/lit/ - Literature

The white birds by Yeats

I WOULD that we were, my beloved, white birds on the foam of the sea!

We tire of the flame of the meteor, before it can fade and flee;

And the flame of the blue star of twilight, hung low on the rim of the
sky,

Has awaked in our hearts, my beloved, a sadness that may not die.

A weariness comes from those dreamers, dew-dabbled, the lily and rose;

Ah, dream not of them, my beloved, the flame of the meteor that goes,

Or the flame of the blue star that lingers hung low in the fall of the
dew:

For I would we were changed to white birds on the wandering foam:
I and you!

I am haunted by numberless islands, and many a Danaan shore,

Where Time would surely forget us, and Sorrow come near us no
more;

Soon far from the rose and the lily and fret of the flames would we
be,

Were we only white birds, my beloved, buoyed out on the foam of the sea!

Waiting by Dunsany

I SAW a wood as wild,
As natural and as fair,
As ever enchanted a child,
As ever sheltered a hare.

And twenty miles away,
Over the rumpled downs,
The centre of London lay
With its awful cluster of towns.

Sullenly street by street,
Hungrier every year,
It comes, where there used to be wheat,
Nearer and still more near.


“Which will survive,” I sought,
“London or this?” There spoke,
As though he answered my thought
, A grey and reverend oak:


“Yes, we have heard of it:
We have known such cities of old:
We stand and we dream a bit,
And it’s weald again and the wold.”

QUÉ ES PEOR QUE EL PEOR POETA?

UNO MEDIOCRE CON VERBORREA

—DE PACIENCIA NO HAY MEJOR PRUEBA.

Unironically an older friend's poem, who wrote it for Black History Month and showed me. Her stuff is usually stream-of-consciousness to the point it's hard to understand (she writes it down by compulsion without really editing it), and I normally don't like muh oppressed soul sista shit, but honestly, the imagery got to me while she was explaining, and I think she actually hit home on the feeling of being exiled in some way. Reading this let me know her marbles actually are there in their own way, that there's cohesion, she was so happy when someone else understood it.

What do you think guys, honestly? I can't shake my feelings on the piece.

>>17492347

> Mystery Babylon

Desolation is the greatest despair in the depths of ignominy and the American prism. A prison erected with mental walls-emotional barriers- and physical confinement. The gates of heavy metal latches across the breastplate-a familiar place for babes and sucklings. A remote and sacred place for the uprising of levitating windpipes and the breath of sudden release in the wait between life and death.

The elements of the Eucharist in breathe- clings to the saps of a weighted sack of air threshing with probity and certainty- rises up again. Foison-foison alone carries the spirit on an enduring journey.

Expostulating words is the sackcloth of garments that conceals the naked breastplate of amour. Expedite the flesh to parts unknown-saddle the feet to colorable footwear and find the path ahead. Detriments-detriments is far more explained than the dramatic irony of vessels adrift on the sea of life- on trips with mast less ships in search of coco-plums and candelabra trees.

Dire straits-dire straits is an obvious reality of debilitated efforts to break free outside the American prism. The dead load of bars are feet apart from the floors of prisons- dead letters and unpaid postage covers the curing layers of concrete.

The elements of the Eucharist in breathe- clings to the saps of a weighted sack of air threshing with probity and certainty- rises up again. Foison-foison alone carries the spirit on an enduring journey.

A view of the empyrean is the greatest desire in the depths of ignominy and the American Prism. The gates of heaven lifts the burden and the weight from strained shoulders. The ancestors come into view in the line of many generations. Four hundred years is an earthly eternity for those who uphold the pagan outlook of emergent evolution. The empressement of fools is the emporium of the former place in the wilderness of secluded areas, a long stretch, and a hard road to travel.

Strange Babylon in the history of two-thousand years of vigils -the cremains of the lost at sea and the remains of those unfounded in the land of plenty bones is a anomaly. Take the refugees to the house of muleteers- walk them across the digital landscape of developed plantations. Test the heart strings in the divided chambers of the heart and measure the gravity of the flow of air in the bosom of the chest.

Read the instruments- the signs are in the veins- the spirit pours out a strange valour from the ceiling- flees and return with vengeance and expedite the findings. Old Babylon the crib of babes and sucklings nesting in the dream land of milk and honey (awake from the dream) of hollow grounds. Iron is the mattress-copper is the bed-the plates of nickel pillows (under the head)- the sheets are stained with sulphur- fire burns in barrels and crates- wooden legs shakes and breaks asunder from yonder-the American prison-the American prism.

Mystery Babylon-estranged

Any suggestions for poems that would make me cry? Preferably love related, I want to see if I am over my own one...

I scroll the board against my will
My finger drags slow on my heart
It's Marx, Evola, or some hack
Lord please come back and strike us dead

What do you guys think about haikus?

>>17493568
We like them, post your haikus

>>17493568
>>17493592
Cool.

>>17493615
Soak-ing-In-sun-pre-par-ing-For

Too long

When Eurydice said, “This is what it is to love an artist: The moon is always rising above your house,”
the sudden thirst struck and struck hard,
this calling back to the water from whence
we all crawled, but that was when the air
hung heavy and the stars were different,
scattered in strange patterns, before the gods were named.
You’re the protagonist this time,
you’re the assassin, too,
you’re the estranged wife and the disheartened husband,
you’re the diseased organ, the empty bottle
of Maker’s Mark, the smoldering cigarette butt,
you’re the audience, and the flickering screen,
you’re the conductor in the pit waving a baton,
you’re the baton itself, sleek and weightless
and driven by sound,
you’re the bow sliding against metal strings,
and the chambered bullet, and the tarnished snow.
It’s a story no one wants to hear,
raw and festering, tastes like stale cologne
and years of resentment,
but you’ll speak the lines, conduct the orchestra,
write and erase the past, then start again.
Revise the script all you want, but nothing ever changes.
You cannot escape that moment, the bittersweet core of it all,
the night frost bisected with bodily warmth as you were pulled in,
leather and smoke, bathed in the street lights’ orange glow,
and it felt like expansion, your hollows flooding with light,
as if any other being had the power to make you whole.
The mornings pass, but it keeps happening. It’s happening again. It’s already over.
The moon always rises.

>>17493632
Did you read the poem first or did you count it?

>>17491299
https://www.poetrybyheart.org.uk/poems/mcmxiv/
MCMXIV (1964), by Phillip Larkin

Those long uneven lines
Standing as patiently
As if they were stretched outside
The Oval or Villa Park,
The crowns of hats, the sun
On moustached archaic faces
Grinning as if it were all
An August Bank Holiday lark;

And the shut shops, the bleached
Established names on the sunblinds,
The farthings and sovereigns,
And dark-clothed children at play
Called after kings and queens,
The tin advertisements
For cocoa and twist, and the pubs
Wide open all day;

And the countryside not caring:
The place-names all hazed over
With flowering grasses, and fields
Shadowing Domesday lines
Under wheat’s restless silence;
The differently-dressed servants
With tiny rooms in huge houses,
The dust behind limousines;

Never such innocence,
Never before or since,
As changed itself to past
Without a word – the men
Leaving the gardens tidy,
The thousands of marriages,
Lasting a little while longer:
Never such innocence again.

>>17492347
>>17492352
Sir, this is a poetry thread.

>>17492558
THE FALLING OF THE LEAVES by Yeats

AUTUMN is over the long leaves that love us,
And over the mice in the barley sheaves;
Yellow the leaves of the rowan above us,
And yellow the wet wild-strawberry leaves.

The hour of the waning of love has beset us,
And weary and worn are our sad souls now;
Let us patt, ere the season of passion forget us,
With a kiss and a tear on thy drooping brow.

>>17493808

Oh, no problem, the bread said original works were accepted. I just want some other opinions is all

>>17493615
based notes app writer, it's either that or just using my pc

>>17491510
Damn man second thread I've seen you in and quality posting all around.

Poem recommendations (books/etc)? Been thinking on picking up Rumi?

>>17494203
I’ll try to make a quick post since I’m multi-tasking, Rumi is great but I prefer al-hallaj, another Persian poet of note is attar who’s conference of the birds is just sublime. Another great Islamic poet would be Jami, Iqbal is another.

But here’s my list of absolute favorites,

Swinburne, verlaine, Poe, Baudelaire, blake, li-he, al-hallaj, angelus, Ovid, Petrarch, Horace, Edmund Spenser, Chaucer, Shakespeare John Keats, Mallarme

Here’s some nice poems from the bunch.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43650/auguries-of-innocence

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45288/the-garden-of-proserpine

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45107/sonnet-129-thexpense-of-spirit-in-a-waste-of-shame

And a poem from Keats

Keen, fitful gusts are whisp'ring here and there Among the bushes half leafless, and dry;
The stars look very cold about the sky,
And I have many miles on foot to fare.
Yet feel I little of the cool bleak air,
Or of the dead leaves rustling drearily,
Or of those silver lamps that burn on high, Or of the distance from home's pleasant lair: For I am brimfull of the friendliness
That in a little cottage I have found;
Of fair-hair'd Milton's eloquent distress, And all his love for gentle Lycid drown'd; Of lovely Laura in her light green dress, And faithful Petrarch gloriously crown'd.

I’d post more but I must be going friend.

When I return I’ll try to critique any-all poetry posted in the thread assuming the thread is still here.

>>17491299
how to improve this?

This thing
The vote

Be a cope

Does it do anything
Nope

>>17491299
whos an american poet thats masculine and writes simple poems for simple people

>>17494545
Robert frost is pretty American and masculine and simple.

The pasture

I'm going out to clean the pasture spring;
I'll only stop to rake the leaves away
(And wait to watch the water clear, I may):
I sha'n't be gone long.—You come too.

I'm going out to fetch the little calf
That's standing by the mother. It's so young,
It totters when she licks it with her tongue.
I sha'n't be gone long.—You come too.

A patch of old snow

There's a patch of old snow in a corner
That I should have guessed
Was a blow-away paper the rain
Had brought to rest.

It is speckled with grime as if
Small print overspread it,
The news of a day I’ve forgotten—
If I ever read it.

>>17494545
Allen Ginsberg

I do not understand The Wasteland, which is leading me to believe it is dog shit. Am I retarded, uncultured, illiterate, or some combination?

>>17494432
Suicide

>>17494545
Thoreau and Walt Whitman.

>>17494630
Whitman’s a literal faggot

>>17493483
Bad but honest!
>>17493655
Too turgid. I kept losing the point as I was reading (and me being drunk didn't help). Try cutting down the list to better the draw.

>>17494642
So is Shakespeare but you still find his donut puncher sonnets on the back of chocolate bars.

>>17494584
Hello, somebody please respond to my post

>>17494284
Thank you my man, a scholar and a saint!

>>17494584
Read it more than once.
Then read Eliot's notes on it, you will see that he references a ton of other poets, Baudelaire and some others
Then read up on modernism, the poem is more or less the embodiment of those ideals

tl;dr there is no one specific meaning, it is intentionally ambigious and refers to many things such as the history of poetry and life in europe post world war 1. There is also meaning to be found in the study of the poem

>>17494839
Most poetry requires that you have already read much else, which seems odd, but isn't that different from other disciplines.
Does that sound correct? I am new to poetry specifically

Ho ho ho ha ha
ho ho ho he ha.
Hello there, old chum.
I’m gnot an elf.
I’m gnot a goblin.
I’m a gnome.
And you’ve been
GNOMED’

>>17494870
Not necessarily, you could write great poetry without having read any poetry in your life. Eliot was just particularly interested in other poets and that is one facet of The Waste Land. Reading the 'greats' and the general composition of poetry will help fuel your ability to write great poetry, though it is not necessarily required. It is overwhelming though, when you consider the vast history of writing.

>>17494881
10/10

>>17494284

I'm reading Saadi's Golestan right now in the original Persian, in love with it.

> Swinburne
Reading Erechtheus right now, and I'm confused: critics said this play has republican undertones, where are those?

>>17494625
Thanks bro.

>>17493483
Write fucking rhymes asshole

>>17491299
Singing songs for dead men roaming
Music for the deaf eared
men who have lost themselves in the past
Men stuck sulking in the rivers of hell
looking up at gods passing
Why are we here to remain
Who has forgotten them

Gladly sulking in those red hot flames
Running nor walking but limping across hot red coals
Looking up with tears in their eyes ahead of them is another man
Hades awaits at his throne
To torture them again at the scheduled hour

>>17491299
A self checkout.
Body's arrive then depart.

Also Wallace Stevens is goat

>>17494662
Why bad?
>>17495045
Why?

>>17496012
Line two kills the whole thing, though overall it's taking seriously something that's inconsequential and miniscule.

>>17496344
What's wrong with line two? I'm not being combative just curious. I'm mostly interested in rhythm, I know the subject was dumb

>>17496362
It is idiomatic and renders the whole time pastiche and disingenuous. I can believe the first line (sort of; why against your will?) But the second line then says I'm not even trying.

A friend wrote this shit

Two broken hearts conjoined by nature's force:
And torn between their two distant abodes
By rock and water, by a common source,
Which into vines and weeds had seeped and yoked.
Two minds the same were made apart themselves:
Cajoled by rows of walks and violet clouds
To leading cliffs and gold, to sun and hell
They hike their hearts off orange hills and crowds.
But then the night had scorned the day at last,
Their summered winter coldened under stars
and metal; ruptured hearts had made them outcasts
Yet made their minds the same forever charred:
Thus nature mated mind and heart with Love,
A common spring emerged from night and sun.

>>17496395
Ah I see thanks anon

>>17494903
Thanks anon

give me a girl that's gigabased
with big ol' tits, no butterface
she must, oh god, be trad and chaste
redpilled on zog, she loves her race

Art and Life by Dunsany

THERE is SO much to catch
As the days go by,
The line of some queer old thatch Against wintry sky,


The huge red sun of November Threatening snow,
Dark woods that seem to remember Ages ago,


Gold king-cups crowning the ditches, Windows agleam,
Old willows standing like witches Haunting a stream,


Far mountains lit with a glow
That is tremulous
With something we only know
Is never for us,

All shapes of rocks and of trees
That a rune has enchanted,
All sounds that sigh upon seas
Or lands that are haunted.

So much there is to catch,
And the years so short,
That there is scarce time to snatch Pen, palette, or aught,

And to seize some shape we can see, That others may keep
Its moment of mystery,
Then go to our sleep.

Haiku:

Thunderbolt steers all,
We fell to different abodes,
So they say, my love...

>>17498914
Its good. It feels complete and does a lot in three lines. I prefer traditional haikus that focus more on seasons and nature, but yours is enjoyable.

The Civil Wars
A melody that's sweet cannot escape the ear.
From speakers poured the sound of two,
A source of bliss coincidentally so near;
Under shade, my attention drew
To the duet on stage I didn't know.
Her dress was black, around his neck a bow
And there a strap which hung an old guitar.
They told their story, how they came from far
Off places on a map to write what captivated
The crowd at ACL that day;
The two performers shared a mirth that permeated
Through their fans and the words I say.
Perhaps if I had heard the lyrics clear
I may have realized that their end was near.

>>17496421
Its alright. There is a sort of tension that can be felt from the poem. The natural imagery intensifies it too. My problem with it is that the author seems to have a tough time going from one idea to the next. The transitions are jarring and the poem doesn't feel like it has any flow.

The Pyritic Age
When we had fallen in the grave,
We dug our own remains
In search of our forgotten age.
A yellow stink had blended with
The bones of our departed race,
For which we fools mistook its hue
As a solution to the grave.
We imitated blessings lost --
Our creation was a curse in strange
Inversion of our founding years:
War was only paused by threat
Of collective pain instead
Of individual accord;
We never learned the labor of
The plow, nor ate of Earth's fresh bounty.
The honorable ones had died
In peaceful sleep, their spirits ward
Over tombs and shovel dirt
Upon our backs as we, in most
Violent fashion, claw at flesh
And Earth for vanity in death.

