/lit/ - Literature

>tfw there is great amount of profound and breathtaking poetry in your language that people of the world will never enjoy because it's not written in English

>>6325161

No first post to critique?

Critique and I'll hit you back

>>6325161
Do people actually read and listen to music at the same time?! How can you focus???

>>6325331
I loved it. There isn't much to tell since I liked the poem, I'd probably remove the first and third comma (alone at home, I sit and compose); and I would remove the word "fit" (my mind constructed, fit)

>>6325331
>it's
There were some awkward rhymes but other than that, it's okay.

http://pastebin.com/b79QaDu4

>>6325331
As much as I normally hate poems which are centered around writing and other peoples' works, this one actually isn't bad. I really really enjoy the third stanza, although the fourth seems to be somewhat of a letdown. It builds up greatly, but seems to fall short in its revelation.

>>6325354
I always do. It makes it kinda hard, but I only have so much time.

>>6325836
I honestly just don't get it. It has charming wording and a charming situation...but what is its purpose? It's clearly incomplete.

Mine is pic attached.

>>6325161
Can someone give a look to this one?

http://www.writerscafe.org/writing/LoanYZ/1480273/

I posted a shorter version before (a few months ago).

His mind began to rove to rooms of lurid pink haze and light where strange bodies collide. To honeyed cells in an urban hive to mysterious corners discovered only now not before when alone but now among people. To odd rooms of possibility and thumping and hey! and warm sweaty touch and odorous smoke and do you remember?....to rooms with fleeting amorous embrace and Cambrian heat pulsing in a fixed moment.

He had been driven by a dim flashing impulse to be in that neon sanctum, in that vulgar shrine of lithe images stretched on divans matted with filth. And in that Attic scene what a weird figure he had struck. Not graceful not handsome but young, young he was for now and young yet for another moment. Hello – hi – my name is - hey man, another shot? – one second – hi, nice to meet – woah-ho! - that’s it! - like I was saying – she smiled coyly – you play violin? – no kidding, so do – hey man, come on…don’t leave me hanging! – just a minute – well….

He trailed off. Mind blanked, expended of the gregarious gentleman’s ammunition, of all anecdotes and hero’s tales, I cannot play the bard, feeling too well now the throat grip and the limits of this body he felt stark and sharp, so well did he feel its contours against this warm and wild space, so new was that face in which he looked now, so badly did he wish to sublimate into it. Her thick lashes were downcast over limpid eyes that smiled and the thought of death was deeply in them. In all things is an opposite he said to himself and yet amidst this what decay? No decay no decay this is a new branch on life’s roving circuit. He leaned in and whispered something indistinct and she slapped him teasingly and laughed. They turned in to face one another.

She leaned in now and her breath was hot on him. He felt dimly the contours giving way, the cordons of his life loosening, fibers livening under this tropic waft, fired, fired by a -

>>6325583

Specifically, which rhymes did you feel were awkward? I'm revising this one.

>>6325493

Eh, there's a reason for the choppy, structured feel of the opening line. I'll probably keep it.

Why remove the word fit?

>>6327983
>Eh, there's a reason for the choppy, structured feel of the opening line.
And what would be that reason?

>>6325941

Heh, yeah, point was the speaker is on the edge of an epiphany, but it doesn't say exactly what that epiphany is. Something about nature's equality, if not superiority, to man made culture.

It sounds like the first line is "I do not quite but understand, that I might" which reads like nonsense. Are you meaning "I do not quite, but understand that I might"? is it " I don't quite understand" or "I don't, but understand that i might?"

viscates? had to look it up and didn't find it exactly... typo, or word invention?

So the speaker is a soldier in Iraq/Afghanistan/Other Shithole, thinking about people back home playing videogames where they're soldiers.

Would kill "But it is not life which you wish to be" > too abstract, too vague.

Last two lines... silent used twice. I'd fix it.

I know this is free verse, but scan the last stanza. And then read it aloud. It's choppy af.

>>6328005

The first two stanzas are about man made unnatural things. Phil, tech manuals, mathematics, nuclear war. I wanted to make the first line somehow mechanical and unnaturally rhythmic.

Which, obv, the whole poem is in a very structured rhyme scheme and rhythm.

Did any of that come across to you when reading?

>>6328039
>Did any of that come across to you when reading?
Not at all.

>I wanted to make the first line somehow mechanical and unnaturally rhythmic.
It does sounds mechanical, but it doesn't sound rythmic.

>>6328056

Check the meter dog. Rhythm is played over meter.

>>6325354
i listen to some asmr type of ambiance with out any talking. It helps to drown out the noises from others.

>>6325331
im impressed by your ability to make the poem flow so gracefully... your use of language is beautiful and knit together so well

here's sum balderdash i wrote

Champa Park Music Festival: citizens, the homeless and their kin, those from near and far all rhythmically bound in a great alliance. Some, under the influence of psychedelic drugs, waved and flailed their bodies to the music, lost in a kind of lucid haze. Others sat outside their tents by their fires, the gentle hills and families of trees cradling them, with the sound of melodies, through the sunshine of a clear summer's day.
Somewhere among the city of tents and blankets that made the lawn of the venue, Alfred Winsley and some eighr or nine friends all sat on a kaleidoscopic quilt circled around 4 strips of LSD.
"We will take this drug now." Alfred declared. "All ye who fear its psychedelic qualities may walk away." And so 5 of his friends rose to their feet and parted ways. The same friends as always remained.
Alfred gave two doses to Kevin Knightly, who was raised next door to him. To Jane Christopher he gave one dose, knowing she was an anxious character and had never taken the drug. To Judy Evans, his beloved friend-with-benefits, he gave two doses, and also two to himself in the hopes that they should be on the same mental frequency together.
It is here, at the Champa Park Music Festival, that a particular destiny, one shared between four youthful souls, should be relieved of its first crease and begin its blossom. And of all accounts possible, this fate would be the most radiant and true; one of love and compassion shrouded by a smog of fear, viral in a great, indefinite mass.
Let it be heard then, so that the lives of Alfred, Jane, Judy and Kevin should be held close to heart with peace of mind, remembered eternally for their brilliance and luminosity.

>>6325331
>>6328103
samefag

>>6328109
truthfully not samefag

The bus passes by
reflecting me in its windows.
My face shifts and changes
as though on a pond
disturbed by a pebble.
Yet the fish are still and placid.

>>6328103

Why the old-timey feel to the language and dialogue? Don't dislike it, just wonder what the connection is.

Dialogue tags like 'declared' don't do anything for me.

Overall, the first half is strong, if a bit purple. The last two paragraphs don't add anything to it, for me.

>>6328159
i don't know. I really like Steinbeck and Vonnegut and try to go for that kinda feel..

I don't remember the last time I used "declared" or much else other than "said". I share your sentiment though, I am itchy about dialogue tags as well.

what do you mean by purple?

>>6328167
>those from near and far all rhythmically bound in a great alliance.

>the gentle hills and families of trees cradling them, with the sound of melodies, through the sunshine of a clear summer's day

Are sort of purple. I guess what I mean is, flowery, words for their own sake, because they sound nice. And don't get me wrong, they sound nice. But you've written a couple paragraphs of exposition, with no real action, besides the divvying of the acid.

>>6328167

Heh, also, notice the length of my critique for your piece, and your critique for mine. Why don't you critique a few other pieces on here, while you're hanging out : )

>>6325161
>reading whilst listening to music

good christ whats the point

>>6328145
Are you also reading chinese poetry at the moment?

>>6328279
Close. Japanese actually.

>>6326221
probably the first prose piece i sincerely enjoyed reading on /lit/.

that being said, be careful about repetitive adjective-noun patterns when you're describing things. gets kind of purple. from just the first paragraph:
>pink haze
>strange bodies
>honeyed cells
>urban hive
>mysterious corners
>sweaty touch
>odorous smoke
>amorous embrace
>cambrian heat

but yeah, keep at it. really good.

>>6328303
Do reccomend

>>6328344
I haven't really read much outside Basho and general haiku poetry.
But I found this collection of Kamikaze Death Poetry particularly haunting.
http://scholarship.rollins.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1154&context=specs

>>6328374
Thanks

I'd be interested in opinions on this. It's not very long.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1k2IwEdRl_3fsxxOft2TktHUapbPeoB8uWzBnkjtxbDg/edit?usp=sharing

>>6328374
This is really very very interesting

>>6328445
It's the simplicity, what's left unsaid, that seems to give it a certain resonance.

>>6325354
I used to listen to Ratatat. It's slow, predictable, and lyricless so it's great for reading.

What do you think about part of my shitty attempts?

