/lit/ - Literature

critique me
https://juanfitzcarraldo.wordpress.com

>>11044329
too melodramatic

>>11044336
this is good. i would like to read longer pieces if you have any

>>11044360
Thanks. I might consider improving/expanding my essay on Apocalypse Now and uploding it.

>>11044345
How so?

>>11044329
nope, too lazy and fat
>inb4 easy on the frosted flakes

>>11044389
It feels like you're pushing too much emotion into too little space. It feels forced and it's emotional overload.

>>11044395
It looks like Tony needs to take it easy on the Frosted Flakes.

>>11044395
tony....

>>11044329
I edited it mate, here you go
https://pastebin.com/n59S46F1

I really wish you tied the camera more into the end. About being watched, watcher, nakedness, vulner-ability. How the camera exposes. Anyway take what you will from the edit.

>>11044369
it's my favourite film so i'd love to read that.

>>11044492 (me)

here's a letter I wrote to my rhetor in high school this spring break.
https://pastebin.com/xP9xaCLF

>>11044524
Thats pretty good anon. No idea what its about, but youre a good wordsmith

>>11044395
thigger

>>11044524
You're jampacking too much wordiness and imagery into too little space. I'm assuming you're OP cause you seem to suffer from the same problem as him. You have a lot of potential, though, like even exceptional potential, but you ought to learn some moderation. You're writing is like hitting someone over the head with a sledgehammer (not in a good way. Subtlety, understatement, and moderation will do you a lot of good.

>>11044524
>>11044559
this. total overkill

>>11044559
I do think baroqueness will ultimately be my demise (sorry for being ironic xD)
but ya you are right. It detracts from the message. the letter was to students of a high school rhetoric class, in that way it was deliberately rarefied, succulent for interpretation. But you are totally right, I've had the same feedback before

btw not op

>>11044559
OP here

Not me

>>11044329
The writing was great, but I think the metaphors for Emily were a little over the top.
Kind of feel like your skill is wasted on a tale of cuckoldry if I'm being honest.

>>11045712
Thanks anon

Im a bit of a homebody so i guess i need to experience more things

>>11044329
>Now, I want to make matters perfectly clear, come midnight you are to relieve your duties and assist me at my father's bedpost; he's off to greece for the weekend so pay no mind to any flaring anxieties during what I'm sure will be a fiery venture of the body. I am most serious anon, I not just want you to serenade me I want to be wanted more than any of your few material possesions. I am fully aware of how seldom money befalls you though insist on our matters being kept strictly frugal - I would be most pleased to explore any fetishes concerned with our carnal pleasures. Anon, I'm asking to be fucked. Please don't dissapoint me another night, this is an open invite, any man goes so they say. I shall be waiting up for you dear anon, and for this insist you come with haste, and then deliberation. But I'm sure you know the best men keep lidded till required. Ah, I digress, godspeed anon, my furtive love x
>Yours, Amelia (of our good graces)

>>11047085
Gay dude

What are you, a victorian era thot?

>>11047805
Yes

>>11044336
anyone else wanna critique this?

https://pastebin.com/3wtbijre

will give critique after i have received :)

>>11044329
>i am cute and harmless
>look how plodding and unassuming i am
>my inner world, despite not existing is just like this little kit
>please do not flog me anymore

>>11044329
I liked it

>>11044329
I see you are a Taking Back Sunday fan OP

>>11044329
You're not bad, you can write, but I agree with >>11044345
It also seems a bit overwritten. But you're not garbage. Keep working, it's good but not good enough.

>The next day i woke up to my beautiful wife, she had been working all night so it was a relief to finally see her again. Her name is Emily, she had perfect short brown hair, a skinny fragile body and blue eyes so entrancing they must have been connected to her soul. Her smile moved me, her kindness and generosity was unmatched by any i knew before. She was the reason for my faith, such a creature so perfect inside and out could never in a trillion years be created by pure chance. She was artwork of the divine, no question about it. Before i had my daughter Mary, i thought she would never be an equal to another woman. Our daughter is 10 years old and yet clearly already understands the virtues of her mother. She may be one of the only kids in the world who asks their dad how his day went more often than vice versa. She shares, loves, cares, never fights, and all her teachers love her. Even then i always felt like a loved outsider within my own family, i was always welcome yet stuck out like a sore thumb.
Its the first draft of the first thing i ever wrote so i know its hot garbage. Can any patrician please tell me my biggest flaw so i can work on fixing it on my second draft. For context the story is about a good boy who went mad and committed 7 horrible deeds over 7 days. On the final day he kills his wife and falls into a great depression. The story is basically his manifesto.

Gather 'round for the tailless tale
of the Machiavellian Romantic,
the touter of all is fair,
the unremitting reconciler of passions
drawn and quartered among the heart,
ventricles and atria of sweltering fervor!
Nervous and uncompromising, atomically steel.
The world sliced his chances by four years,
whispering sweet schizophrenic nothings of lust,
a lyre-lute duet of delirium and grandeur,
the phantasy of a future hormonally haltered!
Can't the Great Wall of uncertainty crumble
under the hatred of a separatist's love?
Can't he wield his Jedi Mind Tricks of wit
to part the Red Sea of Human Juice?
The answer to his conscious' questions
resound in the voice of Alex Trebek—
double jeopardy, double indemnity,
and one day, when the marathon ends,
double the self sandwiched in holy matrimony,
when the real is realized through the will to love,
power transubstantiated to the body of her,
the lesser of none, despair slain,
lanced away like windmill shaped melanoma
bearing fertile scars fecund with sanctity
and the no-holds-barred arrival at transcendence:
the end of the carmine trail of bad deeds
done in the name of his maiden: Aphrodite's Madame.

>>11050331
>stuck out like a sore thumb
I imagined him as a hitchhiker, thumb out and restless, waiting for years for an opportunity to leave his 'perfect' little life; unfortunately, it turns out you were invoking a simile and not imagery. Fucking lame.

>>11048237
Wait what?

>>11044329
are fat tigers replacing the tapir now?

>>11050739
no, tigers who allow their bodies to fall into ruins are denying themselves the cage-destroying power they are indued with

Anybody want to hear my Lolita inspired story?
https://pastebin.com/v6MSrifd

>>11044329
Kek at the ending.

>>11044492
This is a better edit IMO.

>reddit

More short prose. Thoughts?

Antithesis concluded unto the smoking end of my gun. White shirt against dark skin to blood dripping crimson flowers, flowing petals carried away o’er and onward the chilled Chicago breeze. Ice tendrils then to creep sickle cell snowflake, black as soot dilapidated asphalt redrag; back-alley brick and bits strewn about crunch to stained wallside, liver struck oozing ginger scented vice and sin. Bend knee and grasp the frigid embrace, falling with life to flourish old soil; compost which decomposes among the discarded things and dumpster sog.

What people fail to understand is that depression is not extreme sadness, but rather the absence of happiness. It's an important distinction to make that gets glossed over far too often.
A normal person can live with sorrow should they find a modicum of joy in their lives. A complete inability to feel happiness cannot be endured for long, as it erodes even the most tranquil of existences; a castle of sand in the rising tide.

>>11051546
Purple to the gills.

>>11051579
What people fail to understand is that depression is not an interesting topic, but rather the absence of anything to say. It's an important distinction to make that gets glossed over far too often.
A normal person can live with sorrow should they find an iota of joy in their lives. A complete inability to feel happiness cannot be endured for long, as it erodes even the most on fleek of existences; a castle of shmand in the rising tide.

>>11051546
I like chicago; I hope you don't like chicago.

>>11051582
Any thoughts on revision? I scrawled this on a notebook while waiting for class; I packed bored purple in excess.

>>11051615
I have literally no idea what this means. Are you saying it's bad, or that I paint Chicago in a bad light, or...? Less half-baked insults, more critique.

I ran into two young sisters from the Mormon church. During our conversation I began to entertain an idea which I had put aside many years ago. In the past I decided that I would not be swindled, I would not be conned, I would not submit, even at my lowest point, to something which I thought did not exist. Yet here, in front of the two young sisters I toyed with the idea. Why not give the church a shot? They were attractive, the Mormons have to know what they're doing. Its some form of sacrilege isn't it? Is it not? Tempting me in this way. Could I marry them both, I wondered? Stopping by the church wouldn't be so bad, they seem very nice, perhaps they're interested in me.

>>11051632
Your writing is pastiche of trash. I hope nothing I care for is associated with you.

It's a bright night of the soul,
the body's on Rumspringa,
mind facing Ausschluss—
can the vine wrap around itself?
It must, without structural support,
as the clouds hang on cobalt hangers
forged by Hephaestus' pet monkey
named Reeses, by Harlow and co.
Now the pastor points his microscope
at Margaret Thatcher's cunt-hairs,
one of them whispers strangulation mid-coitus,
exalting the bastinado welts of ecstasy
strewn along the floor humanity's den.
Excoriation disorder, the doctor quacks,
if you quit picking the zits will wilt
and you shall no longer need to reap
something sewn by existential stressors
like the dizziness of freedom,
or uncertainty of dusk, a donut of teeth
chomping down on my—who?—navel.
Blanket statements, blank slates meant
for smearing wildly with anxious ignorance
buried underneath a mountain of hot gas
sublimated into the sweat on your oh-so high-brow,
furrowed, Neanderthalic, tattooed with wrinkles—
the bumper to a mind driven by a half-tanned trucker
drunk on road rage, lugging unpaid payloads
to a landfill just outside Bentonville
where Bible's burn themselves using Mormon blood
blessing the earth with the seminal seed
manufactured by nuclear fusion: the sleepless cliche called love.

>>11051585
What now?

A swarm of stars took me by surprise last night.
And they asked me why the sky didn't want them anymore.
I told them the sky was enamoured with the cityscape lights, and they cried until they were no more.

>>11048230
Get a load of this asshole

>>11050331
Don't even try to refine "the first piece you ever wrote." You have to burn a lot of drafts before arriving at anything readable

>>11051051
Those tigers were grossly overfed and restrained from exercise

>>11051646
Keked. Too real, my main monkey

>>11050541
Lacks structure, heart. But only in the beginning. Lots of dry farts, collegecool glimmers. The economic use of language suggests eunuch, the sweetsongsingers of anon and bygone. Harmless, sad. Witch's-tit strikes a sunclock shadow of turpitude.