>>17491299
Here:

On concurred roof fittings, arteriled laths as convenient as a girder;
Cross bracing, on sound's sharp sides, extra scortains inclose,
With talonit fullrisse, roof decking & crinin sheet, drinkin cider…
Vestibule panel, straight& trim, accordin' strength,
Knotless roof, girders meetin' on roof aftry side; no dice…
For earth & bolt, prestain-retained of thick, constant bits,
Dimensional & geometrical, each part its own, neither standin' on top.
Fitting the roof no trouble at all, no one dies
Has been used on most, of that size or taller,
Of old, though on rare occasion, its original design but smaller.
Coating the stone with blank hue on bottom
Exact pale white wash, say a pint or more,
Or bright true blue, dry fit it tightly,
Make it shine brightly & drink a drop of it… frighteningly

Pinching of panels, secure booty, kas one-, two-perry's game
Much pilfered grimly dexterous whelps, adornry, & makin use
Fiddle bow, hollerin' & burnin', truck, name
Fresh axe, firendly axe,
Blade, hack, slash, smarting axe,
Chase, hunt, track, struggle, ramsay
Praise lyre, moose-skin,
Smash bonfire, drink good gin & smokin' fire,
Renaissance doll, learn-en-choir again
In chorus to my wish
I made the end of our house, rose from Alda

Wrote this poem a while ago, mostly just posting it to keep the thread bumped.

Unnamed poem

amber paradise hidden in disguise,
my eyes only see you when they are closed.
but softly then falls a dew from the skies
and your guise is disclosed.

dimly a little light flickers in me,
the leperous blight is washed from my heart.
scales of night no longer obscure my sight,
and the dark is torn apart.

gently shimmers the shining silver star,
my skin is anointed with sinless blood.
tears of illumination from afar
gently engulf me in a flood.

>>17491299
I know it’s you I hit

Not stopping
Im busy

Gotta do some shit

>>17497599
nice. very well put together.
>>17500835
What is it about.
Its to long and wordy
>>17495054
Kinda cliché
But whatever

Déjà tes larmes gèlent,
elles blessent tes joues.
Tu écoutes cette douleur,
tu la comprends :
elle est à toi.
Et tu prends ces diamants,
tu les jettes très haut
comme deux oiseaux,
comme deux amants
qui s'aiment dans le vent.
Au ciel tu donnes un bijou !
Ah mon ami, tu étais dur :
il fallait que l'hiver te brise
pour que tu te saches roc aux veines dorées.
Tu arrives chez moi
plus léger et plus sage.
Rapproche toi du feu,
réchauffe ton visage.

>shitty translation

Already your tears are freezing,
they hurt your cheeks.
You listen to this pain,
you understand it:
it is yours.
And you take these diamonds,
you throw them very high
like two birds,
like two lovers
who love each other in the wind.
To heaven you give a jewel!
Ah my friend, you were hard:
winter had to break you
for you to know you are a rock with golden veins.
You come to my place
lighter and wiser.
Get closer to the fire,
warm your face.

>>17500835
I like the imagery of the "scales of night" though I feel it may stand too alone in this poem. The parallel between the fifth and ninth verse is also nice.
>>17499002
I like how it flows. My only problem is the verse "upon our backs as we, in most": I feel like the enjambment is a bit awkward.
>>17496421
Kind of boring. IMO the nature shit that has been around since the romantics is very hard to pull off (even some of the great romantics make it sounds uninteresting from time to time).
>>17495054
I mostly like it but the last verse ruined it. Firstly the apposition of "torture" and "scheduled hour" seems more comical than terrifying. Secondly "scheduled hour" makes it seem like Hades is some kind of minimal wage employee (the impression is made worse by the aforementioned humour).

“The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began,
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.”

— J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

Bulp

>>17501626
First stanza is about how the light of God is a light to our souls and life’s when we close our eyes in prayer.

The second elaborates on this concept and explains how the interior darkness and ignorance is destroyed by the light of god.

The third is a deeper elaboration, explaining how it is done through the blood of Christ, and how this results in tears/crying in ecstasy from prayerful contemplation of godhead.

The poem was basically my attempt at explaining what prayer feels like for me.

Here’s another poem, the Song of Solomon and how she sang it to me, by current 93

I am comely, because I'm black
As the tents of Kedar,
As the Solomon's veil.
Because the sun has scorched my skin
As the cedar trees of Lebanon.
My beloved is onto me
As a cluster of campfires
In the vineyards of En Gedi.
As the apple tree
Deep in the orchard,
So is my beloved
Among the daughters.
Thou art is fair as Gilead.
O prince's daughter! O fountain of life!
Behold, how pleasant perfume of night
Of a cedar, myrrh and a frankincense.
For now the winter rain is past,
That flower appears upon the earth.
The time of singing birds has come
And the voice of the turtle is heard in our land.
I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valleys.
As the lily among thorns
So is my beloved.
I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valleys.
As the lily among thorns
So is my beloved.

pffrrt blort plop
Wbbbbbbrrrrrtttt frrrrrt BRAAP
Sniiifff oh my god yea

bump

>>17492352
I hate this kind of black slam poetry cadence, find it annoying honestly. The poetics are overall weak, the imagery is about what you expect and doesn’t go beyond a generic raggae song and worst of all I don’t see any control of the form itself of the poem. You could have told me this is a prose piece and I would have no way to tell it wasn’t. Good free verse is still poetry.

>>17493483
Sincere but boring, not very pretty.

>>17493615

First doesn’t have enough interior, the second lacks any interior aspect except perhaps in allegory but I don’t find a barn made of bricks a particularly nice image.

The third one feels kinda bathetic, is that intentional?
Walking in the cold is the best but I dislike the choice of having the stars dance.

Final one has nothing really of note to it. If a poem can’t induce an ecstasy or aspect of beauty it fails.

>>17493655
Just write prose you know you want to.

>>17494432
Make it longer.

>>17494881
Here anon.

When house or hearth doth sluttish lie,
I pinch the maidens black and blue;
The bed-clothes from the bed pull I,
And lay them naked all to view.
’Twixt sleep and wake,
I do them take,
And on the key-cold floor them throw:
If out they cry,
Then forth I fly,
And loudly laugh out ho, ho, ho!
When any need to borrow ought,
We lend them what they do require:
And for the use demand we nought;
Our own is all we do desire.
If to repay
They do delay,
Abroad amongst them then I go,
And, night by night,
I them affright
With pinchings, dreams, and ho, ho, ho!
When lazy queans have nought to do,
But study how to cog and lie;
To make debate and mischief too,
’Twixt one another secretly:
I mark their gloze,
And it disclose,
To them whom they have wronged so:
When I have done,
I get me gone,
And leave them scolding, ho, ho, ho!
When men do traps and engines set
In loop-holes, where the vermin creep,
Who from their folds and houses, get
Their ducks and geese, and lambs and sheep;
I spy the gin,
And enter in,
And seem a vermin taken so;
But when they there
Approach me near,
I leap out laughing ho, ho, ho!
By wells and rills, in meadows green,
We nightly dance our heydeguys;
And to our fairy king and queen
We chant our moon-light minstrelsies.
When larks ’gin sing,
Away we fling;
And babes new-born steal as we go,
And elf in bed
We leave instead,
And wend us laughing, ho, ho, ho!
From hag-bred Merlin’s time have I
Thus nightly revell’d to and fro:
And for my pranks men call me by
The name of Robin Good-fellow.
Fiends, ghosts, and sprites,
Who haunt the nights,
The hags and goblins do me know;
And beldames old
My feats have told;
So Vale, Vale; ho, ho, ho!

>>17495054
Doesn’t sound believable, I don’t buy it, feels like cardboard. Feels like a poem written for another piece of media with an intentionally grimdark feel. Either lean into your indulgent tastes or write in a way that suits your ideals better.

>>17498932
The first four lines could be stronger and some stronger imagery would be beneficial in the middle of it.

>>17499002
Favorite poem in the thread so far, good clear flow, fun and more interesting(though original) imagery

These lines however mean nothin to me and distract from the overall beauty.

Inversion of our founding years:
War was only paused by threat
Of collective pain instead
Of individual accord;
We never learned the labor of
The plow, nor ate of Earth's fresh bounty.

Trim them or change them. Keep the poem dusty and ashy.

>>17501881
Reminds me of another french poet but I cannot remember which. The part I enjoyed was “rock with golden veins”

>>17504265
Meant to say (though unoriginal) sorry!

>>17491299
Dubs

Check em
I get them

I picked up the 'Our Beautiful Landlocked Thing' collection from Julia Lans Nowak.
I'm not enthralled or anything, but it was good to read through. I think it suited my current holiday mood.

>>17504944
just checked this on internet, how did you even learn about her? are you her?

The Goal of Love

“Before the wonder of a soul laid bare
To feel a sense of worship so devout,
A certitude so absolute that there
Can be no possibility of doubt—
The moving vision of a soul without
The veils that hung like stifling clouds between
And is this not the goal of love, the dream?

Beyond the shores of outwardness to see
A never-ending ocean stretch and know
How infinite a human soul can be,
Depth upon depth, as far as thought can go—
To float untrammelled towards each other, flow
In woven currents, vanish and be whole—
And is not this the dream, the end, the goal?”

— Ann Keith

I caught a fairy in a bottle
Who granted me my every wish
Yet she looked so shocked
When I tore off her wings.

>>17504265
Thanks for the reviews. Its always nice when someone says something about a poem that was posted.

For the second poem, I wanted to include examples or i feel like the poem could turn into a vague "the old times were so much better" piece

A couple weeks ago, I decided I should try to get into poetry. Who should I read? It's been going well so far; I've been reading Donne and Wordsworth, both of whom I'm enjoying quite a bit, as well as some lady named Edna St Vincent Millay, who I find to be really beautiful sometimes, but much less consistently than the others. I also have Coleridge, Tennyson, Shelley, and Browning waiting on my shelf. Who else should I be on the lookout for?

This is probably my favorite that I've found so far.

Not in a silver casket cool with pearls
Or rich with red corundum or with blue,
Locked, and the key withheld, as other girls
Have given their loves, I give my love to you;
Not in a lovers’-knot, not in a ring
Worked in such fashion, and the legend plain—
Semper fidelis, where a secret spring
Kennels a drop of mischief for the brain:
Love in the open hand, no thing but that,
Ungemmed, unhidden, wishing not to hurt,
As one should bring you cowslips in a hat
Swung from the hand, or apples in her skirt,
I bring you, calling out as children do:
“Look what I have!—And these are all for you.”

>>17506977
William Blake, Keats Swinburne and Poe are also great. Here have a few poems from Blake.

A poison tree

I was angry with my friend;
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.

And I waterd it in fears,
Night & morning with my tears:
And I sunned it with smiles,
And with soft deceitful wiles.

And it grew both day and night.
Till it bore an apple bright.
And my foe beheld it shine,
And he knew that it was mine.

And into my garden stole,
When the night had veild the pole;
In the morning glad I see;
My foe outstretched beneath the tree.

The Human Abstract

Pity would be no more
If we did not make somebody Poor;
And Mercy no more could be
If all were as happy as we.

And mutual fear brings peace,
Till the selfish loves increase:
Then Cruelty knits a snare,
And spreads his baits with care.

He sits down with holy fears,
And waters the ground with tears;
Then Humility takes its root
Underneath his foot.

Soon spreads the dismal shade
Of Mystery over his head;
And the Catterpillar and Fly
Feed on the Mystery.

And it bears the fruit of Deceit,
Ruddy and sweet to eat;
And the Raven his nest has made
In its thickest shade.

The Gods of the earth and sea
Sought thro’ Nature to find this Tree;
But their search was all in vain:
There grows one in the Human Brain.

Will expand this poem later but it works I think in this small size.

a serpent sees a silver Star
leaping he longs for Living light
but the light of life seems so far
as it fades into the dark night

>>17507396
Alright, I’m satisfied with how this turned out.

The Serpent and The Star

a serpent sees a silver Star
leaping he longs for Living light
but the light of life seems so far
as it fades into the dark night

tears of the remembrance of presence Fall
the Sad serpent bites and maws at his tail
“sabacthani “ says he who’s face is pale
the bell is rung and upon all bloodfalls

darkness covered all
the Earth became black
all things now empty
but the Snake has his Star

>>17507013
>Pity would be no more
>If we did not make somebody poor
>And mercy no more could be
>If all were happy as we
God, that's fucking great.

>>17507604
Yeah Blake’s phenomenal and has something for everyone. Check out his songs of innocence and experience. Blake’s a poet that is both great for the person who’s new to poetry and to the person well seasoned due to his skill and aesthetics and beliefs.

A Gypsy song with translation
(It’s an older traditional song but I still quite enjoy it)

Nai mon dostee woud-bee tey penav
So-tu monga Gadahn, Lan-mon on dah lumia, ah toe-dan-mon tey servivtuth onday gong-ged-ee, tu Lan mon ondah tu-nad-ee-go, tu dan Mon cho duk-ho.

Nai mon woud-bee tey penav numa ajes ondah sai ay lumia, Moogo glaso may phastav, ay may penav koni nai devla san Tu.

Koni nai devla san tu, koni nai devla San tu.

Nai mon woud-bee tey penav numa ajes ondah sai ay lumia, Moogo glaso may phastav, ay may penav koni nai devla san Tu.

Nai mon dostee woud-bee tey penav
So-tu monga Gadahn, Lan-mon on dah lumia, ah toe-dan-mon tey servivtuth onday gong-ged-ee, tu Lan mon ondah tu-nad-ee-go, tu dan Mon cho duk-ho.

Bel chong-on-day may avav, ay may penav, koni nai devla son tu.

translation Focus on literalism

I do not have enough words (in praise) to say, for what you’ve done for me, you took me out of the world and placed me to serve you in the church, you took me from darkness and you gave me your Spirit.

I do not have the words, even today, in front of this entire world, my Voice I lift up and I say, there is None like you.

There is none, O Lord like you, there Is none O Lord like you. I do not have any words to say, o lord, I am speechless before the world, my voice I lift up and say there is none like you.

I do not have enough words (in praise) to say, for what you’ve done for me, you took me out of the world and placed me to serve you in the church, you took me from darkness and you gave me your Spirit.

Upon my knees I come before you, and I speak: there is none O Lord like You.

>>17491299
Sinking
Sinking
Sinking

The day is beckoning
“Listen!”
If only I had ears to receive

This corporeal prison
Beholden to my faulty chemistry
I brace myself with lies and purpose

In the City of Angels
I wonder
“Is it dead?”

>>17493615
>>17498914
>frens have been furloughed
>der Memeendsieg entschieden
>our Tendie War won

>>17499002
Lapidary, title and “A yellow stink ... our departed race.” good hooks

>>17501881
>They tear at your face
>furrows already frozen
>you hear their thunder
>it echoes within
>your own storm
>diamonds you cast from the eye
>and thrown from on high
>as a pair of birds
>as two lovers
>dancing through the sky
>You offer your lights to Heaven
>Alas my love, you were rough:
>Winter had to polish your hot blood
>with its hidden golden seams
>You join me
>unburdened and familiar
>Enter the hearth
>and melt by my fire

Quite enjoyable. A hopefully not too bowdlerized adaptation, for you

>>17494545
Robinson Jeffers
Bukowski

>>17494584
Listen to his own reading of it to confirm suspicion, otherwise investigate the references/making of

>>17495054
You have me for the first two lines, which I wouldn’t change necessarily. Find a rhyme scheme following them up, otherwise cut the word count by 1/5th and do another pass on the imagery.

>>17494584
Nah, I mean, even if you knew and understood all of the references that’s no promise you’d like his style and aesthetic. The real Answer to this question is this, after re-reading it write down the positives and negatives, write an essay on why you think it’s shit or why you didn’t like it.

If you can justify your dislike and why it doesn’t fit your own tastes, that’s absolutely fine and not a problem.

