Double Blind Challenge

[Magnetron]

Helpless, they watch
their brothers struggle,
drowned in drift nets’ cruel embrace.
Do they mourn the loss?

hmmn. i feel this whole section needs looking at again. it comes across to me as a 'what i want to say but not the way it needs saying' area. maybe something along the lines of how, with burst eardrums, they can no longer see the songs of their pod-mates, caught in the drift nets.... maybe just as well, considering.

don't like the question on the ultimate line. mammals mourn, at least for a while. but i kinda think this needs to finish off by tying back into the opening - the graph, the sound-picture. maybe some weighing up of the sonogram of joy v the sonogram of grief.

It comes across to me as rhetorical activism in poetic disguise.

Here be dolphins alive and happy.
Witness these dolphins singing and crying.
Experience the joy and sorrow of being a dolphin today.
Tomorrow, mourn the loss of more dolphins dying.

Now do something to help the fucking dolphins.

 

[butters]

It comes across to me as rhetorical activism in poetic disguise.

Here be dolphins alive and happy.
Witness these dolphins singing and crying.
Experience the joy and sorrow of being a dolphin today.
Tomorrow, mourn the loss of more dolphins dying.

Now do something to help the fucking dolphins.

but how dya feel about the intro idea? that whole 'seeing' the song in picture form. i love that!

 

[Magnetron]

but how dya feel about the intro idea? that whole 'seeing' the song in picture form. i love that!

I don't know what dolphin talk looks like on a sonar screen.

So a person saying he saw sounds instead of images is not really working for me.

Make those sounds conjure images or vice versa and you might have me hooked pun intended.

Other than the word saw bringing little added dimension, it gets the job done.

 

[butters]

I don't know what dolphin talk looks like on a sonar screen.

So a person saying he saw sounds instead of images is not really working for me.

Make those sounds conjure images or vice versa and you might have me hooked pun intended.

where's your imagination?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectr...e:Dolphin1.jpg

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencete...eidoscope.html

yeah, that's why i suggested introducing some graph element. seriously, though, the title should have been a help even if you'd never seen one before relating to aquatic mammalia.

 

[Magnetron]

where's your imagination?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectr...e:Dolphin1.jpg

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencete...eidoscope.html

yeah, that's why i suggested introducing some graph element. seriously, though, the title should have been a help even if you'd never seen one before relating to aquatic mammalia.

I'm lazy.

The porpoise of imagination to me is expanding upon what is written, but without having to tell it to get off its ass and get to work. I prefer an honest reaction to the wordage.

 

[butters]

I'm lazy.

The porpoise of imagination to me is expanding upon what is written, but without having to tell it to get off its ass and get to work.

pretty pictures, though, no?

and i found this pretty fascinating too, as i began to thing of electromagnetic waves, sound, light, the shaping of living molecules/forms... sparked by the sonograms poem, added to by the link showing pretty coloured pictures, leading to me thinking of waves/waves:

Q:
Why can only light waves cause shadow.Why cant sound waves cause shadows.
- Prudhvi Raj Borra (age 16)
Machilipatnam,Andhra,India
A:
In fact, shadows of sound waves exist. However in order to observe (hear) the effect the shadow casting object must be considerably larger than the wavelength of the sound.
Like light waves, sound waves can reflected, bent, refracted, diffracted and focused. Audible sound wavelengths are in the range of about 10 meters to about 2 centimeters, compared to less than one millionth of a meter for visible light.

LeeH

dear author of Sonograms:

don't mind me, it's all relevant despite me having a pink foyd moment (echoes/meddle). also, the thing i suggested about tying the end of your write to the start, like happy song/sad song, is also because you used the plural for your title.

 

[Magnetron]

I'm also extremely sleep deprived at the moment. Slap happy. It's not helping.

 

[AlwaysHungry]

Sonograms

I saw
a dolphin’s song today,
clicks and squeaks
whistles and purrs,
signature squawks
with jokey trills.

Excellent use of onomatopoeia, very musical. This part hits a home run.