>>11051677
meh.

>>11051755
?

A ladder plunged us into a tunnel which led to the secret catacombs. We groped through the narrow passageways half-paralyzed like blind cave fish. Soon the ground softened into damp, dead earth and we were there. Skulls glowered everywhere in cavities. To the left a skeleton lay exposed in a tomb like a cipher, reeking of meaning. I gazed through its socketed helmet until looking through meant looking back into the self that fear has prevented me from becoming. I found it difficult to swallow. I wondered if they were a drinker like my mother.

>>11051917
What???

>>11044414
who's tony?

The context of this speech is this: an elderly leader from a provincial mountain village of Afghanistan is urging some of the young men of the place to take up kalashnikovs and save a Taliban lord that is being held hostage by 3 US soldiers in a barn.

A great snowstorm was formed and is coming down upon the mountain. The elderly muslim sees the wrath of Allah in the storm and makes a speech to fuel the wills of his young students.

The original is in Portuguese. I will post my free translation first, and then the original text.

KALA KHAN: Look at the horizon: it is the heart of Allah
That was cut opened: hatred bubbles out from his chest.
Grayish and angry, the skies foam snow;
The winds show their canines, their claws,
Ripping and chewing the world into distortion.
The air, roaring and growling, screaming and howling,
Unbones the trunks of the pines, steal the leaves
From the trees, the gale dresses himself in green,
An emerald ghost slapping the streets.
Lightning invades the eclipse of the atmosphere:
His pale beak, his sparkling nails
Excavate the dark and gnaw night like a liver.
The clouds of lead that have docked on the heavens
Are like colossal mountains that breathe,
In which the bears of the windwhirls sleep.
This is the language of Allah when infuriated:
The appalling architecture of the tempests.

KALA KHAN: Observem o horizonte: é o coração de Alá
Que foi aberto: o ódio borbulha de seu tórax.
Cinzentos e raivosos, os céus espumam neve;
Os ventos mostram seus caninos, suas garras,
Rasgando e mastigando o mundo em distorção.
O ar, rugindo e roncando, gritando e uivando,
Desossa os troncos dos pinheiros, rouba as folhas
Das árvores; o vendaval se veste em verde,
Um fantasma esmeralda a esbofetear as ruas.
O relâmpago invade o eclipse da atmosfera:
Seu bico pálido, suas unhas cintilantes
Escavam o breu, roem a noite feito fígado.
As nuvens de chumbo que nos céus atracaram
São como colossais montanhas que respiram,
Nas quais dormem os ursos dos redemoinhos.
Essa é a linguagem de Alá enfurecido:
A pavorosa arquitetura das tormentas.

This is my third time posting on /lit/, I am still a beginner. I might expand on this but I felt I should, for now, leave it as is.
Dog
>I pierced a gaze into his shallow, black eyes
>I saw nothing, and it somehow angered me
>that such a stupid smile could ever be found

>>11052437
His eyes are as shallow as your poem.

>>11052437
>saying mean things about dogs

0/10 never going to make it

Indifferent shelves, verdant with knowledge,
poetry, fingerprints, etc.

Behind me,
one, like a treebranch,
idly perceiving
whatever sleeps under it:
Me

Me: collection of wooden stalks
decorated as a langorous man.
Reclined on a seagreen sofa,
turning pages, not rly gettin it,
liking the pretty words.

A couple spaces to the left,
a herd: white blocks of meat, about 10.
Came to the library to yell
for some reason.

Like a bitter gardener leering
at the children who play outside
and step on her lilacs to
retrieve the straying football.
I watch then
And
Mumble something backwards...


Tufts of violets, honeysuckle, and white crocuses
buldge from their mouths and eyesockets.

I go back to not reading.

>>11050696
Late humans associate their online id with cute animals, apu apustaja, little kids making cute faces, stick figure smiley face characters and moe anime girls because they are afraid of conflict and have a near vacant inner world which is like that of a child, they are only in need of suckling on a teat from some libidinous dispensor and are basically incapable of dealing with rejection or a nondescript/abstract sense or world and self, hence they mimic familiar, low stress, high acceptance environments by conjuring up cute figures like baby animals. the reason ugly adults want to use these pictures is because they are incapable of owning their identity as sexual, violent and spiritual entities. being a tapir kid or a lion cub or tiger cub or a fat house pet or a moe girl, all of whom have no responsibility and are in a position of general peace with nature appeal to them precisely because plodding, complacent, libidinous vacancy is their ethos. they have no other way of dealing with stress than faux neoteny. The arrested development of the ego disallows the kind of associations an adult would make. you can easily tell which threads were made by which age group and what generation, by the style of images posted, specifically pertaining to identifying neotenous archetypes. gen z and millenials are uncomfortable with being fully human, and thus having their status as non-combatants revoked.

Indifferent shelves, verdant with knowledge,
poetry, fingerprints, etc.

Behind me,
one, like a treebranch,
idly perceiving
whatever sleeps under it:
Me

Me: collection of wooden stalks
decorated as a langorous man.
Reclined on a seagreen sofa,
turning pages, not rly gettin it,
liking the pretty words.

A couple spaces to the left,
a herd: white blocks of meat, about 10.
Came to the library to yell
for some reason. >:(

Like a bitter gardener leering
at the children who play outside
and step on her lilacs to
retrieve the straying football.
I watch them
And
Mumble something backwards...


Tufts of violets, honeysuckle, and white crocuses
buldge from their mouths and eyesockets.

I go back to not reading.

>>11053120
This is one of the best posts I've read on 4chan because it's true.

As soft pink dewy sunrise gleams
Through dampened grassy plains
It mottles wooly clumps of brume
And glints the falling rain.

Beneath the murk: a muted lake.
A fisherman's still wand
Is held above the mossy pool
Absorbed by lupine dawn.

Atop the water: dusky curls
Mistaken for some pest
Arise and pose a sable femme;
He blushed at her mauve breasts.

>>>/mu/79632587
What I have written here is oddly profound, in its own way.

>>11053120
Huh? I picked a fat tiger because it was funny. What the actual fuck crack have you been smoking

>>11053191
based

>>11053372
yeah what the fuck lel
>late humans
this is alan watts-tier pseudiness

A small piece of my diary.

July 14th 2017 - 23:24

Every day is a torment after the other. My life has been a little more than that disconcerting melancholy I described here once; it is now some kind of livid and constant despair. I wish that this pain were more tangible, palpable, as is the pain of the sick who goes to the doctor and says "it's here doc, it's here that hurts" as he points to his liver, writhing around the painful organ. Because he knows where and what hurts. His attention is focused there, on this physical space, with all his strength and expectations. Mend the sick part, or perform a transplant, and all will be well; and if it's not treatable, even better, because death will surely come. It is often better to wait for certain death than to suffer with no expectation of relief. I have hit the doors of nonexistence, I have put the rope around my neck, and by a miracle I survived; if it happens again, by God, I don't know if I will be able to keep my feet on the ground.

>>11052342
Lucky me, coming here and seeing a portuguese post.

I am almost 100% sure I have read your work before. Did you publish Hino Ao Vazio? I really liked your style.

And this one you posted excels in quality like the rest of your work. You build a strong image of Allah in the storm along with the feeling of rage in the character, without losing the fluidity of the verses. Really, really good. Is there somewhere I can read more?

I think I'm retarded. I spent six months lurking and still forgot to post in the critique thread. Thanks to whoever gave me the heads up.
Anyway, I just wrote this like an hour ago. I've never had any feedback on my fiction writing other than "it's good", so I decided to post a sample of my writing here so I can know what to improve. Any and all criticism is welcome. Thanks.

https://pastebin.com/hW19nsXb

Thanks to whoever let me know that there's a critique thread going on. I looked for it and I guess I missed it. I wrote this as a sample for criticism, as I haven't written a ton of fiction. Your criticism is much appreciated.

https://pastebin.com/hW19nsXb

Benji loves this little Thai place in Midtown, where you can sit on the patio. We went there one day. I think it may have been May.
“That’s hard to swallow,” Benji protested.
I had just finished telling him about the galactic war and how Earth got caught in the middle.
“What part? That we have a secret space program?”
Benji looked at me with the eyes of existential dread.
“No, I mean the part where our whole history is a lie and how extraterrestrials have been using our solar system as a pit stop and how we’re basically just a zoo for a crazy form of extraterrestrial reality TV.”
Oh, that.
“Well, yeah, I guess.”
I think I forgot how to communicate with people. I felt very detached from the whole situation. There was just no explaining any of this to anyone. You’d have to start from square one, really. BOOM. Everything you know is a lie. Any questions?
“Ok look, I’m just writing this science fiction story, Benji,” I deflected.
Benji’s existential crisis evaporated. His eyes snapped back from his thousand yard stare.
“It’s too convoluted. It just isn’t realistic.”
You sorry son of a bitch, I thought. If only you knew.


Is this any good?

>>11054499

Sounds cliché, but I really like the conversational style, specifically in the first paragraph. Instead of just being like "Benji and I went to a some thai restaurant," it's kinda stretched out, but without sounding too "fluffy."

>>11054538
By cliché, I mean my description, not your writing by the way

Didn’t see her coming
Burn headed, and pale
So I says, “Alright
I’ll says you’re male”

Cried out, he did
Injustice, hatred
Names wrong, boss gone
Held my kid

Not bad, that guy
Lost boy, gone girl
Felt bad, seen him cry
Male toy - fem Roy

“You aint what you is
Or ever gonna be
Why care” Blank stare
Get along, get all wrong

>>11054499
Sentence structure is stale. As in
>X did this
Boring characters insecure about themselves. Dialogue starts in the middle with little context. Subject completely seems beyond you.
I don't think this one's it my friend.

When I used to work in a deli, this one dude came in all the time to spiel his conspiracy theories about aliens. He was a facinating man, hard to follow sometimes. Not insecure in the least. Try something a bit more polarizing with characters worth talking about. This is just boring.

