To keep the review thread clean...

[SeattleRain]

not to be a snot or anything, but I didn't think the poem was too tough to get, the images seemed pretty clear to me

So its like this: the writer wants to walk alongside someone through difficult journeys that draw metaphorical blood, and to feel the sting of the bactine that is sprayed on injured legs.... did you ever see that? you spray on the stuff and leaves a trail down your leg? isn't that pretty cool? stings but is necessary.

So, along the way they might clues in the search for truth/meaning, but they stub their toes on the Rosetta stone-- find it useless in that they use Greek as translators ("Greek to me!") and who can read Greek, come on really

then okay, they say hey- lets forget this journey through brambles and burrs and pickers and the like and walk where the deer have already cleared a path for us and then take a nap where they sleep, the softest parts of the meadow.

I know Anna has done both, actually all of these things personally, except she stubs her toes on regular stones and bleeds in Italian for some strange reason.


aye aye aye a pretty peaceful poem to be stirring up such um well, less than peaceful reactions.

it is just a poem and anna is not worth all this fuss. why don't y'all take about me for a change. it is always anna anna anna.



you like my boots?

SR

 

[RedHairedandFriendly]

Seattle Rain... I love your boots

and

I love flyguys AV...

I don't post here much, but I do click the links and read the poetry everyone pitches as good or foul, so your... boots are excellent... and his av... well.... I can't say or stare enough.

 

[flyguy69]

Seattle Rain... I love your boots

and

I love flyguys AV...

I don't post here much, but I do click the links and read the poetry everyone pitches as good or foul, so your... boots are excellent... and his av... well.... I can't say or stare enough.

You're one to talk, Miss "Does this thong make my butt look phat?"!

 

[RedHairedandFriendly]

You're one to talk, Miss "Does this thong make my butt look phat?"!

lol...

I never asked if my thong made my butt look phat...

now I have to look and judge it...

 

[flyguy69]

lol...

I never asked if my thong made my butt look phat...

now I have to look and judge it...

Careful: you could injure your neck twisting around like that. You'd better let me do the looking.

 

[RedHairedandFriendly]

Careful: you could injure your neck twisting around like that. You'd better let me do the looking.

Sighs: Well if you insist. Though I really should just lurk and wait to pounce on another poem review, or I'll get addicted to staring at your AV... and just sit on this thread all day.

 

[flyguy69]

Sighs: Well if you insist. Though I really should just lurk and wait to pounce on another poem review, or I'll get addicted to staring at your AV... and just sit on this thread all day.

I would say more about pouncing, but this thread is, after all, about keeping it clean! Now go write a poem bellies and buttcheeks, RedHotandSeductive!

 

[sophia jane]

Sighs: Well if you insist. Though I really should just lurk and wait to pounce on another poem review, or I'll get addicted to staring at your AV... and just sit on this thread all day.

You can always right click and save to your computer like the rest of us do.

 

[RedHairedandFriendly]

I would say more about pouncing, but this thread is, after all, about keeping it clean! Now go write a poem bellies and buttcheeks, RedHotandSeductive!

I was keeping it clean. I can only write the poems when the mood hits. The stories are the same but they are fantasy and the poems are more a reflection on me, so they only show up when I feel them.

 

[flyguy69]

You can always right click and save to your computer like the rest of us do.

I love the way my cursor changes when i slide it over your av, SJ!

 

[flyguy69]

I was keeping it clean. I can only write the poems when the mood hits. The stories are the same but they are fantasy and the poems are more a reflection on me, so they only show up when I feel them.

i would love to see the reflection of my belly on your buttcheeks.

So much for keeping it clean!

 

[RedHairedandFriendly]

You can always right click and save to your computer like the rest of us do.

wonderful...

I will have to slide my clicker over then.


Don't you hate it when your PM box is full and you can't say hi to a friend, because their's is full !

Off to write a bit.

 

[sophia jane]

I love the way my cursor changes when i slide it over your av, SJ!

Is that what you're calling it these days?

 

[Senna Jawa]

[...]When I was, as you said, a breath of fresh air, you were also very critical of my work, and taught me some fundamentals that I have not forgotten.