>>17491299
Hey Frater, ever hear of the Reflections magazine? Maybe you would be interested in submitting some poems to them.
https://www.reflectionspoetry.org/welcome/

>>17507988
Never heard of them, I mean I’ll consider it. I never really gave any thought to being published. Ive always just written for myself, and sometimes for friends and anons. I’ll think about it though, if I do submit(to this or anything) it’ll be under one or multiple pseudonyms.

Thanks for the thought, Anon.

I have never writen or read much poetry before.


Death looms over all, just as the sun shines over us
It eternally follows wherever life's breath moves through
Yet the hearts of men, bold and courageous, will never harden in it's wake
For even the strongest among them possesses love that he does not wish to have taken away
So they continue to endure it's wretched pain
Again, again and again
So Chronos has decided and so it shall be
Time moves ever on and will erase all your beloved company

Is it bad or garbage?

Horace’s ode to Pyrrha, various translations

Milton’s

What slender youth, bedew’d with liquid odors,
Courts thee on roses in some pleasant cave,
Pyrrha? For whom bind’st thou
In wreaths thy golden hair,
Plain in thy neatness? O how oft shall he
Of faith and changed gods complain, and seas
Rough with black winds, and storms
Unwonted shall admire!
Who now enjoys thee credulous, all gold,
Who, always vacant, always amiable
Hopes thee, of flattering gales
Unmindful. Hapless they
To whom thou untried seem’st fair. Me, in my vow’d
Picture, the sacred wall declares to have hung
My dank and dropping weeds
To the stern god of sea.
Literal translation

What slender boy, drenched in liquid perfumes,
presses hard upon you on many a rose,
Pyrrha, under cover of a pleasing cave?
For whom do you bind back your yellow hair,

Simple with elegance? Alas, how often will he lament
faithlessness and changed gods, and in surprise
He will marvel at
rough waters with black winds,

he who now enjoys you, believing, you are golden,
who hopes that you will be always free, always lovable,
he who is ignorant of the treacherous breeze!
Wretched are they for whom

you, untried, shine. As for me, the sacred wall
with its votive tablet declares that I have
hung up my dripping garments
to the god who rules over the sea.

Pic related is Dunsany’s

Bump

Bump

Upon a broken vase that i did find
I traced the cracks and every line
It seemed to me i couldnt tell
About the way it looked before it fell

The flowers they were likely new
And had never felt the morning dew
I could see it in their wilted state
The water pooled like tears upon the plate

What was there id never know
But for me it would always show
A story left in bitter pieces
Put back together with an adhesive
It would resent, but could never live without.

Written as a prayer of ecstasy

walk with me as we walked then
when I was alone without friend
when the lonely storm would not end

walk with me as we walked then
when all of the eyes were shut
and the trail of your glory passed the men

in the night I had a dream
where I met you sitting by the stream
and we broke bread as friends break bread

in the night I had a dream
where the sky was cracked crystal
and I briefly saw your face

I fantasized your flaming face
among the cries of bird and beast
among the cries of prince and priest

I felt your flaming face
but I did not fear you
IAO You are my father

Bump

>>17511185
I love this one but i feel like the friend in line 2 should be plural, i like it when there's slight variations of rhymes:

walk with me as we walked then
when I was alone without friends
when the lonely storm would not end

>>17491299
Based boys
Come to play

At night
After day

Living life today
Like it's yesterday
>>17501584
>>17501626
me plz rate

>>17511970

Thanks anon, I honestly didn’t place much thought in it as it came to me as an ecstatic prayer. You’re probably correct.

Another old Gypsy song, actually one of my favorites.

Yek Suno may dik-glem, Ondoh ghai-o adah-Slem, swento suno Dik-glem, Le Devlesa pedem.

Triyo ah-dah glem, lay-devlesa pedem, ondoh suno wus-te-lem. Ondah o Dod may Bisav, Po cheti deegav, dov mon ghondoh tuday, ghana avesa Devla.

Chi jhangopai o jaso, o chi o jes, fetay devla jhanav, kai tu see-Taves

Yek Suno may dik-glem, Ondoh ghai-o adah-Slem, swento suno Dik-glem, Le Devlesa pedem.

Triyo ah-dah glem, lay-devlesa pedem, ondoh suno wus-te-lem. Ondah o Dod may Bisav, Po cheti deegav, dov mon ghondoh tuday, ghana avesa Devla.

Devla Tu-Tod mongav tusa tey Avav, Tey pedev sod pedem, ondah suno Kai declem, tey pedev sod pedem ondah suno mai declem.

Literal translation

I saw a Dream, I had traveled/gotten into heaven, a holy dream I saw, With God I walked.

I found life there, with God I walked, from the dream I awoke.

I stand in my door, sitting there looking outwards into the stars, my mind wonders about you, about when you will come Oh God,

God from you I ask this, may I come with you and may I walk with you, let me walk as I walked in my dream, as the dream I saw, let me walk as the dream I saw, walk with you as the dream I saw.

>>17512273
Whoops forgot to translate A line because I tried to skip the repetition.

This line.

> Chi jhangopai o jaso, o chi o jes, fetay devla jhanav, kai tu see-Taves

Which translates out to” I do not know the hour nor the day, I only know; God, that you will Come”

Embers dance
As an empire burns
Our Blood lust boils
While bored youth toil
Han, Roman, Bantu, and Persian
Nevertheless, collapse is certain

>>17501881
I like the gemological imagery a lot
>And you take these diamonds,
you throw them very high
and
>to know you are a rock with golden veins

>>17507531
I like the first stanza rhyme scheme, but second stanza scheme seems off, like the first was ABAB and the second is ABBA, could be slicker if you stuck with the same rhyme schemes in both.

>>17512792
Ya think so? I thought it would be boring/repetitive to do the ABAB throughout the entire poem, but then again ABAB is always pretty snappy. Is the imagery too boring ?

The Lucky Ones
The lucky ones were
paychecks
indentured
resented
The lucky ones had
untreated illnesses
empty stomachs
vaginal tearing
The lucky ones put
bits of food in the bottom of their sock drawers
the back of a chair under the doorknob every night
hope out of their mind
The lucky ones are
broken
afraid
free
The lucky ones mourn
the unlucky ones
Hope Feathers
Hope is the thing with feathers
Okay fine whatever
The fucking eagle that’s still
Eating Prometheus’s liver
Has feathers too

Apologia
“I’m not sorry,” she apologized

>>17512841
I just prefer a crisp rhyme scheme when I do rhyme

Here's a poem from a children's book about the brassica family I'm working on:

The Brassica Family

Our mother the mustard
known for her seed
Cultivated her traits
To create new plant breeds.

Her children were grown
adding sisters and brothers
By encouraging growth
on some parts of herself
more than others.

From the buds on her sides
she formed Brussels Sprouts.
From her terminal buds
did the head of the Cabbage come out.

From her stem came Kohlrabi,
swollen and thick.
Brothers Collards and Kale came out from her leaves
grown large so intentionally to be picked.

From her flowers and stems
Out she coaxed to grow stockily
Florets forming green heads of her sons
We call Broccoli.

And with a bit thicker stem following similar plans
Came Broccoli's glossy leafed brother, Gai Lan

Some florets she protected
and clustered together
And hid with big leaves
from the heat and the sun and the weather

A delicate child emerged from this shelter
with a slight dense nuttiness but so mild and gentle.
ready long after others at a much later hour
This blanched white bouquet we call Cauliflower

And with a sharp hue of chartreuse
but relatedly grown
Came her spiral shaped brother
named Romanesco

Oh! To think of the vegetables that could have been missed
and the wonderful differences that would never be
if our brassica family didn't exist
without our mustard mother and her mustard seed.

>>17491299
I wrote this just now to test my ability. Shred-it apart guys it'll do me better as a writer. Also debating reading Rilke, or the Iliad right now what would you guys rec?

>>17491299
I write a lot of poetry, I enjoy it a lot and read it a lot. But I don't know any of the complexities of meter and don't know the rules of the specifics, never read a book on it. When I write I just write with rhythm and imagery in mind, is it psuedy to do this or no? I imagine most of my favorite poets never were introduced to these rules? Idk, anyone here come to this conundrum before?

>>17512908
I like it, it’s a cute idea but since it’s for children consider jamming in more alliteration and internal rhymes. These can really get kids interested and as s general rule I like that stuff.

>>17513437

I mean it really depends on the poet you read, many poets have a extremely controlled form and some of them like Auden say explicitly they want you to pay attention to how they play with meter since they get the most fun out of that.

I don’t think it’s a pseud think but rather perhaps something that may or may not lessen your overall enjoyment, read pic related it’ll probably help. It’s written with the poetry reader in mind to help him appreciate it even more.

I know for a fact my favorite poets were incredibly controlling over their poetry but that’s my taste and according to their own writings. Likewise your poetry might also improve by this.

Personally when I write (not that my writing is any good) I try to follow the analysis of Robert bridges of Milton and also the epic style of William Blake, which is broadly speaking, a kind of English syllabic meter which pays no mind to meter proper, as a way of releasing/giving freedom to the inspiration impulses while maintaining control and symbolic/structural power. Perhaps you’d find you prefer copying how a certain poet does his meter yeah?

>>17491510
Absolutely kino

>>17491299
Winter Pepe by me

As the autumn ends
Frog lays down to rest again
Finally at peace

>>17513508
Yeah, while I give yeats a hard time for not being as occult as I want the dude is still a great poet. And if you think that Dunsany poem was good, his prose will knock your socks off since his real skill was creating poetry-in-prose, these harmonized with his story telling, imagery and so forth. Like a Baudelaire writing fantasy, couldn’t shill his prose higher.

>>17513530
I've just gotten into /lit/ recently and have very little exposure to poetry. I used to write in highschool and such, but I haven't in a while( I did write a peom recently to fit into my novel though) I'm gonna have to add these two to my list of authors/poets to check out,
Thanks anon

>>17513574
Not a problem friend, they were actually close friends, they had a whole odd circle of writers that were pretty entertaining to look into. Look into gods of pegana or the book of wonder for Dunsany. Also post your poem anon(if you feel comfortable doing such) , I also enjoy writing poems for little short stories and novels.


Here’s a poem I wrote a while ago for a short story.


Colors of amber and lovely green
soaring of many birds i have seen
Dark forests where dwell the elven kin
Golden cities which no man has been
Remember a past that never was
is What the blessed of many years does
The wings of the wind rushing forward
What The servants of flame go toward
beautiful world I cannot fathom
It is beyond the kin of Adam

>>17511185
I like the intention, but if you learned meter and setting up a rhythm the effect would be much stronger

>>17513644
Oh that was just transcribing random bursts of passion I didn’t even put any symbolic component nor did I even count any syllables. I’m definitely sure if I worked at it I could refine it. 100% just a random ecstasy

>>17513437
Other anon is definitely right. You dont need to get into form/meter and shit but poetry is wayyyy better when you do. Big part of poetry is wordplay, creating words, messing with form and when you understand that more, poetry begins to mean a lot more. His attached book is good too .

When it comes to writing poetry, one big reccomendation I would have would be try to find a form and get good at it. Something easy may be a sonnet form, copy shakespeare or keats or something. It is a fairly short poetic form so it wont take much time overall but theres a lot one can do with it, also since it is restrictive in length/meter, it forces one to be creative (oftentimes other less restrictive form is a bad place to start because one can get lazy with word choice) After you get good (and you will know when youre good) with the form, begin to move on to others.

>>17513615
I'll definitely check them out, anon, when i find the time. I like the imagery in yours too, and I'm always a fan of elves and whatnot

Here's mine, in context it's about a character that just lost her family

A Hymn for Darker Places

How am I to say goodbye to you?
Who found me on the path alone.
Who took my tattered flag and made me fly it anew.
When I walked under Oren's sky
How am I to say goodbye?

I sat upon a sordid throne,
And listened to the darkness lie.
And though my heart was old as stone,
All marred and cracked and cold.
I let you take it to hold- to remold

You made the deadness die.
Love arose, strong and brave and bold.
Love- like fires- to defy,
Lust for the most unwholesome of desires.
You burned me on your lovely pyres.

Though the truth you always told.
Struck, I am again, by all the words of all the liars
Struck; by wicked words which cause my heart to fold.
Stuck again in a lonely and broken art.
Though I had you; we are now forever apart.

Orenthal guides me on the wires
On lonesome ways again I start
On I march, as my soul tires,
Over paths of broken stone where I endlessly cry.
Orenthal calls me to say goodbye.

-Or atleast to try.
As I walk under his sky,
How am I to say goodbye?

I've been experimenting with no rhymes and varying metrics these last weeks, may I get some opinions on this one?

London

In dreams I see you, tiny wailing arms
flailing about, horrified
as the ancient skulls of untold beasts stare you down
the museum was infinite with no baby blue fabric in sight

in your childish fear, unbounded freedom
more happy times, I realize
As I wake up, numb
blinding white light fills my weary eyes

in insurmountable ammounts
There's no more fear now
Only the empty wasteland
of my own mind
As I stare myself down

I got my bump
My big old lump
Boning my leg
Pushing my egg
Out of my ass
Into the grass

Initiate

When deepest words are wasted in the speaking,
And your aching Heart is silent as a frosted stone;
When your tired eyes no longer see the Wonder,
And on the thorny Path you walk alone;
When the painful Night seems to you eternal,
And still no Light seems there to be. .
Then it's time to weigh the ancient anchor,
And cast your barque upon the Inner Sea.
When no loving hand is there to soothe your brow,
And endless troubles oppress your mind;
When words of comfort have flown the Winter,
Another more deserving soul to find;
When all your doors are surely bolted,
And your Wings lay languid in this earthy Cage. . .
Give not your tongue to sorrow's bitter spite,
Nor on the ignorant vent your rage.
When your heart hath bled with scarlet sorrow,
And washed with life-blood your weary feet;
When all things seem but hollow shadows,
And the soul unwraps its winding sheet;
When deserted, lonely and despised,
And spoken of with slanderous lies. .
Then send thou forth sweet Thoughts of Love,
And cleanse with Light the blackened skies.
For Thou, another holds the Golden Keys,
And awaits your coming with outstretched arms;
For Thou, a greater Sun than Lights the heavens,
Who with His secret Peace all trouble calms;
For Thou, a precious Robe of Potent Love,
Most Sacred Fire of scarlet red;
For Thou, a Crown of jewelled Wisdom,
Glittering with Power upon Thine head.
Matthew Sutherland

Bump

Light breaks where no sun shines;
Where no sea runs, the waters of the heart
Push in their tides;
And, broken ghosts with glow-worms in their heads,
The things of light
File through the flesh where no flesh decks the bones.

A candle in the thighs
Warms youth and seed and burns the seeds of age;
Where no seed stirs,
The fruit of man unwrinkles in the stars,
Bright as a fig;
Where no wax is, the candle shows its hairs.

Dawn breaks behind the eyes;
From poles of skull and toe the windy blood
Slides like a sea;
Nor fenced, nor staked, the gushers of the sky
Spout to the rod
Divining in a smile the oil of tears.

Night in the sockets rounds,
Like some pitch moon, the limit of the globes;
Day lights the bone;
Where no cold is, the skinning gales unpin
The winter's robes;
The film of spring is hanging from the lids.

Light breaks on secret lots,
On tips of thought where thoughts smell in the rain;
When logics dies,
The secret of the soil grows through the eye,
And blood jumps in the sun;
Above the waste allotments the dawn halts.

Lucifer in Starlight has tickled my fancy

>>17513525
I actually like it but I’m a sucker for resting and cold imagery.

>>17513689

I placed the syllable count next to each line but I’ll go through them. In general I dislike romantic poetry because it seems too weak and easy, but I’ll give your poem slack due to the plot relevance it was constructed for.

>How am I to say goodbye to you? 9
>Who found me on the path alone. 8

Pretty generic so far but perhaps they’re just utilitarian lines.