>>11054489
Oh his 1996 Ford Taurus? Huh, maybe think about actually me about the characters rather than just dropping your super deep knowledge of American sedans on me. There's no urgency, your language and prose are just boring as all hell.
>he gulch was about two hours past the southern city limits of Ephraim, Missouri. Johnny’s crony Niccolò was filling his 1996 Ford Taurus with cheap gas when Johnny and the rest of his crew walked up. They piled in and took off. Niccolò consistently, with the precision of a machine, drove twenty five miles over the speed limit the entire time, just to scare Milo.
Did you even get through this yourself without falling asleep? They drove twenty miles over the speed limit the entire time?
>Smug teethy lips rattled out something unfuckingintellible as they hit 60; 70 when the rev of lead came on; 80 when the lead shook; 90 and the whole world evaporated behind them in some fantastical dream of forgetting.

Pretty bad. What do you want me to critique? Is this a beginning, a middle, a beginning middle? I don't care about your sample. Maybe write something you care enough about to write at length about.

a bit of free verse, tear me apart please

https://pastebin.com/rC25XRgD

>>11053120
who hurt you anon

>>11054636
Thanks for the feedback. I tried to use the car as a quick early exposition for the character. I figured if he has a cheap old car, the reader might form an idea of the character in their mind. Should I give up on that idea?

>>11054757
No definitely not. If you fleshed out the idea a bit more, maybe having the character call it his shitbox or something, you'd have a more compelling description for both the setting--the car--and the character. My idea of it would be something like:
>The crony, Johnny's boy, Niccolo, he gassed his 1996 shitbox--The Taurus bucking unassumed courtesy President Gerald Rudolph Ford, the fucker--and then it was Johnny's crew piling in unaffectionate close affection squeezing balls.
But that's just my shit, like your shit, it's all shit and we're in a /lit/ crit thread. Just have some passion and enjoy writing.

If my writing is on a Facebook page would it be okay to just link the specific post I want critiqued? It's quite a lot.

>>11054845
Hey, thanks for the help, man. I appreciate it.

>>11054853
Post it

Zurbarán's "Still Life with Lemons, Oranges and a Rose"

Purity in stillness, stillness in purity,
Revelation of form, clarity of colour,
The beautiful harmony of composition,
The balance of corporeal essences.
It's as though the world is created,
By the devotion of an artist,
With the affection of a lover.

>>11054653
>https://pastebin.com/rC25XRgD
Really good, but I think here you make a mistake

>Domain? Cursed nomenclature!
>It is an empire built of dust; indifferent

"Nomenclature" is the wrong word. It doesn't fit with the diction you've been using; it sticks out as academic whereas the rest of the language you've used is only literary. Also, you say "cursed nomenclature" to describe the word "Domain", but then you substitute "domain" with "empire", which is just as much a high and dignified word. Why not something like "it is a pit of dust", or cave, or den, or lair?
The other criticism I have is that the poem is TOO sympathetic to the minotaur and doesn't at all describe his bloodthirstiness or inhumanity.

https://pastebin.com/3wtbijre i've continued a little bit and i'm afraid it has become ridiculous. Would someone be able to give this a look?

>>11051755
Good. You should find another word than "swarm" for "swarm of stars", as "swarm" makes them sound unfriendly whereas actually you are in sympathy with them.

>>11044336

Here's my comment on "Thoughts on the Plotinian Great chain of being"

Incorrect and merely snobbish when it comes to ordinary people worshiping God. Just because they don't have a "higher, intellectual conception of the Deity" does not mean that ordinary people cannot distinguish between the Supreme Being / God and a mere guardian angel / spirit. All our thoughts about God - even the "higher, intellectual" thoughts - utterly fail in comprehending His Being; but God accepts these as an offering anyway, because even if they don't fully or always accurately describe Him, He understand that they are intended for Him and He accepts the good intention. Plus, there is no opposition to the immensity of God's Being and His divine care & affection for lesser beings whom He does indeed watch over as a "divine guardian".

You're right that there is no contradiction between worshiping God and lesser beings, but there is an essential distinction. The Jews were right to insist on that distinction (between the Uncreated Divine and the lesser spirits who are only servants) and the pagans (whether superstitious folk or patheistic intellectuals) were wrong to apply unequivocally the name of divinity to limited beings.

"And the multitude of men, carried away by the beauty of the work, took him now for a god that a little before was but honoured as a man. And this was the occasion of deceiving human life: for men serving either their affection, or their kings, gave the incommunicable name to stones and wood. And it was not enough for them to err about the knowledge of God, but whereas they lived in a great war of ignorance, they call so many and so great evils peace. For either they sacrifice their own children, or use hidden sacrifices, or keep watches full of madness, So that now they neither keep life, nor marriage undefiled, but one killeth another through envy, or grieveth him by adultery: And all things are mingled together, blood, murder, theft and dissimulation, corruption and unfaithfulness, tumults and perjury, disquieting of the good, Forgetfulness of God, defiling of souls, changing of nature, disorder in marriage, and the irregularity of adultery and uncleanness. For the worship of abominable idols is the cause, and the beginning and end of all evil."

In the Catholic Church, the saints and angels are rightly worshiped/venerated under God, but the distinction is still made between worshiping God Almighty and these lesser "gods". God is not just the first link in a "chain of being" - He transcends all Being, which is why St. Dionysius says in his Mystical Theology:

". . . In the diligent exercise of mystical contemplation, leave behind the senses and the operations of the intellect, and all things sensible and intellectual, and all things in the world of being and nonbeing, that you may arise by unknowing towards the union, as far as is attainable, with it that transcends all being and all knowledge."

>>11051755

Loved this one, especially the last line.

What writers do you like to read, Anon?

>>11051755
It's decent and genuinely cute.
>>11053131
Lad what's going on here? The drop from high register to meme language doesn't work at all, and even the high register is boring and stilted:
'Idly perceiving' is easy classy, matter of fact and dull, 'verdant with knowledge' lacks expressiveness imo.
'not rly getting it' 'liking the pretty words' it's not even a juxtaposition its like you suddenly fell into a mud puddle and in the next stanza spring up like nothing happened; if I'm missing please something tell me.
Also wtf are you doing with those emojis, why are you trying to be 'internety' this poem doesn't lend itself to that at all imo. The last stanza's just wafts on without substance. I liked your closing line but think it deserves better, this reads like it was written lazily and I think you can do better anon. Thanks for sharing. Keep writing.

Postin:

'The Half Sisters of Sylvia Plath'

O Sylvia, you gifted hag,
look at the succubi you've spawned
now we can all tender sweet nothings
while cooing inside our shells.

I confess, I am spinchterless
So have at me, Carol Ann Duffy.
Don't forget, tis not all sex,
cum angst
or burdered father fueds.

They all confess labial blues
abound a field of taunted flint.
As little bees puncture the fumes
they skirt to them with nails like scythes.

Go hang your tulips, hang yourselves
above the threat of tumenescene!
Preach approaches are enchroachments
to crowds blind to backward eyes.

'I I I I, I need voice!'
'This throat clearing won't do it!
I must earnestly resist myself!'
and pepper lungworms with her blood.

Of course words aren't spun in vacuums
but great conmen sheathe their hands
Now hers -- ( our pedant's cod and clam)
is skill of taint and subterfuge.

Oh Sylvia, what have you done
Why lend indignance to these brats
--- (This August of dog sodden carpet) ---
What Jury would blame flagellants
who drown in sun draped point of view.

The gaze of men? A galiance?
A Gall to object detect shit?
I know you hear me Sylvia,
I can hear you nod through them.

>>11051755
It's decent and genuinely cute.
>>11053131
Lad what's going on here? The drop from high register to meme language doesn't work at all, and even the high register is boring and stilted:
'Idly perceiving' is easy classy, matter of fact and dull, 'verdant with knowledge' lacks expressiveness imo.
'not rly getting it' 'liking the pretty words' it's not even a juxtaposition its like you suddenly fell into a mud puddle and in the next stanza spring up like nothing happened; if I'm missing please something tell me.
Also wtf are you doing with those emojis, why are you trying to be 'internety' this poem doesn't lend itself to that at all imo. The last stanza's just wafts on without substance. I liked your closing line but think it deserves better, this reads like it was written lazily and I think you can do better anon. Thanks for sharing. Keep writing.

Postin:

'The Half Sisters of Sylvia Plath'

O Sylvia, you gifted hag,
look at the succubi you've spawned
now we can all tender sweet nothings
while cooing inside our shells.

I confess, I am spinchterless
So have at me, Carol Ann Duffy.
Don't forget, tis not all sex,
cum angst
or burdered father fueds.

They all confess labial blues
abound a field of taunted flint.
As little bees puncture the fumes
they skirt to them with nails like scythes.

Go hang your tulips, hang yourselves
above the threat of tumescence!
Preach approaches are enchroachments
to crowds blind to backward eyes.

'I I I I, I need voice!'
'This throat clearing won't do it!
I must earnestly resist myself!'
and pepper lungworms with her blood.

Of course words aren't spun in vacuums
but great conmen sheathe their hands
Now hers -- ( our pendant's cod and clam)
is skill of taint and subterfuge.

Oh Sylvia, what have you done
Why lend indignance to these brats
--- (This August of dog sodden carpet) ---
What Jury would blame flagellants
who drown in sun draped point of view?

The gaze of men? A galiance?
A Gall to object detect shit?
I know you hear me Sylvia,
I can hear you nod through them.

>>11051755
It's decent and genuinely cute.
>>11053131
Lad what's going on here? The drop from high register to meme language doesn't work at all, and even the high register is boring and stilted:
'Idly perceiving' is easy classy, matter of fact and dull, 'verdant with knowledge' lacks expressiveness imo.
'not rly getting it' 'liking the pretty words' it's not even a juxtaposition its like you suddenly fell into a mud puddle and in the next stanza spring up like nothing happened; if I'm missing please something tell me.
Also wtf are you doing with those emojis, why are you trying to be 'internety' this poem doesn't lend itself to that at all imo. The last stanza's just wafts on without substance. I liked your closing line but think it deserves better, this reads like it was written lazily and I think you can do better anon. Thanks for sharing. Keep writing.

Postin:

'The Half Sisters of Sylvia Plath'

O Sylvia, you gifted hag,
look at the succubi you've spawned
now we can all tender sweet nothings
while cooing inside our shells.

I confess, I am spinchterless
So have at me, Carol Ann Duffy.
Don't forget, tis not all sex,
cum angst
or burdered father fueds.