In the past I analysed some elements of your poems (my objections were rather subtle). My overall impression was positive! Until "Another Deer Path" I have never made a negative overall statement about any of your, addressed by me, poems. For a contrast, in "Another..." the elements, in their isolation, are mostly fine, but the total is not. Integration and the core are lacking.

[...]Perhaps the lack of a concrete vision is because these things I have never done, only imagined.

Maybe saying "the lack of a concrete story" would explain the situation more vividly. Instead of a concrete story being metaphorical (being a global metaphor), you have hand-made local metaphors which sound cliched even when the elements are interesting. The whole concept of a journey is cliched when treated as a concept, when a concrete instance of a journey is missing. And most every element sounds cliched when provided in a generic way, like sleeping grounds, etc. Big words by themselves are just that, big words, even when they sound as nice as sleeping grounds. Your attempts at integration, like "mud prints", shows your talent and potential. The ability to make asociations like "Rosetta stone" and "mud prints" could produce a truly great result under better circumstances.

However, it is kind of silly to critique other people's opinions and recommendations, don't you think?

"Silly" meaning "hopeless"? But these useless and even harmful "other people's opinions and recommendations" are at the core of what's wrong with the whole interactive Internet poetry business.

OK, let's look into your poem further and tell me more about the silliness.

If you consider the phrases of your poem very separately then yes, they are interesting, not boring at all, the tempo is good. Perhaps you could still make some of them more direct, stronger, still less talkative (make your PC window wide now, to give the justice to the variation, to avoid a false line break). In your first stanza

I want to feel the scratch
from the burrs and brambles of your journey,
the sting of antiseptic that leaves
a trail of cleanliness through dust
and mud.
​

you could change its meaning (the meaning is not a holy cow, it can be subordinated for the good of the poem). You could say something like:

the burrs and brambles of your journey
and the antiseptic that leaves a trail through dust and mud
scratch and sting my skin
​

The next too lines can't be defended:

Have you discovered
the other half to my truth?
​

You have never introduced any first half and suddenly hocus-pocus-magic, you are talking about the second half out of blue. It may sound smart and intellectual and poetic only to those who do not have a clue about poetry. I hope that you realise by now that a phrase like "my truth" or "the other half of my truth" is nothing but a BIG YAWN, void of poetry (even more so when coupled with the pretensious imposition like "Have you discovered"). As a local phrase, this one was perhaps the only boring one in your poem. For a contrast, Rybka has just praised poem "guilt" which is totally boring, a mouthful after a mouthful of boring talking. Also totally boring is "Her" by StormyNite--it is just a cliched text which can serve well a low level (not ambitious) song, but it is not poetry. I make these comparisons, so that one can see the situation better, to provide a context--my complementing you on non-boring phrases is not to make the overall critique pill sweeter.

Now let's look at the integration aspect of your text (my friend from the past, Barry Schwartz, would say that a poem ideally should be organic--organic is even a better term, more pristine, than just integral), i.e. everything in the poem should happen naturally, not artificially).

In general i like alliterations too, a lot. But they should be natural, not forced. They should not sound like the author is showing off. In the first stanza you have "burrs and brambles". The title however is "...Deer Path". Word "burrs" is too metalic, too foreign in this context. You are logically forcing it by connecting it with "scratches" instead of keeping your image in front of you, instead of being guided by the image.

By the same token the trail of antiseptic is just too superficial. The image now is a complete mess. Local metaphors are the guilty party. Be carteful and rather avoid them. The image does not work as a real journey, and it does not work metaphorically as a journey on the lirical subject's skin (too much mud for that), it does not work.

Phrase "that leaves / a trail" by itself sounds wonderful due to the association with the plural of "leaf". Use it on another occasion, it has a great potential (but here it adds to the mess skin+leaves+antiseptic--integration is missing, it is not organic). You are not far from a strong poem--even the association of the mud and the penicilin can be evoked (how was it historically? Do you need spiders, spider net and old bread too? ).