And he sat. For so long his legs left the world of consciousness and his mind began to wander all across the fields of blue and green he found himself in. Drenched in sweat and dark blood that pooled in the grass beneath him, making shapes in the grass that he sometimes touched and moved to make room for other things to touch and move. He couldn't help but think back to days of steel and concrete, when grass was kept controlled and muted against grey skylines and grey grounds to walk in grey times. He thought of flame as he looked at the grass, wild and untamed by man or beast, flowing like a river of great godly aeration. And he thought of men. He thought of good and evil and thought of in-between things and great goods and greater evils like men that bled on grass and men that provided causation. He thought of women and their earthly wiles, and in his time he saw them full chested and full of life dripping from wet cunts and red stained beds where life could leave in an instant, or be brought forth from untellable aethers.

>>6328457
>And he sat.
Bad start.

>>6328418

I've just started it. You've basically droned for two uninteresting paragraphs to say, "I walked the desert, and found an invisible wall." At that point, it would be acceptable to describe it, but in a drastically reduced state. "I reached out and felt out a ceiling, and four similar walls, which had surrounded me without my knowledge," would be preferable to forced pseudo-modern musings.

Describing a character breathing in the way that you did is overused and tedious.

Describing his feelings... I'd say great vocabulary but it feels really out of place considering how mundane the actions of your character are. You begin every other sentence with what the character is feeling, as if you picked up a thesaurus and looked up the synonyms for 'exhausted' and then went ham.

>jobs not gotten
anon, please.

The idea is cool; a vice that appears out of nowhere and forces the character to be alone with himself, but the execution needs work. If you think about it in terms of novel pages, you've basically used up five pages to show that the character walked the desert, found a box, and then whined about his problems at home. Snore.

I prescribe reading, less verbose stuff. Hemingway preferred. If simplicity doesn't attract you, then read some lit that forces you to expand your vocabulary. It'll also help you with a more fluid sentence construction, since reading your prose is like reading a train with mislaid tracks.

>>6328451
This one is really powerful:

I memorized 300 poems at school.
I was a wise boy – women
winked at the market – I was all aflame
with their charm. Now, I burn.

>>6328334
Hello friend. Thanks for your compliments and helpful critique. I definitely see it getting purple - gonna try to trim down on that. Glad you enjoyed it!

Deerfighting.
The sound of children
playing with sticks.

Just wrote this one.

>>6328522
My dick
The sound of
No gf

Just wrote this one.

>>6325331

wow this is really bad lmao.....

Hands on haunches, upwards-strained and back arching ensellure, she’d carry herself to the living room. The sun, which had hid from Scottish months till now would part ways with winter to carry diaphanous visions of felicitous manoeuvres and pedantic positioning, employing our endeavours in tactical – no, tactile reconnaissance… She would make a languorous motion to squeeze the delicate, plump curvature of the anterior thorax. To mitigate whatever viraginity lay through those green bermudas voluminously fundament-filled, spelled reticence impossible, irrepressible and irresistible… Omphalos uncovered and nuque flickered bare, we’d move in gradual delectations of grace. A reach around the lumbus, then from her hair to her scapulae would relent ourselves to each other. Visions reflected in irises would annunciate the first suscitation before our lips. We began, sleek nates to lap, with each tilt and touch an action to delineate the shifting of ample weight under covers, to indulge in the bliss of capitulated penetralia.

>>6328567

Duh, but why?

http://pastebin.com/2TJb6vqc

>>6329254

like if you actually want to get write good poetry you should maybe take a little time and learn about poetry

like... learn scansion

your poem is so technically poor that it's pointless for me to offer any commentary

it is also very poor in terms of art/creativity

:\

this goes for like, 90% of poems I've read on /lit/

>>6326221
>honeyed cells

I'm gna cop this imagery for something I'm writing, thanks

Like most, I'm writing these words to be read by anyone who chooses to read them. However, unlike most, my words–especially these here–are expressed of my thought in the abstract: they are not my thoughts, but mere representations of my thought. This should go without saying, but normative discussions create pathways into viable futures for us all; they are the maps to new territories ripe with opportunities and potential treasures to be handed down to and for posterity.

This then, arises the problem of the writer within the tract of humanity and its wealth of information throughout history and geology–time and space. Even he doesn't know why he writes what he writes on a site self-labeled as an image board. These words are images, yet they are not; as much as a song is not the notes written down on paper. But we intermingle–I, the self-proclaimed insufficient and irrelevant writer and you, the equally anonymous but as of yet undefinable reader. Can a story emerge from these petty proclamations? No, for the proclamations themselves, in being written and read, are stories in themselves, by themselves, existing independently of all agents involved. This brings us to the story of Gene.

Gene is–though dead–now blind, streaming a dread-lock of urine out from his pungent penis onto a grungy back-alley between St. Stephens and Miramar. His past is gone, but known. Born prematurely, his mother put him up for adoption, unable to support him economically–therefore at all. Growing up, he formed friendships, and bore their severances often. Nobody wanted a blind child. Blind children couldn't see the faces of their new caregivers, give them that acknowledging and grateful glance of endearment that–especially–de facto parents demand, as some form of unwritten payment or reward for their supposedly selfless sacrifices. But self-interest is the foodstuff of universal perseverance; as a super-organistic tribe, we mustn't deny this.

The story continues, indefinitely.

excerpt from a short story I'm working on;

Eugene was an old man, and a horribly solitary man. He lived atop a hill on the outskirts of Kansaii Japan. A quiet town full of simple people. It brought the kind of quietness which can bring upon peace and closure. Even when peace and closure are nowhere to be found. The war had left Eugene bitter, brooding, and prone to reclusion. It had done something to him. It had done the thing which war has done too many men before Eugene, and will do to many men after him.

Eugene had moved to Kansaii immediately after being discharged from the war. During his tour, he had passed through Kansaii. And when he passed through the sleepy town, he thought how pleasant it was. How it seemed untouched by the goings on around it. He saw that on the outskirts of the town there was a quiet, soft hill. He looked at this hill and he though to himself, I will build me a house here when this is all over. And so, after “it” was all over, he did. He returned to Kansaii and built himself a small hut atop the small hill outside of the small town. He spent all of his days inside this hut. He fashioned himself into a hermit, he hid away in a bid for peace. A bid for peace of the mind, a bid to quell his rampant thoughts and remembrance of the things he had seen. The hill lay a bit away from the quiet little farming town. The town was serene and silent and gorgeous in its own right. The town was also home to a defunct tiger observatory, it had been defunded and now only housed one tiger, Xiu-Xiu. The townspeople loved Xiu-Xiu as one might love a doll or a favorite bat. They did not respect the tiger, or admire it. They were entertained by it. They found watching it awe inspiring, then after visiting hours were over they returned to their homes and forgot about the magnificent beast.

Eugene lived alone in this hut for 30 years. He left it only to go for his walks, and he only went for his walks when they were absolutely necessary. Such as when his head was full of thoughts which he’d rather not have. Or, when his head was rather un-full. When it felt void and empty, and the hollowness which lay in it pierced him and spread throughout his whole body. Like a mist, or a great fog. As days, months, years went on, the necessity for these walks became more and more frequent.

He would prowl about the quiet town. He would listen to the wind chimes ringing in the distance, their soft sounds sending out vibrations which flittered across the top of his skin and into his ears. He’d clasp his hands behind is aching back and he’d close his eyes and he’d remember simpler times. Times of holding his mother’s hand, his father reading to him, forgotten loves and old friends. He would feel the knots in his joints and the aches in his bones loosen and disappear. He would feel the hairs on his arm stand up, as the cool breeze rolled over his skin.

A Crawfish at Phish (smoking bluegrass)

A crawfish crawling across the stage
beats to the drum of bluegrass and smoke.
His dream to become a star's a phage
plundered by the fact that he's just another bloke.

"You can't do it," ambiguously state the haters
even as he nods to the bending of the spokes.
"But decay is vital to growth" cry the cremators
just when the whole rabble is swollen with hope.

Crowd-surfing now on a web cast in servers
the crawdad dives into a pool boiling in metal;
the rhubarb rubs their hands together–preservers,
silent of the notion that death perpetuates the pedal.

>>6329329

Eh, can't tell if troll?

Learn scansion: the entire poem is written in strict iambs? I purposefully chose to have no variations of the iambic pentameter/trimeter combination. I'm studying meter right now, I consider this to be in very strict adherence to iambs.
Technically poor: Duh! But why?
Poor in terms of art/creativity? Help?

