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[Anonymous No.1553272]

I just wrote a poem.

Assume whilst reading that I'm an 18 year old who didn't finish high school and please give me constructive criticism.

Death Row for Emotions:


Today I shall die,
And I think to myself why,
No crimes have I commit,
Free of hurtful words to omit.

Dead man walking,
The wily inmates stalking,
To the end of the hall,
Where the guillotine will fall.

I take my neck upon the block,
And it's your eyes on which I lock,
Meticulous beauty garbed in black,
As you the executionor take your place at my back.

My crimes are read aloud,
To the inmate crowd:
Love in the first degree,
To a heart that was absentee.

Garbed in your favourite clothes,
I hold in my hand a rose,
Perhaps it will make you recall,
And you won't let me fall.

Tis my second time here,
And I wholly fear,
You won't permit a third,
And leave my heart interred.

But my warring mind knows best,
And I wear my heart outisde my chest,
For any who care to see,
And take advantage of me.

An epiphany floods through,
I finally can construe,
Love not you I did,
But what the idea bid.

'Twas in blindess that I,
Did every wise friend defy,
And confused Love for You,
For Love of Love that was undue.

But I know your ruling,
Even before the day did spring,
It hangs as a heavy cloak,
Around my heart and neck to choke.

And what's left for You,
With no effort to undo,
The knot that holds the blade,
And let your thirst be allayed.

[Anonymous No.1553302]

Bump for constructive criticism.

[Anonymous No.1553305]

>I'm an 18 year old who didn't finish high school

[Anonymous No.1553321]

>>1553305
Incredibly constructive.

[Anonymous No.1553324]

>>1553321
How about; Go back, finish highschool, OR
Stop writing shitty poetry.

[Anonymous No.1553331]

>>1553324
How about, http://lmgtfy.com/?q=constructive+criticism&l=1

[Anonymous No.1553334]

>>1553331
How about, http://lmgtfy.com/?q=unicorns

They're just as real

[Anonymous No.1553338]

>>1553334
How about this board is full of gigantic unhelpful faggots such as yourself?

[Anonymous No.1553343]

>>1553338
Deal with it or GTFO

[Anonymous No.1553351]

Maybe you'd like to read some poetry before you post here. Or you can just grow up

[Anonymous No.1553366]

"SHOW, DON'T TELL"
SAID /LIT/, "YELL!"
Listened I not,
blabbed on; like frot.
If encoutered by scold,
I sway; completely fold.
Mirage is breaking,
my soul; fainting,
"Perhaps lied my mother,
I am accident; a bother."

Soul strung I retreat at last
to find refuge, to not stand fast.
I wander back to deepest depts of my mind
as my emo-side finds in /lit/, no-one a kind.

-OP, 2011

[Anonymous No.1553367]

Ye gods and little fishes, is it Valentine's day again?

OK - this is obvioulsy a first draft - DON'T give it to anyone yet and expect them to be impressed. I'll be honest: there's a very great deal wrong with it, too much to deal with in one go. Not being mean, or trying to discourage you - just saying...

The scansion (the rhythm) is all over the place, the line

>As you the executionor take your place at my back.

is just awful - (executionER, BTW - it doesn't fit the metre, and it clunks like sugar in a gearbox.

A lot of the time the last word of each line seems arbitrary, and only there to make the rhyme:

>Dead man walking,
>The wily inmates stalking,

Who are they stalking? Nobody, I suspect, it just rhymes with walking, which you only used because of the cliche of "dead man walking". Avoid cliche like the plague (ho ho, yaz I funniez). Another example of a very forced rhyme is:

<cont...>

[Anonymous No.1553372]

<from >>1553367>


>Love not you I did,
>But what the idea bid.

Which reads like Yoda just took over for a stanza or two. Don't force your rhymes, and try to make the stanzas develop into an idea, and don't let your own cleverness take you over, and just write stanza after stanza - each word in a poem has to tell, has to be important to the message. Edit this down, take out the bits that you actually like, and that actually convey your message, then cut out the rest and polish what you have left.

And don't listen to braindead, elitist dickheads like >>1553305 (who's probably underage b& and still in high school anyway). Half of his favourite writers probably didn't finish high school.

Oh, and cut back on the emo - OK, you're unhappy, your muse has left you bereft, but there's better ways to express the darkness in your soul than guillotines and so forth. Then again, it worked for Poe. If by "worked" you include, "dying as a lonely alcoholic".