In the next stanza you destroy any coherence in a big way. Rosetta stone is interesting, it can be used in a poem, it has a lot of potential. But it is Egyptian, it brings hot sand and burning sun to mind, not a Deer Path. I am sure that you have your logic buried in this text but that does not help the poem (perhaps it destroys it, when forced upon a text). Now you have deer-metal-stone-Egypt/desert-Greece and finally you go back to Northern, soft, wet climate and environment like mud and moss. There are no bridges to connect all this, all this is just awkward. Look how you have jumped from a (deer) trail to stubbing toes on the Rosetta stone. Such a switch is repulsive, makes the reading an unpleasant experience. The poem becomes a trash basket, and it doesn't matter anymore that your basket contains some valuable items--without the integration, when your poem is not organic, it is still a trash basket.

All of these things are just symptoms of the main problem. You had no story to guide you, nothing specific, hence the displeasing effect despite of several good ideas. Certainly Rosetta stone has a tremendous metaphoric potential but you have wasted it, you were rushing with forcing it upon the poem. It sticks out from the poem like a sore toe, I meant thumb

Thank you Anna for your kind reaction. (You and the Wicked one are the wise ones ).

Best regards

Senna Jawa​

PS. Sorry for the repetitions in my post. It'd take long to edit it properly.

PPS.Anna, have the principle and the discipline of writing ALL of your poems to the highest of your standard, including the occasional poems written on the side of some conversations and exchanges. Poems can be, so to speak, of different magnitude, but quality wise make all of them as good as you only can. Make no excuses.

PPPS. The subforum is heading in the direction of more of the the same. I am disappointed. The wrong idea that most any poem deserves a serious discussion is a misunderstanding which, as a minimum, amounts to wasted time and bad habits. Unfortunately the harm goes much further. As you can see, the participants are zealously defending the home turf even when it is not their but your poem. Why, I was already called "obnoxious" . The subforum, just like this forum, is going to be way too selfconscious. It's impossible to gain much poetically under such circumstances, while the wrong ideas and opinions will get reinforced all the time. When an entire group of people will voice their muddy opinions like they were knowing what they are talking about, they will believe in the value of muddy thinking, muddy impressions, muddy evaluations. Like in the case of "Her" and "guilt". In the presence of this kind of nonsense any real progress is impossible.

 

[annaswirls]

Hey Senna, thank you for your elaboration. I take it to heart, and those who may read and protest, don't. He is right on. It is almost scary.

You are right, I added the Rosetta stone after I was finished because I needed some puzzle. I did not think about the implications of how this would stand out. I threw on the title, and it shows. AND I must have known, when giving it the title, that it was just more of the same. HA! Just another deer path! I did not take the time or care in writing it that I could have.

As far as criticism in the early days, you know, I have to go back and look over them. They were never mean, but you did find fault in many technical bits (introducing a name after using a pronoun is one I remember) and some complaints on the god awful questions I posed in the poem about my neice and the sidewalk. I know I have saved your reviews.

Thanks for keeping me honest.

~Jennifer

 

[WickedEve]

Hey Senna, thank you for your elaboration. I take it to heart, and those who may read and protest, don't. He is right on. It is almost scary.

You are right, I added the Rosetta stone after I was finished because I needed some puzzle. I did not think about the implications of how this would stand out. I threw on the title, and it shows. AND I must have known, when giving it the title, that it was just more of the same. HA! Just another deer path! I did not take the time or care in writing it that I could have.

As far as criticism in the early days, you know, I have to go back and look over them. They were never mean, but you did find fault in many technical bits (introducing a name after using a pronoun is one I remember) and some complaints on the god awful questions I posed in the poem about my neice and the sidewalk. I know I have saved your reviews.

Thanks for keeping me honest.

~Jennifer

Anna, not a bad poem, but I wasn't quite happy with it when I read it this morning. I really do find value in the comments SJ made, and I've been a little bothered all day about some of the comments directed toward Senna from a couple of posters--ones I like and respect. Anyway, you are fortunate to have a critique like his--even if you don't agree with all of it. I'm going to save your poem, his comments, and some of the other comments made on the poem. It's a good learning experience.

