A Book Of Sentences Misplaced

[Ashley]

A Book Of Sentences Misplaced

There were days that crawled like snails,
Conversation that was filled with unfenced fury,
Then there were nights that sung like morning birds,
Life was an empty courtroom, one without a jury,
Seasons change and the tide cycles in and out,
How much more time do I have to work at grudgingly,
Only existing, occupying time to make the clock run down,
The cold wind and wet days of winter are letting up,
Spring is just over on the next page,
The butterflies will perform as new life is getting up,
But I fail to see beauty in what is obviously so,
I think perhaps once I did, but honestly I don't know,
While the day is full of sunshine and warm on my face,
Inside of my head, I live in a different place,
Where the day is cold, miserable, threatening to snow,
I am no actor, I cannot fake this walk forever,
Someone draw the curtains, I am not fit for the show,
The insignificant details illustrate my days,
Something to care about, something without wings,
Or thoughts or feelings or any other number of things,
Variables that make for navigating somewhat tricky,
But I have always been drawn to the road most slippery,
To where danger is lurking, awaiting my presence,
I cannot make sense of this madness I errupted in,
Nor do I feel like going out to start investigating,
When you finished reading that chapter to me,
The one where they all sung along below the city,
And drank grog and swallowed all kinds of things,
I saw those two homeless men, personified as us,
Having burned every bridge, bombed every bus,
Like them, we have nothing here left,
Maybe while we were distracted,
Time came along and away it all swept.

Ash.

 

[Raz]

Very cool...some of these passages are really lyrical and there are some great visuals.

 

[ForEverAfter]

People get a bit funny about taking editing advice, regarding their poetry. It's the biggest failing of writers, in my opinion; the inability to accept input.

I have re-written your poem. Some people don't like it when I do this.

Keep in mind, I'm just re-arranging your words.

Misplaced Sentences (Edit)

Days that crawl like snails and conversations full of unfenced fury,
I fail to see the sunshine, warm on my face.
It's cold and miserable, inside my head.
It's threatening to snow.

Insignificant details illustrate my days,
Variables, impossible to navigate.
I cannot make sense of this madness.

You finish reading that chapter,
Where they all sing, below the city,
and swallow all kinds of things.

I see us
as homeless men,
burning bridges,
bombing buses.

Distracted,
As time sweeps it all away.

A Book Of Sentences Misplaced (Original, with Editor's Notes)

There were days that crawled like snails,
Conversation that was filled with unfenced fury,

Modern poets have a tendency to break lines up too much. See: "Howl" by Ginsberg.

Then there were nights that sung like morning birds,

This line isn't quite right. "Nights singing like morning birds" implies either: an ambiguity between day and night; and/or, the fleeting nature of time. Because it is a contradiction in terms, it needs to distract the reader stylistically. Also the word sung is repeated. You've used it metaphorically, here, and as - what I assume is - a literal allusion "below the city"... Cut. Keep it in a file of scrap lines and use it in something else. Whenever you delete lines from poems, keep them somewhere. Poems are like collages. You can pretty much just cut and paste beautiful arrangements of words together, and they will mean something. I also like going through my prose and doing the same. The Beat poets used to use newspapers, I believe.

Life was an empty courtroom, one without a jury,

Cliche and cliche. Empty courtrooms obviously don't have juries, because they're empty. You've doubled up; two cliches, meaning the same thing. The only way to get away with this, generally, is if you invert one of them. Eg. Life was an empty courtroom, one with (not without) a jury.

Seasons change and the tide cycles in and out,

We know this. It's too broad. Too generic.

How much more time do I have to work at grudgingly,

Changing voice, here; work at what?

Only existing, occupying time to make the clock run down,

Cliche.

The cold wind and wet days of winter are letting up,
Spring is just over on the next page,
The butterflies will perform as new life is getting up,
But

Losing the dark tone of the piece, here. The first two lines are the best so far, because thy express the most. You can't focus on the weather or on landscapes too much in a contemporary poem, because they are the most overused images/symbols throughout poetic history. The only way to get away with four lines of "landscape" poetry, is if it's gorgeous; if the language is truly unique. You are far better at doing "psychological landscape" poetry. Keep it internal.

I fail to see beauty in what is obviously so,

This line needs a tweak, grammatically. I'd cut in half, personally. The fact that undefined "beauty" is obvious, is - in itself - obvious.

I think perhaps once I did, but honestly I don't know,

Cut this line. You're telling us too much.

While the day is full of sunshine and warm on my face,

The weather (landscape) stuff works here, because it's brief and it's countering the inner (psych landscape) stuff.

Inside of my head, I live in a different place,

This cannot rhyme. If you read it out loud, when you get to this point you'll see what I mean. You can't start a poem without rhyme, then throw in a "perfect" rhyme like face/place at the end of a line. It can't be dismissed as unintentional either. A subtle rhyme, maybe. This is too much.

