Poetry / Or (Analysis)

pretty good

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September 18, 2008

by kan8

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your not hahah

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Hello there.

Firstly I should point out that I don’t really go in much for poetry, so take everything I say with a huge pinch of salt, okay?

This was an interesting exercise in sentence building, I see, since you like to use the same starting word for each of four lines within a stanza to make it a uniform body, then use the same final elements within each line to bond the whole poem together.

I thought this was an interesting use of structure, with well chosen words to begin each line.

On the negative side, you sacrificed ‘clarity’ for ‘structure’.  Although some of the sentences have clear meaning (only present between past and future) the meaning of others is difficult to understand (Only me at two feet).

I think you should have attempted to make the last sentence, as your ‘concluding’ sentence, a little clearer and more obviously linked to the preceeding theme.

However, sometimes even the best poets write material which is very difficult to interepret.

As a thought, if you decide to redo this in the future, I’d use ‘I’ for my first stanza, eg:

I balance upon the point of a mountain
I balance between past and future
I balance from a creative torrent
I balance at 2 feet above the ground

Then follow this with the ‘only’ and ‘no’ stanzas, and end on ‘this’, so then you have:

I …
only …
no …
this …

I think you can see what I mean.  But that’s only a suggestion of how you can bring a third structure into an already very nicely structured piece.

So, in conclusion, I’d love your double stucture and balance here, but would like to see a little more clarity, which I think might be enhanced by bringing in a third element to the structure.

Cheers,

Chris :-)

An interesting use of repitiion, it drives the plymorphus meanings into the reader.

Jordan*

Hello~
I very much like the phrase “no running from a creative torrent”; it is eloquent and speaks volumes, also tells the reader alot about the writer.

There is some beautiful imagery in this piece, but I am not convinced this current version is your best. I don’t feel you have crafted this as finely as you’re capable of. The message you’re conveying is heavy-duty, insofar as I understand it. “No fear at two feet above the ground” reflects the necessity of risk-taking, if one is to achieve goals. These are important messages, messages that inspire and lift consciousness. I would ask you to consider re-working this, go for a more streamlined language; language with greater impact and imagery. Using “This balance” four times, and beginning the second stanza with “No” for each line, as well as “only” in the third stanza is not a useful technique; it does not serve your message well, is self-conscious and obvious and loses your reader.
The experience of reading poetry should be an “AHA!” moment. The skilfull poet brings you the message through the back door of your consciousness, using carefully thought out devices which are subtle but effective. The moment the reader has to stop to think about how you’ve written the piece, the devices you’ve used, you’ve taken them out of the piece and into your writing, which never works. Do you understand what I mean ?
  I would urge you to make study of your favorite poets. If you have no favorites, may I suggest Pablo Neruda, Octavio Paz and Rilke ?? Rilke especially should be wonderfully instructive for you; there are entire classes in each sentence he wrote. If I could, I’d give you that homework, ask you to re-write this piece after you’ve put in some serious wood-shedding.
I can see this piece is important to you, but you want it to be important to the reader as well. I KNOW you can do this; the inherent message you’ve conveyed here tells me that.
   Please re-work it ?
Best Regards to you and thank you for trusting me with your work.
Susi

I’ve always been a fan of solid repetition.  The flow is fluid, phrasing is also very liguid, each line flowing into the next quite seamlessly.

The content however, seems to have been lost to me.  I’m sure with some though I could place some kind of personal meaning to it, but thats not really the point of poetry, at least in my opinion.

In any case, well done.

I like the way you went from balance to unbalanced to just being.  I dont know what grabbed me about this but you have done it! Simple but thoughtful!  Way to go and keep it up!

A nice experiment. A good idea, well written. But from this poem only I can’t decide for sure about your talent. I should read more of you.