I don't know what dolphin talk looks like on a sonar screen.

So a person saying he saw sounds instead of images is not really working for me.

Agree with Mags on this. It sort of defeats the purpose of the onomatopoeia. What if the narrator were to see a sonogram, which is a rather dry experience, but his or her imagination comes to the rescue, supplying the requisite clicks, squeaks, whistles, purrs, squawks and trills?

It comes across to me as rhetorical activism in poetic disguise.

Here be dolphins alive and happy.
Witness these dolphins singing and crying.
Experience the joy and sorrow of being a dolphin today.
Tomorrow, mourn the loss of more dolphins dying.

Now do something to help the fucking dolphins.

Agree with Mags on this, too. In the second half, it gets preachy. The whole "humans are toxic vermin" thing is overdone, IMO.

 

[HarryHill]

[chop]
What if the narrator were to see a sonogram, A sonogram uses sound to produce an image of a solid object, wave energy reflected, like radar. What you seem to be trying to pin down is I think voice regognition software that allows you to see... ... the requisite clicks, squeaks, whistles, purrs, squawks and trills?
So, maybe a bad title, try, 'Echogram' think about that for a bit, then know that the bolded below
Agree with Mags on this, too. In the second half, it gets preachy. The whole "humans are toxic vermin" thing is overdone, IMO.

can never be overdone, and the echo of that message is just something we don't hear

 

[AlwaysHungry]

can never be overdone, and the echo of that message is just something we don't hear

I think of it as a wrong turn that European and North American culture took around the 1920s, the whole misanthropy thing. Humans can be quite a boon to nature, and often have been, greening the deserts and so on. But this is a conversation for the politics forum.

 

[HarryHill]

I think of it as a wrong turn that European and North American culture took around the 1920s, the whole misanthropy thing. Humans can be quite a boon to nature, and often have been, greening the deserts and so on. But this is a conversation for the politics forum.

..
No politics to it, this is Anthropology 101, humans will use whatever resource at hand to assuage their desires. as a poet, I am allowed to lament or applaud this condition or simply turn away in apathy and write about fluffy clouds and Hawt sex

 

[butters]

can never be overdone, and the echo of that message is just something we don't hear

there're sonograms and sonograms: -

a sonogram of soundwaves is more often known as a spectrogram
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectrogram

check out the 2 links i put beneath my review of the poem Sonograms, H

 

[Magnetron]

I'm not saying it's overdone. To me, it gets the job done without being preachy.

 

[butters]

Sonograms has inspired feedback, reflection, debate, polarised opinions... gotta love it!

 

[HarryHill]

there're sonograms and sonograms: -

a sonogram of soundwaves is more often known as a spectrogram
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectrogram

check out the 2 links i put beneath my review of the poem Sonograms, H

Apples n Oranges I think, both end up as electronic displays, i'll shut up

 

[Magnetron]

there're sonograms and sonograms: -

And then there are Candy Grams.

 

[HarryHill]

And then there are Candy Grams.

Land Shark?.......

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

Sonograms

I saw
a dolphin’s song today,
clicks and squeaks, comma
whistles and purrs. period
Signature squawks
with jokey trills.
new strophe
Smiling secrets
they find in the deep,
silver slicing through the calm. period
Joyful leaps before our bow
and aft in widening wake.
new strophe
How can they know
why their eardrums break
leaving them directionless,
floundering, bleeding
or that huge, stealthy metal fish
are silently killing them?
Helpless, they watch
their brothers struggle,
drowned in drift nets’ cruel embrace.
Do they mourn the loss?

Quite apart from the, possibly, incorrect use of the word "sonograms" in the title; this poem feels unfinished to me, as if the writer resorted to the "preach"iness out of the need to find an ending. The opening lines reveal the idea of print-outs from recorded sound which is not filled out and would have made it less confusing. The narrative goes from the audio aspect of dolphins to a visual with no tie-in.....and then we get the rather over-the-top, anthropomorphic last few lines. Tough love.