They all confess labial blues
around a field of taunted flint.
As little bees puncture the fumes
they skirt to them with nails like scythes.

Go hang your tulips, hang yourselves
above the threat of tumescence!
Preach approaches are enchroachments
to crowds blind to backward eyes.

'I I I I, I need voice!'
'This throat clearing won't do it!
I must earnestly resist myself!'
and pepper lungworms with her blood.

Of course words aren't spun in vacuums
but great conmen sheathe their hands
Now hers -- ( our pendant's cod and clam)
is skill of taint and subterfuge.

Oh Sylvia, what have you done
Why lend indignance to these brats
--- (This August of dog sodden carpet) ---
What Jury would blame flagellants
who drown in sun draped point of view?

The gaze of men? A galiance?
A Gall to object detect shit?
I know you hear me Sylvia,
I can hear you nod through them.

>>11055640
You are fucking retarded. Don't give advice.

>>11055838
Whoops galliance at the end should be
*valiance

>>11055640
i agree, don't give advice

>>11044329
i truely enjoyed it
really love the metaphors, becasue beside sitting in room with crush theres so much going on in characters head

>>11055838
Embarrassingly bad. Your petty grievances and insecurity are manifest even though the heap of overwrought doggerel.

Delete all your documents, burn your notebooks and start again.

>>11055866
Fair enough anon, I just wrote it and didn't leave time to reflect I think, you're right it must reveal insecurities and was really a work of contempt over anything, thanks for being honest, I needed that, will work harder.

>>11044329
This is not throwing plates, how
you ask me. Too late for that.
This is a whisper dissection. This

is a beggar’s hand in my mouth.
This is the quiet I forget in, shy
hiss of the gas left on. Wish with

this. This decanted antidote
isn’t fit for everyday use, you
with this inevitability, this

mimetic healing from behind
windows. This only on the road
minutes at a time, this falling

pose and these docile headlights
letting the water in a little,
this as you tell me. This world

you assembled. Your hand in me
that broke the surface, breaks,
these wars are worse than accidents.

>>11052437
Okay... I tried expanding on it in an attempt to make it less shallow and in hope to nail down what I was feeling at the moment that triggered this poem
>I hate your shallow eyes
>your blissful smile makes me
>downright sick and angry
>Because- no matter how hard I try
>You will never witness
>The Earth spinning my head

>>11054238
>I am almost 100% sure I have read your work before. Did you publish Hino Ao Vazio? I really liked your style.

Yes, that was me. Thank you so much for your kind words. They mean a lot.

>Is there somewhere I can read more?

I have finished another play and self-published on Amazon (I knew I wasn’t going to find a publisher for a 700 pages verse play). If you want to see more, this is the link:

https://www.amazon.com.br/Sombra-Sobre-Trono-Poema-Dram%C3%A1tico-ebook/dp/B077CWSRYJ/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

(The price of the physical copy is very high, but it’s not my fault: I selected the smallest price available for a book of that size, however the conversion of dollars to reais makes the thing very costly).

The excerpt I posted above is from a play I am working on right now. It is a mixture of the stories of Malala and Antigone. I am currently making a prose sketch of the whole thing, of all the scenes. I want to make a small play, one that can be performed. My greatest sin is prolixity. This time I established a limit of a maximum size of 3100 lines (it would take something like two and a half hours to perform, maybe three hours).

My previous method of work was go straight to verse, and without much of a skeleton of the scenes and acts. Then the plays were, in the end, more akin to a collection of poems held together by a weak narrative than an actual organic drama. One thing that helped me a lot to redefine my ways of working was the famous book “Story”, by Robert McKee: the man truly deserves his reputation.

I have not versified the prose sketches, only the small bit that I posted above. When I finish the prose version and start to model the dialogue and speeches in verse (I am using 12-syllable poetic lines now, instead of the 10-syllable I used in the past) I will post them more frequently here on /lit/.

After finishing this new tragedy I plan to write a novel. The literary market for plays is a disaster; novels are the new thing, and I guess I will give them a try (will have to read a lot to learn how to work on this new form).

Thank you ounce again for your support.

>>11056022
Every time I read anything written by a friend or someone I know somewhat closely, even when they are great writers with a lot of experience "eles acabam deixando a bola cair". I see that in my own work as well, but yours has a consistency that I really enjoy. I first found your work here, when you posted this excerpt:

[...]
Caso você pudesse arremessar
O seu anzol no inferno e um dos dragões
Pescasse, então iria ver ver que o mal
Tem dois olhos, dois braços, duas pernas,
Que tem coração, rins, pulmões, estômago,
Que não tem asas, garras ou escamas,
Mas pele mole e quente, que ele fala,
Que come, bebe e dorme, como nós,
O que é natural: nós somos o mal.
Satã é tedioso, desbotado,
Veste roupas comuns, é nosso espelho.
Se existe inferno, nós somos sua prole;
Nós meramente abrimos os bueiros,
Escalamos o esgoto e aqui, na Terra,
Fundamos novo inferno, novo Tártaro.
[...]

And you continue to improve. I don't want to be pessimistic, and I'm probably telling you something you already know, but plays are "useless" these days, even more in our country. The few people who read plays only read the classics. I don't think anything should be written only to be sold; aesthetic perfection should always be the main goal. I think of it like Hesse did in Steppenwolf: the greatest works of humanity, such as Beethoven's String Quartets and Shakespeare exist in another plane of existence. The fact that they CAN exist is enough, needing neither appreciation nor retribution. But still, you should focus on what sells more and allows more people to find your work: novels. And you should also write poetry, maybe a sonnet book. I'd buy that.

Also, look for the group "Segredos da Ficção" on Facebook. There are a lot of good novel writers there who helped me a lot to learn how to ACTUALLY write. Most of these groups are composed of people who don't actually know how to write and think that "quality is subjective, you should write only to yourself", but not this one. You look like you know a lot about literature, but maybe you can find something interesting there.

Okay, giving it another shot- still not feeling completely satisfied with this one yet
>The sound of boots thundering
>throughout the cold narrow halls
>have been heard in dead silence
>since the dawn of man's hard cock
>However, they are quite strong
>These soldiers- they all make it
>on their pilgrimage to the
>Promised land

>>11051579
God this is so tryhard either write WELL or write simply.

>>11051579
Whoops this >>11056157 was meant for >>11051546

>>11055838


Ya it was written pretty lazily it's meant to be more like a diary entry than anything serious I just posted it impulsively knowing it wasn't good but wanting to see what people thought of it.

Your poem isn't as bad as the other anon said it was. The content is really just unappealing and grossly masculine. You have good diction but the way you use it feels anachronistic. You should try to write like you're living in the 21st century, not like an early 20th century misogynisgic modernist with his head up his ass. Potential is there of course, cheers.

Rate my poetry

I'd never lie to you
Unless I had to
I'll do what I got to
Unless I had to
I'll do what I go to, the truth
Is you could slit my throat
And with my one last gasping breath
I'd apologize for bleeding on your shirt

>>11051832
Your opinions are dull and empty

>>11052342
Really excellent

>>11052437
>>11056018
Really bad desu. Cutesy without being cute, horribly cliche phrases and "imagery".

>>11055593
Completely plain and underwhelming. It reads like youre just going through the motions.

Call me a faggot and rape my poem daddy


In the riggidy house on top of the hill
please stop as I near.
We’ll spin on pointed shoes right on till morning
muscles and sinews bound over skeletal frames
and you’ll ask me, why?
Why not?
We are puzzle pieces.
Jammed into place. Cardboard tearing,
feeling pressure like an ocean overhead
but staring up with defiant eyes.
We’ll sit as stone, cold and motionless
until our seams burst and we spill into the light
pooling over the nightstand and dripping onto the floor.
For if the shoe fits I’ll wear it, though a size small.
Bending my toes.
Binding them hunchbacked and lovely and
cracking under each step
harmonious with the creaking of candle lit halls
crying out in duet
for you,
for home.

>>11056803
it's spelled *rickety
by "pointed shoes" do you mean 'tippy-toes'? All shoes technically point?
"right on" adds nothing on the third line
why say "skeletal frames" instead of 'skeleton'?
Why what? why spin? the question must follow something of significance
Did you really just use the 'puzzle piece' metaphor? This is beyond tried—convicted and executed.
I stopped there, literally couldn't force myself to read the rest
Don't quit your day job.

>>11054653
I like this. Some of the words are a bit mundane though. Keep writing anon, reach beyond this.
>>11053131
The maymays are off-putting, but I understand the contrast you were going for. Me like

I typed this yesterday afternoon.

I look out of the window of my bedroom and I see:
The damp weight of the forest after a spring rain, and
the grayed sunlight only hinting at shadows within it.
The soaked trees seem more somber, but just as full of life
mature in that healthy way of a young man who has been through more than his age tells.
They do not intimidate, but they do not attract.
They welcome advances, but do not invite.
The wind flutters them about as though sending an uncontrollable current of emotion through a stoic.

The heather-gray sky looks down on the goats repopulating the shorn grass
speckled with bitter-tasting buttercups.
It is not really pure grass but a diverse expanse
of buttercup, dandelion, clover and other weeds.
But who draws the line between weed and non-weed here?
Surely to the goat, some weeds taste better than non-weeds
and some of the adorable buttercups are offensive to the palate.
But the human sees with human eyes and human discrimination,
with human will and human influence perverting his judgment,
The goat only feels.

I don't like the second half as much as the first.

>>11056901

Thanks for that. Yeah I wrote it pretty quickly in the library just being bored. I didn't realize it came off so memey I fully put ">:(" because I didn't know what else to express with I was like uhh "grrr?" But anyway. Your poem is beautiful. I love this imagery you've got some really nice diction and it flows very smoothly. Ya the second stanza isn't as strong as the first because it kind of just feels like unnecessary rambling. It could be fixed though, maybe include something more poignant. Keep it up though, it's funny it reminds me of another poem that I actually included in this thread earlier but got no replies for (ironically the shittier one I posted gets all the replies):

As soft pink dewy sunrise gleams
Through dampened grassy plains
It mottles wooly clumps of brume
And glints the falling rain.

Beneath the murk: a muted lake.
A fisherman's still wand
Is held above the mossy pool
Absorbed by lupine dawn.