You need to read more poetry if you want to write it: try Yeats, he was a man who knew all about unrequited love:

When You Are Old

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim Soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

Pic related: it's Maud Gonne - Yeats loved her all his life, never married her, but later tried to screw her daughter. Class act

[Anonymous No.1553374]

>>1553372
>Yeats loved her all his life, never married her, but later tried to screw her daughter.
Then there's always hope.

Also, way to encourage shitty posting. You've said "the rhyming sucks, the meter sucks, even the sentiment and the way you string the words together sucks", with the best advice being "maybe read some poetry".

Check it, same content, not over two posts.

[Anonymous No.1553380]

Its really clunky and some of the rhymes seem forced. Maybe try a more subtle rhyme pattern like the one in Yeat's poem >>1553372

Ex: No crimes have I commit
Free of hurtful words to omit
These two are a mess. No crimes did I commit would be better gramatically, but the second sentence just did not make sense.
I'd scrap the first paragraph and references to wily inmates or taking your neck on the block (you'd like your head on the block.)
Honestly, its bad, but if you read up on different kinds of poetry maybe you can use the emotion youre feeling to create something that feels more authentic and less forced and cutesy.

[Anonymous No.1553382]

>>1553374

And if everyone who wrote poetry received 'fuck off faggot' as a response there would be no poetry. OK, so OP is no fucking Derek Walcott, but there's no harm in me taking like EIGHT FUCKING MINUTES to do the guy the decency of reading his doggerel and giving some hopefully constructive responses. What the fuck is it to you if I "encourage shitty posting"? Just don't read the thread, don't read the shitty posting, don't read the shit I post in response. Just read something else, or go have a wank or something, you obviously need to relax. And the advice "read more poetry" is never bad to anyone who wants to write themselves, particularly when they say themselves that they don't have the best education.

tl;dr stfu and gtfo

[Simple Sigmund !PHaLLUsALQ No.1553383]

Dylan Thomas was one of my favorites, and the old bastard rarely rhymed, really.. it was all about the rhythm.

If you go back and read it, and it seems as though you're singing a song almost, you've hit it. And yeah, lay off the emo, man, and the shitty rhymes. Check some shit out and know the parameters of what qualifies as poetry, and you'll be on your way...


... and to REALLY piss some of the fags on here off, go ahead and post your progress as you wish. I ENCOURAGE it... just know you'll be trolled by lame asses, but that's part of it. Can't please e'erybody but you sure can piss them all off... go for what's easiest, OP.

[Anonymous No.1553391]

>>1553383

I hate agreeing with tripfag troll, but I agree - I realise that OP probably fucked right off ages ago, but if you're here still, I want to see a new, shorter, more polished draft ASAP. You are now my protege, and I'm not even going to try and bum you (unless by some remarkable and unlikely turn of events you are female and blond and attractive, in which case I'll bum you all you like)

[Anonymous No.1553394]

>>1553383

>Dylan Thomas
>barely rhymed
>wtf

DO NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rage at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

[Anonymous No.1553399]

>>1553382
If everyone who wrote poetry received "Really good try, appreciate the effort", the world would be flooded with faggy poems.

[Anonymous No.1553407]

>>1553399

That wasn't what I said - I told him it was pretty rubbish and said it needed a lot of work. But who the fuck are you, or me for that matter, to tell someone not to express themselves in the manner that they deem fit?

Anyway, I'm bored of this now - I'm off out to buy a few bottles of inspiration. OP, I want that second draft on my desk by 1400 4Chan time.

Try making it into a sonnet - the formalised rhyme structure may help focus your thoughts, and will cut out some of the flab because you only have 14 lines.

hatersgonnahate.jpg

[Simple Sigmund !PHaLLUsALQ No.1553434]

>>1553394

That all you know of Thomas? Seriously, no troll, man. He focused on the meter in a good portion of his work.

Vision and Prayer

Who
Are you
Who is born
In the next room
So loud to my own
That I can hear the womb
Opening and the dark run
Over the ghost and the dropped son
Behind the wall thin as a wren’s bone?
In the birth bloody room unknown
To the burn and turn of time
And the heart print of man
Bows no baptism
But dark alone
Blessing on
The wild
Child.