>Who took my tattered flag and made me fly it anew. 13

And made me fly it anew comes off clunky, too many syllables, shorten the line.
>When I walked under Oren's sky 8
>How am I to say goodbye? 7

The rhyme is kinda out of no where but I get you want to emphasize goodbye, the problem is that it feels like you wrote the “how am I” portion at a later date, or the two lines don’t easily and elegantly flow into each other. This is more excusable if the clunky line is in the middle but ending the stanza clunky doesn’t feel right even if you emphasized “goodbye”

>I sat upon a sordid throne, 8
>And listened to the darkness lie. 8
>And though my heart was old as stone, 8

Undeservingly edgy, you haven’t established a cadence, a manner of speech to warrant such language and imagery, this can be remedied by plot significance but alone it feels unnatural and not majestic.

>All marred and cracked and cold. 6

Feels like this line only exists to allow for the following rhymes.

>I let you take it to hold- to remold 10

Again, I feel tension/struggle, to hold- to remold sounds like you couldn’t decide what rhyme you wanted or you couldn’t get the syllable count right.

>You made the deadness die. 6

I’m sorry but this is pretty childish, this would work if you established more innocent and childish imagery but trying to contrast it with throne and old and stone and other such just makes it feel weak. You need to build up to certain textures, say this line outloud who or what do you imagine saying it?

>Love arose, strong and brave and bold. 8
>Love- like fires- to defy, 7
>Lust for the most unwholesome of desires. 11
>You burned me on your lovely pyres. 9

Generic sayings about love being strong, the common fire-desire-pyre, I get it, I mean common and generic stuff like that can be very powerful and he used very effectively but you didn’t wrap it in anything or do it in a potent way. Making this portion forgettable.


Cont

>>17518568
>Though the truth you always told. 7

Another utility line, Remember you can be decadent and maximalist without resorting to useless lines/boring lines, such is never encouraged.

>Struck, I am again, by all the words of all the liars 14

Far too long, all the words of all the liars doesn’t need to be said, the words of all liars would be more than enough but even then that would still be ehh, but again, far too long of a line.

>Struck; by wicked words which cause my heart to fold. 11

Could have been a good line if you elaborated on the imagery of folding, a great simile is short but filled with potent imagery, that you should strive for.

>Stuck again in a lonely and broken art. 11

Another line that could have been good if you followed with something better

>Though I had you; we are now forever apart. 12

Absolutely generic, Art-Apart isn’t needed, “now” isn’t needed, think of writing poetry as writing a song or a chant. You aren’t writing casual dialogue (except in some cases when you are)

>Orenthal guides me on the wires 9
>On lonesome ways again I start 8
>On I march, as my soul tires, 8

Liking these lines better but wires isn’t a good image and feels force/strained.

>Over paths of broken stone where I endlessly cry. 13
Orenthal calls me to say goodbye. 9>

This rhyme was decent and the first line is a bit nicer; but again pay attention to line length. As a general rule shorter lines feel more ornate and strange, longer lines feel more natural and exhaustive, long lines followed by short project exhaustion incredibly however, some poets use terrible and wrathful words in long lines and nicer more peaceful imagery in shorter. Figure out why you use different line lengths as I personally do not see a pattern in your line lengths.

>-Or atleast to try. 5
>As I walk under his sky, 7
>How am I to say goodbye? 7

Or at least to try feels stiff as does the final line.

Now Anon, I only critiqued harshly for purely beneficial reasons, I believe harsh critique is the best thing to help improvement in this art.

Psalm 6, various translations


Psalm 6, NIV
1
O LORD, do not rebuke me in your anger or discipline me in your wrath.
2
Be merciful to me, LORD, for I am faint; O LORD, heal me, for my bones are in agony.
3
My soul is in anguish. How long, O LORD, how long?
4
Turn, O LORD, and deliver me; save me because of your unfailing love.
5
No one remembers you when he is dead. Who praises you from the grave [2] ?
6
I am worn out from groaning; all night long I flood my bed with weeping and drench my couch with tears.
7
My eyes grow weak with sorrow; they fail because of all my foes.
8
Away from me, all you who do evil, for the LORD has heard my weeping.
9
The LORD has heard my cry for mercy; the LORD accepts my prayer.
10
All my enemies will be ashamed and dismayed; they will turn back in sudden disgrace.


King James Version
Psalm 6

6 O Lord, rebuke me not in thine anger, neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure.

2 Have mercy upon me, O Lord; for I am weak: O Lord, heal me; for my bones are vexed.

3 My soul is also sore vexed: but thou, O Lord, how long?

4 Return, O Lord, deliver my soul: oh save me for thy mercies' sake.

5 For in death there is no remembrance of thee: in the grave who shall give thee thanks?

6 I am weary with my groaning; all the night make I my bed to swim; I water my couch with my tears.

7 Mine eye is consumed because of grief; it waxeth old because of all mine enemies.

8 Depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity; for the Lord hath heard the voice of my weeping.

9 The Lord hath heard my supplication; the Lord will receive my prayer.

10 Let all mine enemies be ashamed and sore vexed: let them return and be ashamed suddenly.


Psalms 6, Phillip Sidney translation

Lord, lett not mee, a worm, by thee be shent While thou art in the heate of thy displeasure: Ne let thy rage, of my due punnishment
Become the measure.
But mercy, Lord, lett mercy thine descend,
For I am weake, and in my weakness languish: Lord, help, for ev'n my bones their marrow spend
With cruell anguish.
Nay, ev'n my soule fell troubles do appall.
Alas! how long, my God, wilt thou delay me? Turn thee, sweete Lord, and from this ougly fall
My deere God, stay me.
Mercy, O mercy, Lord, for mercies sake,
For death doth kill the wittness of thy glory; Can, of thy praise, the tongues entombed make
A heav nly story?
Loe, I am tir'd, while still I sigh and grone:
My moistned bed proofes of my sorrow showeth: My bed (while I with black night moorn alone)
With my teares floweth.
Woe, like a Moth, my faces beutie eates,
And age, pul'd on with paines, all freshness fretteth The while a swarm of foes with vexing feates
My life besetteth.

Getthenceyouevill,whoinmyillrejoice,
In all whose works vainenesse is ever raigning: For God hath heard the weeping sobbing voice
30
Of my complayning.
The Lord my suite did heare, and gently heare;
They shall be sham'd and vext, that breed my cryeng: And turn their backs, and straight on backs appeare
Their shamfull flyeng.

Cont

>>17518686

Psalm 6, Milton translation

Lord in thine anger do not reprehend me
Nor in thy hot displeasure me correct;
Pity me Lord for I am much deject
Am very weak and faint; heal and amend me,
For all my bones, that even with anguish ake, [ 5 ]
Are troubled, yea my soul is troubled sore;
And thou, O Lord, how long? turn Lord, restore
My soul, O save me for thy goodness sake,
For in death no remembrance is of thee;
Who in the grave can celebrate thy praise? [ 10 ]
Wearied I am with sighing out my dayes,
Nightly my Couch I make a kind of Sea;
My Bed I water with my tears; mine Eie
Through grief consumes, is waxen old and dark
Ith' mid'st of all mine enemies that mark. [ 15 ]
Depart all ye that work iniquitie.
Depart from me, for the voice of my weeping
The Lord hath heard, the Lord hath heard my prai'r
My supplication with acceptance fair
The Lord will own, and have me in his keeping. [ 20 ]
Mine enemies shall all be blank and dash't
With much confusion; then grow red with shame;
They shall return in hast the way they came
And in a moment shall be quite abash't

Psalms 6, robert alter translation

“LORD, do not chastise me in Your wrath, 2
do not punish me in Your fury.
Have mercy on me, LORD, for I am wretched. 3
Heal me, for my limbs are stricken.
And my life is hard stricken. 4
—and You, O LORD, how long?
Come back, LORD, deliver my life, 5
rescue me for the sake of Your kindness.
6 For death holds no mention of You.
In Sheol who can acclaim You?
7 I weary in my sighing.
I make my bed swim every night,
with my tears I water my couch.
8 From vexation my eye becomes dim,
is worn out, because of all my foes.
9 Turn from me, all you wrongdoers,
for the LORD hears the sound of my weeping.
The LORD hears my plea, 10
the LORD will take my prayer.
Let all my enemies be shamed and hard stricken, 11
let them turn back, be shamed in an instant.

I'm trying to write a sonnet about Shrek 2 as an exercice but I don't know which direction to take. Any idea?

>>17518921
I’d go for heavy Bathos, play it very seriously and contrast the serious language with the humorous subject matter. Maybe gradually reveal it’s about shrek and dont show your hand in the first few lines

>>17519003
thanks
will do that

>>17518638
>>17518568

Thanks for the feedback fraterbro
Yeah I wasn't considering line legnth/syllable count at all when writing. I was purely focused on the rhyme scheme, which I like but found to be very limiting. I wanted to make one that progresses though each stanza consistently. Meaning it's " a b a c c - b c b d d - c d c e e " and so forth. Also, I wanted the fourth and fifth lines to rhyme with the third to last word of the third line in each stanza. I played myself too by wanting to keep the first word of each line following a pattern also. It ended up being fairly rigid, which I actually like. But I will keep in mind the line legnths and try to make things less generic in the future, my freind

>>17494432
I would add punctuation. Specifically a question mark after "anything" and a period after "nope". It would make the answer to the rhetorical question hit harder and be more final imo

Haiku

With You

Here I stand again,
Unapologeticly,
Hopelessly in love

>>17519717
Another one I just wrote after deciding I really liked this one

-Pride-

Be in awe of me!
Foolish mortals, you are weak!
Nothing can compare

Owing to so much theatrics in my city
it has become rather difficult of late to exist.
I am however, by the grace of god,
able to continue to create fine
poetry, nearly, every single day.
Perhaps I will make a small donation to my local charity
and in the process enrich myself as I help others?
At two hours past midnight the halls still were marry
as the queen of the court remained away.
Women in the entry hall fornicating
informed me they would be staying until the cock crowed
What would you like to do?
My God! My breeches are overflowing with contraceptive devices ,as are my associate's.
Extinguish the candelabra and shut my chamber door
However, we do not love these wenches,
we will now imbibe on the smoke of several handfuls of flowering lotus,
always respecting our associates more than the wenches while
you pervy fornicators read my poetry
I will be strolling comfortably down the street
smoking high quality marijuana
drinking fine wine and feeling relaxed
contemplating my fortune

>>17494881

Love it

>>17497599

Love it if you're being ironic

>>17500835

I like the way this reads

Gonna bump this, when I return I’ll rate some more.

>>17520644
Thanks anon.

Alright time for a poem to bump with.

Promenade sentimentale by Verlaine

Le couchant dardait ses rayons suprêmes Et le vent berçait les nénuphars blêmes; Les grands nénuphars entre les roseaux, Tristement luisaient sur les calmes eaux. Moi j’errais tout seul, promenant ma plaie Au long de l’étang, parmi la saulaie
Où la brume vague évoquait un grand Fantôme laiteux se désespérant
Et pleurant avec la voix des sarcelles
Qui se rappelaient en battant des ailes Parmi la saulaie où j’errais tout seul Promenant ma plaie; et l’épais linceul
Des ténèbres vint noyer les suprêmes Rayons du couchant dans ses ondes blêmes Et des nénuphars, parmi les roseaux,
Des grands nénuphars sur les calmes eaux.

Sentimental Stroll by Verlaine
The setting sun cast its final rays
And the breeze rocked the pale water lilies; Among the reeds, the huge water
Lilies shone sadly on the calm water.
Me, I wandered alone, walking my wound Through the willow grove, the length of the pond Where the vague mist conjured up some vast Despairing milky ghost
With the voice of teals crying
As they called to each other, beating their wings Through the willow grove where alone I wandered Walking my wound; and the thick shroud
Of shadows came to drown the final rays
Of the setting sun in their pale waves
And, among the reeds, the water
Lilies, the huge water lilies on the calm water.

>>17494881
>>17497599
Very nice. Despite the simplicity these bring me true emotions, which must be the most important aspect of all.
>>17512908
I like it anon.

Here is a poem.
Wash against us without smite
you thinning deluge of frightful might
tearing holes from slits of space
as birds scream out from the night
songs deaf and weak by beaten ears
which upon are cried and scorched
by the rain-bombs of heavens yore
rain-bows in darkness shine no more
so thunder the pane, come the spree
laying deep inside the wet of a beast
and through the loudest silence of all
her noise goes humming me,
back to sleep.

Inspired by Satan's birth from Blake's Milton

It's my first poem so be nice pls anons

It’s a song so it technically doesn’t count but it’s lovely so I’m posting it.

Caruso.

Qui dove il mare luccica,
E tira forte il vento
Su una vecchia terrazza
Davanti al golfo di Surriento
Un uomo abbraccia una ragazza,
Dopo che aveva pianto
Poi si schiarisce la voce,
E ricomincia il canto.
Te voglio bene assaje,
Ma tanto tanto bene sai
è una catena ormai,
Che scioglie il sangue dint' 'e 'vvene sai.
Vide le luci in mezzo al mare,
Pensò alle notti là in America
Ma erano solo le lampare
Nella bianca scia di un'elica
Sentì il dolore nella musica,
Si alzò dal pianoforte
Ma quando vide la luna uscire da una nuvola
Gli sembrò più dolce anche la morte
Guardò negli occhi la ragazza,
Quelli occhi verdi come il mare
Poi all'improvviso uscì una lacrima,
E lui credette di affogare
Te voglio bene assaje,
Ma tanto tanto bene sai
è una catena ormai,
Che scioglie il sangue dint' 'e 'vvene sai
Potenza della lirica,
Dove ogni dramma è un falso
Che con un po' di trucco e con la mimica
Puoi diventare un altro
Ma due occhi che ti guardano
Così vicini e veri
Ti fan scordare le parole,
Confondono i pensieri
Così diventa tutto piccolo,
Anche le notti là in America
Ti volti e vedi la tua vita
Come la scia di un'elica
Ma sì, è la vita che finisce,
Ma lui non ci pensò poi tanto
Anzi si sentiva già felice,
E ricominciò il suo canto
Te voglio bene assaje,
Ma tanto tanto bene sai
è una catena ormai,
Che scioglie il sangue dint' 'e 'vvene sai

Cont with translation

>>17521943

Here, where the sea glistens
and the wind blows hard,
on an old terrace
in front of the Sorrento gulf
a man embraces a girl
after having cried
then he clears his throat
and restarts the song.

1I love you very much
but so, so much, you know.
It is a chain, by now
that dissolves the blood inside the veins, you know.

Saw the lights in the middle of the sea,
thought of the nights there, in America,
but they were only fishing lights2
in the white wash of a propeller.
Felt the pain in the music,
stood himself up from the pianoforte
but when he saw the moon come out of a cloud
even death seemed to him sweeter.

Looked at the girl in the eyes,
those eyes green like the sea,
then, all of a sudden, a tear came out
and he thought he was drowning.

I love you very much
but so, so much, you know.
It is a chain, by now
that dissolves the blood inside the veins, you know.

Power of the opera
where every drama is a falsehood,
that, with a bit of makeup and with mimicry,
you can become someone else.
But, two eyes that are looking at you,
so close and true,
make you forget the lyrics,
confuse the thoughts.

So everything becomes small,
even the nights there, in America,
you turn and see your life
as the wash of a propeller.
But yes, it's life that is ending,
but he didn't so much think about it,
rather, he was already feeling happy
and restarted his song.

I love you very much
but so, so much, you know.
It is a chain, by now
that dissolves the blood inside the veins, you know.

I love you very much
but so, so much, you know.
It is a chain, by now
that dissolves the blood inside the veins.

>>17521259

Where can you find French poems side by side with their English translations? Whe I get to studying French, that's how I want to learn

>>17522206
Depends, most of the time I download poetry collections which I know have side by side, but other times I’ll just google the poem in its original name or the like. Your best bet is just to look for multiple translations and find which has side by side.

>>17522219

How long have you studied poetry? What's your history with it?

