Angeline
Poet Chick
- Joined
- Mar 11, 2002
- Posts
- 27,157
Hello Mr. SomeM and welcome to the poetry forum. I've seen your posts on the GB; you're a kindhearted soul, aren't you? The world always needs more of those, eh?
I used to be a moderator here, and sometimes I still have time to stick my two cents in. I see you welcome feedback, so I thought I'd give you some of mine.
I tend to evaluate a poem by looking at how well it is working in terms of the following: theme, structure, word choice, and mechanics (by which I mean grammar, punctuation, and spelling). Overall though, I think about how a poem communicates. A poet's task is to communicate "poetically" what he has to say to his readers. Of course, people have very different ideas about what "poetically" means, but I'd say poetry differs from prose in that prose "tells" or "explains," while poetry "shows." In prose, clarity of explanation is most important, while in poetry the images that makes a reader feel as if he or she is experiencing what the poem is about are what make it effective.
If you can get across what you intend your readers to understand and do so with strong images and interesting language, you've written something good. That, however, means you have to 1) be clear in your mind about what you're trying to say, 2) work to say it poetically, and 3) get rid of unintentional errors that are getting in the way of your achieving 1) and 2).
Not that any of this is easy to do, lol, but that's why lots of poets edit their work: to keep trying to improve toward that "poetic" goal.
Specifically, I think your poem has a lot of potential. It is obviously heartfelt and has some very strong images of a person who goes back to a house (in sort of a dream state, I think) that has been a source of both safety and rejection. It is also obviously written to someone who has passed on and who, in a sense, "is" the house. That's very good. Your poem does need a lot of work, imo, but to get what you have across in a rough draft is an excellent start. Your theme is clearly something important to you--that comes across and is in itself is a strength of this poem.
So your theme is basically working. It seems that you want to say to the house/person "I'm mixed up about what you gave me. I'm in pain from being abhored even while I was sheltered and I need to go back to this place--if only in a dream--to understand why I feel this."
I also see you are wondering about rhyme and using a rhyming dictionary. That's fine, but y'know poems can rhyme or not, and just my opinion but I'd try to resolve some of the language issues to make the poem communicate more effectively before I'd concern myself with stuff like rhyme.
Normally, when I critique I talk about structure next, but I think you have other things to fix first that may affect structure, and there's no point worrying about where to break lines or put more space in until you're satisfied that you're using the best possible words.
Word choice in your poem is, imo, too general in some places and unclear in others. It is best to be as specific as possible. You also have, as others have pointed out, unnecessary language. For example, in this phrase:
away from its clutches that had a hold on me
you have a problem with redundancy. If something is "in your clutches," it has a hold on you, so it's repetitive to say both "clutches" and "hold on me."
In poetry it is very important to be economical. That doesn't necessarily mean a poem has to be short, but you should--as much as possible--use only those words that you need to say what you want. It may take a poet many editing sessions to get rid of unnecessary language, mainly because the more you read and edit poetry, the better you get at seeing what you don't need. That happens over time (and thus means that you may go back to a poem and edit again and again until you get it where you're satisfied with it).
I think the best way for you to resolve some of the word choice (and mechanics) issues in this poem might to to write what you want to say in prose, sort of like a story. Maybe you'd say something about this recurring dream you have, then go on to describe the house (details are good!) and how it makes you feel to be there, to keep having this dream. You might also write a bit about who this house is. Is it your parents? You? Maybe it's all of you. All this will help you clarify what you want to say and the order in which you want to say it.
Your poem needs the most work on mechanics. For example, you've gotten yourself in trouble communicating the theme because your verb tenses are all over the place. You may be jumping around because you're writing about a dream that includes events that happened in the past as well as the way you presently feel about them. You can have multiple verb tenses in a poem, but you need transitions--lines or phrases, that cue your reader as to what (in the case of this poem) is a memory versus self-analysis of your current state of mind about those memories. There are other mechanics issues that you need to address, too, grammar as well as spelling and punctuation, but I wouldn't worry about dealing with them until you sort out word choice and how how you're going to effectively transition between verb tenses.
I know you said you're brushing up on English--if you want advice or you do make revisions and want more feedback, there are lots of people here who will be glad to help you (me among them).
I know I've been pretty general--not commenting much on specific lines, but you said you wanted to learn so I've just tried to convey some basic information. I hope you find this helpful and please know that my intent is to share what I've learned about writing poetry, not criticize. Whether you take my suggestions or not, just keep writing and reading lots of poetry and you will keep improving. Really, it's all about practice. Best of luck to you.
Angeline
I used to be a moderator here, and sometimes I still have time to stick my two cents in. I see you welcome feedback, so I thought I'd give you some of mine.
I tend to evaluate a poem by looking at how well it is working in terms of the following: theme, structure, word choice, and mechanics (by which I mean grammar, punctuation, and spelling). Overall though, I think about how a poem communicates. A poet's task is to communicate "poetically" what he has to say to his readers. Of course, people have very different ideas about what "poetically" means, but I'd say poetry differs from prose in that prose "tells" or "explains," while poetry "shows." In prose, clarity of explanation is most important, while in poetry the images that makes a reader feel as if he or she is experiencing what the poem is about are what make it effective.