Colon:
a host of colonies–
a host of dashing colons.
Periodically intermeshing/
trans–migrational fucking
is the CPR
(colonial perpetuation requirement)
of colonies in the colons of colonials in colonies:
Colonize,
exclaim the face-forward sphincters
that shit calls mommy.

senseless stream of consciousness: by an unexceptional individual

Babbling, I am, not as of yet, but when a tipping point of substance-lacking (probably) words in the form of sentences and, if we're lucky, paragraphs. But now I'm compelled to think of a pair of graphs demonstrating the necessity of man to self-awarely acknowledge the lack of inhibitions within society to suppress, or outright deny, the perpetuation of particular trends, such as obesity, prejudice, bigotry, or pop music. But I digress, indefinitely, until I definitely die, yet why should that limit the extent of my digressions? Can't these tangential musings exists, virtually forever, as long as the process of cultural natural selection allows for their propagation as it has with Madame Bovary or the works of Shakespeare or Egyptian hieroglyphics–if only I were so special. Perhaps if immortality extended beyond the memory of a culture or society I might be persuaded to push the limits of whatever individual potentiality I have to their asymptotic border; but indolence is my king, I am his disloyal subject, but subject nonetheless. So, are these ramblings yet? I should think so. Sewn into the tapestry that is history? Not if history requires at least a half century to form (sorry Kanye, Obama, and Wikipedia). Speaking of, I discovered recently that Wikipedia has a page for Wikipedia, where the page for Wikipedia on the Wikipedia's Wikipedia can be found on its own page. On that note, this is an epigram to the me-less me that is me. Fuck Nike, just meme it into a marathon.

senseless stream of consciousness: by an unexceptional individual

Babbling, I am, not as of yet, but when a tipping point of substance-lacking (probably) words in the form of sentences and, if we're lucky, paragraphs is reached like low hanging fruit. But now I'm compelled to think of a pair of graphs demonstrating the necessity of man to self-awarely acknowledge the lack of inhibitions within society to suppress, or outright deny, the perpetuation of particular trends, such as obesity, prejudice, bigotry, or pop music. But I digress, indefinitely, until I definitely die, yet why should that limit the extent of my digressions? Can't these tangential musings exists, virtually forever, as long as the process of cultural natural selection allows for their propagation as it has with Madame Bovary or the works of Shakespeare or Egyptian hieroglyphics–if only I were so special. Perhaps if immortality extended beyond the memory of a culture or society I might be persuaded to push the limits of whatever individual potentiality I have to their asymptotic border; but indolence is my king, I am his disloyal subject, but subject nonetheless. So, are these ramblings yet? I should think so. Sewn into the tapestry that is history? Not if history requires at least a half century to form (sorry Kanye, Obama, and Wikipedia). Speaking of, I discovered recently that Wikipedia has a page for Wikipedia, where the page for Wikipedia on the Wikipedia's Wikipedia can be found on its own page. On that note, this is an epigram to the me-less me that is me. Fuck Nike, just meme it into a marathon.

>>6329405

Very cool. I dig this.

Small changes, throw away if you don't like, because I think this is p good as is.

>a host of colonies
to
"a host of -- colonies,"
plays off next line's "a host of dashing colonies"
Though perhaps you intended to throw the reader off.

>of colonies in the colons of colonials in colonies:
is cool, but may be a taad too much.

>that shit calls mommy
again, cool, but maybe show me the shit waving bye bye to mommy? extend it a few lines?
I mean, if the sphincters are exclaiming, why not the shit?

>>6329233

This is the bantam chicken of prose. It's fluffy and cute, but it's still fucking poultry.

>>6329449

Hey really appreciate it. Great suggestions

To reduce the entire world down to one sentence
is to reverse the big bang with a blink of an eye–

now look at it and ask yourself:
have I blinked yet?

>>6329329
go ahead, but not without providing some feedback on my writing, if you please?

Monuments erect,
a citadel gets razed.
Documents elect,
the people get mazed.
Talking-heads deflect,
and again get praised.
My two eyes detect,
and my body gets tazed.
Will please someone reflect?
So we don't all get lazed.
No, everything stays incorrect,
and so I remain crazed.

>>6329463

Hey, happy to throw my two cents in. You're smart, throw down a critique for somebody else.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/15YFQ_25iH2DPknxUPhGdpm10Xqq-iYVPk3VNNtk0BPI/edit?usp=sharing

>>6329376

So Eugene is a voluntarily lonely man with a war-torn, excruciating heart–fine, but I think it's worth mentioning that you walk over the same ground a few times over throughout this bit. For instance, you say he's a 'horribly solitary man' which you then reiterate in many subsequent forms, such as by saying "he fashioned himself into a hermit." We know he's sectioned off from even his local society in a variety of ways, because you state it more than once, so I'd suggest you'd explore the effects of this on him at, if possible, a deeper and more abysmal level (in a good way).

Also, your writing reads a bit like a telegraph–the sentences seem to cut off quickly as if ended by a FULL STOP. Try interweaving sentences and phrases together more fluidly, and the writing will flow more naturally like Eugene's constipated tears. For example, the first two sentences could be combined as one, as could many others. Just play around with a few things, and make sure to read them aloud–because words are nothing but storable, encodable speech.

Anyway, keep up the good work!

>>6329937
thanks m8, some stellar advice here. :-)

>>6325161
Your hollow gorge can never fill,
Gourmand! Gulfing motes and worlds
Alike – no preference do you take.
With cold and even strokes you cleave,
A slow bi-section, stellar-scoped
Turning loves to chaff

>>6329976

The rhythm on this is really on point.

>With cold and even strokes you cleave

Rhythm enhances content on this line

I read it as about ravenous time, taking over all, slowly and methodically cutting the most recent slice of time across the universe, consuming all things, such as love?

Cinnamon Cowboy

Great work is a beautiful sponge soaked in blissful booze,
maybe a dash of sweat from yodeling on the ranch.
While supple flesh turnt to cowhide under a sweltering sun
makes me wish for a pot of champagne fondue,
I praise the gas soaked rag around my neck that keeps the skeeters away,
because they're just so damn persistent this time of year.

And I thank so kindly the lasso that pulled me towards where you live,
a land caked with naked cacti and lullaby buzzards,
'cause now I can swing in a hammock and watch the breeze blow by before saddling Slopes,
all while you brew a sweating pitcher of lemonade on the porch,
with a golden smile gleaming over the swaying fields
and a hand on the dog.

>>6330052
yes - that's exactly what I wanted to convey! thanks for your feedback. I hope that metaphor isn't too banal.

>>6330094

Two follow up questions about the meter, then.
Lines 2 and 6 are the only ones that don't fit. Why those lines? Is there something in the content that is reflected in that technical choice?
I could see line 2's lack of an 8th syllable as a comment on the inability to fill time's hollow gorge.
Additionally, I could see line 8's truncation as the way time truncates love, turning it to chaff.

No, I don't think the metaphor is banal. And even if it were, it's a well written poem, and short, which helps.

Although, you could lengthen it.

You're a good writer, would love to see your critiques of some of the poems on here.

>>6330124
i truncated the last line purposefully to give the poem a note of finality, particularly with the idea of love turning to chaff. line 2 was more of a technical thing. Because I began the line with an accent, I wanted it to end the line on the upbeat to keep with the iambic feel of the poem. I figured if I were to end with a downbeat and begin line 3 with a down beat the rhythm would hiccup

thanks for your compliments. will look through some of the poems on here.

>>6330158

Woah, Gourmand is a trochee? I was reading it as an iamb.
I scanned line 2 as a missing unstressed syllable in the second foot:
u//u/u/
but i guess you're saying it's headless like:
/u/u/u/

>>6330086

C'mon, really? Is this yours?

>>/lit/thread/5151151#p5161521

>>6330205

Yeah, I wanted to bump the thread so I just posted a random old poem of mine. I'm surprised you delved deep enough into the /lit/ archives to find it though, also curious. Anyway, I know it's a bit cheesy, but thoughts?

>>6325331
This is a very nice poem. I like how it smoothly develops from man's vain purposes/perversion of technology to the self-reliance and mastery of nature. "this beast will never hold a pen/yet it composes me" serves as a very smooth turning point that pivots between the two ideas nicely.

The last stanza is the nicest in the poem, in my opinion - I honestly think you could separate it and expand it into a separate piece if you wanted to. It expresses a sort of Wordsworth-ian affect for nature in clear, simple language that I really like.

A couple of lines I found to be a bit obscure; maybe I just wasn't interpreting them right. "but then, converts/to strike through all the names". Is this expressing the idea of utilizing the discovery of the atom for destruction - striking through names meaning death?

The rhythm is very nice. It's consistent and smooth, and you use commas judiciously. The first line is a little jerky - as it's followed by a line with no rests I think it's a bit of a jarring break. But other than that, really nice.

Altogether, really nice. I don't know if you're influenced by Wordsworth, but I got that vibe from it.

>>6330195
holy shit you're right, I'm retarded. it's an iamb.

>>6330237

Yeah, cheesy, not terribly so. I think part of the cheese factor for me comes from the adjective - noun pairings you're (over) using.
>cinnamon cowboy
>beautiful sponge
>blissful booze
>supple flesh
>sweltering sun
>champagne fondue
>gas-soaked rag
>naked cacti
>lullaby buzzards
>sweating pitcher
>golden smile
>swaying fields

Again, not overwhelming, but I noticed that construction used over and over. Variation would help it be more successful.

