My attempt at poetry
 

I fell in love with this rhyme scheme a ways back and wrote this poem. I found out later that it's a slam poetry meter and rhyme scheme. All criticism is welcome.

I call it, "A Dedication"

To the girl who challenges all paradigms
Who sanctifies with but her eyes
What to myself I relate beneath my sighs
And berate my mind for my own fate.

A security blanket if the soul be timid
Anonymity burrows my whole daring each breath
To be bolder than the last (dare it be shy, dare it to pass)
What's causing me to lose all control?

Clutching the clandestine, you are the light
To every cry and every fright, you insti-
-gate the healing of all you love and all you find
But this digs you deeper into my mind.

We create for ourselves a considerable crisis
Left to our own devices what will suffice is
Strife to our core, which is what life is
Gluttony of Dionysus, we beg for more.

Dictated by ambition, we continue on
Strands of sanity plucked until they're gone
For the rest of our days, all that's left is set ablaze
What is it I'm failing to see?

Chasing non-existent wishes, together we are lost
In a passionless enigma at the cost of paths crossed
We yearn firstly for class since our desire is to learn
Because education cannot wait its turn.

Re: My attempt at poetry
 

This poem is really fun to say out loud, but at the end of the first reading, one comes away with little idea of what most of the poem was about. It little matters if you're writing purely for yourself, but if you ever intend it to be heard or read, try to keep the audience in mind. There are too many abstractions. Readers really like concrete actions and descriptions that resonate within them - something abstractions rarely do, even if they're understood in the first place (which they rarely are). Try to be clear and concise. A few poignant lines go a lot farther than a long rambling poem.

I advise a more generous use of punctuation. You know how it's supposed to be sound, how the sentences are broken down, but no one else does if you don't punctuate. Part of what made this poem confusing was that you ran many phrases into each other, making it difficult to understand where one ended and another began.

The meter is off on the last line. Fix it. The last thing said is important; it's your sit-down line, the one that sticks in people's heads. If it's awkward, that impression will taint the rest of the poem more so than a few messed up lines in the middle will.

P.S.
The fourth stanza is my favorite; internal rhyme rocks! Never stop playing with words and sound! :)

Re: My attempt at poetry
 

I take pride in confusing readers and forcing multiple readings :D

But seriously, the was originally written to be an anonymous poem in a small publication with an even smaller circle of readers within my college's community. It's easier to see what it's about with that in mind - it laments the near impossibility of achieving happiness through true love in college because of how busy we always are, it's also supposed to incite some 'sieze the day' mentality.

I'm also torn on the last line. It was actually changed a good few months after I originally wrote the poem. The meter being off doesn't bother me mainly because I know how to read it so it just sounds more dramatic instead of awkward, and the incongruence helps bring attention to the line, but if it sounded too strange, I definitely see where you're coming from. The original line was 'Because we are not f-ing Northwestern.' Which was fine for the original small publication (I didn't at the time intend to share it further than that), but to share it beyond that I would need to remove the swear and the allusion to my particular school.

Thank you so much for your thoughts!

Re: My attempt at poetry
 

I like it, though, it has some difficult words that I hardly understand.
And for me, it's to... "light".
I like dark poems better.

Anyway, once again, I like it.

Re: My attempt at poetry
 

great one year bump

also

how can you only revel in one side of the emotional spectrum

besides, this isn't a happy poem

Re: My attempt at poetry
 

Haha well I appreciated the bump. This was my first thread on FFR haha.

Maybe next time I'll make a poem about how this girl makes me want to tear out my intestines and paint her portrait with them. Maybe that will be dark enough for Mecha haha <3

Re: My attempt at poetry
 

at night

in a blackout

and there's a lunar eclipse

Re: My attempt at poetry
 

The night was black as pitch
I wanted to pound that *****
.....So I sat on my rump
.....And took a huge dump
And painted her picture in ****.

Re: My attempt at poetry
 

Epic limerick :)
Much better than the first poem
Which was sweet (in the cool way, not the romantic way)

Re: My attempt at poetry
 

Lawl. I'm pretty much in love with that right there. You'd have to hope it's dark enough. :D or is it :(

Anyway, I do like the poem. I took the time to read the whole thread without noticing the year bump. I can't, though, place the meaning of this poem. I'm having one of those moments where you have the Devil on one shoulder and the Angel on the other. Both are giving me an idea of what this poem is getting at, yet I can't bring myself to choose one.

I'm going to go out on a limb with my assumptions because 1) most of those words I don't know and, 2) I'm not great with guessing. I'm thinking that it could go one of two ways. Love lost for the persuit of a better education or education with the love of your life. Similar concepts in each(love and education) but neither, I can assume, are right. I'd love to know what the hidden meaning was for this poem, Chaz.

-o24

Re: My attempt at poetry
 

Well the original intent was the first interpretation you had. It was to lament the lack of opportunity to enjoy love in an academic atmosphere because personal scholastic pursuits take precedence over love.

But as the years have gone by since I wrote this many more interpretations have surfaced for this poem. I'll leave it to you to find them out ;)

Re: My attempt at poetry
 

I liked the flow and it was clever, but it could have used more imagery. Like the first response said, you come away with little of what the poem is about. A good poem, to me, will put pictures in my head - and that's hard to do because I don't think in pictures.

And I think it's a little long.

But other than that, it's pleasant.


.... also seems to be a mega-bump. Damn it.

Re: My attempt at poetry
 

I'll admit that the images I was trying to create were more abstract than tangible, like "clutching the clandestine," "strands of sanity plucked until they're gone," and others.

Thanks for reading!