Poetry / Untitled: 1 June 2008 (3:47 AM) (Analysis)

I would change the first two lines to:
‘Drinking in starshine
Writing my last will’
And take out the 3rd line.
I don’t like the word ‘piecemeal’ although it is used correctly. I would suggest using something else though.

I like the second paragraph, but the flow is off.

P3- Did you mean ‘particular’ in L6.

P5-’rhythms and false’ I don’t like this line. ‘rhythms and lies’ I think might flow better.

P4, P5, and P6- you seem to break up thoughts here and for the reader it is difficult to understand.

P6- ‘g-o-n-e’ is how it needs put in my opinion.

P7- I think needs reworked.

Overall, I love the idea of this poem, but the flow and scheme need serious reworking to be better for the reader.

Nice. I’m not very good with poetry, haha, but I like it. Its a bit sad, and it has a nice flow. For me, it conjures up a feeling of having lost a love, maybe coming off of a break up, and having to listen to “your” song, if you know what I mean. Theres a hint of Emily Dickinson in here, especially with the title, using the date and the time (all of Dickinson’s poems where numbered, untitled, though are now typically referred to by the first line in each poem).

this starts well “drinking in starshine” is a great line

the second stanza’s words tend towards abstract vagueness. Pedicured toes is as close as you get to specific imagery. how bout a toenail color? love, heartbreak, and longing are all general terms, not specific

“you bumped hard against my chest” is the next really good line. it’s solid, the reader can see it, feel it.

“rhythms and false” i stopped there. false what? false is an modifier, it needs something to modify. this stuck out

the last stanza is only second to the first in quality, whispered apologies is a really effective impression.

very well done. maybe more specific images in the other stanzas?

My immediate feeling was, that this is the fluently flowing voice of a woman somehow forced to speak in a breathlessly panting rhythm of a man’s, her friend’s rap tunes, in order to be understood by him, to fit into his “single word world”. I don’t like it. Because I guess I’m not that way. The word and concepts and thoughts are long and beautiful and complex and need too many lines to finish and connect for him to ever get their meaning. But I get them. I want to move my cursor to the beginning of the lines and hit delete to reconnect the interrupted flows, at least in some places. And I can just see him stare at the lines, forgetting to breathe in between, and then getting dizzy from lack of oxygen. Why am being one sided? I like her, I don’t like him. I didn’t mean to. I guess that is where the lines are pointing my attention, although I actually prefer my attention to remain somewhere else. Either… on him, then I’d like to know what he owed her once, Id’ like him to have more flesh, more character, more conflict, to stand up against her flowing lines with more than just a rhythm. Or… on her. I would like one of the middle blocks to move to the end, to make it end with her story. I would like her to break loose from his rhythm, only once. I would like to hear more about the testament and how she is struggling for her freedom, than what he might spell or whisper. One of the two. Either more of a struggle between two forces, or of the freedom of one force, cutting itself loose from the other.

     This poem has potential, but I have some problems with it as well.  For starters, I kind of expected it to rhyme, which it really doesn’t.  Not all poems have to rhyme, but when they do, it really comes together.  Secondly, just nitpicking, you used the word “particulate” at the end of the third stanza.  Particulate means: “Composed of distinct particles.”  I think here you meant to use “particular.”  I bring this up b/c this is an example of the rhyming problem.  If you do it the right way you can use “particulate” for the purposes of creating a rhyme, but otherwise why bother?  
     In the second stanza you used “toes” as one line, and that stanza deals with emotions, and I was thinking “woes” which rhymes with toes and is a sad emotion.  Things like that make poems better, in my opinion.  But I’m just one man.  Good luck.

B.

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July 12, 2008

by maybeimkansas

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The use of particulate was, in fact, intentional.  Thank you, though.

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It’s a little confusing but after awhile it comes out quite touching.