Atop the water: dusky curls
Mistaken for some pest
Arise and pose a sable femme;
He blushed at her mauve breasts.


I think our styles are somewhat similar. Who are your influences?

>>11057048
The trees outside my window were pretty much the only influences I can name. I don't generally like poetry (though I haven't read much of it that's actually good) and I didn't consider what I wrote to be poetry. I do like Baudelaire, but I haven't picked up Flowers of Evil since like three years ago. I can't remember it at all, so I can't claim that as an influence. I have always read a LOT of books since I was a child, so that probably ingrained in me that relationship with the English language that allows me to write well.

When you say "beneath the murk", what is the murk? The gray sky? Also, the naked woman (what I'm assuming femme is) seems to pop out of nowhere. Is that a metaphor? What are the "dusky curls" on top of the water? Is it morning mist? Overall cozy piece, I can see and feel the landscape you're describing pretty well. I like it. Don't get too obscure with your words and metaphors if you want to paint a clear picture for your reader.

>>11057048
>>11057123
God, I forgot to ask you who your influences are. That would be nice considering I haven't read much good poetry, assuming your influences are [good] poets.

>>11057123
>>11057132

You're a natural talent then. I encourage you to read more poetry to help cultivate that. William Carlos Williams is a big influence of mine. Imagism in general I'm pretty into. Hilda Doolittle, Pound, the sort. Recently been reading Rilke and very in love with it.

As for the poem, well, it's gifled "A Fisherman Meets A Mermaid". The murk is fog. The dusky girls are the woman's hair, it's an afro and it pokes out above the lake before she shows herself to him. I think it's less confusing with the title involved though I'm not sure.

>>11057344

Woops I meant to say "titled" and "dusky curls" but yeah. Fisherman sees a black mermaid chick.

>>11057344
Oh wow. Very nice, the title definitely completes the image. Thanks for the authors, I will check them out for sure.

>>11051755
Woah

Horizon

O plane Mediterranean,
median water meditated,
wrinkles of longitudes moored,
waves on the elongated pond.

Tide, lunar cage, why are you running away,
at night, under the centenary eye of the turtle,
and longs the lagoon shelled
with foam, blunt blade, scenting the air.

Semaphore, faith enlightens man encor,
as a drop of gold in my soul darkened,
crimping the obsidian vault hardened.

The horizon keeps me.

>>11044329
Okay, look — I'm about to enter into this poetry contest that is run by the nu-critics (whereas it used to be run by the New Critics). I expect that they'll want enjambment and all the stuff that's popular, so can anyone tell me if this poem is worth a damn (even in Rupi Kaur terms)?

>>11055680
I'm actually a monotheist. I just like to explore perspectives outside of my own. See the About page. Thanks for the feedback. Any other entries you want to comment on?

>>11057683

No it's not a very good contemporary poem. It's not stylish like Rupi Kaur so there's nothing to carry the dullness of the theme. Write about something you actually care about and believe in.

>>11044329
>https://pastebin.com/pJXDMa1E

Small critique: would change cacophony when describing the clashing colours of the leaves. A cacophony refers specifically to sound, even though in the context of the sentence I know what you mean.

>>11044524

>When the tree is mutilated into paper, we may sacrifice and give offering by drenching our sheets with the ambrosia of brilliant thought.

I like that line.

The dream
leaning, the periwinkle neck deftly aligned,
as her nacred neck divides her dimmed shoulder,
she sleeps, hands caressing death at the tip of the fingers,
and dreamy balance her golden hair, the well off,

smile on the lips, the honey of forgetfulness she tastes it,
naked breast, seeming to give the milk of the awakening,
and the moon no doubt half wordedly jealous of her whiteness out of this world,
with the peaceful complexion of a living dead at the gates of sleep.

This is a poem about the painting of Picasso called the Dream. I'm writing a collection of poetry based on paintings for inspiration that follow a timeline.
For exemple, I chose The Dream, Dormant by Paul Klee, then Sunrise by Monet, Sketch for a Cup of Milk by Kandinsky, and so on...
I write in french, and translate it in english myself, though some is lost in translation, I believe. I'd take any advice, and comment on this collection idea. Thanks.

She had eyes
Two of them
That I could see
They were transparent
As the ocean
And twice as teeming
Beneath them were cheeks
Rosier than roses
Sweaty and clenched in labor
Seven years in the future
Now, her lips lilted luridly
An opera of quiet words
By themselves unremarkable
Like ashes from Alexandria
But like anything musical
These lone notes
Beauteous they may be
[Pictionary: pulchritude!]
Couldn't hold a match
To their earth-shattering sum:
A band of ineffables in concert
Playing the only instrument that exists—

Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum

Tickle-Me Elmo: shot dead at 32.
A devoted steward of Sesame St.
Fixture within the community.
Dude talked shit.
Dude got hit.

America: self-immolation at 306.
Check your local library,
Or the online world database,
www.UzbekGlobal.com,
For details.

Your old man: when you least expect it.
Never forget the day's coming,
The day he goes,
Leaving you—hopefully—to be an old man yourself,
Else evolution waste 4 billion years
On your impotent ass.

>>11044329
Twohundred voices break into song,
A low, but thunderous hum
Signals daybreak, the anemic sun
A trite, banal, and trivial poem,
Like the turning of a wheel
Like the unwinding of a spring
For there is no meaning there
but what you choose to sing.

this is our destined fate
the time for us to ascend
a taste of joy and woe
the time of our own end

So keep on fighting more
though your spirit seeks to shrive
and keep on fighting for
the passions that you strive
your heart will push you onwards
until your destined time.

why do you breath in deep?
for what else you face this strife?
what reason else you keep?
Why would you treasure life?

And no eternal tale
of city of your birth
will last beyond your home
all buried under earth,
this is our time of death
and fight on ever more
just for the taste of breath.

This is something I am working on. I really like this part.

>>11058073
It is really bizarre to see someone else modify and reuse own poetry you wrote on an anonymous image board. I have no comment but here is the original:

This is the yeast of Pan
this is your time of death
and fight on ever more
just for the taste of breath

the turning of a wheel
unwinding of a spring
there is no meaning there
but what you choose to sing

this is your destined fate
the time that you ascend
a taste of joy and woe
the time of your own end

so keep on fighting more
though no ones left alive
and keep on fighting for
the passions that you strive

this is your time of dawn
why do you breath in deep
for what else do you fight
what reason else you keep?

good men are killed in youth
the moment of their prime
your heart moves you onwards
until your destined time

and no eternal tale
of city of your birth
will last beyond your home
all buried under earth

so keep on fighting for
the beating of your heart
the passion of your soul
possessed by Cupid's dart

This is the yeast of Pan
this is your time of death
and fight on ever more
just for the taste of breath

>>11044336
great stuff

>>11059499

>>11059504
I really liked the androgyny blog post

>>11059499
>>11059511
ey man, thanks. Let me know if you got any specific critiques.

The Jezebelposting problem had intensified, and threatened to consume the entire board. The meteoric rise in Jezebels coincided with an inverse and proportional fall in posting quality; the precipitous decline was inevitable, but one could scarcely have predicted it would have come with an army of jpg. succubi. The old guard resigned itself to the board's fate, and many left so as to avoid the full extent of the downfall. Those who remained cried out in anguish each time they were confronted with another lurid jezebel starring daringly at them from their computer screens. "STOP posting jezebels!" they exclaimed, cock in one hand and mouse in the other. It is one thing to have an unsuccessful love life, but it is an entirely different thing to be reminded of that failure when simply trying to discuss whether DFW would have an iPad if he were alive today. If some had their way, literature would be as sexless as they were- or at least literature boards. Regardless, the puritanical chorus raised the issue in every thread started with a vivacious young woman wearing form-fitting dresses or athletic shorts revealing an excessive amount of thigh. "Stop posting bare cute feet!" blurted one beleaguered anon, so aroused he struggled to make the post. It was over all quite a ghastly scene, with such raffish men frothing at the mouth, shouting at computer screens and their own libidinal energies.

An Ode To The Swing.

Tall and proud, the oak stood.
Right on the edge of the forest. The cleanest of lines marked the border between woodland and cornfield.
And what a view!
The land on the edge of the woods sloped away steeply, revealing the town below completely. You could see the river from here, twinkling in the sun as it weaved in and out sight.
The railroad could be seen too. Silver trains flying past, fast and carefree, the commuters unaware of being watched from afar. You could see the rooftops of houses, the slowly rising furls of smoke from freshly lit fires in the pubs. A beautiful view indeed.
This is why we decided to make a swing here.
We doubled up the old blue rope and knotted it around a piece of wooden plank.
A fine swing.
I could sit and swing here for a good long while, letting my afternoons dwindle while i took in the scenery.
The mighty oak tree was known locally as "Hangmans Tree". I dont know the history but i once had the town drunk tell me that the tree was "bad juju".
Even town drunks are right once in a while.
Myself and my friends Eric and Ben made that swing. We were the only ones to use it. And now they are gone.
Eric was found hanging in his shower.
Ben was found in the bath with his wrists open.
Bad juju.
Now i sit and wait.
I understand why my friends have done that.
Ive had the nightmares too.
The tree talks to me.
It asks me to come visit.
Take down the swing.
Put the rope over a branch and then around my neck.
I cant sleep much but exhaustion gets the better of me sometimes.
The nightmares are getting worse.
Last night in my dreams i went to visit the tree.
My family were hanging from the branches, cold and blue.
I made lunch today and kinda blacked out.
Came to with the knife against my wrist instead of my bread.
Branches rap on my window in the night.
The leaves scream their contempt in the breeze.
Maybe i'll visit my noose tonight.
I mean my swing tonight.
I miss it.
I miss the view.

>>11060016
Actually good--please post more of your writing.

>>11059555
Yeah, could you take a look at these?

>>11058056
>>11058029

The Fart-Sniffer's Manifesto, inspired by this very thread.

Poetry's a waste of time
Something something words that rhyme
Obsessed with metre and with style
Less so with anything worthwhile
The playground of the whining teen
Prancing 'round with maudlin mien
Whose heartfelt drivel and pretentious wank
He believes is cause for thank
Yet dare you ask him what he meant
And watch begin the long lament
His genius gone misunderstood
His ruminating on if she would
Have loved him even half as much
as he so loved himself.