>>17522278
Honestly couldn’t say. First and foremost I’m an occultist and mystic and I’ve been doing both since I was basically a kid as a Christian mystic. This naturally leads to study of Kabbalah and hermeticism and so forth. One of the first poets I came across early in my occultism was William Blake, but not as a poet but rather as a primary source for a mystical system. So I studied him and related mystical poetry as mysticism and not as poetry. So I studied a lot of mystical and occult and spiritual related poetry from various different traditions and how they related. I decided my study of philosophy and theology and mysticism wasn’t producing enough mental change a long while ago and decided that I need art, some kind of Art to further my mysticism and philosophy, to develop another way of contemplating you know? So I began to fixate on writing poetry and reading even more poetry. But as long as I’ve read mystical lit I’ve read mystical poetry.

Here’s an example of one of poems I’ve written, it demonstrates pretty well how poetry to me is still more or less an extension of my mysticism.

https://pastebin.com/pjwaw0pR

Almost All of the poems I’ve posted in here/these threads that I’ve written would require a similarly long analysis

>>17522333

Oh apologies the poem is broken up in the pastebin, here’s what the poem should look like.

I passed among silver trees
who’s fruits singed gold songs
abounding in the never old
dreams of the daily born dancing Dawn

the sky image drawn
of the softest smile
ever forgotten
and yet remembered

silent slithers the secret serpent
the Wolf Wails in the wintry wastelands
terrible talons toy with dead flesh
but All-blest sees the eye of the Heart

soft and plain is the scent
which renders the heavens Rent
beauty lays herself bare
if you look without a care

>>17522333
>https://pastebin.com/pjwaw0pR

Interesting how the ineffable summary of God's action can be seen in Night... is the Wolf relegated to another part of that landscape, the other side of what is Rent?

The digits don't lie, I'm glad I took a look at this. I have a work of my own, which I'm going to use as a plot device for the third book in the trilogy I'm writing now. Take a look if you can, perhaps provide your insight on it:

smashwords /books/view/531481 (download it for free there, sorry for spam formatting)

The email at its introduction still works, if you want to contact me. I'll provide its introduction (I tried a basic interpretation of Aleph, He, and Yodh).

***

א

DISSEMINATE.

...Thus shall exist the boy in himself,
and shall this motive suffice to satiate his sum...

So unfolds the sacred Soliloquy, the Forefront of epic Vantage...
His ink spatter'd Quell bewails its timeless Incontinence,
almost sucks the Purpose from its own blackened Nib
to avoid pinning one Paragraph,
for its sooty Tip resting frozen Pigment
proves itself too obtuse
to penetrate the harlequin Parchment
only a Soul can tangiate,
too blunt to define the angstrom Edges
of the child's holy Monad,
not so cursive as to capture the all-one-seething-Noise
by its Contours
on conscience's Cartography;
Alas! Colossus-unto-himself
tediously dissolved into Phonetics,
whipped to Charms by ascending ox Goads,
stored to Smolders by Phylacteries of four-prong'd Fire
'til he reminisces naked over his Destruction,
only to be teleported Sublime to Entities unfathomable...
inhabit a remote Cortex reassembl’d...

>>17522440
Vaguely reminds me of the poetry and prose I’ve read of Andrew chumbley. While my writing is poor and I know this work has various spelling errors and the like (still consider it in rough draft form) here’s a longer prose-verse work I’ve written.

https://pastebin.com/Lg3nePKK

I usually use pastebin to avoid spam linking.

Anyways so far I wonder why there isn’t a AHYH pattern considering that as name ketherian god name but perhaps this has significance. If you do not mind I’ll email you with my more complete thoughts after I’ve read it all.

>>17522625

Will read, thanks a lot for taking the time on my work too! I liked that you provided a commentary, I like those

I used the letters as I did strictly for their numerical order, I learned what I did of them from the Hebrew alphabet in general and what the glyphs ostensibly represented.

>>17522625

And sure, I'd love if you emailed me about it

>>17491299
Any instances in history where a poet was genuinely stupid but his works were still good?

>>17522978
Maybe this guy.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joaquin_Miller

Duncan Gibb o’ Focherty’s
A giant to the likes o’ me.
His face is like a roarin’ fire
For love o’ the barley-bree. [brew]

He gangs through this and the neebrin’ shire
Like a muckle rootless tree [big]
-And here’s a caber for Daith to toss
That’ll gi’e his spauld a swee! [shoulder, burn]

His gain was aye a wee’r man’s loss [always]
And he took my lass frae me.
And wi’ mony a quean besides
He’s ta’en his liberty.

I’ve had nae chance wi’ the likes o’ him
And he’s tramped me underfit.
-Blaefaced afore the throne o’ God
He’ll get his fairin’ yet. [comeuppance]

He’ll be like a bull in the sale-ring there,
And I’ll lauch lood to see. [laugh, loud]
Till he looks up and canna mak’ oot
Whether it’s God - or me!

Quickly trying my hand at English poetry because I thought of the first line under my shower:

Quick, but quicker.
Doing, but already done.
I am not ready to quiver
But the Cold’s son,
I mean the river…
I mean the water…
I mean something
In this old wind
Kissing my skin
sharply, keenly,
It knows for me.

>>17504265
>The part I enjoyed was “rock with golden veins”
What do you think of the translation golden-veined rock? I thought of it afterwards and feel it might work better in English.
>>17507787
I like your adaptation! At first I thought this was meant to be a better translation but it seemed weird because the "subject" did not feel the same, it works well because you made it your own. How did you work on it?
>>17512792
Thanks. No offense but is your poem meant to be kind of funny? If so it's successful at it but the end feels a little weird. I like repetition in poetry but I think you could have handled it better because here it feels more a redundant thing than a rhythmic or semantic thing. Two poets I like that use a lot of repetitions are Peguy and Claudel. Maybe check them out if you can speak French.
>>17522978
No idea but I get the idea that you might like the fatrasies. A kind of "stupid" poetry from the Middle-Ages where the sound is more important than the readability. Dada before dada.
>>17522206
Most French books of foreign poetry are bilingual so you could easily inverse the processus and read English poetry in French. But I'm sure it's not too hard to find bilingual editions in French to English.

Bump

Bump

Last bump

bumpered :)

“With wide embracing love
Thy Spirit animates eternal years,
Pervades and broods above,
Changes, sustains, dissolves, creates and rears.
Though earth and man were gone,
And suns and universes ceased to be,
And thou were left alone,
Every existence would exist in Thee.”

— Emily Brontë

>>17491299
How do you better analyze poetry?

>>17523282
I like this one, reads like the tale of a folk hero

Sorry to impose, but I want to be close
I want to taste you and kiss your cute button nose
I want to see your playful brown eyes look into mine
I want to listen in to each and every one of your rhymes
It may seem like this is all about me, my wants and my needs
But that’s about as far from the truth as could be
It’s all about you, the warmth of my mind
I want to comfort you through harsh winter nights
Provide a kind word to ease your grim outlook on life
The first line that comes to mind says you’re the apple of my eye
I think we’re both put off by uncertainties rife
About a time where we’ll have to kiss these carefree days, weeks, and months goodbye
But right now, since I’ve got you on the line
I just so happened to look at my calendar date and time
Care to be my Valentine?

>>17524345
Thank you for your thoughts, the poem isn't really finished, breaks down at the end and needs to be edited better. I'm really enjoying making bleak space age vignettes right now. I can't read french poetically very well sadly but thank you for the recommendation.

Here's another vignette

>>17491299
Hey hey I would appreciate y'alls input on this development. I'm unsure on what to elaborate on or what direction to take this in:

Tired poetry and a yellow wall
Lined with cracks and kind moss
Did witness a loud gaudy man
Slurring and cursing and giggly
His voice bouncy and muddled
like carbonation

>>17530645
Based

>>17522440
How did you learn to write in this historic English? What do you read? It's lovely

Alright lads I’ve been rather busy, I wrote this poem for a much longer piece but even so, there is many codes, secrets, hidden aspects and so forth which I hid into this Poem, in a sense it encapsulates much of my view of the world and of God. Do tell me how you lads view the poem.

I Sing a Song of Sweven

Seven are the Secret names
Written in the White Welkin.
Ere Eternity the flames
Veiled in the black Void of Sin.
Eons pass, Evil conceals.
Nails of Night pierce Sacred Skin.

I Sing a Song of Sweven

Seven are the Sacred Seals
Wet With the blood of the lamb.
Each man Earns what he reveals,
Vanity Views not I am.
Each who Earns the holy Stamp
Negates his Name, like Abram.

I Sing a Song of Sweven

Seven Spirits of the Lamp
Weave the Wyrd into a Web
Elder than the Evening Camp.
Visions of Verses of Geb
Envelop all of Elphame.
Now Not even Naught shall ebb.

>>17530898

Oh, by the way; the poems name is SWEVEN SWEVEN SWEVEN

Sweven is an older archaic term for a dream or a vision.

>>17514483
See, at points it sounds well and the imagery is on point but other times it sounds immature and like you don’t know where you’re taking the piece. While not intentional It has that stream of consciousness feel to it.

Also I can’t help but feel you blew your imagery load with the first stanza and then the rest feels like emotional/conceptual elaboration, when the imagery emotion and conception should all unfold at once.

>>17519440
Totally understandable friend, it’s good to remember that no matter what anyone says, art has to reflect your interior. Places like this are good for technical refinement but you should never (in my opinion) sacrifice the actual value of the art for technical value/bettering the artifice.

>>17519717
Too generic

>>17519950
The form has to work to the advantage of the content imo, terrible and powerful folks and sentences I find, are better off with long and terrible lines with many wrathful terms.

>>17520160
Eh I just can’t get into the aesthetic and feeling of it personally, only nitpick I can give that I can pull from myself without complaining about your aesthetic is ending a line with “fine” to enter into the next line with “poetry” feels incredibly forced.

>>17521496
I actually really like this poem but my complaint is the flow/elegance/smoothness is lacking at times.

This section feels rather forced

Wash against us without smite
you thinning deluge of frightful might
tearing holes from slits of space
as birds scream out from the night

Just keep writing poetry, I like the aesthetic you just need to keep at it until you force more elegance.

>>17521657
A for effort but realistically you’re shooting very high for your first go. “ blurred lines “ doesn’t feel right, basically it feels like pastiche. Copying isn’t bad, remember the great poets steal/copy but they do so from a variety of sources.

https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dionysian_imitatio

Also remember, poetry is for most people fundamentally a application of their rhetorical skills, think about the effects you want the poem to have.

>>17523282
Pretty effective/believable but as this is a style I don’t write in any critique I’d give wouldnt be appropriate, so I’ll leave it at the compliment of effective.

>>17524345
The English poem you just posted is more the seed for a larger/different poem than a poem in of itself I’d say. Still a fetus.

Golden-veined Rocks definitely sounds better but both work in terms of imagery.

>>17529288
Speak it, consider it, let it play in your imagination and if you need the technical tools, check out the book here.

>>17513500


>>17529813
Reads more like something suitable to a song than a stand alone poem.

>>17530236

Ehh I’m not a fan of the chaote/subgenius-esque aesthetics in this one. Remember you have to write beautifully, of course if you consider such to be beautiful carry on.

>>17530645
Try to not use “did” as we all know that’s a mark of our weakness in controlling the language. You can drop it for a more effective word since witnessed and did witness convey the same, I’d try to develop more on the man as both old, cranky, but kinda unsound, dandy-esque and so forth, as that links the yellow and mossy and crack imagery to corresponding concepts.

>>17531093
>Reads more like something suitable to a song than a stand alone poem
Is that a good thing or a bad thing?

>>17531106
Depends entirely on what you desire anon, musicality isn’t bad but it feels like the primary concern is being a love song rather than imagery, meaning or the like. It comes off like your primary concern was the sound ya know.

>>17531111
Yeah, I guess I was more concerned with flowery language than any deeper meaning

I wrote gay anon a bit of iambic pentameter here >>17530954
I realized if I drop the first two lines and then add one more, it'd even be 14 lines. I can't remember details of sonnet form though. I thought it was something like 4-4-4-2 with the couplet somehow contradicting the rest? any poetry anons care to help me?

>>17522440

It’s clear you have skill Anon, I think it’s a effective work, with that honey though I will now give the vinegar of my critique and recommendations, I know fully well a good deal of the overly ornate aspect(to induce delirium) is intentional so keep that in mind as you read.
א (Aleph)
DISSEMINATE.

Nitpick: Aleph is the Essential and the atomic, the diapering letters would be more correctly Yod (Aleph in extension as 10) or Pe(the Open mouth and the Tower) but there’s clear reasons why you chose Aleph so I get it.

The introduction as a whole paints a chumbleyian aesthetic of the Occultist-artist who uses the Art-aesthetic going into itself to through sorcery expel from himself the hidden qualities and spiritual aspects, which he then ensouls and uses for the primary mysticism. Same to the general mixture of the crass and the high, which is ultimately taken from the prose style of Austin Osman spare, who you should read if you haven’t. I get you’re going for a kind of Lautréamont-like fusion of the Gold and the filthy, but at times blending isn’t in equal enough measures.

One mark I have against you though I understand why you do it, is the mixture of the heightened and elder English with more modern English terminology and imagery, I understand you’re blending the spiritual and your lived experience but from the outsiders view, it is a hard integration. Here’s a fellow to read and group to look into if you haven’t already, as I also like the elevated language style.

https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euphuism

https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Lyly

Also read this short 7 page story by Gilchrist, it demonstrates very well how to balance the elegant and the practical (Dunsany is the master of this style in prose if you are inclined for further reading.)

http://people.brandeis.edu/~szelitch/crimsonweaver.pdf


In general all of book 1 sharing that prose Style continuously was over-much, however this is understandable since there’s plot reasons.

Also I notice how the language of other characters is more normal but I also notice how little of it exists, would you say it’s harder to write in the voices of others? I also share this problem thus write a minimum of voices/interactions.

In general book 2 also progresses with too much speed, we must remember when writing there are four primary things we must balance.

Prose style
Narrative
Character development
Motif/myth.

These four work in different scales, example you have chosen the maximalist aesthetic prose style, this is good but there are also virtues in the minimal.


Cont

>>17531518
Narrative also can be utterly abandoned or the entire point. a-rebours is good in its own virtues just as a more traditional tale wholely fixated on plot is also good.

Character development: this can be either highly developed or completely hollow. Highly developed characters with internal world/s are more common in the modern novel and newer works, many ancient works and much folk tales and mythology specifically write characters to have no depth, as the more vague, generic and shallow you make a character, the more abstract and universal that character becomes, your characters don’t fall enough into either extreme which is fine for us since our concern is the secret symbols and language manipulation but in general is not so good. Shallow characters tie in well to the next consideration

Motif/myth creation, the motif/myth can be transmitted by any medium and largely loses nothing. More universal characters make for much more powerful myths which is precisely the formula used in Aesop and one of the difficulties of the modern writer is trying to create a myth with a particular developed character. This is actually one of the most essential occult aspects of writing and all sacred texts of myth fixate on this and especially use chiasm among other means to amplify this. A weakness in your text from an occult aspect is I do not see a mythic power to them.

In general your works primary focus is the language and delivery of modern imagery yeah?


The opening of the H section doesn’t coincide with the major correspondences of H, do elaborate upon the correspondence you see.

To quote your own work, “mysticism and wantonness “ feel like they’re ever at tension and not blended in the work, (worst example is iridescent Cock) you need to integrate them into each other. You claim you’ve done this but you’re still closer to the libidinal and the ornate fixation than the simplistic and humble majesty of mysticism.

Let me give an example of how to balance the erotic, mystical, simplistic and ornate.

“As the Apple tree deep in the orchard, so is my beloved among the daughters” the language is simplistic but there is a mythic power and an elegance in a line like that, the ornate style must be balanced with this in order for maximal efficacy (Edmund Spenser is another master to look to)

Book 8 as a whole feels like it can’t produce the kind of dark, dusty, beautiful yet modern landscape youre aiming for, Edmund Jabes would be another mystic poet who kind of specializes in a similar vein so he’ll be useful


Also the correspondence of Yod and combustion while reasonable it’s kinda overly simplistic.

Also the last 2-3 pages were lacking they should have been the most exuberant and ecstatic but they felt some of the least dense, I personally find it would have produced a more explosive ending.