If you can get across what you intend your readers to understand and do so with strong images and interesting language, you've written something good. That, however, means you have to 1) be clear in your mind about what you're trying to say, 2) work to say it poetically, and 3) get rid of unintentional errors that are getting in the way of your achieving 1) and 2).
Not that any of this is easy to do, lol, but that's why lots of poets edit their work: to keep trying to improve toward that "poetic" goal.
Specifically, I think your poem has a lot of potential. It is obviously heartfelt and has some very strong images of a person who goes back to a house (in sort of a dream state, I think) that has been a source of both safety and rejection. It is also obviously written to someone who has passed on and who, in a sense, "is" the house. That's very good. Your poem does need a lot of work, imo, but to get what you have across in a rough draft is an excellent start. Your theme is clearly something important to you--that comes across and is in itself is a strength of this poem.
So your theme is basically working. It seems that you want to say to the house/person "I'm mixed up about what you gave me. I'm in pain from being abhored even while I was sheltered and I need to go back to this place--if only in a dream--to understand why I feel this."
I also see you are wondering about rhyme and using a rhyming dictionary. That's fine, but y'know poems can rhyme or not, and just my opinion but I'd try to resolve some of the language issues to make the poem communicate more effectively before I'd concern myself with stuff like rhyme.
Normally, when I critique I talk about structure next, but I think you have other things to fix first that may affect structure, and there's no point worrying about where to break lines or put more space in until you're satisfied that you're using the best possible words.
Word choice in your poem is, imo, too general in some places and unclear in others. It is best to be as specific as possible. You also have, as others have pointed out, unnecessary language. For example, in this phrase:
away from its clutches that had a hold on me
you have a problem with redundancy. If something is "in your clutches," it has a hold on you, so it's repetitive to say both "clutches" and "hold on me."
In poetry it is very important to be economical. That doesn't necessarily mean a poem has to be short, but you should--as much as possible--use only those words that you need to say what you want. It may take a poet many editing sessions to get rid of unnecessary language, mainly because the more you read and edit poetry, the better you get at seeing what you don't need. That happens over time (and thus means that you may go back to a poem and edit again and again until you get it where you're satisfied with it).
I think the best way for you to resolve some of the word choice (and mechanics) issues in this poem might to to write what you want to say in prose, sort of like a story. Maybe you'd say something about this recurring dream you have, then go on to describe the house (details are good!) and how it makes you feel to be there, to keep having this dream. You might also write a bit about who this house is. Is it your parents? You? Maybe it's all of you. All this will help you clarify what you want to say and the order in which you want to say it.
Your poem needs the most work on mechanics. For example, you've gotten yourself in trouble communicating the theme because your verb tenses are all over the place. You may be jumping around because you're writing about a dream that includes events that happened in the past as well as the way you presently feel about them. You can have multiple verb tenses in a poem, but you need transitions--lines or phrases, that cue your reader as to what (in the case of this poem) is a memory versus self-analysis of your current state of mind about those memories. There are other mechanics issues that you need to address, too, grammar as well as spelling and punctuation, but I wouldn't worry about dealing with them until you sort out word choice and how how you're going to effectively transition between verb tenses.
I know you said you're brushing up on English--if you want advice or you do make revisions and want more feedback, there are lots of people here who will be glad to help you (me among them).
I know I've been pretty general--not commenting much on specific lines, but you said you wanted to learn so I've just tried to convey some basic information. I hope you find this helpful and please know that my intent is to share what I've learned about writing poetry, not criticize. Whether you take my suggestions or not, just keep writing and reading lots of poetry and you will keep improving. Really, it's all about practice. Best of luck to you.
Angeline
Some Moron said:Critique welcome. I do not know much about wiriting poetry, but learning!
People In That Order
When tonight comes I wake up to the same avenue,
Many strange things Make me know I am not awaking,
Standing,
Starring,
I do not want to run inside to the little house on the countryside,
It is broken in rejection so I fell upon my knees and cried.
Walked up to the back and ran my fingers across the sideboard,
Felt the cracks they were feeling older,
One after the other,
This little world was the only place that I called mine,
Even though in decline,
Yet I still want to run ,away from its clutches that had a hold on me
Yet looking inside the people in that order are the absentee,
If I look in all the rooms I can find out what it meant to me.
Abhorred it sheltered me,
All I find are piles of old debris,
I can't complain if I woke up to this nightmare and now I am all alone,
I am going through these rooms and do not see what I called home,
Broken,
Beaten,
I am left to this on my own.
See the large holes on these walls and these voids tiles,
In the midst of the mountainside I am lagging behind,
While the ghosts walk away,
I am left to do the rest on my own,
The people in that order left me with nobody.
Still if I work until the morn,
It will become what it used to be.
Abhorred it sheltered me,
Now it stares back in black debris,
Then explain the people in that order who went out and left me all alone,
It will be known it is the place that I called home,
Under that colf headstone dreaming you left us on our own.
But from what i can see, I like it, so keep up the good work 