Yeah a few words rhyme, but it's more coincidence, he wasn't necessarily going for that, he was going for form.

[Anonymous No.1553437]

>>1553407
>Accuse others of being "braindead, elitist dickheads"
>>1553372
>tell people to express themselves in sonnets
>Baww about internet arguments and "to tell someone not to express themselves in the manner that they deem fit?"
>????
>faggotry

[Simple Sigmund !PHaLLUsALQ No.1553445]

>>1553434

was showing form was foremost in his mind, his poem Fern Hill has less of a rhyme and again focuses on meter

Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs
About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green,
The night above the dingle starry,
Time let me hail and climb
Golden in the heydays of his eyes,
And honoured among wagons I was prince of the apple towns
And once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves
Trail with daisies and barley
Down the rivers of the windfall light.

And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns
About the happy yard and singing as the farm was home,
In the sun that is young once only,
Time let me play and be
Golden in the mercy of his means,
And green and golden I was huntsman and herdsman, the calves
Sang to my horn, the foxes on the hills barked clear and cold,
And the sabbath rang slowly
In the pebbles of the holy streams.

first part, field too long...

[Anonymous No.1553461]

>>1553437

Your argument makes no sense, and you got your references wrong.

And I agree again with tripfag, Do Not Go Gently is pretty unrepresentative of Thomas, but it's also not true to say he rarely rhymed. Thomas was part of the celtic tradition, whether he knew it or not (and he probably did when he was sober), and relied as much on assonance, internal rhyme and consonance/alliteration as he did on standard rhyme-at-the-end-of-the-line.

As for me accusing people of being elitist dickheads, I may be a dickhead, but I'm not elitist - I think everyone can and should express themselves however they want - I'm inclusive and I'd say that's the opposite of elitists. Just because I know poetic terms and have spent a lot more time than I probably should have doesn't mean that I'm in the elitist gang with the rest of the crew who memorise terms just to impress people.

>>1553394

Is a villanelle, by the way, just in case that may impress any ladies enough to let me sex them. No? Damnit.

[Simple Sigmund !PHaLLUsALQ No.1553465]

And I agree again with tripfag, Do Not Go Gently is pretty unrepresentative of Thomas, but it's also not true to say he rarely rhymed. Thomas was part of the >celtic tradition, whether he knew it or not (and he probably did when he was sober), and relied as much on assonance, internal rhyme and consonance/alliteration as he did on standard rhyme-at-the-end-of-the-line.

worded better than I did... but that's what I was getting at.... I'm trying to drink myself to sleep after 30+ hours up.

[Anonymous No.1553469]

>>1553461
>>1553434

Thomas used whatever came to hand - he was an incredubly adaptive poet:

Fear not the waking world, my mortal,
Fear not the flat, synthetic blood,
Nor the heart in the ribbing metal.
Fear not the tread, the seeded milling,
The trigger and scythe, the bridal blade,
Nor the flint in the lover's mauling.

Man of my flesh, the jawbone riven,
Know now the flesh's lock and vice,
And the cage for the scythe-eyed raver.
Know, O my bone, the jointed lever,
Fear not the screws that turn the voice,
And the face to the driven lover.

That's got half-rhymes, rhymes, assonance, internal metrical jiggery-pokery, the lot. Thomas was a genius, OP is not quite so good.

Far summary of the thread so far?

[Simple Sigmund !PHaLLUsALQ No.1553480]

>That's got half-rhymes, rhymes, assonance, internal metrical jiggery-pokery, the lot.

Exactly what I was attempting to get at by using the "barely rhymed" phrase.

[Anonymous No.1553490]

>>1553461
If you're inclusive, then you must be inclusive of me being an "elitist dickhead".

Also, well done at winning sports day. You've done very well.

[Anonymous No.1553501]

Honestly, OP's poem is probably the best original I've read on /lit/, which says much more about /lit/ than it does about the poem. It still sucks, but not quite as bad as the others I've read, which have mostly been incomprehensible.

[Anonymous No.1553520]

>>1553490

I ain't fighting you bro - I was agreeing with you.

>>1553490

Unfortunately yes - my own inclusive beliefs mean that I have to accept your right to express yourself by acting like a dickhead. You're making an excellent go of it by the way.

>>1553501

That may be going too far, but it has at least provoked a response, which could be said to be one of the purposes of art. Also, I suspect that you're OP.