I mean, the imagery is there, and as a snapshot of cowboy life, I think it's evocative. I just think, what is there to the piece besides what's on the page? And I'm not getting much. But I'm an amateur, so.

>>6330246

>"but then, converts/to strike through all the names"
Exactly what I meant, you got it.

Hah, yeah, first line is very jerky, meant to be a rhythmic interpretation of mechanical, unnatural, human-culture filled life.

Interesting that you got a Wordsworth vibe, not my intention. I was really imitating Hardy's Darkling Thrush.

>>6329441
Is this copy pasta?

>>6330567
No, why?

The librarian's daughter had eyes like blue ash and freckles on her nose. She wore a hoodie and white, dirty Chucks with no socks. Her fingers webbed around each other when boredome stroke, her bitten nails and long hands.

The librarian's daughter's mouth hung half-open, and I could see her smile all white, crooked and rabbit-tooth'd, bursting through her pencil-drawn pink lips, like Sun-coloured fireworks.

The librarian's daughter never knew when I looked at her because fear makes your senses sharpe and flight-like. She would take her shoes off and her toes were small, and you felt like washing them, and her legs were long and replicated a sculpture. She was taller than me.

Her face looked like she meant "Fuck you" but her laughter was sugary rum, and on our last day we rolled a joint for the classroom and she danced alone by the fire we made at the lake. Her hair was wet, the colour of wood, and it smelled like morning.

The last time I saw her she wrote on my shirt and I wrote on her's, and we hugged goodbye and her letters were lumped wires in a dim neighborhood. Her father was there at graduation, but he had only given her his eyes. When she turned to leave my body jerked to hold her and I wanted her warmth but I stood unmoved because I didn't want her to stop being the librarian's daughter.

>>6330794
I like this.

A walked out of the therapist’s office, and Michael put down his magazine. He could tell something was going on with A, like he could hear words lining up inside her head.

M: So did you talk about me in there?

A: Oh my God, like *the whole time.*

M: Really?

A: Really. There was actually this one point where he was like “Are you sure there’s nothing else you want to cover?” And I was like “Nope, literally all I do is think about Michael. That’s all that’s on my mind.”

M: Is this some sort of therapeutic sarcasm?

A: He said it would help me take you off a pedastal. He was sure, he said, it couldn’t be healthy for a young woman my age to be gushing about someone like this.

M: Oh yeah, I’m totally smothered.

A: He said he’d never seen anything like it.

M: You mean your gift for sarcasm?

A: He asked me if I wanted him to prescribe a tranquilliser. Really.

They both got in the car and she played a Beyoncé song. “So this was all a set-up for a ‘Crazy In Love’ joke?” Michael said. “I can’t help the way I Bae,” A said.

They were soon on yet another highway, heading to some brunch-place A said she wanted to show him. Michael was starting to understand the highways that linked any discrete potential destination as loading screens, like the Greater Los Angeles area was made up of linked levels in an Xbox game.

A felt like she could sense maybe something negative from Michael, or at least she read that into a small silence, possibly related to the little routine walking out of the therapist’s office.

A: You’ve had therapy before right?

M: No, I somehow handle my wildly unhealthy levels of adoration for you all by myself.

A rolled her eyes.

A: Seriously.

M: Ok, yeah, I’ve done therapy.

A: You don’t find it hard to talk about after?

M: I’ve never told anyone I was in therapy.

A made a soft noise at this, seemed moved by it, and she reached over and squeezed Michael’s hand.

A: I don’t know, I feel like if I talk about it right after it might ruin the flow. Like someone might tell me something that was really helpful in there is actually really dumb, and then I might end up agreeing and won’t feel good about it anymore.

M: But you know I wouldn’t say it was dumb, right?

A: No, like I know that in theory. But I’m still afraid- It’s dumb.

M: It’s OK.

A: Later, OK? I just need to like let it all settle with me, and then I’ll be able to talk about but like in my own words, and that’ll make me feel safe and appropriately distant from it and in control - or whatever.

M: It’s OK.

A sharply accelerated to what was apparently the very high top speed of the BMW, with empty highway ahead and yellow fields all around, and sang along to the chorus of ‘Crazy In Love,’ which she turned up all the way, and had been playing on repeat.

The train stops in a small town. The scenery is drab. The sky is low and gray. Hangars and one storey houses stare at each other from their respective side of the tracks. I get up, slowly clapping my hands together, trying to get my fellow passengers pumped up, hoping they follow suit. "What a shithole, huh guys?" No one responds. People are annoyed, embarrassed, indifferent. "Come on guys, clap for this. Clap if you think this is a shithole." The lone traveler whose embarkment this was looks flustered, but I keep smacking my hands together. "You gotta clap guys. If you don't clap for this then you're never gonna clap for anything." "Sir, please sit down," the stewardess finally intervenes "people are trying to sleep." It seems I would not get my claps this time. Maybe I would have more luck at the next station.

did a timed writing of 1 hour last night on my phone

haven't touched it aside from capitalizing everything and breaking into paragraphs

was more or less writing for the sake of writing, but i had fun still

Fagfag, booboo
Pepe, hoohoo
Underground Man, scared of the world
Frogposter Man, he just wants a girl
To gag and spank and shit on
But Pepe says no, you shall not have this dream
You're doomed to think of me when your little pepe needs to cream.

>>6330794
>>6331170

Agreed, that's quite good imo...

be gentle, this is my first story
>>6325161

>>6331752
oops forgot link
http://typotic.com/literature/short-stories/story/the-junkie-and-the-baby/

>>6331766
>http://typotic.com/literature/short-stories/story/the-junkie-and-the-baby

Boring + use less adjectives

>>6328457
what is it part of?

>>6331685
I liked this a lot, pretty funny shit m8.

Flesh out those sentences a lil. they seem somewhat barren at time. also, maybe loosen up the language? your prose seems a little too formal for the subject matter of the dialogue.

other than that it's gr8 m8

>>6331793
A shitty novel.

campfire feelings and summer nights ending up on the beach with who knows who else, but nothing stops anyone from enjoying the moment. when 10 years pass it becomes a pleasant memory, the accompanying tides bring a swell of emotion and you just try and think of anything else. what am i doing with this life?

>>6325836
Quaint as fuck.

>>6325836
>"AM I UNDERSTOOD".
>This was not a question, and everyone knew it.
>When god asked you a question it did not need an answer.
>"SIR YES SIR".
i always cringe for parts like these since every male in my family has been military for at least three generations and my own father was a drill sergeant.

We found him in the shed behind the graveyard.
Adam had taken his life sometime during the night; he had hung himself. The beam had snapped from his weight and fallen on top of the corpse, trapping the body underneath. Adam's parents had collapsed at his feet once they found him. Next to one another they looked like children being told off.
"He was just a boy" his father cried. Adam's father worked at the coal mine, and was thus a large man; it was sad to watch him cry.
"My baby" his mother cried. Adam's mother was unemployed and had acquired something of a dainty figure; sobbing at Adam's feet she looked like a skeleton clothed in burlap. After mourning their lost son they would catch themselves weeping, but would not know why. They had no pictures of their son, and did not want any.
"What we need" Adam's father would say "is to put the past behind us". Adam's mother always agreed.

>>6331170
>>6331713

Thanks anons, I really appreciate that.

>>6332333
I really, really like this. A lot. very good.

if someone would be kind enough to critique this ( http://pastebin.com/GcQ9N4CK ) for me, I would be very happy and def. return the criticism. This is the first thing I've written in two years.

>>6325198
Why not translate it then, faggot?

Anyone interested in checking something in spanish?

>>6333457
because other cultures will evolve differently than those who speak english and there's nothing wrong with that, you can't force the world to be filtered through a single language even if you're completely sure it would be for the best.

I work in a cubicle: the box office,
furnished with family photos–
no, that's a lie. My boss is obese;
his belly sweat rubs on my shoulder, and
I fucked his daughter during New Year's.
Sometimes the photocopier malfunctions
and curses ripples through the files
ranking variable decibels like applause.
My cat cuddles up on me at night,
even though she's really a dog.
And I end the day with coffee–
"Good night moon; good morning soon."

http://pastebin.com/bYY51Zza

>>6333508
Native language is spanish Anon, go ahead. Sin miedo.

>>6333650
Gracias, genio.
This is like the first chapter of something, I just don't know what yet.
http://pastebin.com/5w37gQME

>>6333445
This is fantastic.

I can't tell if this line is good or not

I think the third part of that sentence could be better???

>>6333820
Me parece bastante bien Anon, aunque tengo una critica. Es solo una sugerencia: que acortes tus oraciones en ciertas partes, pues se alarga mucho y se siente excesivo, aunque no perjudica tanto a la historia.