Doggerel's the only genre
That speaks to the layman's traumas
Short and snappy and in verse
And of high ideals averse
Expressing yet a deeper truth
Than the helpless cries of youth
Speaking not to reader, but to friend
In jolly, joyous spirit penned
For these are works of no great beauty
That won't impress the fine and snooty
Their value lies in recitation
Not in idle admiration
They live on tongues and not in halls
Poems for mouths and not for walls

>>11060266
I don't "get" poetry really. Sorry.

Critique me?
http://cleanexpression.com/portfolio/mannequin/

>>11060326
I skipped over the title and everything in italics.

>For a while now, there has been a beautiful woman named Eva.
Stopped reading there.

I cannot imagine anything more fucking boring than whatever pointless drama I imagine follows this sentence.

>>11060326
>>11060332
I just skimmed the rest of it and I believe my first impression was accurate.

>>11060326
The first time Eva had been called "The Mannequin" was by her agent.
"Take The Mannequin down to studio eight and get started," he'd said. "I'll be down later, when you start doing the shots for Bed, Bath, and Beyond."
Who's The Mannequin? she'd wondered. Not for long, though, because the ruddy-faced shoot organiser had gripped her above the elbow and begun steering her away. She despised the nickname, but it had stuck. Like curled ashes from the end of one of his reeking Winfield Blacks, the agent's words settled hot and gritty on her shoulders. An inescapable compliment paid to her face - the face of L'Oreal, Johnson & Johnson, Dove, and more.
The photoshoots were organised by company and by campaign. Dove was using her for two products, and L'Oreal for only one, and the goal was to knock over all the magazine shots today so that she could be ready for commercial shooting tomorrow. Someone had told her this earlier, and someone else had put it in her calendar, but she could still barely recall the details even after the ruddy-faced organiser had finished repeating them. All of the shoots were pretty much the same. Hold it this way. Hold it that way. Can you lean forward a little more, we can't quite get the camera all the way down your dress.
There was no window in the studio. Doubtless it was to do with the lighting, but Eva couldn't help but perceive it as a personal slight even at the same time she acknowledged how ridiculous that was. If the agency building had one redeeming feature, which was perhaps a stretch, it was the view. You could see the whole city from the rooftop smoker's garden, and behind every high-gloss plate glass window from the 39th floor of Insert Agency Name Here to Miami Beach there was a story. Eva liked to daydream about those lives.
The shoot had been going well that morning until one of the flash bulbs of the Dove crew died. They were commiserating loudly with each other about the low quality equipment foisted on them by upstairs while they rooted around for their spare. The shoot organiser was fending off the L'Oreal team desperate to use the hold-up to sneak their product in ahead of schedule, take their photos, and then knock off early. Nobody was paying attention to her, or her artful languish on the ottoman.
"I'm going to get some air," she said.
Nobody replied when she walked out.

>1/2

>>11060621
There was a window in the break room, opposite the vending machines and above the water cooler. She wasn't really thirsty but she was desperately hungry, so she drew a Styrofoam cupful from the machine anyway before fishing out a celery stick from the tupperware container of emergency snacks she kept in her handbag. She hadn't been meaning to skip breakfast that morning, but even if she'd eaten it probably wouldn't have made a difference. She didn't eat much nowadays. Mostly just celery.
The door behind her opened and the ruddy-faced man entered.
"Finally," he said. "We've been looking for you for ages. You can't just wander off without telling anyone like that. You're holding up the whole shoot."

>2/2

I tried writing an actual critique but I couldn't get across what I wanted to say so I figured I'd show, not tell.

I'm not claiming this is the best writing or even better than yours, but I think it demonstrates the difference in our approaches.

I think your writing goes too much for style. I tried to ground my take on the concept more concretely in time and space. I just rewrote the opening, and you could lengthen this scene (you should lengthen this scene) to include all of the details I've left out, but I've already spent an hour writing this "critique."

>>11060621
>>11060630
Also all the brand names are placeholders, obviously. Especially Insert Agency Name Here.

>>11060016
Decent

>>11058682
Palahniuk who?

is there any hope for my novel? nanas daughter just left after visiting her care home room

Nana’s glance turned slowly from the closing door to her lap and back again. Nothing stood between her and the walls, though they were separated. The moon light sang folk ballads to her in a blue key, and the room became soft again. In her isolation she opened the Psalms. Speaking sweetly into her ear, the angels flew down. Assuredly, she evacuated to the space between her ears and her mind. Here there was no discomfort and no concern. The golden streets past the tree of life extended from her eyes and stabbed the less fortunate walking down the hall. Watercolor lights unfolded. Forgiveness had arrived for every idle judgement and spark of malice that had grown inside her. The wrens she cared for so faithfully now watched pensively the light bouncing back into her room through the window. She thrust her veiny fist through the earth’s crust and dragged her face up to the fresh air. The IV was left as a fossil below. In the dry dirt she could dance freely and watch the storm approaching. In the rain she felt. Faithfully, she fell through. The light had dimmed, the music had turned to unsteady percussion far in the distance. The spear tore through her deep shoulder and surface thigh and spread to encompass her being. Immediately exterior, and far into the night there was opportunity. There were lights, and experience, and conquest, and reward. For those able. But Nana was the dust we blow further away. Aware of consequence. Chained.
In dreams she returned to her beautiful youth. Her husband held her still. In waking she grappled with the dark for sleep. Every night, even tonight, was punctuated with endless waking and falling asleep. Around and around, lower and lower to the bottom floor, then back again. It was so dark. She knew one night it would be so white, at last blinded, and noise would rush in from the edges. But tonight was silent. She stooped towards her children, all young again. Sometimes a little more, others a little less. Running her hands over a landscape sewn from spun cotton. The sun turned her world blonde. The harvest rose. She lay transfigured. Still. Until she did not lay, and entered the night once more. Tonight was aching. The room caved in towards her, ever more opaque, ever smaller. This woman struggling against a world that found its way inside her. Pulling the strings deftly, forcing her voice to fall onto the crowd. We will be made to spectate, until we are chosen. If only she could be aware of her acclaimed performance. She rose with the sun.

>>11044329
You're clearly a good and capable writer, but yes, it does sound quite melodramatic. Similes/metaphors should aid in the reader's image of your descriptions, but your use of them seems unnecessary and confusing.
>warmest milk froth
froth+eyes makes me think of eyes that are literally frothy. There's a disconnect. While metaphors can be used to create beautiful imagery, you should make sure first that they actually add something meaningful and necessary to the description.
But I liked your piece and you should continue. It felt cosy. Good luck!

>>11060207
Hugo was on the second line of defense behind the fenced off perimeter. Before long a never-ending procession of freshmen was milling in through the front door. He had to be vigilant, as he was surrounded by women looking to steal his virginity. His first assailant: some Ankaran succubus, batting her eyes with winged eye liner hinting at daddy issues beyond his comprehension. The pavonine temptress stopped to speak to him, but he held no quarter for the immoral. His reaction was that of righteous indignation, and in that moment he briefly took upon the appearance of Jesus of Nazareth himself, stalwart against sin. He delivered her a face a swift palm strike, administering a bloody nose as penance for her trespass. She ran passed Chester and Thad, who looked only vaguely concerned a young woman had just fled their frat party with a bleeding nose. Hugo had saved his precious seed for the moment. But he was still in enemy territory, and it was only a matter of time before another whore of Babylon came and accosted him. He tightened his BAMF belt and adjusted his collar. It promised to be a long night.

i'm a volcano
i shit diamonds
in my dormancy
digesting money
you fools be autophagic
sadly self-consumptive
though i can't very say
for know ye individually i do not
hospitably yet i love thee
abstractly, rather than surely
for as i said before, and to generate
a sense of subsensory data
we must venture out into the night
and subject our subjects to the objects
of a cold and heartless world
unbestowed of light and love
until the smithy of our guts puts out
a cavalcade of ceremonies
each a gesture unheld for seconds
by habitual lifetimes torn asunder
under the nanoscopic hail we ignore
neutrino vape clouds bellowing out our cousin
Darryl who we, the primordial we, can't stand
nor do we want to smoke reefer with
because Jesus Christ Darryl, you have a kid man,
should't you be, idk, at work or something
i mean your girlfriend doesnt work
and i'm really strained here at trying to figure out how you support that thing
anyway, fuck Darryl, he's just a thanksgiving problem,
from his point of view, he's an always problem
much like herpes or lyme, a lifetime issue
for which there as of yet is no cure
as it is with life, that which farts and excretes
various elements
including the one indivisible noble element
known as love, the fount of youth,
the destination of all our souls,
Amen

>>11062355
Pretentious wank and low effort garbage in one detestable package.

Wrote this while I was bored. Looking for opinions on how I might be able to improve my prose.

My father was a man of heat. He was towering and absolute- like the mountains made of red rocks you used to find in deserts. He hummed an old song as he cradled my head to his chest. His heart hummed too. Though he held me firm my eyes could not escape the shuttered windows. Outside the world was whirling... the whirling of wind, and water, and men. Of the men there where many. Firemen, policemen, criminals, beggars, soldiers politicians, fathers. Sons. Of the water, there was few. Rain, and ice, and the tears of widows soon to be. Of the wind, there was but two. First, the frantic bellowing of a confused atmosphere. Then came the afterwind. The world outside had turned to salt. The humming stopped.

Ode to /lit/

The corner of my eyes catch lone shadows slip
And green fog reeks the air of every room,
While prodding outsiders are met with quip
Dread lingers and never ceases to loom;
Even if happiness stretches my lip
I wear pride to conceal it all behind a mask,
Although once in a blue moon it does crack
Most of the time I am up to the task;

Perhaps I am too late, poetry and literature are dead,
But 4channers claim New Sincerity, maybe writing will come back?
Optimistic as I am, I know only shit will be read:
Nothing real remains, only the skeletons of the once giant,
While tiny people are thankful for whatever they're fed
I'll remain pretentious; it's certainly better than being pliant.

>>11062200

I cringed a lot, it's far too over the top and try hard.

>>11062778

>>11044329
unreadable.. jesus christ.

>>11062200
Just the sort of writing you would expect from somneone who posts that picture

>>11063395
Its actually decent

Would it be alright to post a translation for critique?
More for the quality of the prose than the accuracy of the translation.