I think I went overboard. I bought all five of the intro to poetry books from the wiki and I'm about to start the third book. How many times can I read intro to poetry?

>>17531685
Until you get it down. Also don’t just read lazily, write short/small poems daily. Small fast quick but with as much effort you can muster each day. Grind it like you would any other skill. Also at this point you’ll gain more knowledge from reading the masters of poetry themselves. Remember Pastiche and copying are not a bad thing anon.

The nightingale by Phillip Sidney

The nightingale, as soon as April bringeth
Unto her rested sense a perfect waking,
While late bare earth, proud of new clothing, springeth,
Sings out her woes, a thorn her song-book making,
And mournfully bewailing,
Her throat in tunes expresseth
What grief her breast oppresseth
For Tereus’ force on her chaste will prevailing.
O Philomela fair, O take some gladness,
That here is juster cause of plaintful sadness:
Thine earth now springs, mine fadeth;
Thy thorn without, my thorn my heart invadeth.

Alas, she hath no other cause of anguish
But Tereus’ love, on her by strong hand wroken,
Wherein she suffering, all her spirits languish;
Full womanlike complains her will was broken.
But I, who daily craving,
Cannot have to content me,
Have more cause to lament me,
Since wanting is more woe than too much having.
O Philomela fair, O take some gladness,
That here is juster cause of plaintful sadness:
Thine earth now springs, mine fadeth;
Thy thorn without, my thorn my heart invadeth.

>>17531028
>first quote
Damn, solid advice. Thanks, anon. I will work on these points.

I had a sudden realization that we as a culture (globally) no longer write epics. The most modern one I can find is Paradise Lost, but that is still from 1667.

I know things fall out of fashion, but I have just grown so tired of prose being the only way stories are told anymore. So I have a few question
1. Why do you think we no longer create epics.
2. If you can think of a more modern one that Paradise Lost, what is it.
3. I need desperate help understanding the structure of PL. I noticed most of its lines are 10 syllables but, there doesn't seem to be any reason as to when he breaks this 10 rule.

>>17531893
>1. Why do you think we no longer create epics.

Poetry as a whole going out of style, there are multiple epics and long poems that are modern and many longer poem collections considered of high value.

This is a decent list.

https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_epic_poems

Evangeline is kino.

The primary reason is that there’s easier more digestible forms of entertainment and in America and Europe in general there’s been a shift towards confessional and personal poetry which amounts to just feels and hot takes, and basically no one gives a shit about that stuff by majority. So even when they make a long poem no one really cares.

>3. I need desperate help understanding the structure of PL. I noticed most of its lines are 10 syllables but, there doesn't seem to be any reason as to when he breaks this 10 rule.

I’m glad you asked, I actually studied a good deal of it because of my interest in Milton and bridges, he doesn’t actually ever break his 10 syllable rule if we follow the laws and structure of his poetics. Here’s a book that goes into it.

https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton%27s_Prosody

https://archive.org/details/miltonsprosodyby00briduoft

Tldr, the only thing that is truly variable is his stresses, he’s really working a kind of highly stylized Latin-copying (in terms of syntax/word order) form of syllabic verse. Imo William Blake (who’s prophetic books are definitely something you should read) takes this further and uses a form of syllabic that blends free verse and syllabic together, in fact the first example of free verse derives from William Blake’s marriage of heaven and hell debatably.

How the fuck do I write poetry? I'm only asking because I have to write 3-4 poems for a creative writing class assignment.
t. someone who kinda hates poetry.

>>17531944
Okay I think I see what you mean about him not actually breaking it.
OF Mans First Disobedience, and the Fruit
Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal tast
Brought Death into the World, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, till one greater Man
Restore us, and regain the blissful Seat,
Sing Heav'nly Muse, that on the secret top
Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire
That Shepherd, who first taught the chosen Seed,
In the Beginning how the Heav'ns and Earth
Rose out of Chaos: or if Sion Hill

In the very first line, he's using disobedience as though it has 4 syllables, so when read aloud it wouldn't be pronounced
(dis-o-bed-i-ence) it would intstead be
(dis-o-bed-yance) or some other fusion of the last two syllables

>>17531965
If you were given no rules about what the poem's structure must be, and if you truly have no interest in learning, just right a Haiku or a Limerick, since Valentine's is this Sunday you could get fancy with a sonnet, but I wouldn't recommend it

>>17531893
1. Why do you think we no longer create epics
To borrow from Stephen Fry, when most people imagine a poem they imagine shorter poems. When they do surveys of readers favorite poems they also tend to be shorter.

2. Do you not consider The Wasteland epic poetry? It's 60ish pages if I remember correctly.

3. If I remember correctly PL is unrhymed iambic pentameter.

>>17531965
If you want to go easy mode, write a poem no longer than 14 lines long, each Line should have let’s say 10 syllables to make it easy, As you write it sound it out, notice how certain sounds in certain words take longer to say, are more stressed, while other words go on unnoticed and you don’t really pay much attention to them as you say them. This is stressed and unstressed and this is the primary key to producing a rhythm.

The most common you could do is iambic pentameter, Iambic just meaning you begin with a sound that you don’t emphasize followed by a sound you do place emphasis on, this is considered one Foot, one Unit, penta means five, so create five feet, so a weak sound followed by a heavy sound followed by a weak and so forth until you have 10 syllables in that kind of pattern (note this isn’t an exact science and you have leeway based on how well what you write sounds and other effects you want)

Next because we’re going easy mode, follow that first line of 10 syllables with another line of 10, but have the last words of both rhyme, then the third and fourth line rhyme with each other etc.

A poem is fundamentally a story condensed with the best possible words, most condensed imagery and nicest sound you can possibly produce. Like you’re jamming an entire short story or description into as small of an amount as possible, it’s like condensing a full on novel down to its most potent and essential level. The epic like the other anon is talking about, is taking that same condensed style and extending it to the size of say a novel usually with heroic scenes usually relevant to a nation, mythology or religion. It’s really cool stuff!

>>17531971
Correct anon, Milton’s form of poetry is absolutely intoxicating once you get into it deeply but to really replicate it takes more time and study than the average fellow wants to give, this is why Elliot I believe? Said that Milton did damage to English/poetry, people trying to copy Milton but not having the knowledge and skill of him. His style is incredibly deliberate and ornate yet maintains freedom of thought and inspiration by this method.

>>17531985
I mean, there’s a ton of epics and long poems Anon, stuff like The Changing Light at Sandover by Merrill was published in the 80s? And there’s newer works also. It’s just they’re not really popular. The formalists groups argue we need to bring back stuff like the epic as one of the only few ways to shill/revitalize poetry among the normies, since say you write an epic space opera poem or some other kind of drama, that has a ton more chance of getting normies into newly published poetry than some rando talking about their feelings and politics in their 200 page poetry collection, know what I mean.

>>17531983
Well, I wouldn't say I'm disinterested in learning, it's just that the professor has a certain preference for "contemporary" poetry (or basically shit that doesn't rhyme, she does not like rhyming for some reason) while I myself have a hankering towards ye olden Blake-style stuff. I wrote a sort of homage to ye olden sonnets for a previous assignment, but she was like "No, don't do this. I want to hear the 2021 version of you".
Like, the 2021 version of me has nothing to say about shit that I see. That's why I hid under the guise of 17th century romantic poet in the first place.

>>17532025
Funny thing. In the brief time (less than 8 hours), I've been looking into Epics, and Milton I now have a MUCH better understanding of stressed and unstressed vowels than 4 years of Highschool ever taught me

I operated under the assumption that the duty of stressing was on the reciter, when it is in fact up to the writer to choose vocabulary that will naturally allow for these stresses to occur.

>"WETHer HAStiLY i RUSH inTO death"
My English teachers would always make me start with a stressed syllable (Which young me interpreted as louder) so during recitation It would come off like I was sitting on a rocking machine

When in fact, that isn't necessary and the phrase naturally will shift between stresses
>"wethER hasTILy I rush INto DEATH"

>>17532053
excuse me, I meant 18th century.

>>17532038
Maybe. I think what those epics had and older poetry in general has that modern poetry (from what I've seen) lacks is passion. Some modern poetry is so passionless it feels like it was created by a computer. I think that's why Bukowski has such a following among people who general dislike poetry is because it at least has passion.

>>17532053
Okay so an option you could take is to simply give yourself some rules to work with and write a poem within those boundaries
>I absolutely loath completely free verse poems
for example describe a noun using these limitations
>5 lines
>13 syllables each
>every other line is a rhyme (spite your teacher)
Not trying to box you into anything, but you don't have to stick to established forms

>>17532053
Eh, that’s pretty shitty. Especially considering scientific studies show the average person can’t even hear stuff like modification of meter or the other modernist fixations on other qualities. They on average prefer rhyme and can tell rhyme. But you have to understand that by majority that shitty style she’s shilling is the majority of what’s published and praised as good. Sorta because the whole “everything that can be written has been written already “ thing (which is a saying that we know has existed since at least 2000 BC mind you!) in general people don’t appreciate Dionysian imitatio.

>>17532064
I can kinda explain that, whenever you begin a new line you naturally breathe in, and the first syllable of that line because of the extra breath is going to be more stressed, to the point some systems have a “semi-stressed” to account for it. Meanwhile you have folks like Hopkins who account for this and specifically place the stressed syllable first and only count the stressed syllables and kinda ignore the unstressed.

So I get why you would assume the stressed comes first always.

But yeah the best teacher for poetry is reading and writing poetry. While I’m not one to talk as my poetry kinda ignores stresses (I do this intentionally as I want to further Blake’s syllabics) I do believe I’ve found a superior grasp of stress and meter from writing short poems daily and reading poetry also.

Here’s a fascinating poem Anon. It’s a Dactylic Tetrameter Quatrains with Ballad Rhymes

The Voice

Woman much missed, how you call to me, call to me,
Saying that now you are not as you were
When you had changed from the one who was all to me,
But as at first, when our day was fair.

Can it be you that I hear? Let me view you, then,
Standing as when I drew near to the town
Where you would wait for me: yes, as I knew you then,
Even to the original air-blue gown!

Or is it only the breeze, in its listlessness
Travelling across the wet mead to me here,
You being ever dissolved to wan wistlessness,
Heard no more again far or near?

Thus I; faltering forward,
Leaves around me falling,
Wind oozing thin through the thorn from norward,
And the woman calling.

>>17532088
I mean it’s because let’s be clear here, a lot of modern poets don’t have any real beliefs, they don’t really have any convictions, their interior is hollowed out by pop culture and trying to fit in. The only poems of passion you see these days are shout them quarantine and stale Politics. This isn’t universal of course just highly common. There’s still much passionate poetry but all of this takes a back seat to word games and puzzles which often don’t even have a vocal effect. Again studies show their poetry when recited can’t really do anything for the normie. Personally I like heavy rhyme and alliteration and so forth, because these are traditional, demonstrated to produce affects when recited, and actually worked historically to make people remember your poetry. Like I know my poetry isn’t that good but I’ll use it as an example.

along a long forest road I rode
past pretty pixies playing in trees
but my horse’s haunty hoove’s had slowed

something squeezed my soul, some kind of breeze
broke my balance and brought a bane thought
“why does the sky seem sick with disease?”

heaven cracked with veins hellish and hot
and the dread carrions mouths open
crying “gorge on the world’s flesh and Rot”

but the baneful vision was broken
by my memory of another
and my apocalypse was stolen

“I love you more than any other”
had healed the heaven’s horrid decay
i headed to become her brother

and gain her fathers favor that day
that we be wedded as bride and man
Lord may heaven bless my holy Anne


As corny and bad as this poem is, the average person will hear the blunt tools I put in, that in itself is good to me even if it’s a blunt tool.

>>17532089
The key to free verse is just writing regular metered poetry and changing the line lengths dependent upon the effect you want. But this in the past and in history wasn’t considered “free” since you’re still bound to the rhythmical movements and correspondences within the poem to the other parts. But shit free verse is just prose with like breaks so no one really even cares ya know.

>>17532096
>Dactylic
BUM bum bum?
>tetrameter
4 Dactyls per line, (I think this is trimeter)?
>quatrains
four lines with alternate rhymes?
>Ballad Rhymes
. .. . .I'm not well versed enough to understand an appreciable difference, and Google yields me no useful answers

>>17532142
https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dactylic_tetrameter

Quatrains just means each stanza/grouping has four lines.

https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_metre

It’s fun stuff Anon, but again if you find when you recite/chant The poem that it has no good vocal qualities, it must be considered shit and you ought to classify it as such.

Here’s a good example of the kind of chanting you should use when reciting most older poetry as you’re not supposed to talk them. This is technically singing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2FT4_UUa4I

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beju5dJpeds

I personally prefer to chant all of my poems in a monotone but that’s me.

>>17532174
I'll definitely have to lurk her more, because I do want to learn poetry, especially since I have started to practice calligraphy as well (call it pedantic and superficial, but beautiful words deserve beautiful script)
But clearly I need to relearn some of the basics.
>Just realized I hadn't ditched the name

>>17532232
Friend I consider all of the arts to have value. Besides I’m a big fan of calligraphy, chumbley and spare’s calligraphy based on their own alphabet systems are particularly fun.

Besides, I think one should make art for themselves, example I don’t believe anyone will find in this poem

I passed among silver trees
who’s fruits singed gold songs
abounding in the never old
dreams of the daily born dancing Dawn

the sky image drawn
of the softest smile
ever forgotten
and yet remembered

silent slithers the secret serpent
the Wolf Wails in the wintry wastelands
terrible talons toy with dead flesh
but All-blest sees the eye of the Heart

soft and plain is the scent
which renders the heavens Rent
beauty lays herself bare
if you look without a care

All of the hidden stuff I put into it, I explain some of it in this pastebin.

https://pastebin.com/pjwaw0pR

The point I’m saying (besides shilling my junk, Kek) is that art primarily is for ones self and All that matters is if you enjoy your own output.

>>17532258
>art primarily is for ones self and All that matters is if you enjoy your own output.
Place that quote at the top of the next thread if you make it
This attitude is what needs to be taught in schools, not the hollow "Everything is art" spiel but the pursuit of ones idealized beauty

>>17510044
my (faithful) translation:

Which slender youth, lot of roses,
Perfused, pressed upon thee, in liquid odours,
Pyrrha, under a pleasing cave?
For whom dost thou bind thy yellow hair,

Simple, elegant? Alas, how often faith
And changing gods will he lament and harsh
Seas with black winds
Will he stand in, in shock,

He who now enjoys thee, believing, you are golden,
That you are ever free, ever lovable,
Hopes, ignorant of winds
Treacherous! Wretched are those for whom

Thou, untried, shine, but me, with its votive tablet
The sacred wall declaring, that mine drenched,
Suspended, to the mighty,
Vestiment to the sea god...

>>17532308
Man, Horace is beautiful no matter how you cut him up. I’m pretty fond of the Dunsany translation but Horace no matter the translation is definitely one of the best.

Golden cloth no matter how it is cut, still shines with golden brightness

>>17532326
>Dunsany's translation
It's surely beautiful but the word arrangement of Horace was kind of lost in the translation.

>>17532367
Yeah, I want to try my hand at more translation and I’ve found even just translating from Romani(which I’m perfectly fluent in) is very difficult due to the structural differences. It’s definitely an art I want to dive deeper into.

Ode to a Nightingale
BY JOHN KEATS

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
But being too happy in thine happiness,—
That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees
In some melodious plot
Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease.

O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been
Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth,
Tasting of Flora and the country green,
Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!
O for a beaker full of the warm South,
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
And purple-stained mouth;
That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
And with thee fade away into the forest dim:

Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget
What thou among the leaves hast never known,
The weariness, the fever, and the fret
Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;
Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,
Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;
Where but to think is to be full of sorrow
And leaden-eyed despairs,
Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,
Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.

Away! away! for I will fly to thee,
Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,
But on the viewless wings of Poesy,
Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:
Already with thee! tender is the night,
And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,
Cluster'd around by all her starry Fays;
But here there is no light,
Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown
Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.