Aside from that, esta perfecto.

>>6334672
Thanks a lot!
Voy a prestarle atención al tema del largo de la oración, vengo notando que le tengo miedo a la seguidilla de oraciones cortas por algún motivo.

If you have something of yours to check I'm more than open to it.

>>6334700

Posted it a while ago: >>6330794

The dog had a sticker on its back that read "DO NOT PET ME, I AM A GUIDE DOG", that is, the dog had a symbol on itself that signified that it was not intended to receive human affection.

The dog had surely been trained well for his purpose—and yet all his training would have long since been undone by accident, had the symbol not been affixed to him.

—

Having been well trained, the dog surely does not expect attention—and yet the final, baffling mystery remains. From where have the people procured such composure? Before he entered into his training, he could scarcely travel a block before a child or passer-by would coo at him or pet him. Now, however, they hardly even seem to see him. Of course, it does not trouble him. The satisfaction he receives from his duties is far higher than anything mere venal social functions could provide. But still the mystery remains.

Surely, it is not in his own behavior that the change lies. He has not changed his carriage, overmuch. He still trots with the same stout matter-of-factness that the children in the park used to adore. Sometimes he sees them strain to reach out to him—but their mothers hold them back.

Passing by the dog-park, he sees his old fellows engaging in the worst excesses: petting, being pet, licking one another, bounding and barking joyfully. He raises his snout and sets his gaze straight ahead, ignoring their friendly barks of recognition. Distemperates.

To survive in a job like this, he was told, one needs to distance oneself. And so he has distanced himself. From the overwhelming clutter of the world he has cleared for himself an enclosure within which there is nothing to give to or receive from but grave & solitary duty.

>>6330794

well put together, probably someone happy will read it and like it

>>6334828
>>6330794
I really liked how you chose to pair descriptions. It feels a bit more like poetry than prose, not in a bad way. Do you write poetry too?
Do you prefer working in english? I wonder a bit how that text would work in spanish. Reminds me of someone but I can't realize who yet.

>>6334885
Thanks anon. Its kind of funny how some people like this, cuz I did it very quickly. What takes less time always gets more praise.

I work in both languages, but college has made me partial to english for now. I have found that I like the way it flows in contrast to spanish. I only wrote this in english cuz it felt appropiate I guess

>>6334937
The only thing a bit dodgy is starting three paragraphs the same way. But the structure feels more proper for english, that's why I was wondering how it would feel in spanish. It would either be uncomfortable or pretty avant garde.

>>6334954
Spanish is a very strict language, thats why experimenting is so hard and awkward. But sometimes it can be good. I dont think I would translate my post, it woudn't feel the same way.

http://pastebin.com/AUaH4Fnt

tfw some robot analyzer says u write like David Foster Wallace

>>6335018
I got Chuck Palahniuk.

everyone go to the robot analyzer and post who you write like

>>6335086
>tfw ive yet to read anything by him

The wall so bare,
Against you’ve pinned
Me w/ your hair.
Sweet feelings summoned.
Nightly feasts rage.
Heat fetish painted
Sightly, this page,
Colors so tainted…
Not all such.
Dare look away.
How much
Fare must I pay?

trying to imagine what a booty call is like
>tfw virgin saint

The wall so bare,
Against you’ve pinned
Me w/ your hair.
Sweet feelings summoned.
Nightly feasts rage.
Heat fetish painted
Sightly, this page,
Colors so tainted—
Not all such.
Dare look away.
How much
Fare must I pay?

trying to imagine a booty call
>tfw virgin saint

>>6335086
First try: James Joyce, Second try: George Orwell, Third try: Dan Brown.
This doesn't seem to work very well.

Here's one of mine:

http://pastebin.com/8twwuh6P

I also uploaded it in my Writers Cafe account, maybe someone in this thread is also there?

>>6335086
First try: James Joyce, Second try: George Orwell, Third try: Dan Brown.
This doesn't seem to work very well.

Here's one of mine:

http://pastebin.com/8twwuh6P

I also uploaded it to my Writers Cafe account, maybe someone in this thread is also there?

>>6335086
>>6335166
>>6336180
>be me
>work in a technical, legal research job
>copy and paste random multi-page selection from highly technical, analytic writing
>get william shakespeare

Yeah, this is a bit bogus.

>>6325161
I got H P Lovecraft. Kill me.

>>6336193
Try another fragment and you'll get a different writer.

I
The invocation of Muses' bliss;
Divided essence of rhapsody;
Upon her feather'd, airy tips
Or in his emptied ecstasy,
Flies all art's enamored banner,
That of them: the Poet and the Dancer

II
Her brazen stern through air like wakes
Does tread with grace upon the waves
All wherefrom Terpsich're's Lake;
And in that lake it's clear she lave
For flowing limbs and silky canter
It is clear: She, the Poet's Dancer

III
The making of Apollo's might
And mingled well with Erato
And gifted with old Master's sight
In soul, and blessèd with the know;
He, with movements in his poem,
Be it known: the Dancer's Poet

IV
In this marriage of age's artists
Is born the true epitome;
And when the two would join in kiss
They too shall join in revelry;
When meet the poise and timeless banter,
Bestowed on us is the Poet and the Dancer

>>6332333
I love how well you capture the characters with so few words. Only part I didn't like was where the parents "collapsed at his feet" as it didn't make much sense

>>6334833
Love it, interesting subject and good humor

Clouds exist in three dimensions
though they appear painted
by a soft brush upon
the placid blue
of an immeasurable sky.

Above and far away, living
in their flatness, full of water
floating heavy, steady
in their transition
from rain, to air, to dirt.

>>6325161
Here's school assignment from last year; probably my favorite piece I've done for a class.

http://pastebin.com/1JpQAbwJ

What impression does this give? Is it enjoyable or unnecessary and ineffective:

Some monster v8 ate yesterday's fuel like no tomorrow; a beast of burden: but it ain't fortune.

She'll scratch chrome climbing her hell wagon; a body with no mind for it (eh?)

Calls herself 'Chimera'.
Streeters ask that her name, or the car?
Says it all in the vroom, cog clunk, and cheers; like some fucking pilots road-bound. Ruffle feathers and it'll be more than a dog-fight; these streeters can't handle second.
Chimera's got first leading all behind.

Some fury of a woman; soft as the metal that made her.

>>6337262
For some reason this made me think of Aileen Wuornos. I'm not quite sure what to make of it, but I like it.

Heaven’s dumb drone and light’s begrudging ray on canyons marked with Time’s unconscious flow. Annals of abuse, dust unprotesting, mute history. Far-roving gray desolation, marble gallery of God’s forgetful look. Not an ants’ war has raged here.

>>6325161
>using the evil jew invention of the castrating dick
>ever
>you should be ashamed Sakura-CHAAN!
>GET OUT OF MY HOUSE YOU IMPURE WHORE!!!

>>6335086
>copied some aggrolites lyrics
>Vladimir Nabokov

a'ight then

I wrote a poem. It's shit.

Sitting quiet dumping shit
in the toilet smelling crap
can I maybe eat it too?

Tasting yummy every bite
Jesus I do love my crap
can I drink my sweet piss too?

Drinking piss and eating crap
manjar from my deep insides
What is heaven if not this?
What is heaven if not this?

>>6338766
kek

>writing sci-fi novel
>everything was going fine
>Get near the end
>Have a scene of the characters recapping to each other
>Gets philosophical and nihilistic as shit
>"I mean, yeah, a million people died. But at our population, we lose more to the fucking flu."
>"The demon is just a die back mechanism man, one we can't outgrow."
>The religious subtext occasionally becomes the foretext
>Because the two AI children, Adam and Eve, point out the MC's last name is The Angel when he's protecting them

I mean, like, fuck me man.

I at least I think I can fix this in editing. Feel like such a hack right now.

>>6334018

ANYONE PLEASE IT'S ONLY A SENTENCE

I’m awake. I open my eyes. Details are scarce in my unlit room, but I realize that I am perpendicular to how I normally lay in my bed. Odd. The almost complete darkness, even from the window, signals that it is still night time. Pleased by the prospect of more rest, I decide to shift back to my normal orientation and go back to sleep. But my limbs don’t obey. They won’t move. I strain my will, telling to them to act but they just won’t. My heart starts to beat a little faster. My eyes adjust; I notice more. There is something--an outline--across from at the edge of the bed. It is looking at me. I know this despite not seeing his face. It’s looking at me. Move Move MOVE. I’m helpless on my back. My arms won’t move. My screams exist only in my head. My throat is useless. MOVE. The figure is motionless. Sweat on my forehead. Blood pounding in my ears so I can’t hear anything else. MOVE. The figure is on me, grabbing my neck. I panic I shout I struggle I--

I’m awake.

>>6338885
That doesn't make interesting and thus worth our time. It's kind of shit too.