 

[Rybka]

Hooray, Hooray, It's Senna Jawa Day!

Welcome back oh Master GURU!

Teach us who would learn, spurn those who won't, and chastise us all equally!

It is great to see some truly insightful criticism again!

Respectfully, Rybka



PS: Would you please explain your recent poem "Silver"? I must admit that I have not seen an integration of title and body as you say is there.

 

[Guest]

I'll just sit here and watch.

 

[annaswirls]

Anna, not a bad poem, but I wasn't quite happy with it when I read it this morning. I really do find value in the comments SJ made, and I've been a little bothered all day about some of the comments directed toward Senna from a couple of posters--ones I like and respect. Anyway, you are fortunate to have a critique like his--even if you don't agree with all of it. I'm going to save your poem, his comments, and some of the other comments made on the poem. It's a good learning experience.

Hi Eve! I am glad you came out to watch me get spanked

I do agree with him. I have to accept the fact that I cannot be lazy about writing anymore. Well, I can, but not without being called on it.

I know I am fortunate. I am not just trying to be gracious, I really do know



Good to see you--

Anna

 

[Senna Jawa]

Thank you Anna, Eve, ironic Rybka and (especially! ) Tristesse for your kind and tolerant reaction.

Thanks for keeping me honest.

Let me comment in general about the artistic honesty and arrogance (read: dangerous self-confidence).

It will not be, Anna, about you or your writings--I know only a tiny fraction of your poems, hence it'd be indeed not proper for me to generalise. And anyway, on each poetry forum I was always happy to see new strong authors, and I was so also when you have joined Literotica. These are exciting events, toward which I looked forward.

Before your time we had on this forum an English semi-pro, who had encouraged others to post for him their texts, so that he will turn them into strong poems. That was false, it was a nonsense. Even King Solomon wouldn't be able to turn a nothing text into something of a value. All one can do is to write a new poem, which would have nothing really in common with the original.

That was an example of arrogance. Our semi-pro believed that just by the force of his knowledge and technique (which he believed that he possesed) he can produce masterpieces just like that. It was also misleading others into this kind of thinking.

Social poetic activities may fall into a similar trap. People have a good time, they feel like they can pull off anything quickly just because now they are that good (which is arrogance again). Then their texts have only a social, temporary value, but not an artistic value. When the fun is over so is the value of their texts. It doesn't have to be like this but it often is, I've seen it many times. Thus it is important on such occasions to insist on transcendenting the occasion, so that the poem will be meaningful also years after.

Interactions may dull the artistic alertness, when everybody feels a sooo important part of the public discussion. Somehow the objective values are not pursued, they are replaced by social recognition.

Interaction can be stimulating. It is much harder to do things alone. But it has to be based on an objective program, not on reciprocal assurances of progress or of whatever. There have to be technical goals.

In art, like in sport, like in science, there are methoids, there exercises,... there is a lot of objective goals which lead to mastery. If subforum will serve to comment on the poems by participants then it will not do much exept for providing good feeling to the participants.

For a better balance let me mention that I did gain from interations on Literotica: I have participated in "the same title" challenges when the proposed titles made sense to me (artistically); I've written a series of blues thanks to this board, stimulated by the respective thread or threads. Etc. On one hand I use the Literotica archive to store my poems, but on the other hand I don't write actively poems in English already for years. Literotica was helping me to keep a bit at it. It could have been better (sometimes Literotica was actually stifling me, discouraging; certain other boards had occasionally a negative impact on my eagerness to write too) but it was still good and I am grateful to the participants of this board for that.

...even if you don't agree with all of it.

Eve, how do you know?

OK, I have a question. Would it be possible to take advantage of moderation to manage the institution/construction of the twin threads? The twin threads, e.g. threads "XYZ" & "XYZ--Comments" would always appear in that order one next to the other in the listing. Thread "XYZ" or whatever its name, would be just for the initiator of the thread, while "XYZ--Comments" would be for everybody, including the initiator. This way the XYZ topic would be assured of its continuity, without any accidental or otherwise interference, while at the same time we could have a lively discussion in "XYZ--comments", if topic XYZ turned out to be interesting.