>>11062521
low effort sure, but why is it pretentious

>>11044329
not bad? Why would you think so?

Women are naturally savages, they're most basic state is sex-crazed animal, devoid of morals and ambitions. But the natural state of man is a barbarian, but one with honor. Civilization paradoxically makes women cleaner, but men crueler, less caring. We're living in the worst of both worlds right now, the interregnum of the absolutely worst of humanity. The only option is total destruction of civilization, then make our way back up.

Women are a lost cause.

I don't even feel hate anymore, just a loss of hope and a sheer sense of disconnect from everything around me. I stare at the total state of depravity, of being force fed these notions of equality and feminism and I feel nothing, just a cold desire to escape into the wilderness.

>>11064767
>they're most basic state
>they are most basic state

>>11064767
Jesus christ

Imagine being this bitter

Hello you fellow poets
My name is Rupi Kaur
I'm here to tell you how
You don't need metre anymore

I've made myself a poet
And you can do it too!
Just follow my example and
The fans will flock to you

I take a simple sentence
Saccharine is best
Something about women, rape
The struggle with my breasts

Insert a point at random,
(This is how i do it:)
I close my eyes, I stab the page
Until I can see through it

Now I take the markers
Where my pen the sentence smote
And lo! Right there upon the page
Something profound I wrote!

I put ut up on Insta
It gets ten thousand likes
I sell it as at the book shop
Make bank off leftist kikes

>>11064927
no lie i wish i'd done what rupi kaur has done and make mad dosh to fund the real novels id write on the side

>>11064767
you have things a bit backwards, men and women are both completely sex-crazed but they have different sexual strategies because women get pregnant

this impacts almost everything about how society works

>>11064944

Yeah, true enough. Though the market she's aiming at don't want to read stuff by faggots like us, anon. It's all about image not substance, so being a nonwhite woman is pretty much the whole deal here

>>11064948
>men and women are both completely sex-crazed but they have different sexual strategies because women get pregnant
This.

>>11061759
Someone pls i know its bad i just want to know if i can get better/any potential or if its not worth my time

>>11065004
i would get rid of the first sentence

>>11065025
Thx it might have made a little more sense if i included the preceding paragraph but ur right

>>11065037
the second sentence is a nice lead-in. Also I quite like bits of it, and other parts not so much. Is it a first draft?

It's like there is a lyrical thread trying to emerge but it's somewhat mangled by awkward phrases, superfluous items, and in some instances lack of development of an interesting image or idea.

>>11065058
Yeah its a first draft and i dont have much experience at all. I just wanted to make sure going forward i wasnt completely wastibg my times. I dont want to write if theres no chance of eventually writing something importsnt

Give me a good hosing
https://pastebin.com/gKfJzS8G

>>11062750
Remember commas after lengthy prepositions for clearer reading.
>Though he held me firm,
I hate dot dot dots personally.
>Outside the world was whirling...
I'd like it better if it were more like so
>Outside the world was whirling, and so it whirled of wind, and water, and man.
Your prose has pleasant poetic beats to it and the imagery is sound. I feel like this could be expanded upon despite the rather finite mysterious conclusion. It's a good beginning to whatever.

>>11062775
Ode to anon
Your lack of effort shows
And you're a dick
Shit blows

>>11062355
God help your soul

>>11064363
I'll read it anon

We live the immanent circuitry of fleshy, imbricate fashions. Bodies grow their own clothes. The city lathers its immense boils and festering scars with concrete. Clockwork machinery. 7am face-making routines. Apply heavily to stem the flow of prickling magma.

Performance and speech grinds us between molecular thresholds.
A peeping-tom paradigm.
Scurf is a scientific drama seen through the eye of a keyhole.

White Buddhism. Barbie ego loss. Apomixis: tree of cocks. Fear of alopecia. Tear its trypophobic roots from the garden. Reverse engineer the Dogon egghead. Primitive Cranial Realignment. Plough. Sounds like clarity. Good and woody. Lobotomise so new shoots will flourish. Imagine all that background noise going to waste. Sprout synapses through the skull. Drink the world through a million inky straws dappling your scalp until you sink.

There are bodies in the water.

Look for them.

>>11055850
>>11055840
The poem would be better if the first line was just

>The stars took me by surprise last night.
>And they asked me why the sky didn't want them anymore.
>I told them the sky was enamoured with the cityscape lights, and they cried until they were no more.

Why "a swarm of stars"? Because alliteration is cool? Lol.

>>11065930
>Though it wasn’t a meeting, it was oblivion arrived at but by convenience
drop the but
>underground coal fires burn long and impossibly intense, just as people combust passionately loud and scared
it was neat until the "just as". you don't have to spell it out, it spoils the purity of the image of coals in the mouth

p good but write about something other than being cucked

>>11064767
seek help

>>11061759
Genuinely very touching and effortless prose, I'd read it. It says very little but the abstracted feeling is communicated beautifully

>>11066002
i was >>11061759
thx i appreciate it, im hoping to use it to bring up larger points. i think i can describe things ok but when it comes to dialogue or advancing the narrative i fall apart

>>11066002
Preciate it
>write about something other than being cucked
It's not entirely about Ernesto. The beginning, yes, the rest, no. He's rightfully a cuck though, least til he rapes Jennifer.

>>11066647
Then he becomes a big blue faggot. Not that he ascends or anything.

>>11059254
For what its worth I like yours better.

>>11060303
An absolute sin that this masterwork of a post has not recieved a single (you). Guess a lot of great experiences fly by the side of those whose field of view remains obstructed by their own ass cheeks.

>>11062355
Let me guess, you are a fan of guardians of the galaxy?

I've been trying to work on my rhetoric. I would love feedback.

Feel free to rip me to pieces, but also please let me know if I am doing anything well. Thanks.

Vengeance be thy name Lord! His majesty, with a most acrimonious deception, floods us men with seas of awe and allure only from which to sever us with frigid air. Abandoned, Man, gazing at the azures of the horizon halo whilst moored to the dead stone of a cliff, asking “Lord, why have you severed us you’re your creations, then cursed us with feelings?” Moored with His gusts surfing our shoulders whilst caressing the luscious shrubbery amongst us. Sightly shrubbery of course—currents and waking coalesce into a soft flow before tiding off into stone. I concede, you carry the luminous daylight before lapsing it into the illustrious night. Please spare your cruelest of all, since it is not amongst the verdant land— His majesty hast placed his greatest trick within thy heart— thy smile, brandishing euphoria! The celestial corona which dusts upon the soul, only to mar it with its fleeting fluttering moment splashing a lovely melody to the waves of an arabesque. Coveted then deceitful. Whose pursuit ultimately reveals the tragedy— all is cloaking naught.

I've been trying to work on my rhetoric. I would love feedback.

Feel free to rip me to pieces, but also please let me know if I am doing anything well. Thanks.

Vengeance be thy name Lord! His majesty, with a most acrimonious deception, floods us men with seas of awe and allure only from which to sever us with frigid air. Abandoned, Man, gazing at the azures of the horizon halo whilst moored to the dead stone of a cliff, asking “Lord, why have you severed us form your creations, then cursed us with feelings?” Moored with His gusts surfing our shoulders whilst caressing the luscious shrubbery amongst us. Sightly shrubbery of course—currents and waking coalesce into a soft flow before tiding off into stone. I concede, you carry the luminous daylight before lapsing it into the illustrious night. Please spare your cruelest of all, since it is not amongst the verdant land— His majesty hast placed his greatest trick within thy heart— thy smile, brandishing euphoria! The celestial corona which dusts upon the soul, only to mar it with its fleeting fluttering moment splashing a lovely melody to the waves of an arabesque. Coveted then deceitful. Whose pursuit ultimately reveals the tragedy— all is cloaking naught.

>>11060303
good job

>>11066974
>masterwork
no but significantly better than most things posted in these threads

>>11058073
>>11059254
i'd say it's pathetic but yes, "bizarre" fits the description too.

>>11067064
I think its memorable, and thats perhaps one of the better compliments I could give to any written passage.

>Moored with His gusts surfing our shoulders whilst caressing the luscious shrubbery amongst us. Sightly shrubbery of course—currents and waking coalesce into a soft flow before tiding off into stone.

This is imo it's weakest part.

>>11067115
Cool, thanks so much, that really means a lot. Any feedback on why it's weak? Does it come off as superfluous?

I need feedback on my query letter.

https://pastebin.com/6vpM740T

ITT: useless faggots go easy on others' writing and coddle each other because they're shit too

>>11067699
ITT: Insufferable cunt thinks you have to be James Joyce to post in an anime forum

Goback2 r/literature cunt

>>11067856
some weird cognitive dissonance in your post but I won't get into that, let me just say:
1. nobody who is actually serious about writing would post their stuff here
2. if you can't even tell if your writing is any good and you have no confidence then you're fucked anyway

>>11068154
Is it bait? No one can adequately judge his own writing by himself, you fool

>>11068154
How insufferable are you? Legitimately.

>>11067675
151,000 is going to be two books. It's thin. Try it at Evil Editor, he's for real.

low iq ramblings on nature of cyberpunk

be harsh, Im not well read or educated

https://pastebin.com/raw/irNMTxud

>>11066984
not really no, why?

>>11068182
nah, it's easy. Here's how to do it:

1. Write something
2. It's shit.

>>11069307
i think i saw this posted before, or something similar to it

penultimate means second to last

>>1106936
Its the empress theresa of b8

>>11069921
thanks for the appraisal, needed someone to snap me out of delusions of not being 80iq

>>1107047
weak shit my sneed

>>11067675
that's not how you write a query letter. it only shows how purple your prose is.

Bump.

>>11065923
>Q predicted this

>>11061759
Is "Nana" a proper name or is it an affectionym like mama and papa? It makes me think of the other famous fictional Nana from Zola.

>>11073483
No nana was an affectionate name

>>11073809
In that case, I am wondering about the reflexivity of her thinking of herself as Nana, instead of her own name. It is possible that she has become so established as Nana that her role in life is subsumed under that banner. Yet I think to myself, "imagine I am suffering the decrepitudes of old age and having a kind of Proustian reverie about being young once" and I am having difficulty putting my children's appellation on myself as a much younger person. So I have to imagine that my kids are adult, like 40, and then I have to way-back to when they were 5, and I'm still "Nana" all the way back then. I guess it can work, but this whole distraction started from the association with the flaming teenager of French notoriety. It's good, if I don't literalize to closely. "Nothing stood between her and the walls, though they were separated." - the walls were separated from each other, or she was separated from the walls? - for example.