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

I missed this earlier......

The Curator

See how our combustion blooms!
A fragrant flame too hot to touch
For more than just these fleeting months
Of lush and fruitful spring.
The way it overawes my eyes
And warms me from a distance (from afar)
Makes me yearn to reap (snare) it, singe my fingers,
Press it, quick, between the pages of a book,
In airless preservation 'til the heat is just
A memory, ethereal and flat. (cold)

I like this poem. Reading aloud I thought of the sounds. The idea of something so beautiful and fleeting being preserved is lovely but surely the heat present in life would not be there in death. It adds another poignancy, imo.

 

[ishtat]

Sonograms

I liked the first parts but not the last ten lines. These last lines are a mixture of description and then commentary by the poet. A sufficiently clear/harsh description of the dolphins fate renders comments exampled by 'Helpless' or 'cruel embrace' unnecessary. The readers know that from the description, they don't need to be told.

My recommendation would be to rewrite the last 10 lines reducing them perhaps by half, and hopefully the more stark result will have a stronger impact -more visually cruel. It's a show, not tell situation perhaps.

Last line reads like an afterthought - should either be developed or cut out altogether? - not sure which.

 

[Angeline]

I liked the first parts but not the last ten lines. These last lines are a mixture of description and then commentary by the poet. A sufficiently clear/harsh description of the dolphins fate renders comments exampled by 'Helpless' or 'cruel embrace' unnecessary. The readers know that from the description, they don't need to be told.

My recommendation would be to rewrite the last 10 lines reducing them perhaps by half, and hopefully the more stark result will have a stronger impact -more visually cruel. It's a show, not tell situation perhaps.

Last line reads like an afterthought - should either be developed or cut out altogether? - not sure which.

This was my thought, too. The end of the poem feels overtaken by pedagogy whereas imagery and metaphor would work so much better. Once the author gets into that we have to save the dolphin, the reader is taken out of the world the poem creates and into information. Imo an example that illustrates the idea of saving the dolphin with a powerful image or even a metaphor would make for a stronger poem.

I also have a problem with the idea of hearing all these delightful dolphin sounds when in fact we know someone is in a room, looking at a screen and hearing blips or beeps, if anything. I think GP said this part of the poem isn't developed enough and I agree. A few added lines to transition the person watching the screen into imagination about those wonderful suggestions of sound (currently lines 2-6) is more plausible.

 

[Piscator]

And then there are Candy Grams.

and Candy Grans, sort of like Sugar Babes but much more experienced

 

[greenmountaineer]

I liked the first part of Sonograms for the same reasons most have already expressed. In fact, it would be a good poem on its own.

However, that would change the poet's intent.

The question in S3 has an obvious answer which makes it feel "preachy" to me. This is an instance where making a declarative statement works better IMO.

How can they know (They don't know)
why their eardrums break
leaving them directionless,
floundering, bleeding
or (why) that huge, stealthy metal fish
are silently killing them? (Remove the ? mark.)

Helpless, they watch ("Helpless" is obvious, therefore unnecessarily stated)
their brothers struggle,
drowned in drift nets’ cruel embrace.
Do they mourn the loss?

I'd end the poem with a simile in order to associate the dolphin's plight with the fact that a number of species mourn loss. For some reason I began thinking of the miltary dog mourning its fallen handler as a result of combat.

Because dolphins are playful, an even riskier simile would be the toddler out in the backyard by the family swimming pool unattended for a brief but tragic moment by a too busy parent. This may be too shocking but it makes the poem more visceral to me and the oxymoron, "cruel embrace," closer to home.

 

[Magnetron]

Helpless, they watch ("Helpless" is obvious, therefore unnecessarily stated)
their brothers struggle,
drowned in drift nets’ cruel embrace.
Do they mourn the loss?

Something needs to be stated, otherwise the remaining doplhins are just standing there with their thumbs in their blow holes.

 

[butters]

don't know about you guys, but i'm really looking forward to seeing who wrote which piece