Regards,

Senna Jawa​

PS. Rybka, I'll comment on my "silver" a bit later (it's not a big deal anyway ).

 

[BooMerengue]

I don't know whats happened to everyone here. I would have killed to have SJ review/critique one of my poems when I was posting- or even now if I was still posting.

Lighten up, folks!

holy fuuuuuck.....

 

[Senna Jawa]

"silver"

PS: Would you please explain your recent poem "Silver"? I must admit that I have not seen an integration of title and body as you say is there.

silver

the reader reads between the lines --
the author gets cross-eyed


​

wh,
2005-09-15

​

**************

What can "silver" stand for in this piece? There is only one material, so to speak, thing in it, namely the author's writing.

Silver is the second most precious metal, after gold (there is also platinum, etc, but they are rare and don't count for the purpose of this comment). But silver is valued quite lower than gold. There is a saying "golden silence". Also, in Polish, and I expect that in other languages too (latin?) there is a saying "talking is silver, silence is gold".

This sets a frame for some thoughts about the text.

Regards,

Senna Jawa​

PS. I still owe you the perl code. I can post the old one. Or soon I will finish the new one (I've written about 3/4 of it, and it works, but I stopped writting it--I'll go back to it). Perhaps I'll post both. The new one will be easy to extend. In this sense it will be an open-end project. (But when Literotica changes the format of the submission page then it may spell a trouble for the program).

 

[wildsweetone]

In the past I analysed some elements of your poems (my objections were rather subtle). My overall impression was positive! Until "Another Deer Path" I have never made a negative overall statement about any of your, addressed by me, poems. For a contrast, in "Another..." the elements, in their isolation, are mostly fine, but the total is not. Integration and the core are lacking.

Maybe saying "the lack of a concrete story" would explain the situation more vividly. Instead of a concrete story being metaphorical (being a global metaphor), you have hand-made local metaphors which sound cliched even when the elements are interesting. The whole concept of a journey is cliched when treated as a concept, when a concrete instance of a journey is missing. And most every element sounds cliched when provided in a generic way, like sleeping grounds, etc. Big words by themselves are just that, big words, even when they sound as nice as sleeping grounds. Your attempts at integration, like "mud prints", shows your talent and potential. The ability to make asociations like "Rosetta stone" and "mud prints" could produce a truly great result under better circumstances.

"Silly" meaning "hopeless"? But these useless and even harmful "other people's opinions and recommendations" are at the core of what's wrong with the whole interactive Internet poetry business.

OK, let's look into your poem further and tell me more about the silliness.

If you consider the phrases of your poem very separately then yes, they are interesting, not boring at all, the tempo is good. Perhaps you could still make some of them more direct, stronger, still less talkative (make your PC window wide now, to give the justice to the variation, to avoid a false line break). In your first stanza

I want to feel the scratch
from the burrs and brambles of your journey,
the sting of antiseptic that leaves
a trail of cleanliness through dust
and mud.
​

you could change its meaning (the meaning is not a holy cow, it can be subordinated for the good of the poem). You could say something like:

the burrs and brambles of your journey
and the antiseptic that leaves a trail through dust and mud
scratch and sting my skin
​

The next too lines can't be defended:

Have you discovered
the other half to my truth?
​

You have never introduced any first half and suddenly hocus-pocus-magic, you are talking about the second half out of blue. It may sound smart and intellectual and poetic only to those who do not have a clue about poetry. I hope that you realise by now that a phrase like "my truth" or "the other half of my truth" is nothing but a BIG YAWN, void of poetry (even more so when coupled with the pretensious imposition like "Have you discovered"). As a local phrase, this one was perhaps the only boring one in your poem. For a contrast, Rybka has just praised poem "guilt" which is totally boring, a mouthful after a mouthful of boring talking. Also totally boring is "Her" by StormyNite--it is just a cliched text which can serve well a low level (not ambitious) song, but it is not poetry. I make these comparisons, so that one can see the situation better, to provide a context--my complementing you on non-boring phrases is not to make the overall critique pill sweeter.