I posted an unfinished version of this last thread: It's completed, mostly edited. It's a paragraph or so over the limit, so I'll pastebin it and post an excerpt:

http://pastebin.com/S2tAW8zQ

I’m looking; where is he at? Is there one distinct and recognizable voice in this wall of anonymous statements?
Where is the hero of this story?
There he is:
He’s in a crowd and tapping his fingers on a little black box. Slide your fingers on the little black box. Find something to talk about there isn’t too dreadfully dull but just dull enough to know exactly what to say and when.
--“This post has a funny picture in it, I’ll see what this thread is about”
That’s good. There’s an air of the unfamiliar to the thread, but if you’re lost in the conversation you can just comment about the funny picture. That’s good. What is everybody else saying now? I have designated you to be the individual, hero, so everybody else is the monolith now, everybody else is the Other now. What is he, the Other saying to you?
--Everybody is talking about a tv show that I’ve never watched. I’ve heard good things, but really it never interested me.
That’s fine. This could be an educational experience; read what the other is saying to you, learn a bit about the show, see what jokes everybody is making. That’s fine. Read a bit and write a bit. Talk to the Other.
And now our hero is writing and moving his fingers on the screen, tapping and sliding his fingers on the screen. Tap and slide your fingers on the screen.
--“People say that I’m some kind of plebian for posting on a phone, but I think that it’s just fine. I’ve got places to go and I still want to be a part of the conversation. Typing on a touchscreen is difficult of course, but I think that it’s just fine.”
That’s fine.
Let’s look at his writing: Is it different from the Other? Yes: he is fond of using the colon to prove his points: the colon is a good piece of punctuation because it tells the reader that a statement will be immediately backed up by the proceeding one: here is my statement: this is why the statement is true; semicolons are a very good piece of punctuation as well; almost as good as the colon: a colon correlates statements, a semicolon juxtaposes them; when people are eating fruit flavored candy they will often avoid eating a piece that is the flavor they just ate; that’s juxtaposition: if you ate the same flavor twice the flavor would be less pronounced the second time around; if you eat a different flavor there will be a space of empty time where your tongue will just start to recognize a different taste is in your mouth: that empty space is a semicolon no it is a colon.

Anybody know some worthwhile writing contests? This winter I won 3rd in what was technically a national contest, but the organization that put it together is sort of small; the winners all had a meeting at an Old Spaghetti Factory in Vancouver. I'm technically a published author now, because the short story is in a printed winner's compilation, which is cool, but I need to put myself out there more.

>>6338927


congrats

national as in all of canada?

post your story

>>6339009
Yeah. The fun thing was I beat out the editor of a Vancouver legal magazine. My dad worked for him when he was young Now his son is being a nuisance to him in a different field entirely.
I'm on my phone so I don't have access to the file itself. I've got a direct link to the pdf:
http://canadianauthors.org/vancouver/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Revolutionaries1.pdf

>>6338889
>Move Move MOVE.
I really hate it when writers do this. The repetition of simple words doesn't give the primal effect that they think it does. Always three times as well. This effect doesn't make the reader more alert; it lulls them.

>>6325161
just a little excerpt from a story I'm working on
http://pastebin.com/xbNMrJ6V

>>6337241

That last paragraph is gold save for the repetition of puppets. I'm a little tired so I failed to grasp the whole thing, but I think it's quite strong. I wish it had a bit more scene, but the style is pleasurable to read, aside from the needless repetition.
>>6339564
me

>>6330794
beautiful. i want to write like this about a girl i met

This is for a children's short story:

"Look around you.
What do you see?
Maybe your bedroom with games and posters and socks on the floor?
Come on - put down the book and have a look. Right now.
Are you in the back seat of the car with your little brother next to you? Or maybe in school wishing it was home time? You might be outside reading under a tree.
Wherever it is - have a good look.
How real is it?
What if it is a dream? Yes, really. What if you are going to wake up somewhere else and it is all gone? Mum, Dad, your pesky little brother. Teachers, school, friends. All gone and you are somewhere else.
In the real world.
What about that, eh?"


If people are interested I can post more.

>>6325331
>p'raps

my sides

>>6339793
Mate if they've put down the book how are they going to continue reading; you thick or something?

Can someone read and maybe critique/comment/rate this?

It's a new edited version of a story I posted in the last LCT.

http://pastebin.com/sVfNAFRm

She's cradling the gas - slowly now.
Greased hot sex belting narrow straights out and in and between again: the sirens of the blue can't keep up - she's away.
Curtains of soil rising to the heavens, ain't no last rites but the hymn of a godless rumble at the beast's belly, chewing gravel to hot air. The world's a warm Sunday of holiay goers and mounted bike racks flashing by - this is her lane, after all. Sinners and saints don't look much different at 150. 160. 170.
Rosary chattering plastic from one wing of the dashboard to the other; varnish worn useless to bits of wood on string. Her mother's got faith but she's a bad girl and always has been, doesn't take a prayer to notice. Left house in chase of it all but the chase is all it's ever been.
Gear shift.
Ram the clutch and force the stick.
Cradle that gas - not a lot left now, is there - and, oh.
Uh-oh.
Roadblock.

>>6339588
Go ahead anon. Write it, then post it.

>>6339557
I'll think about that.

I had a (new) paperback come in the mail from Amazon and the spine is slanted. How can I fix this?

Thought I'd ask the question here because I didn't feel the need to create a thread.

>>6340921
Bad. Sentences are hobbled, language us dull.

>>6340939
Alright, but the style is extremely forced. Can only work at about that length, and even still it's gimmicky.

>>6341205
>dull
why?

>>6341335
>dull
Because it's lacking brightness, vividness, or sheen.

I finished the third draft of my short story.- Removing plot contrivances and shit that don't make sense.

Also altered a few sentences along the way to try and make the writing flow a little easier.

Draft Pass 4 is going to be "deciding whether to replace description with dialogue" and further tweaks.

Any feedback would be VERY much appreciated.

http://pastebin.com/FsDEpSDw

We wrote these stories that we live
We grow this food we throw away
We teach these lessons that we get
We give birth to the children that we've been

Overcooked promise, it's not that cryptic
Powerwash the promenade with a thunderstorm
There's no paycheck but it's strictly business
Beholder's eyes smile but there's no joy in this

Duck into a parking garage to eat ice cream
This one's real, this one happened
Feet wrinkled from street flooding sea water
Toes torn on submerged gravel scattered sidewalks

How to describe people without being cynical
Naked apes suck poison to forget that they're miserable
Stumble and holler, hips thrust and chests puff
A call making, hormone soaked, mating ritual

Black box badly thought congested
Charcoal heartpiece is weak in the knees
Another hill and its bent back might submit
These counterfeit streets may be the last it sees

Trephining is a straightforward surgery
I'll puncture it good and let it be
I'll do them a favor and lay down in the tub
I won't be here to clean up the blood

And the night breathes saline through the reeds
And a pale demigod peers through the clouds
And for as long as squealing cognitive gears allowed,
If I'm going to live, I need to decide right now

We give birth to the children that we've been
We teach these lessons that we get
We grow the food we throw away
We wrote these stories that we live

>>6339585
>a bit more scene
Yeah, looking at it, that makes a lot of sense. Would a story of when they were younger work? I think it might help to add a look at how they viewed the world before they stagnated.

>>6337241
>185 views
Wow, that's a lot more people than I thought looked at these.

>>6342488
That would probably help.

>>6338915
Writer of this here. I just handed this in for a class. Needless to say my teacher doesn't know anything about anonymous posting or 4chan. I'm curious about what somebody who doesn't know anything about 4chan reads into this, but I'm also interested in the people who actually do post here, and what they think of it. Did it seem gimmicky?

bump

>>6340921
more comments about this one?

>>6342414
>>6342121
>>6338915
>>6336240
>>6336128
>>6333547

These still need critiques, if anyone's willing to put aside some time. People are more willing to help you out if you help them out.

>>6342414
This has an odd way of being blatant through diction and ambiguous through context, if that makes sense. It seems rather pretentious to me, honestly. I'd recommend reading some older poetry to pick up some finesse.

>>6339793
Well mate, you're trying to introduce grown-up ideas to literal children. The idea of nothing being real might scare the shit out of a child, if he actually gets what he's reading. Other than that, the whole "Stop! Look around you!" is a bit cliché, so if there's a way for you to get the children to observe their surroundings some other way, I'd consider it.

>>6338040
This is pretentious and trying too hard to be literary. Sentence fragments are cool and all but personally I'm tired of seeing every aspiring writer chop up their prose to "convey a special affect!"

>>6342121
>http://pastebin.com/FsDEpSDw

>>“Are you mad?” He said to me, trying not to raise his voice. We had chosen a poor place to talk about this, I admit that, but it just so happened that neither of us wanted to host the meetings in order to persist in the anonymity we lent each other.

