make imagery come further alive with sound.
As for profundity, perhaps try to point and detail exactly what distinguishes the rush and rage hour in your imagination, or that you saw, from any other. Or is it the fact that it is indistinguishable from any other that makes the tedium and irritiation all the more profound? Don't tell me so much as show me. It is common that humans learn more and understand more from discovering things for themselves (with guidance; the poem).
Consider how best to make a line stand alone, how to use enjambment to manipulate meaning to give more than one meaning to a set of lines.
I hope this in some way helps. I know it has become quite a general critique, sorry about that :/ . If you want to ask anything, I can always try and help.
One more thing: I know it already says somewhere on this site not to take critique to heart etc. but I just want to say that I felt overpowered and stupid when I first had to adapt to the actual complexity of poetry that seemed detached from the poetry I'd read when I was younger. Yep, I took crits to heart a bit, and typically (excuse the cliche) wallowed in self-pity. So I really hope you don't take any of the above as I might've done.
Good luck!
P.S. Post it again once you've revised it!
(By the way, I love your avvie. Semicolon, I still need you; I love you!)
Yeah. Out of sixteen words this stanza has seven adjectives. Big no-no. Simplicity is elegance; keep that in mind!Diction. This poem is drowning in its own vocabulary! You need way more narration and a lot less description, because I swear this poem is half adjectives.
Sentence structure. Try working more with complete sentences. This poem is choppy and difficult to understand because it's composed of fragments and weensy meaningless phrases.
As a sentence, that reads "Mighty roar, great cry, English courtesy challenged now, motorway beast starts to stir, rude words, angry shouts, rush hour rage." It's long, convoluted, doesn't make much sense, right? And why "English courtesy challenged now" instead of "English courtesy is challenged now," or something else that sounds more like speaking and less like a telegram?
The poem will sound better and be a lot more sophisticated if your phrases can stand alone and still flow into one another.
Ending. I dislike the punch-line ending, that's like, "My whole poem is about road rage!" It's childish to pick a topic, write a poem that's made up of description of said topic, and then reveal at the end what the topic is. For a more sophisticated poem, you ought to write a poem that incorporates road rage...people should be able to guess the subject through your description of it.
Keep working on it!
-Colleen