Now let's look at the integration aspect of your text (my friend from the past, Barry Schwartz, would say that a poem ideally should be organic--organic is even a better term, more pristine, than just integral), i.e. everything in the poem should happen naturally, not artificially).

In general i like alliterations too, a lot. But they should be natural, not forced. They should not sound like the author is showing off. In the first stanza you have "burrs and brambles". The title however is "...Deer Path". Word "burrs" is too metalic, too foreign in this context. You are logically forcing it by connecting it with "scratches" instead of keeping your image in front of you, instead of being guided by the image.

By the same token the trail of antiseptic is just too superficial. The image now is a complete mess. Local metaphors are the guilty party. Be carteful and rather avoid them. The image does not work as a real journey, and it does not work metaphorically as a journey on the lirical subject's skin (too much mud for that), it does not work.

Phrase "that leaves / a trail" by itself sounds wonderful due to the association with the plural of "leaf". Use it on another occasion, it has a great potential (but here it adds to the mess skin+leaves+antiseptic--integration is missing, it is not organic). You are not far from a strong poem--even the association of the mud and the penicilin can be evoked (how was it historically? Do you need spiders, spider net and old bread too? ).

In the next stanza you destroy any coherence in a big way. Rosetta stone is interesting, it can be used in a poem, it has a lot of potential. But it is Egyptian, it brings hot sand and burning sun to mind, not a Deer Path. I am sure that you have your logic buried in this text but that does not help the poem (perhaps it destroys it, when forced upon a text). Now you have deer-metal-stone-Egypt/desert-Greece and finally you go back to Northern, soft, wet climate and environment like mud and moss. There are no bridges to connect all this, all this is just awkward. Look how you have jumped from a (deer) trail to stubbing toes on the Rosetta stone. Such a switch is repulsive, makes the reading an unpleasant experience. The poem becomes a trash basket, and it doesn't matter anymore that your basket contains some valuable items--without the integration, when your poem is not organic, it is still a trash basket.

All of these things are just symptoms of the main problem. You had no story to guide you, nothing specific, hence the displeasing effect despite of several good ideas. Certainly Rosetta stone has a tremendous metaphoric potential but you have wasted it, you were rushing with forcing it upon the poem. It sticks out from the poem like a sore toe, I meant thumb

Thank you Anna for your kind reaction. (You and the Wicked one are the wise ones ).

Best regards

Senna Jawa​

PS. Sorry for the repetitions in my post. It'd take long to edit it properly.

PPS.Anna, have the principle and the discipline of writing ALL of your poems to the highest of your standard, including the occasional poems written on the side of some conversations and exchanges. Poems can be, so to speak, of different magnitude, but quality wise make all of them as good as you only can. Make no excuses.

PPPS. The subforum is heading in the direction of more of the the same. I am disappointed. The wrong idea that most any poem deserves a serious discussion is a misunderstanding which, as a minimum, amounts to wasted time and bad habits. Unfortunately the harm goes much further. As you can see, the participants are zealously defending the home turf even when it is not their but your poem. Why, I was already called "obnoxious" . The subforum, just like this forum, is going to be way too selfconscious. It's impossible to gain much poetically under such circumstances, while the wrong ideas and opinions will get reinforced all the time. When an entire group of people will voice their muddy opinions like they were knowing what they are talking about, they will believe in the value of muddy thinking, muddy impressions, muddy evaluations. Like in the case of "Her" and "guilt". In the presence of this kind of nonsense any real progress is impossible.

thank you Senna Jawa for such a thorough explanatory critique of annaswirls poem. the things you've said 'feel' right and make sense to me, i therefore feel i've learnt a lot. thank you for taking the time to detail your critique.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

There, Senna. Wasn't that a lot more fun and productive than the usual approach? Not too difficult, is it?

 

[Senna Jawa]

wrong address

There, Senna. Wasn't that a lot more fun and productive than the usual approach? Not too difficult, is it?

I don't care about your usual approach, hence I will not comment. And anyway, since my approach is a lot more productive and more fun, why won't you switch? (I don't know about "not too difficult" in your case though).