Hey! Take a look at this!

[bogusbrig]

Anyway, those were my thoughts on the poem... Of course I often follow the Dorothy Parker approach to writing and editing:

"I can't write five words but that I change seven."



jim : )

You're thoughts are appreciated Jim. The more the merrier.

There have been many fine critiques but I only have one poem but I have to admit I've got a lot out of all the replies and if I don't use everyones suggestions in this poem which it is impossible to do, I've certainly learnt alot for future poems.

I have to be honest, I'm surprised how rewarding posting a poem on the threads can be. Far more rewarding than posting in New Poems.

 

[twelveoone]

What I saw in BBs first draft was basically an eloquent work of prose:




In response to 1201 questions:

Jim,
weighing in with a counterpoint, and a couple of questions.
Counter:
Bogus just had a nuclear blast, probably the most jolting image in the poem,
I think it calls for obliterate, annihilate etc. It is far away to avoid cliche effect, and would serve to tie it together.
Questions:
old conversations
The inane chatter, the bickering and laughter, these seem a bit cluttered and in no order to me, why would you not change?

hollowness sighs with old conversations Does have a nice ring to it, but you do not think it is a good idea to cut down on the nesses?




Like Flyguy, I was uncomfortable with obliterate... well, for one, simply because the four syllables on that line felt uncomfortable. But I also wanted something less obtrusive. Yes there was a nuclear blast, but I felt the speaker in the poem had survived the blast only to die of the whimper, if you excuse my allusion to Eliot. The final cut was the abandonment of the speaker's co-conspirator (his daughter?), I didn't think it was the blast that did the speaker in, it was the silence. The house could then quietly bury him.

I kind of liked the chaotic bickering, conversations... "hollowness" might be reconsidered, perhaps changing it to something that supports the blast or shadow images better.


Anyway, those were my thoughts on the poem... Of course I often follow the Dorothy Parker approach to writing and editing:

"I can't write five words but that I change seven."



jim : )

Ohh, good points Jim, hit me with the Eliot Stick too, I stand slightly chastised.
I thank you for your openess and your answers to my questions and suffering through the mouse.
Dorothy Parker approach in general is not a bad approach, I don't think here, though, maybe between us all we can beat something better than good out of this boy.

 

[bogusbrig]

I would like opinions as to whether you feel this poem is going the right way or the wrong way.

I'm aware the last stanza needs work but am I taking it in the right direction?

The emptiness expands the dimensions of the room
To such a point, it is impossible to believe
We could have lived here so cramped

Your mother’s incessant cleaning could not prevent
The ashen shadows of the furniture, staining the walls
Like victims of a nuclear blast

The kitchen aches with the debris of old conversations
Laughter that exploded into hate filled rows
Your shriek as I chased you around the table

Carrying you off to bed with my insane monkey walk
You could not sleep without my kiss
And a thousand goodnights and sleep tights

But now you are mute or at least refuse to speak
I was supposed to be the protector of your home
But I betrayed all that we had come to be

My selfish lust lies buried in the dust
I’m abandoned by your mother, my secret lover, even you!
Now I long to be obliterated, like the contents of this home

 

[twelveoone]

No I suggest you walk away for a day, reread the suggestions, don't rush into it.
Take the lines rearrange them.
What is main thing you wish to portray? What is the secondary? What is the third, here you start burying, hinting. Decide also if you want a straight linear piece or if wish to mimic the blast. Focus on the rationale behind the suggestions, weigh them.

 

[bogusbrig]

No I suggest you walk away for a day, reread the suggestions, don't rush into it.
Take the lines rearrange them.
What is main thing you wish to portray? What is the secondary? What is the third, here you start burying, hinting. Decide also if you want a straight linear piece or if wish to mimic the blast. Focus on the rationale behind the suggestions, weigh them.

A wise suggestion. I'm putting it to bed for awhile.

 

[ishtat]

I read your work and enjoy the turmoil of energy and ideas which characterise much of it. I know I could be shot down for generalisation but I think a lot of your work could be better still if you took a scalpel or occasionally an axe to it.

I think 1201 and jthserra have made some particularly good comments. Quite a lot of your work seems to me to be a bit unfinished but with this one it appeared that you had spent rather more time than usual on it. Maybe you could take that further in future but please do not lose the sense of immediacy and freshness a lot of your work has. Sometimes unfinished is good .

 

[bogusbrig]

I read your work and enjoy the turmoil of energy and ideas which characterise much of it. I know I could be shot down for generalisation but I think a lot of your work could be better still if you took a scalpel or occasionally an axe to it.

I think 1201 and jthserra have made some particularly good comments. Quite a lot of your work seems to me to be a bit unfinished but with this one it appeared that you had spent rather more time than usual on it. Maybe you could take that further in future but please do not lose the sense of immediacy and freshness a lot of your work has. Sometimes unfinished is good .

Thanks for the vote ishtat and your comments are pertinent. I enjoy writing in the flow of creativity not so much because I like writing but because of some mental necessity to get the ideas out of my head, it's the tedious reworking and editing I hate and I tend to abandon poems with promise.

Well I've reworked this one which is the first one I've reworked for ages. Criticisms about it are welcome because I am blind to it at the moment for staring at it too long.


The emptiness expands the dimensions of the room
To such a point, it is impossible to believe
We could have lived here so cramped

Your mother’s incessant cleaning could not prevent
The ashen shadows of the furniture, staining the walls
Like victims of a nuclear blast

The kitchen awash with the debris of yesterday’s conflicts
Chatter that brewed up and exploded into hateful rows
Your shriek as I chased you around the table

Carrying you off to bed with my insane monkey walk
You could not sleep without my kiss
And a thousand goodnights and sleep tights

Gone is your school photo, the icon to your contagious laughter
The theological glue that underpinned our domestic trinity
Now my iconoclasm has rendered you mute and sulking

Standing in the eerie silence of the after blast
The stark reality I betrayed all that we had come to be
I long to have been obliterated, like the contents of this house

 

[PatCarrington]

great thread, bogus and the gang.....it looks like it belongs on thin-skinned.

bb - i think fly and jim did a terrific job cutting. if the poem were mine, i would be bending and bracing from there.