Immediate reaction: compared to 90% of what's posted, this is good storytelling. It's ugly writing, cluttered with asides and limp description. But you have characters and a conflict in mind, so I'm on board.

>>The topic our conversation pertained to was not something we wanted members of the public to hear, and such this predicament was born.

At this point I'm 70% certain I'll stop reading within 2 sentences. Clunkiness increases, rather than desists. The closing clause is grammatically flawed. 'And such...' should be 'And so', but it remains ugly.


I read another five sentences of meandering description then stopped. You're clearly a young kid working out the kinks. Advice: next time, post a much shorter piece of writing. I would have read one to three paragraphs of this stuff. And make sure you're focusing relentlessly on story: what makes the scene interesting? What makes the characters interesting? Give the reader plenty of that before indulging (if you must) in descriptive play.

>>6333547
Love the first six lines. Redo everything after that so it's equally funny - or, better, increasingly twisted - and this would be great.

>>6336128
I respect that you respect form. I'm also a sucker for rhyming doggerel. And a sucker for profane rhyming doggerel. Think about your actual experiences or be honest about the details of your fantasy, then this might become fun. Read Rochester if you must. 'The Disabled Debauch'; 'The Imperfect Enjoyment,.'

>>6333547
somehow funny

>>6336240
I want to shove the poet straight up Apollo's Might and take a rusty crowbar to her shins

>>6342414
This is the poem a character written by John Green would write. Sorry, man. It's supposed to be about feeling within language, not creaky imagery covering angst. Read a lot more poetry and then begin describing your interior world with defenses down. 'Night breathes saline through the reeds / And a pale demigod...' is nice. I liked that.

>>6344649
Paste is down brother

>>6342121
You should definitely replace some of the explanation with dialogue, having it open with dialogue which never resurfaces. Opening of the second chapter made me physically cringe. Loaded with irrelevant details. Who gives a damn about brandy vs. port? Doesn't shed any light on our characters, certainly doesn't do anything for the plot. Comma splices everywhere. Characters are flat.

>>6330794
I, too, like this.

>>6333421

Any thoughts on this?

>>6333421
The writing feel simplistic, the whole feels pointless.
What is what you're trying to convery with it?, what is the purpose of the story?

>>6333421
banal, trite, stylistically grating

>>6333421
This is frustrating. It's a tease. For several lines, it's enjoyable writing. (though '...oblivious' is unintentionally funny.)

Then, at line 11, it decides to be self-satisfied and make the conceit of 'insect vs. infinity' the point of the passage. Before this ends, I want more play with decompressed naturalistic description. It merits something better than the faux-ironic finish.

Yeah, overall nice little passage.

>>6344969
>It seems rather pretentious to me, honestly

I can see that, especially given how it opens and closes. Is that what you're talking about?

>>6345029
Damn, really? Any chance you could expand just a bit on why the imagery is bad?

I know I'm not a very good poet, but I liked this one and I'm a bit disappointed to hear it's no good.

>>6345058
>>6345068
>>6345069

Thanks for the responses, guys.

Since one of you asked, it is supposed to be a send-up of the kind of egocentric, detached writing (ie Tao's) that is starting to dominate the literary scene. The narrator/writer is present at would could be considered a profound naturalistic moment, but himself fails to grasp the significance of it.

It is essentially a joke. The bug walks across the very line that explains why this moment is significant (the omnipresence of God, the infinity in the insect) yet the narrator fails to apprehend it. He calls the bug oblivious when he has no greater grasp of why this moment is profound than it does.

I know this probably sounds like a bit of a cop-out, but that fact that the passage was "banal" and "stylistically grating" was kind of on purpose.

>>6345073
TBH, I'm happy to break it down, but the simplest way to start it to pick two agreed-upon good poems. Tell me the last 2 your really liked and we can go from there.

For reference's sake : http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173733
http://www.artofeurope.com/larkin/lar5.htm

>>6345112
I would really appreciate it, go ahead and tear me a new one, it's what I need.

I would agree both of those you linked to are good, Church Going better than Bright Star, based only on my first readings of them. I've only been deliberately trying to get into poetry relatively recently, and as of now my favorite poets are T.S. Eliot and Robert Frost.

http://allpoetry.com/Tree-At-My-Window
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/236778

Is this an OC thread? Alright, I'll bite.

Carpe diem. Your life is essential. Maybe your only chance to experience this universe. Your life is the only chance for others to see that what you can do.

And things have been looking up for this past year.
You have a job, and a way to live now. A car in your garage. A shiny black BMW with bluetooth enabled.
A cherry sportscar. There are now more responsibilities in your life than you can imagine without biting your fingernails clean off. Dermatophagia. Your job is pleasant and full and occupies your time five days a week. Your hair is beginning to get silver when you don't dye it. And a few months of the ache of inferiority this year left you without a wife or son: you now live, unrestrained and empty, a town or two away. Snagged and strangled by a woman you've known for four months. You have become an asshole.

Carpe diem.

Hi Sticky.

Your shadow is sort of dithered. I wonder who drew you.

Lots of people talking shit. Doesn't do any harm if one's talking nonsense.

Peaceful fluffy clouds, sunny afternoon. Background bird song ambient (1080p Full HD)

Library of Babel is novel, unintended, good canvas. Ambient music does the walls in. Unintended does a little passion some justice.

Flexing - because of motor ticks - going to cause myself something. Some fugazzi so it doesn't look flashy.

Mangoes.

It's not like the greats didn't at times want to shit in a bucket and call it art. I hope.

Who'm I kiddin. Pixelpacked cage cauterises the mind's eye is sucking on the pixels. How can you judge an electromagnetic soup. Wait until the simple components develop and eat your brain out socially. Speaking of brains, fuck off with the soul. Tell me about it again, when you're dead and have no brain. Fucking hippy. I used to think I was romantic.

ONE HOUR! Full HD 1080p CANDLE flame relaxing ambient sound screensaver

I can't hear it though. Too stuck in a rut. Mellow mindmelting pisstaking thudhut.

At least, you know, you're not an established sort of unusual. Reeee. Because those ones are pathetic and they've also established that they're shit at not being miserable. If you're on the eccentric side of it there's still some suspense. There's not a chronology, or correlation, where you go 'Oh shit those guys in the last generation ended up living under a road with a trillion dustmites on their mattress.'

I used to ls

On the track there's a bit where you hear the voices loop and it really fucks with the effect. Depending on how close the loop is, it can be hellish. Waking up, earplugs socketed, your brain cursing at you for giving it so much to deal with in REM. At least with whitenoise the variations are so quick we don't have an algorithm for it to get on hour nerves. Could be a couple seconds long.

The problem is inconsistency.

>>6333421
>a tiny fruit fly flicked in from somewhere
>it walked in an oblique and winding way across the words
I really like these, but then the attempts at poeticism or abstraction intrude. More Nabokov, less Beckett, and I'd enjoy it better.

>>6337241
>http://pastebin.com/1JpQAbwJ
Anyone else? Lots of views, few reviews.

#1: Ye,
'tis a grave night for all living.
#2: So think it?
#1: Know it;
enquire lunacy its reason and thou shalt rise mad
#2: So mad so?
#1: To our mortal curse
#2: Yet damned we must query, as demand of our post.
#1: And think you to go among them?
#2: We are bid of it in courage
#1: Courage! The courage to attend the end of one's own? Clouds pass unparted in that deadened brain.
#2: So think you better then?
#1: Better? Better than courage; an entourage stalks courage. Not fame of courage, but the weak footed limp, lame beggars poisoned by its saving light.
#2: Thunder strikes as careless as your tongue.
#1: The voodoo of chance.
#2: Or most holy name filed with the rank.
#1: Come, come;
step a peaceful step and bury these cronish tales in those fields of superstition you haunt; path beyond a pale shadow into the strength of ancestry lived.
#2: And scatter my bones to the wind?
#1: To science, dear boy, science.
#2: The folly of my master. No; I'll go to bed in sheets unsoiled -
wake to velvet's dew -
risen not in borrowed robes, nor those bloodied by your crucifying word, but all clean.
#1: A martyr to your god!
#2: That old reclaimed the new.

>>6345781
I just realized - for clarification, I don't have an issue with Beckett, I just don't think it's working as well.

>>6345785
review some other people first

>>6345790
>grave night for all living.

>>6345790
I'm tired and unfocused. Could you rewrite this in language that isn't for wankers?

fuck you Sticky !!!!!

>>6345806
I don't speak cunt. Sorry.

>>6325161
https://medium.com/@atermoyer/l-esprit-seul-69077d75dc5b

>>6345815
Not using Jacobean words is speaking cunt?

>>6345828
No; translating something into your dialect is.
Are you always so tired and unfocused?