I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,
Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,
But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet
Wherewith the seasonable month endows
The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild;


Cont

>>17532520
White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;
Fast fading violets cover'd up in leaves;
And mid-May's eldest child,
The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,
The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.

Darkling I listen; and, for many a time
I have been half in love with easeful Death,
Call'd him soft names in many a mused rhyme,
To take into the air my quiet breath;
Now more than ever seems it rich to die,
To cease upon the midnight with no pain,
While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad
In such an ecstasy!
Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain—
To thy high requiem become a sod.

Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
No hungry generations tread thee down;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown:
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn;
The same that oft-times hath
Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.

Forlorn! the very word is like a bell
To toll me back from thee to my sole self!
Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well
As she is senpai'd to do, deceiving elf.
Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades
Past the near meadows, over the still stream,
Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep
In the next valley-glades:
Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
Fled is that music:—Do I wake or sleep?

>>17532527
>senpai’d

Okay that got me pretty good

De Rosis, by Florus, friend to the Emperor Hadrianus

Hortus erat veneris, roseis circumdatus herbis,
Gratus ager dominae, quem qui vidisset amaret.
Dum puer hic passim properat decepere flores
Et velare comas, spina libavit acuta
Marmoreos digitos: mox ut dolor attigit artus
Sanguineamque manum, tinxit sua lumina gutta,
Pervenit ad matrem frendens defertque querellas:
"Unde rosae, mater, coeperunt esse nocentes?
Unde tui flores pugnare latentibus armis?
Bella gerunt mecum. Floris color et cruor unum est!"

>>17491299
Reading The Selected poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke(trans. Stephen Mitchell) right now and I'm loving it. Rilke is a master by all accounts. When he stretches his legs out in those longer poems it becomes very beautiful, my book is dual-language but I am beyond clueless when it comes to German so I glance only occasionally at the original version, Stephen Mitchell is an expert translator so I am in good hands.

Here's one I found that was akin to "The Tiger" poem people shill here a lot(pic rel):

The Panther

His vision, from the constantly passing bars,
has grown so weary that it cannot hold
anything else. It seems to him there are
a thousand bars; and behind the bars, no world.

As he paces in cramped circles, over and over,
the movement of his powerful soft strides
is like a ritual dance around a center
in which a mighty will stands paralyzed.

Only at times, the curtain of the pupils
lifts, quietly--. An image enters in,
rushes down through the tensed, arrested muscles,
plunges into the heart and is gone.

Poem on the 1815 Eruption of Tambora

In the original Malay:

Bunyi bahananya sangat berjabuh
Ditempuh air timpa habu
Berteriak memanggil anak dan ibu
Disangkanya dunia menjadi kelabu

Asalnya konon Allah Taala marah
Perbuatan sultan Raja Tambora
Membunuh tuan haji menumpahkan darah
Kuranglah pikir dan kira-kira

Translation:

Its noise reverberated loudly
Torrents of water mixed with ash descended
Children and mothers screamed and cried
Believing the world had turned to ash

The cause was said to be the wrath of Allah Almighty
At the deed of the King of Tambora
In murdering a worthy pilgrim, spilling his blood
Rashly and thoughtlessly

>>17532591
I keep hearing great things about him but I’ve yet to read him, think I’d personally like him? Also I’m sure you’ve read it but just on the off chance you haven’t, here’s a poem from Blake.

The Tyger by William Blake

Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies.
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand, dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain,
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp,
Dare its deadly terrors clasp!

When the stars threw down their spears
And water'd heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger Tyger burning bright,
In the forests of the night:
What immortal hand or eye,
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

sonnet 1 of Milton

O Nightingale, that on yon bloomy Spray
Warbl'st at eeve, when all the Woods are still,
Thou with fresh hope the Lovers heart dost fill,
While the jolly hours lead on propitious May,

Thy liquid notes that close the eye of Day,
First heard before the shallow Cuccoo's bill
Portend success in love; O if Jove's will
Have linkt that amorous power to thy soft lay,

Now timely sing, ere the rude Bird of Hate
Foretell my hopeles doom in som Grove ny:
As thou from yeer to yeer hast sung too late

For my relief; yet hadst no reason why,
Whether the Muse, or Love call thee his mate,
Both them I serve, and of their train am I.

>>17532593
So far I’ve liked all of the Malay poetry I’ve seen

>>17532599
>think I’d personally like him? Also I’m sure you’ve read it but just on the off chance you haven’t, here’s a poem from Blake.
Yea, I think there something for everyone in his works the one thing I'd warn you about is a lot of his stuff is short, and when I say that I mean short but it's still very nice. I know Duino Elegies by him are nearly all religious, mystical poems which I know is right up your alley haha. The book I have only has excerpts but I plan on getting Duino Elegies myself. I'm not sure how much of a mystic Rilke is but just read pic rel for yourself and see if you're interested in that particular book, its from his Wikipedia page

>>17532599
>think I’d personally like him? Also I’m sure you’ve read it but just on the off chance you haven’t, here’s a poem from Blake.
Yea, I think there something for everyone in his works the one thing I'd warn you about is a lot of his stuff is short, and when I say that I mean short but it's still very nice. I know Duino Elegies by him are nearly all religious, mystical poems which I know is right up your alley haha. The book I have only has excerpts but I plan on getting Duino Elegies myself. I'm not sure how much of a mystic Rilke is but just read pic rel for yourself and see if you're interested in that particular book, its from his Wikipedia page

put wrong pic last post

>>17492347

Cringe!

I shit a little.

Tell her to write in Bantu and stop appropriating my language.

>>17495045

Worthy critique!

>>17494672

It was Marlowe.

A poem I wrote for my gf:

I snuck open the door.
The lights were on, but you
were snoring, sprawled out
across my bed like a starfish.
A pillow pushed your glasses
halfway up your buried face.
I smiled and wiggled them off,
folding them on the table.
The fan droned warm static,
our machine lullaby. I turned
the lights off, pausing to catch
you in the instant sunset.
My heart beat in my ears.
I cleared your appendage debris
from my side of the bed,
moving enough to stir you.
Semi-conscious, you found
my arm and clung to it, hot
from nesting under the covers.
I closed my eyes and traced
a fingernail down your back.
My breathing slowed until
our tempos matched.
I dreamt of you.

>>17532599
Holy shit, I've encountered this poem a lot and never really understood the monumental praise directed toward it. For some reason it's clicking now.

>>17532658
Sure thing anon, If I start posting some of his poems in one of these threads I’m sure we’ll have a fun discussion of him (assuming I’ll like him)

>>17532738
Blake is so fun once you get into his stuff

from 1505, but despite some differences in orthography i think it's still comprehensible

I that in heill wes and gladnes, [hale/healthy]
Am trublit now with gret seiknes, [sickness]
And feblit with infermite;
Timor mortis conturbat me.

Our plesance heir is all vane glory,
This fals warld is bot transitory,
The flesche is brukle, the Fend is sle; [brittle, Fiend, sly]
Timor mortis conturbat me.

The stait of man dois change and vary,
Now sound, now seik, now blith, now sary, [sorrowful]
Now dansand mery, now like to dee; [dancing]
Timor mortis conturbat me.

No stait in erd heir standis sickir; [secure]
As with the wynd wavis the wickir,
Wavis this warldis vanite.
Timor mortis conturbat me.

On to the ded gois all estatis,
Princis, prelotis, and potestatis, [prelates, potentates]
Baith riche and pur of al degre;
Timor mortis conturbat me.

He takis the knychtis in to feild,
Anarmit under helme and scheild;
Victour he is at all mellie;
Timor mortis conturbat me.

He sparis no lord for his piscence, [puissance = authority]
Na clerk for his intelligence;
His awfull strak may no man fle; [stroke]
Timor mortis conturbat me.

>>17532859
after i posted this i went out for a walk and immediately encountered a dead blackbird on my doorstep

>>17531028
>Eh I just can’t get into the aesthetic and feeling of it personally, only nitpick I can give that I can pull from myself without complaining about your aesthetic is ending a line with “fine” to enter into the next line with “poetry” feels incredibly forced.
Now that I have acquired high quality liquor
All of my associates are drinking but have not compensated me financially for the high quality liquor
This situation arises quite often
You need to have some to drink, however, bastard, I must also have enough to drink
This is typically not a problem as long as you read my poetry
I am forging poetry which amazes you
and he who reads these words
while I drink my high quality liquor in the middle of the road
knows that I spoke to a wench named Sadie
who had, in the past, been one of my associate's lovers
it was pleasantly warm outside when I told the wench,"By your favor
do not press so roughly on my genitles
you may not enjoy them for your pleasure
Be calm," as I continued down the street with my associates
and farted in her direction
I was strolling comfotably down the street
smoking high quality marijauna
drinking fine wine and feeling relaxed
contemplating my fortune

>>17532738
This is much better than almost everything I see on /lit/, even though a few bits sounded a bit clunky to my ears.

>I smiled and wiggled them off
the "smiled" doesn't work at all for me. It's jarring. I think this is because the whole focus is on the girl on the bed and you are just a shadowy observer, and then talking about you smiling makes you the subject. It's OK to talk about you wiggling the glasses off because the focus is still on her.

>appendage debris
Not sure we need "appendage".

>closed my eyes... fingernail ... breathing slowed... dreamt
Not sure the timing is quite right here. It sounds as though at some point you've got into bed too but it's not clear where that happens; it's a bit muddled. The reader still assumes you're standing there dressed when you trace down her back so closing your eyes is just a sensual thing not an "I'm going to sleep too" thing.

Have you read "Touch" by Thom Gunn? It's quite similar in many ways.

>Semi-conscious, you found
>my arm and clung to it, hot
>from nesting under the covers

Compare that with:

>You turn and
>hold me tightly, do
>you know who
>I am or am I
>your mother or
>the nearest human being to
>hold on to in a
>dreamed pogrom.

Bumping

I’ll also bump, apologies if I don’t reply or the like immediately gonna be rather busy.

Dolor of dreams - Clark Ashton smith

The shadow of a sorrow haunts the light,
And sense of dreamt, forgotten tragedy—
Surviving phantom of a memory
Slain by the dawn with shades of yesternight.

Like the blue pallor of the daylight moon,
Most clearly seen within the enshadowed stream,
The wan waste face of some dead, tragic dream
Peers from the twilight places of the noon.

Till, half-bemazed, I am as one who stands
Upon the summit of a misty hill,
And hears remote, one moment loud or still,
The dolor in the bells of blinded lands.

>>17491510
>WOULD
Why the capitalising? Is it to indicate iambic base metre?

>>17504238
Damn Frater that's a good one, my gnome frens love it
>>17520644
>>17521496
Thanks anons

>>17519689
based

I invoke the spirits but they won't come
This poems is written without divine inspiration
Here it is, that's how ungodly art looks like
Without music because music is divine

>>17534696
Pretty much, also just gives more emphasize/tone in the first place.

>>17534768
Thanks anon. I really enjoy poetry featuring Puck

>made on the spot pure train of thought with only minor editing

They walk through a shadowed land of metal
Wholly alone yet, they've no solitude
Eyes from all angles, from all surfaces
They look down on them waiting, for misstep

Yet it is not the soulless eyes they hate
Mere tools made by those who cast off their souls
Trading eternity for moments of peace
Yet these foul makers are not to blame

The makers commission, from them of course
Why else would such evil be created
The very people who spite the vile eyes
These troglodytes who dare their anger

If the makers cast off their holy souls
What foul fate did THEY subject their souls too
If only they had courage to face strife
This abhorrence could have been avoided

>>17534948
*who dare VOICE their anger

>made on the spot pure train of thought with only minor editing

They walk through a shadowed land of metal
Wholly alone yet, they've no solitude
Eyes from all angles, from all surfaces
They look down on them waiting, for misstep

Yet it is not the soulless eyes they hate
Mere tools made by those who cast off their souls
Trading eternity for moments of peace
Yet these foul makers are not to blame

The makers commission, from them of course
Why else would such evil be created
The very people who spite the vile eyes
These troglodytes who dare voice their anger

If the makers cast off their holy souls
What foul fate did THEY subject their souls too
If only they had courage to face strife
This abhorrence could have been avoided

At this my heart leaps and pounds


his breath is the frost of the breeze
his sight is the sun in the south
his altar is the ancient trees
to him the Hoepoe and hippo shout

“we praise him with the praise of Mouth,
we praise him with the song of sighs
we praise him with the beak and snout “
and all shall praise him with their cries

EL ROI! to you I turn my eyes!
show me your uncreated Light!
El shaddai the mighty and Wise!
come and rend the veil of my Sight!

the world’s glory is for your fame
as earth and heaven speak your Name!

I’m so fucking high.
I can’t do poetry now.
This is a haiku.

>>17533627
This is great criticism anon, thank you.
>Have you read "Touch" by Thom Gunn? It's quite similar in many ways.
I had not, but I did after seeing your post. They are quite similar, but there seems to be a bit of difference in scope. Gunn's poem ends with
>wide realm where we
>walk with everyone.
These final lines (along with others throughout) give the impression of a universal process, a sort of connectedness between not even just humanity, but all living creatures (eg the cat).

Here's a poem I like:
"An Epoch" - Devin Johnston
Each streetllight declares an absence
where it pools, a square of sidewalk
poured long ago and still engraved
with the burr of a trowel
and rough swirls of a broom,
the curb edge sprayed
with neon glyphs of hook and arrow
that do not pertain to us.
Only the light's vapor has changed
from mercury to sodium,
a spectral shift from blue to orange.
Matte black, a lone beetle
churns across the concrete
beneath its upturned shield.

Milton Sonnet 19

When I consider how my light is spent,
E're half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one Talent which is death to hide,
Lodg'd with me useless, though my Soul more bent

To serve therewith my Maker, and present [ 5 ]
My true account, least he returning chide,
Doth God exact day labour, light deny'd,
I fondly ask; But patience to prevent

That murmur, soon replies, God doth not need
Either man's work or his own gifts, who best [ 10 ]
Bear his milde yoak, they serve him best, his State

Is Kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed
And post o're Land and Ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and waite.

On Misery

A house resides on a far off street
Colored in deep, secretive navy blue
Hues

And I await upon my borrowed raft in brown murky Sacramento waters
A shallow disguise for riled wry lies

Mud laughing at me
Mud laughing at you
Mud is not mud

Mother mud
Mother mud
It oozes and undoes

There is a house on a distant street pensive as the Atlantic that I will never see

>>17530684

It came naturally to me, the rest of the poem isn’t that smooth haha. I like Beowulf’s use of kennings, and contractions in Milton

Florus,

Aut hoc risit Amor, aut hoc depectine traxit
Purpureis Aurora comis aut senribus haesit
Cypris et hic spinis insedit sanguis acutis.

>>17537938
Bullshit

>>17535000
Bullshit

>>17532738
Derivative

>>17520160
I love this one

Just asking for a critique, should I be more descriptive or is simplicity a better route here?:

Used to do this
Used to do that
and it's fine now even if I don't do those things
anymore
Used to buy two coffees
Used to go to that plant store
Used to laugh in that corner of the library
Used to put that song on repeat

Hold that hand
Kiss that cheek
Used to play
Used to learn
Used to eat

I did those things but I don't need to continue doing them I grew from them and now I will continue to grow doing other things with

Other people

>>17537938
The mud imagery was good too but it would be great if you would develop it more as it seems central to the poem.

Gonna use this as the basis for a poem I’ll write half in English half in gypo

Mischia dentro una bottiglia
luna, cuor, felicità,
e una dolce meraviglia
viene fuori là per là.

Basta un poco di musica,
basta una melodia,
anima mia,
tutto si salverà.

L'amore è come un'elica
che ci porta via
e chissà dove
si giungerà.

Un valzer prima di cena,
un bosson all'ora del tè
e un tango della catena
della notte per me e per te.

Basta un poco di musica,
basta una melodia,
anima mia,
tutto si salverà.

