Morning


Puzzle Pieces

Okay, have a minute now, I suppose I can give you some specific feedback. I'm going to use "Morning" since you just posted it and there's several things I noticed when I looked at it.

I'm going to repost it here for my reference.

Okay, so the first thing I notice is that this is one long sentence. Which isn't a crime, but it bears mentioning. Line breaks are a decent substitute for punctuation, but there's nothing wrong with throwing a period in, too.

The second thing I notice is the word "stranglers". I have no idea if that was what you meant or not, and it makes it difficult to fit it into the rest of the poem. "Stragglers" would certainly be the typical word choice, but there could definitely be something poetic to the use of "stranglers" as well, though I'm not really getting that sense from the rest of the poem, so I'm inclined to think you meant "stragglers".

Moving on, I mentioned cliched phrases earlier. "Life goes on" certainly qualifies as such, and some of the other lines are heading that way, too. It just doesn't sound very inspired when you use such tired old idioms instead of coming up with a bold, creative way to convey a sentiment.

And then, I suppose, my last point would be one of simplicity. This poem is kind of like a point in space, a statement with no context to qualify it. After reading the title, the rest of the poem told me precisely nothing that I didn't already know; you're basically just saying "morning" in more words throughout the entirety of the poem. There has to be something more, some kind of point beyond the obvious veneer. To put it plainly, right now, you're just saying things; the goal of poetry should be to show things, by saying other things. So, to keep using this example, even though it looks like you're talking about morning, that should just be the surface of the metaphor for making a deeper, more thought-provoking statement.

And, just to note, try to read my comments as applicable to your entire writing style (for poems) not just for this one poem, if that makes sense. These are things that stand out in most, if not all of your poems I've seen so far.

And do keep in mind, that's just my opinion on the subject. ;)

Thanks for the advice Suzerin. But I might not use it, I did change stranglers to stragglers though.


Missing Link



Peace

Apparently I do use it sometimes :D

Tear Tracks



Memory

I'm curious, Love, when you sit down to write a poem, do you begin with the title?

Yes but no. I have the idea then the title then the actual meat of the poem usually but I think "Tear Tracks" was named after the poem was written.

Oh, that's interesting. "Tear Tracks" was actually the title that made me wonder, because most of the others sound like they preceded the body of the poem, but that one could have went either way.

Also out of curiosity, how long does it take you on average to write a poem?

Erm...I have no idea. Some are just little ditties that take about 30 seconds others are still works in progress. Longest one of date is not one here and I've been working on it for 3 years it is called "Rotation" But I'm haing problems with tenses and phrasing in it.

3 years? That's impressive discipline. Once I get away from a poem for a while, I find I can never really get back into the mindset of writing it again. I don't know if that's common or not, though.

It usually takes me between a half-hour and an hour to write a poem, but I tend to work out lines in my head before actually sitting down to pen stuff out. Titles usually come last, after I've finished the poem.

I've worked on it for so long it is kind of ingrained. And not as boring as one would think.

And I wish I could think out then write down but if I did that I would loose everything I had though of. And you can definatly tell that your poems are thought out.

The sad thing is that my own poems made me cringe.


War



Haven

Love, just to note, there are quite a few typos/errors in "War". A simple run through spellcheck would fix most of them, except for the "is" in the first line. Fix those up, and there's one less reason to cringe. :p

And for Haven, I think it gets slightly repetitive after the first stanza, which I think is pretty good on its own. It just falls kind of flat after that, to me. There's a couple errors in this one, too, by the way. "to" instead of "too" and "and" instead of "am".

That is what I get for poetry while sick. Thank you for pointing out my errors though. And Haven felt the same way to me but when I orginally had it at one stanza something just did not seem right... I have reduced it to its orginal size but I might end up editing it again. :)

I can edit my poems to no end. I find if I'm not satisfied with a poem, it usually isn't length that's the issue, it's the words I have already. I had one recent poem that I ended up changing in length and structure several times because with each shift in wording I found I wanted to change the linebreaks as well.

One of the things I could add to Suzerain's comments on "Morning" was that the line breaks didn't feel particularly special, and if they were removed it reads more or less like a piece of prose. That's something I've heard often to watch out for in poetry when it comes to free verse writing since it's a really easy thing to do.

Reading what you have here it does feel to me like your poems are particularly repetative. Part of it is me. I used to write much longer poems than I do now, but I do think that your poems could be more potent if you used fewer words. Consider "Good Bye" for instance. It feels twice the length it needs to be, since nothing new is really gained in the latter half besides slightly rearranging the words.

Oh hi, Quiet! Your comment has been filed away to be used later.

Hi! Yes I do say things in here once and a while. ;)