Is this her death moment?

>>11056147
I was dissatisfied with this so I rewrote it
>Boots thundering throughout
>these ancient narrow halls
>Boys with guns in their hands
>but just a while ago
>they were singing Mickey
>No real targets just
>ones imaginary
>This is a pilgrimage, one that takes a while
>However, all are sure as was once written
>in the texts of old. They will one day make it
>To the promised land of voluptuous gold

Watching my brushstroke glide across the canvas, the weakness in my fingers became apparent in the gentle ripples at the water’s edge. I paused to glance at the lint under my nails, inadvertently dripping paint on my thigh in the process. Should've used a darker palette for the sea really, the sky appears to be invading the horizon. Maybe just a few touches of foam to patch it up? A little white, a little blended grey in the shade of the arches... And there, a great surging way out at the fringe of the bay. Not exactly what I had in mind, but I suppose storms are rarely intentional. This one at least is a safe distance away– so why am I hearing so much thunder?

No, wait– it's just Papa's careless footsteps climbing the spiral staircase. There's no question that he drank himself into a raging tempest last night. Missed the real violence of the bay with the distractions of his own, though hopefully his mind is foggier than all this brightness we have today. Mornings are rarely his strong suit (or, at least, one of his less turbulent moments) and I know how guilty he gets seeing the bruises. His conscience pushes him even further into the bottle and then he forgets why he ever felt bad in the first place. Best to keep out of his w–

“Addy, if you'd care to take a pause from all this serene contemplation”, his arm arcing in mock veneration at the surface of the water beyond the window, “It wouldn't be too much trouble for you to wander into town for breakfast?”
I paused as the momentum of his hand caught the door and clouted it against the steel bookshelf, dislodging a worn volume of poetry onto its spine with a sharp thud. You could hear the echo spiralling to the bottom of the stairs, tumbling and expanding under the weight of its own intrusiveness, step by rusted step.
“But it's the middle of the day.”
“Precisely, and seeing as our fast has remained unbroken since last night it would seem an apposite time for feasting, no?”
“Where do I have to go?”
“Where are we going, my dear boy: the walk and fresh air will do me good”, winking through a bloodshot eye as he began drawing tobacco and rolling papers from his breast pocket. He span round sharply with the careless vigour of a younger man, grazing his shoulder against the doorframe as he left. “We leave in five minutes, and I expect no tardiness!”. Papa isn't usually so erratic at this time, and he certainly isn't one for spontaneous gestures (and especially without liquor). I slipped my toes into a brown pair of weathered boots, and dared to linger a gaze through the window on a fishing boat, until it passed over the horizon and disappeared out of reach.

>>11073872
no she doesnt die here. it was a reflection on the loss of autonomy that comes with aging as well as establishing her character. immediately before her daughter had visited her, and in leaving demonstrates she has the ability to leave and nana can't. her sympathy comes from a place of pride. the story would proceed to show how the loss of autonomy plagues those in the care home and her daughter's slow descent into joining them
heres a pastebin of the ~4 pages i have, although i think i posted one of the better passages

>>11073872
no she doesnt die here. it was a reflection on the loss of autonomy that comes with aging as well as establishing her character. immediately before her daughter had visited her, and in leaving demonstrates she has the ability to leave and nana can't. her sympathy comes from a place of pride. the story would proceed to show how the loss of autonomy plagues those in the care home and her daughter's slow descent into joining them
heres a pastebin of the ~4 pages i have, although i think i posted one of the better passages

>>11075465
whoops heres the paste bin, sorry for the double post my wifi fucked up
https://pastebin.com/p4vtsb4H

>>11067675
This is no query letter. Take a seminar on professional writin

>>11044336
>abbe regal

oi im friends with you on goodreads

didnt know you were such a philosophoboi

>>11058682
Eh. Not funny or clever enough.

>>11044492
Is this supposed to be a joke, because it reads like a book you buy at a suburban grocerystore?

>>11044336
these read a lot like my own spiritual ramblings

god bless my dude

>>11050541
>>11051677
>>11051755
>>11053131
>>11053183
>>11054636
>>11054653
>>11055593
>>11055838
>>11055899
>>11056555
>>11056803
>>11056901
>>11057048
>>11057620
>>11057683
>>11057758
>>11058029
>>11058056
>>11058073
>>11059254
>>11060185
>>11060303
>>11062355
Why are amateur poets such tryhards? Prose is a better place to start, especially for all you guys who can't write a single line of substance. Poetry is distillation not pseudo-pythos and purple.

>>11075503
Why are amateur critics so tryhard?

>>11075503
ok big guy lets see wut u got

>>11075704
>>11075707
Sure

>>11075856
trash

>>11075856
I don't care what ANY of you say because I wrote this in minutes (fuck editing you either get it right first or you resign to nitpicking every word) plus I just got an agent who's helped me develop a short story collection, which I KNOW none of you can say.

>>11075859
Tell that to the magazine that published it lol. How much $$$ you made off writing senpai?

>>11075868
is this a joke

>>11075875
>How much $$$ you made off writing senpai?
500 euros the last year
and it isn't actually trash, it's a solid 6/10

>>11075474
I made an account on goodreads but I barely use it
>>11075493
amen

Any critiques?

>>11075493
also post some of your ramblings

>>11075875
Once you realise the monumental scale of consumption that exists in the first world you will realise equally that the fact that you managed to sell anything to anyone loses all meaning.

I could shit in a bag and make money off it.

Several people already have.

>>11076049
Yes

>>11050331
This should be picked apart and scavenged of ideas. You talk overmuch about the subject with a word souffle. It rises only to fall. Do not use a word like 'trillions' to describe time in your worship of this woman. If she means so much to your character, she deserves to be remembered specifically. How long were they together? Why did they marry? Why did they have a child? What did they like about each other in the beginning? What hope did she give the 'bad boy'? Set your ending up better.

You have an interesting idea going. Don't accept anything but your own best.

>>11044336
pseudish drivel

>>11076119
>>11044336
checked your goodreads
>only 160 books
I don't know what I expected

>>11050541
This is too much. Wtf is going to pull out a thesaurus to get through this from an amateur poet? A little wordplay is good, but don't make your stuff uncomfortable to read. You aren't 'showing off', you are trying to woo intellectuals and idiots alike to read your work. Always keep that in mind.

>>11051585
Thus.

>>11051646
This would not be bad as part of a short story. Your character seems a bit like a Yankee stuck in the Midwest. All ego and opinion. Do you have more of this story or memory?

>>11044329

Something I wrote recently; it is inspired by Ayn Rand. I'm still working on it. I may reference Rand directly in it, but I am unsure if her politics would hurt the emotional quality of the rest of the poem, or if the bit is even good enough to stand on it's own without involving her celebrity.

Atlas Stood Up (nullius prettium vacant)

kill yourself and everyone you love
and die alone with a mirror blown of quicksand
a thing damned to be cut from above
and reprimanded by one's own hand
there is no future here to suture
there is no thing to live
there is no soul here to forgive
i am simply the vessel of some null flower
the house, and not the will, but motive-power.

>>11076207
it's not good but i like it

>>11076211
lol.. Rap music isn't 'good', but people like it. That's what makes it good ;)

>>11076061
>>11076056
If you say so, but they're honestly cringe-worthy, though I love them nonetheless

>We must not mistake time for progression. Do not be distracted by time. Life is not a progression but a moment in which neither the beginning nor the end are closer to the aim. Life not about achievement in a quantity sense, but about sincerity in the moment. Do not imagine that tomorrow exists. Only today, in the present, can life occur. Do not imagine that the future is any closer to the goal. Linearity is a distraction. Anagoge is the truth.
>There is no such thing as truth in the sense you would like it. There is only enlightened obedience, which, paradoxically, is the most liberating thing of all. Action deprived of will.
>Raise yourself to a higher unworthiness, a blameless unworthiness.
>What is beyond comprehension is impervious to corruption.
>God is the only thing that isn't a lie.
>I am only anything in concert with others, but only when I am alone can I know this.
>To see beyond horizons, beyond my own self-image.

any critique on these? I've posted 'Late Fragment' before.

>>11076465
lol I kind of like these

>>11057687
You are an adulter

>>11076480
thanks! i've trimmed 'Computer' down to just "Shut up! Shut down."

>>11076465

These made me laugh, anon. I'm liking the pared back, self-awareness of them.

>>11044329
wrote this today, was pretty happy with it
https://pastebin.com/chhSNVzs

>>11056555
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gu6144GztpA

The first thing I remember after becoming conscious in the hospital was the screaming. My screaming. My arms and legs were handcuffed to the rails of the hospital bed and I was in a state of pure panic in the ER. The proceeding few hours were just a blur of vague images; doctors and nurses shuffling papers around me, needles, blood pressure monitors, CT scans, and more needles. I can’t remember how many times I woke up and struggled before being put back down with drugs. I know for a fact that it is around this time, within my first couple of hours of being entered into the ER, the doctors gave me a drug called haldol. The doctors must have decided to use haldol because of how aggressive I was being with them. Perhaps I was also in a state of psychosis, I can’t know. The haldol made me go into a trance-like state and further reduced my awareness.
The next place I woke up was in private room. There was a cop sitting in the far left corner. For the first several hours I refused to eat and tried my best to fall asleep, only opening my eyes when the nurses came in to take my blood and blood pressure. The first cop that I remember keeping ‘watch’ on me was a portly black woman. She didn’t say a word and hardly looked at me. After that another cop came in, middle aged white guy. He came in and was rather nice, actually, asking me how I was doing. I ended up asking him what my charges were and after he read them to me, I asked him if any were felonies. He told me to watch some television, as my room had one attached to the wall in front of me. I believe I started to watch a show and fell asleep.
Later that day a middle aged female detective named Hawthorne came to visit me. She told me she was investigated my case and wrote her number down on a little piece of paper. She said she’d call my mother for me to tell her I was all right and then asked me about what happened. I told her the truth; I didn’t remember anything.

>>11077345
pretty bad desu