Our love must live alone without us

sailing on between the stars

and anon an animal will stop it with a paw

a cat & marble

and pick it up, and glean the blooming sunburst

and exhale a sigh exhausting human words

and put it in its coat

and wander on—

and all of this will come to pass

anon.

>>6345832
No, it's a rare occasion.

oh man oh man it's too late now
oh man oh man oh man oh man oh
man oh man oh man oh man oh man
oh man oh man oh man oh man oh
man oh man oh man oh man oh man
oh man oh man oh man oh man oh
man oh man oh man oh man oh man
oh man oh man oh man oh man oh
man oh man oh man oh man oh man
oh man oh man oh man oh man oh
man oh man oh man oh man oh man

http://pastebin.com/BGAcJrKr

On fridays morning in ours town church after prays and sacred lectures there's a sort of party or celebration of some kind, it is an activity that no one here miss and we take part of in the very greeny place somewhat hidden in the forest clearing past that sticking place everyone knows well. People of our town and myself included in this very special group, reunite around a forty foot bust of an old man shaved and clean with apparent tall body and a seemingly-known face we keep in the aforementioned clearing place. Around the bust we go round and round and there we dance and stare with fixed eyes at the twisted head of that man, partially destroyed by the wet weather of our rainy place and when not by the not so innocent and ocassional pranks, for often young pranksters manage to come this far and draw a few scribbles on the face of our own unknown praising man. No one knows who he is for he has been here since our memories can tell, but always without exception we carry such ritual and every friday morning we go to the church and we pray to whoever that is, there's no name in our prayers so they struck to foreigners who come once in a while just before summer as a rather odd way of praying since we only talk about him as him and no more. It is after the pray ends that we go in small groups down the road to the forest and take turns to touch the now covered by 4-inch bulletproof glass bust and around it we go, forming a circle while we touch the glass while stare at the figure inside.

The book of him nameless and brown we hardly had a chance to touch. The was an order, a religious order that carry such matters and only those who are appointed as high member (by who I do not know) get the privilege of studying the book and lecture us at mornings and nights. I remember one time I saw the book, which remain until this day the only chance I ever had to be close it and it was only by chance.

http://pastebin.com/fXFTtfd3

>>6345785
>http://pastebin.com/1JpQAbwJ
Dude, it's OK to ask for criticism at an early stage, but you have to keep it short. You have a comma splice in your third sentence and it goes on for another two pages. No way I'm investing the time in that. Give me 1-3 paragraphs next time.

>>6346535
Did you quote the wrong person? There's not even a comma in the third sentence.

>>6345135
>http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/236778

Very cool poems. I hadn't read those and thoroughly enjoyed. OK, so part 2 is thinking: what is it you liked about those 2 Eliot poems? I have some thoughts on his imagism deal and those poems in particular. I'm no scholar, so take my opinion with a grain of salt. But if you tell me what appeals about them, I'll have a foothold for discussing your stuff.

http://pastebin.com/hAkrCuiU

>>6345859

nice. I like this,

>>6346558
>>http://pastebin.com/1JpQAbwJ
Fifth rather than third

>>6346603

Use more periods

stomachs follow behind slow and close through lanes with sun recline and sweat and game look too slow. stomachs like magnets and fast like the wind.

mommy moon rising and smiling down and the pretty things come out and touch and shake and mommy smile. Hair-beasts throb and pant and curse and fight. Wrist wrangled and prize was took and skin hot with Cambrian blaze in the blood and head in pink thoughts and red striving, in grab grab the neck and stone scrape and life come and breath come and eyes turn. The naked smelling thing was hauled away and erghhhhhh

Booby Bump

>>6346603
Are trying to imitate Tao Lin? If you want to write in a minimalist style I agree with >>6346653.

In general, I'd use more connectives to increase the reading flow.

>>6346648
> Heinrich von Kleist has written an essay, seeking to understand the place of man in the universe.
That's not a comma splice.

>>6346697
I don't see any boobies, m8. Just a boob with an Asian fethsi.

>>6346859
Use your imagination.

>>6325331
are you a grill?

>>6346697

omg this girl is 2kewt

>>6346921

Nope, just a fruit writing fruity poems.

>>6346845
I'm not actually; I've never read Tao Lin, but am planning on soon. Interesting comparison

thank you!

sry this is an excerpt

I had paused in reflection. Or rather, a surreal consideration; There was more to depreciate in this life than there was to cherish. The existence of a title that dictates such a pattern of thought had momentarily offended me. Pessimism was realism. Death was the ultimate gut-punch. Though, to me it was more of a heart-breech perpetrated by a thousand bad feelings. In the brief event that possible death of the self is present, life takes on a insidious aura. The terror of a fatal episode plagues the memory for a mile, while the happiness granted by whatever it may be only soothes the mind for a step. Evolution or creation, albeit miraculous is nastily culminated. We like to assume conscious control of our thoughts and emotions and therefore our actions, and there is something very beautiful about unfounded actions and reactions, but face a man with death and prepare to witness a spectacle founded on sick instinct.

>>6346453
can anyone comment about this?

>>6348224
>>6346453
Is English not your first language, or is the bizarre syntax and grammar intentional?

>>6348232
I'm aware of a few grammar errors. Can you comment more about the syntax?, why is it bizarre?

>>6348251

Here's on sentence as an example:

>No one knows who he is for he has been here since our memories can tell, but always without exception we carry such ritual and every friday morning we go to the church and we pray to whoever that is, there's no name in our prayers so they struck to foreigners who come once in a while just before summer as a rather odd way of praying since we only talk about him as him and no more.

I feel like I'm on drugs reading your prose.

>>6348256
I was trying to make it sound good. I suppose it didn't work.

>I feel like I'm on drugs reading your prose.
mfw

>>6325161
http://pastebin.com/u4cTYgLv

You, sitting on that train seat opposite me.

Don't let me get off here;

stop me and say "Anon, what is your greatest desire?"

You, sitting on that train seat opposite me.

Don't let destiny win.

Grab my coat, Whisper your name into my ear.

You, the most beautiful person I've ever seen.

For the love of god, talk to me!

>>6349304
>The gun locked on, jumping to have the cross hairs on just the top of the head

you seriously lost me on the first sentence. What the fuck does this mean, is this english? Is your brain ok?

>>6349427
I desire most being known-of in the minds of every single organism in the universe which possesses any semblance of sentience.

Know me. Know me, boy.

>>6346453
I think you are misinterpreting what people find charming about affected styles like that.
I think would read better if written like:
>On fridays morning in ours town church after prayers and after ours sacred lectures there's a sort of party or celebration. It is an activity that no one here choose to miss, in the very greeny place it is, somewhat hidden in the forest clearing - past that sticking place everyone knows well.
Pacing is more important than writing run-on sentences just for the sake of writing run-on sentences. Also, if you can add some clear inconsistencies in their grammar, it adds more to the effect I think you're trying to go for.

>>6349450
Great comment, it really helps me.
Thanks a lot.

A few, those who were aware of the situation, glanced in fascination at the unexpected guest, who tore at the food with teeth and hands. The rest just looked in amazement , or disgust. Such manners, at court! Dining with the prince (and ourselves)! He who did bear the crown was tugged by flickering feelings. Who he thought was an ambassador of the sea, perhaps even a sophisticated one, was an animal. He couldn’t carry himself as was near proper, let alone speak. Who was it that he had rescued, had bathed, dressed, and now invited to dinner? All thoughts and dreams he had spun in a brief spell of hopefulness went away like the waves, from whence this guest came. He feared, and realised slowly and bitterly, that all his wishes had been too ridiculous to be granted. Today he would not have found a link to a lost sister civilisation of man, he would not have found a messenger of Mother Ocean. He poked at his food. Worst of all, not even the fierce paramour he thought he had found that day at the beach.

>>6349437
This is in the context of a videogame, i.e. the gun the character was holding in-game locked on to the head of some enemy. Though, looking at it, I kinda fucked that up. Not that the premise of the thing is very good anyway.

The other ones are better, maybe?

I wrote all of these fairly quickly, and haven't really messed with what I wrote out by pen typing it up.

>>6346562
Hey man, don't know if you're still around, but I'd still love the critique if so.

As for Whispers of Immortality, I like that the imagery and metaphor is ambiguous in literal meaning but still evokes particular emotions, I like the subtly of the rhyme, and I like that, again, despite the ambiguity and openness, the pacing and content both bring the piece to what feels like a conclusion.

Sunset found her squatting in the grass, groaning. Every stool was looser than the one before, and smelled fouler. By the time the moon came up she was shitting brown water. The more she drank, the more she shat, but the more she shat, the thirstier she grew, and her thirst sent her crawling to the stream to suck up more water.

bump

HERE COMES THE BEST BUMP EVER!!!


YEEAAAAHHHH!

bumpin bumpin bumpin bumpin bumpin bumpin