Where the day is cold, miserable, threatening to snow,

I'm going to change this, as a description of the inner psych landscape. Outside it's sunny, inside it's snowing.

I am no actor, I cannot fake this walk forever,

Someone draw the curtains, I am not fit for the show,

Cut these two lines. Because of the rhyme and the tangental throw away acting/ theatre theme.

The insignificant details illustrate my days,

Cut "the". (Whenever you can cut "the" or "an", do it.)

Something to care about, something without wings,
Or thoughts or feelings or any other number of things,

Cut these two lines. The repetition of someone/something/something is too vague, in terms of imagery. It's also too much repetition, where emphasis is not required. "Or any number of things" is also too vague. My mental image of your poem goes foggy, at this point.

Variables that make for navigating somewhat tricky,

Cut the word "for".

But I have always been drawn to the road most slippery,
To where danger is lurking, awaiting my presence,

Cut these two lines.

I cannot make sense of this madness I errupted in,

Cut "I erupted in"

Nor do I feel like going out to start investigating,

Cut this line.

When you finished reading that chapter to me,

Cut "when".

The one where they all sung along below the city,

Re-arrange.

And drank grog and swallowed all kinds of things,

Alongside "drank grog", "swallowed all kinds of things" loses it's mystery/potential for interpretation. It, again, tells us too much. Cut "drank grog".

I saw those two homeless men, personified as us,

Re-arrange, shorten.

Having burned every bridge, bombed every bus,

Shorten.

Maybe while we were distracted,

Shorten.

Time came along and away it all swept.

Shorten.

(I also changed it to present tense, because it was a tad passive.)

You aren't rhyming, or following any structure. So fuck keeping the line lengths consistent. It is beyond co-incidence. You seem to be consciously limiting yourself to (relatively) equal line lengths, despite completely discounting syllabic schemes and rhyming schemes. Let it all go, that's my advice. Experiment, totally. You're almost there.

 

[Ashley]

Don't be afraid to flood me with your advice 4EA, it is obvious to me that you are fair more established with the English language and the associated structure of poetry and other pieces of writing. I haven't any formal education past Year 10 creative writing, which from memory I excelled at, along with computers and unlike every other subject. I eventually pursued a career in the IT industry which lasted for 5 years, from the time I was 14. I then began using drugs heavily and met my partner, we spent the next 6 years taking drugs and generally being disconnected from the world. We shared happy moments, the happiest actually. And we endured drug induced horror scences. But 6 years of daily drug solitude with your best friend and lover in many ways brings you closer to that person, and in other ways distances you greatly, affecting your true vision of the relationship. Eventually the drugs and each of your selfish drug addictive tendencies override the love for the other and you start putting your drug use ever so slightly ahead of the love you have for your partner. After hearing the words 'co-dependant' and people telling us that we were 'toxic' for each other and detoxification nurses saying "One of you is bad enough, but together you two would be BAD bad news..".

Anyway, since getting off maintenance and beating my opiate habit down to a minimal yet consistent activity, I have been focussing entirely on my writing - as opposed to getting back into the computer industry. It has lost it's initial appeal for some reason and I no longer feel like writing lines of code, configuring routers, setting up servers and no sector within the IT industry draws any interest in me whatsoever. Perhaps it's a sign. So, I'm entirely and exclusively focussed on my writing, hoping that it is one day worthy of occupying space upon a publisher's desk. And they're brutally honest too, their age old Alexandrian method type of selecting publishable proposals, well it obviously works..

Your last statement, "You're almost there." really stood out for me and made me feel rather proud, that my writing is considered what you 4EA (whom, I consider as a very talented writer) considering of quality. Presuming, I am interperting your comments accurately.

Is it normal for writers to read and consider work that they have produced as sub-par and poor. I mean, with some certain pieces (only really one that comes to mind, and has been posted on here many years ago), I knew that it was a great piece of work. I wrote it from start to finish in about 30 minutes and did no editing at all, if I recall correctly. Since then, few pieces have really stood out to me. But I'm working at it, all the time!

Anyway, over at a friends house, will study your repsonse more extensively when I get home. I agree that you rewriting of the poem is better, however, there are some things that I would like to discuss regarding where you seem to think I am not rhyming when I intend to. As if you are reading it differently to how it was meant to be read. Or how I hear it recited in my own head. *shrug*

Thank you everyone for your feedback, as ForEverAfter said: 'the inability to accept input', is counterproductive to improving writing. Or any craft, for that matter. There are those that are older, wiser, even better than you. Time has given them something that only you will acquire through either time or the passing down of knowledge. who can teach you invaluable lessons. And I hope that life is providing plentiful harvests of ealthy fruit that provides happiness and momentary contentment for those of us with the wrongly categorized disease..

Ash.