E l'incanto dei flauti,
per la malinconia,
ogni tormento
dileguerà.

>>17540840
hey Frater, since you're basically half the posts on this thread how about you set up some homework for the rest of the class?
I will write a poem, using either the topic you select or the structure you select.

>>17540925
Ah apologies for over-posting, I find tne critique really fun and I really enjoy sharing poetry that I’ve enjoyed.

How’s about a pool of options, select any three (minimum) or more.

- Dactylic hexameter
- Heavy onomatopoeia
- Winter imagery
- Gloomy aesthetic
- Innocent and childlike aesthetic
- A Spenserian sonnet (ABAB BCBC CDCD EE)
- 11 syllable per line terza rima
- Create an acrostic
- heavy alliteration (at least 4 per line)
- Sprung rhythm
- Trochaic tetrameter
- Heavy Parallelism
- Irish Keening
- Translate another poem into English

That should be a pretty good exercise, yeah?

Can I ask what you niggaz think of dactylic hexameter?

Great poetry in this thread. I felt inspired and gave it a try. First time since highdchool and inspired by an old love of mine. A bit edgy prehaps, and I feel as if I dropped the ball towards the end. Any critique is appreciates.

A ghost of the past:

She manifests when day reaches end,
And stars fill the moonlit sky.
Into dream's realm I descend,
Reminiscence of a time gone-by

On winter's eve, by river's edge she stands,
Ashen hair and eyes of oceanic cerule.
Angelic lips and cold, pale hands,
She was to be mine, alas - fate was too cruel.

In solitude I stood amidst the falling snow,
Crushing despair, breaking apart.
With scornful howling from the river below,
Quenched, were the embers of my heart.

Yet when thd sun sets we reunite,
A goddess incarnate, appearing so divine.
The flame once more set alight,
As two souls in the night intertwine.

Though dawn must break and night end,
Thus she fades, leaving me aghast.
A fractured soul unable to mend,
For she is naught but a ghost of the past.

>>17541753
Excuse any typos, been working in the ER all night and am phoneposting.

>>17541753
It's way over the top and cliched. Try to describe her as "goddess incarnate" without saying so explicitly. The golden rule of poetry is to SHOW and not TELL. Remember also to look at your diction carefully. Why would he be "aghast" if he's just remembering a woman? Or is he being visited by a ghost of an old lover? It isn't exactly clear.

>angelic
>fate was too cruel
>Quenched
All of these are quite overdone, too.

full blown boons an' octoroons
frae cameroon tae cairo
arse on the flare, nose in the air [floor]
they come collec' their giro [welfare]

>>17541880
Thanks for the feedback. Honestly, by the end I was spending more time searching for appropriate words to rhyme with rather than actually trying to tell a story which probably is why it fell short.

21 and old
Given up.
I go up, I go down
The engine heart still turns.
One day a cycle will be one too many
I will be happy; or sad.

>>17541753
pretty nice, anon. it managed to be metered and not sound too cheesy.

When days are drawn the same as drawn before
I saw those hazel specks above the peaks
And snow, the beads you gave me shine their quartz
And I'm reminded more of those soft cheeks
That glow; when days are turned to days beheld
Without those sunset lips and without their heat
And gold, the beads you gave reflect the hell
Once felt without your wholesome heart to please.
But when the days and rain are weighted and
With shadowless azure, I'm reminded
of your little small face in the seat of my hand
forever, and the leaving dust of autumn:
Then I'm reminded more of your absence,
And I'll do nothing less to see you again.

Keates 'La Belle Dames sans Merci'

O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has withered from the lake,
And no birds sing.

O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
So haggard and so woe-begone?
The squirrel’s granary is full,
And the harvest’s done.

I see a lily on thy brow,
With anguish moist and fever-dew,
And on thy cheeks a fading rose
Fast withereth too.

I met a lady in the meads,
Full beautiful—a faery’s child,
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
And her eyes were wild.

I made a garland for her head,
And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;
She looked at me as she did love,
And made sweet moan

I set her on my pacing steed,
And nothing else saw all day long,
For sidelong would she bend, and sing
A faery’s song.

She found me roots of relish sweet,
And honey wild, and manna-dew,
And sure in language strange she said—
‘I love thee true’.

She took me to her Elfin grot,
And there she wept and sighed full sore,
And there I shut her wild wild eyes
With kisses four.

And there she lullèd me asleep,
And there I dreamed—Ah! woe betide!—
The latest dream I ever dreamt
On the cold hill side.

I saw pale kings and princes too,
Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
They cried—‘La Belle Dame sans Merci
Thee hath in thrall!’

I saw their starved lips in the gloam,
With horrid warning gapèd wide,
And I awoke and found me here,
On the cold hill’s side.

And this is why I sojourn here,
Alone and palely loitering,
Though the sedge is withered from the lake,
And no birds sing.

I'm taking a stab at writing some poetry, what do you think of this?

My baby don't mess around
Because she loves me so
This I know for sure
But does she really want to
But can't stand to see me walk out the door
Don't try to fight the feeling
Because the thought alone is killing me right now
Thank God for Mom and Dad
For sticking to together
Like we don't know how

Coleridge - Sonnet: To The Autumnal Moon

Mild Splendor of the various-vested Night!
Mother of wildly-working visions! hail!
I watch thy gliding, while with watery light
Thy weak eye glimmers through a fleecy veil;
And when thou lovest thy pale orb to shroud
Behind the gather'd blackness lost on high;
And when thou dartest from the wind-rent cloud
Thy placid lightning o'er th' awakened sky.
Ah, such is Hope! As changeful and as fair!
Now dimly peering on the wistful sight;
Now hid behind the dragon-wing'd Despair:
But soon emerging in her radiant might
She o'er the sorrow-clouded breast of Care
Sails, like a meteor kindling in its flight.

>>17491299
Creamy white treads hang
Soon I'll hang too
The last message sent
And be reborn anew

>>17540996
'O noble hound, how you delight in snow
You jump, bark, and bite at the frozen flakes
Your white fur is lost as you come and go
As snow melts you cover me with wet shakes

We frolic once more after a brief break
The cold air clouds your form like a fairy
And I gasp as run out to the lake
The chance of your loss makes me most weary

The proud loyal Cú is far too merry
I call for your return as the ice cracks
COME! COME! I yell, but she is unwary
She disappears without even a track

Rest in peace noble hound, I miss your love.
Rest in peace noble hound, I miss your love


>so I didnt go I to this trying to kill the dog but that's just where it went

>>17545076
Sorry for the late reply friend, Valentine’s Day and all that.

I like the poem anon but I can definitely feel your struggle with the poem, and how it led you on. The stanzas have a kind of progressive drop in quality which I assume reflects the poem taking over and you losing control. The first stanza is actually pretty nice! Do you often try to write with a bunch of structural requirements? Also if you get the chance, throw me a pool of options and I’ll pick three as well and write a poem also.

Favorite lines.

> The cold air clouds your form like a fairy

>Your white fur is lost as you come and go

>>17545705
No I don't typically write poetry period, but I am trying to become a more well rounded person (currently studying the Bible outside of a church or school setting)

>Imagery Pool
Plants
Specific Animals
Urban Setting
Rural Setting
Chaos
>Structure Pool
Iambic (X)meter that shifts into Trochaic (X)meter
A Spenserian Sonnet (ABAB BCBC CDCD EE)
a standard Sonnet (ABAB CDCD EFEF GG)
>Culture Pool
Eurpoe
Arabia
Asia
Latin America

Woke up four
Had to tend to the cows
They all have the grass
And the cows're all I have
I kicked mounds of dirt
Northern dirtwind
Fittings of shards and flints
Jim and his dog kicked some
Whistling wind through the wood canopy
We can whistle and play guitar
Old harmonica player
He told me -
Hell is in the South - somewhere
Province of Wichita

Oh, Jenny
I'm a dog in your blue bolt moonlight
Maybe I'll drive upward - Michigan
Or maybe I'll go eastward

>>17545705
any advice on how to write structural poems without letting the rigidity lead you on?

>>17545705
>>17546066
I just write to a rhythm in my head when I write poetry, no rhyme or meter, is it wrong to do this? I know of the basic meters and how it works but I just write how I "feel" if that makes since

>>17546066
Sounds nice, which book of the Bible are you reading?(better to begin with the New Testament or if you will do Old Testament, proverbs and psalms is best.)
And Sure, think I’ll either do plant/animal, Spenserian sonnet and perhaps Arabia.

>>17546345
Preplanning, don’t write line by line, write earlier lines fully with their ramifications in latter parts considered. Don’t just do the first couple rhymes and then get stuck. Select a specific bunch of imagery, a feeling and so forth and do not deviate. The key is just Will and keeping a firm control over what you write. Example.

I Sing a Song of Sweven

Seven are the Secret names
Written in the White Welkin.
Ere Eternity the flames
Veiled in the black Void of Sin.
Eons pass, Evil conceals.
Nails of Night pierce Sacred Skin.

I Sing a Song of Sweven

Seven are the Sacred Seals
Wet With the blood of the lamb.
Each man Earns what he reveals,
Vanity Views not I am.
Each who Earns the holy Stamp
Negates his Name, like Abram.

I Sing a Song of Sweven

Seven Spirits of the Lamp
Weave the Wyrd into a Web
Elder than the Evening Camp.
Visions of Verses of Geb
Envelop all of Elphame.
Now Not even Naught shall ebb.


This poem was designed to be an acrostic, so if read like that it says “ i sweven, i Sweven, I sweven” which is to say, I dream, I dream, I dream. Each stanza corresponds to one member of the trinity and their correspondences especially in relation to Hegel’s and boehme’s thought, each line is 7 syllables (for obvious reasons) and these create a 7 fold set so that each stanza and its prior “I sing a song” equals 49, which is 7x7, which is identical to the gates of loagaeth/wisdom in enochian, these are repeated thrice to imply the perfection of God and perichoresis. In this each function of godhead is understood to be a dream of Godhead. This is played with by each Sweven becoming the word “seven” in the first line. Referring first to the hidden names of the sephiroth, then the seals in revelation and ending with the lamps of the Holy Spirit before the throne of god. And of course I can more and on and on but you get what I’m saying. You need to plan all of the imagery and symbolism and structure and effects prior to writing.

>>17546369
No such thing as wrong, it’s less control and less refined but it’s fine. Rhyme and rhythm (meter is rhythm, if you do apply a meter you’ll be able to truly go with the rhythm you seek) are keys to control, but there’s a lot of things that can be used. Poetry is just the manipulation of form, as long as you’re manipulating form for various effects, it is still a poem in my eyes. This is also why the highest level of prose is no different to a kind of free verse.

I personally write in syllabics, meaning I do not focus on stresses/meter, but on the amount of syllables. This gives me the maximum amount of symbolic meaning and allows me a degree of mental freedom to express any inspiration I desire without having to strain the speech in a far too unnatural way. These are then beautified via alliteration, rhyme and other means. But not necessarily. Remember that all of this structural stuff has a purpose. Example notice how snappy ABAB rhyme patterns feel, they’re great for proverbs for example. Feel tetrameter how it feels more artificial and thus can be used for more fantastical or ornate purposes. Etc

Here's one of my favourite RIlke poems.

Orpheus, Eurydice, Hermes

This was the eerie mine of souls.
Like silent silver-ore
they veined its darkness. Between roots
the blood that flows off into humans welled up,
looking dense as porphyry in the dark.
Otherwise, there was no red.

There were cliffs
and unreal forests. Bridges spanning emptiness
and that huge gray blind pool
hanging above its distant floor
like a stormy sky over a landscape.
And between still gentle fields
a pale strip of road unwound.

They came along this road.

In front the slender man in the blue cloak,
mute, impatient, looking straight ahead.
Without chewing, his footsteps ate the road
in big bites; and both his hands hung
heavy and clenched by the pour of his garment
and forgot all about the light lyre,
become like a part of his left hand,
rose tendrils strung in the limbs of an olive.
His mind like two minds.
While his gaze ran ahead, like a dog,
turned, and always came back from the distance
to wait at the next bend–
his hearing stayed close, like a scent.
At times it seemed to reach all the way back
to the movements of the two others
who ought to be following the whole way up.
And sometimes it seemed there was nothing behind him
but the echo of his own steps, the small wind
made by his cloak. And yet
he told himself: they were coming, once;
said it out loud, heard it die away . . .
They were coming. Only they were two
who moved with terrible stillness. Had he been allowed
to turn around just once (wouldn't that look back
mean the disintegration of this whole work,
still to be accomplished) of course he would have seen them,
two dim figures walking silently behind:

the god of journeys and secret tidings,
shining eyes inside the traveler's hood,
the slender wand held out in front of him,
and wings beating in his ankles;
and his left hand held out to: her.

>>17546428
I am doing the whole damn thing NASB translation from Genesis all the way to Revelations. I am currently reading Samuel.

>>17546489
This woman who was loved so much, that from one lyre
more mourning came than from women in mourning;
that a whole world was made from mourning, where
everything was present once again: forest and valley
and road and village, field, river and animal;
and that around this mourning-world, just as
around the other earth, a sun
and a silent star-filled sky wheeled,
a mourning-sky with displaced constellations–:
this woman who was loved so much . . .

But she walked alone, holding the god's hand,
her footsteps hindered by her long graveclothes,
faltering, gentle, and without impatience.
She was inside herself, like a great hope,
and never thought of the man who walked ahead
or the road that climbed back toward life.
She was inside herself. And her being dead
filled her like tremendous depth.
As a fruit is filled with its sweetness and darkness
she was filled with her big death, still so new
that it hadn't been fathomed.

She found herself in a resurrected
virginity; her sex closed
like a young flower at nightfall.
And her hands were so weaned from marriage
that she suffered from the light
god's endlessly still guiding touch
as from too great an intimacy.

She was no longer the blond woman
who sometimes echoed in the poet's songs,
no longer the fragrance, the island of their wide bed,
and no longer the man's to possess.

She was already loosened like long hair
and surrendered like the rain
and issued like massive provisions.
She was already root.

And when all at once the god stopped
her, and with pain in his voice
spoke the words: he has turned around–,
she couldn't grasp this and quietly said: who?

But far off, in front of the bright door
stood someone whose face
had grown unrecognizable. He just stood and watched,
how on this strip of road through the field
the god of secret tidings, with a heartbroken expression,
silently turned to follow the form
already starting back along the same road,
footsteps hindered by long graveclothes,
faltering, gentle, and without impatience.

Here's a bit of translation: the passage at the end of Canto 17 from the Inferno in Dante's Divine Comedy, where they climb on Geryon's back and fly down to the next level in Hell.

The aim is to make it sound good without taking too many liberties. (Obviously quite a few compromises are necessary.)

Here's the Italian text and translations by Mandelbaum & Longfellow:

https://digitaldante.columbia.edu/dante/divine-comedy/inferno/inferno-17/

>>17546494
Good luck! Samuel is very fun! Just watch out for fatigue. Make sure to take notes, study commentaries as you go and so forth. I’ve seen many get into the habit of reading but not trying to comprehend the Bible.

>>17546508
Absolutely based, I love Dante and I love terza rima but it seems like so many poets have difficulty with terza rima alone, Dante’s skill making it even harder. Now to your translation, it’s actually quite Good! Definitely feels stilted and at times forced to fit but compared to other professional translations I’d even say it’s competent. You should try out the big scene I think in canto 27? Was it? Of purgatorio. The big scene where Dante sees Beatrice, the lamps, the men symbolic of the Bible, Griffon, etc.

But again, very competent, are you the anon who’s trying to make his own translation I heard of?

Since everyone here is talking about rhythm, and sort of the tempo of poems, I'm wondering if something without that is poetry, or lacks the sophistication or technique to be a worthy poem. I wrote >>17546315 this one, which I wrote without anything in mind, and which would undoubtedly lack rhythm if you read it out loud. How do people compose their poems?

>>17546546
Yes, I'm doing the whole thing. Almost finished; just on the last few cantos of Paradiso at the moment. I've posted one or two other extracts.