Poetry / A Salute to Youthful Rage

LOL…Don’t hold back, tell me what you REALLY think.
lololol

I’m curious, why all the animosity? Many of your remarks came across as insults aimed at me personally, and not simply a critique of my work.

    Of course there is no rule saying you have to like others’ work, and you are free to critique those things that you do not like, but the people who use this site tend to express their thoughts in a respectful manner, even concerning a piece they may not have cared for. Your review felt more like mud-slinging and some sort of odd personal challenge than it did a thoughful and worthwhile review.

I can completely believe that you found this piece as ‘confusing’ as you claim, for you seem to have missed the point of it entirely. From its title to its very last line, it was a salute to the wisdom of young people, not to that of myself.

(well, most young people anyway…)
    

Strictly speaking there are too many errors to mention.  No emotions of mine entered into it.  Mentions of tossing entire work was simply to economize the fact that the work is unsaveable as is.  Needs a severe rewrite, restructure, so much in fact, I don’t think it is possible to rework.  Sorry you take suggestions as insults.  I had noticed more, but limited these in my review. People’s feelings never get in the way of my honesty.  Nothing personal, in fact I offer up my apologies to you if I seemed offensive.  On the other hand if you simply do not value my review because it was negative, please do not attribute this to my age, as your last line seems to do.  

This theme would sound glorious if re-done.  Youth typically starts each stanza, but gets ommitted in two of three paragraphs from the end. Instead ‘shit man’ and ‘so please tell me’.  Counting lines in paragraphs, there seems to be no structure to how these were laid out.  Even if lenghts are to change this can be done within a pattern.  As to the break ‘and I saw my parents’, if this was the only instance of this it makes quite the impression.  But because later on there is ‘shit man’ (3 lines) then ‘it would make  a funny’ (2 lines) it sucks the punch out of the ‘first’ meter deviation.  What further complicates things is that ‘shit man’ has no punch.  ’It would make a funny’ is a good one, but again when out of sync with ‘and I saw’ it instead forces the brain to register the choppiness instead of of the thought.  

Speaking of ‘shit man’, the vernacular is sadly out of place with the ‘older wise’ voice.   So is that ‘girl’s ass’, although this fits more to add a touch of the revolting.  

Without siting each one, it is clear there is no ‘rhyme scheme’.  This is fine, but by paragraph 3 there is rhyme sneaked in at the end.  #4 starts in with more rhymes as does #5.  Even when there are rhymes they are very inconsistent.  This has a jarring effect and again, is registed more than the message.

If meter and rhyme scheme (or lack of one) had been utilized to achieve something like a military march, or even mirror disorganized angry youth, this could have been beautiful.  Even disorganization must be patterned.  

Topic wise, ‘the youth’ are given only so much detail as they are ‘shaking their fits’, ‘railing against’ and ‘shaking fists’ (again) in #1.  They are ‘seeing’ ‘listening’ ‘questioning’ etc., almost in a passive sense.  We get far more detail about times past, even Monica’s ass then youth to whom is dedicated.  It seems more a salute to why you were enraged when young and what you were enraged over. Even Monica incident is something that barely registered emotion for anyone who is now under 35.  I doubt 18 year olds feel a burning in their chest over this.  

There is no real mention of what is angering  the youth.  That is why the piece comes off as pretentious.  Find out at least before writing was these are, other than the war in Iraq. Even the way the war was mentioned sounds like is referring more to older protester types than the young.  The older one imparting sympathizing advice to youth is wonderful, but this takes front and center stage and the audience or their feelngs and interests sadly, seem far off to the side.  

The confusion comes in, when placed together: meter, scheme, varying lengths of individual lines, speed, pacing, weaving in and out of themes without pattern, and lack of continuity between topics.  I was honestly left thinking what is this mess?, rather than being moved at the work itself.

With so much to work with, a rework and rewrite could do wonders for this.  The youth are not merely listening, watching, and disbelieving.  

They are seeing their friends blown to bits in a distance country while they are left at home to pick up the pieces.  They are underemployed, many still living at home, unable to survive on their own against inflation.  They are not valued by the preceding generations who feel that flipping burgers and washing cars is a suitable niche for them.  They emerge from the school system undereducated and underequipped to make decisions.  They are forcefed consumeristic agenda day in and day out.  They are disenfranchised, rarely standing as a group due to racial and class schisms.  Unlike the youth of long ago, before the educational system was destroyed, few youth know the cause of their anger, beyond the vague feeling that something is not right.  They frankly lack education and the foundation to dissect and analyze: they lack the tools and a frame of reference. Their lifetime remembers not an era without school shootouts and fear.  

Not to sound preachy, but the raw and painful plight of the youth is sorely lacking in this piece, if even the emotional end.  There is so much to work with here, so much potential.  Sorry I think this piece was just bad writing and nothing more.  I did not mean to offend.

BTW, I noticed that you removed me as your friend.  Odd way to keep your average review number up.  Perhaps you aren’t looking for honest reviewers, after all.

I removed you because I found you to be obnoxious and insulting if you want the truth. Your Freudian slip is showing, and for some reason, you’ve displayed obvious issues over my mention of youth, as if you perceived in it a personal attack on you. I don’t know what your persecution complex springs from and frankly, I don’t care. Take it up with a mental health professional. There is a simple solution, if you don’t like my work, don’t read it. Makes a lot more sense than hopping up and down saying “you just think you are smarter than everyone else…”

I doubt many would disagree with me when I say that telling another writer their work belongs in a trash can is highly innapropriate, and is certainly not constructive, no matter who you are speaking with. That is called ‘flaming’, and while you may think such comments create the illusion of superiority on your part, they in fact highlight something altogether different.

I think some fast actin’ Tinactin is just what is called for this Burning Rash.  Dude, you are totally insane…your grasp of modern literary convention is non-existant.

You know, you probably ought to get that “rash” looked at…it could be a communicable disease, and given the impairment to brain function, I’m betting it’s indicative of the early stages of Syphallis.  My condolences, oh Great Literati.

I just gave an entire review (without the benefit of credits) as to what is wrong with the poem.  I apologize and yet the original review is cited as the reason for offense, without really mentioning the huge explanation given afterward.  Sorry, you’re right, I shouldn’t have said it the way I did initially.  I then explained one by one the serious flaws.  I don’t have a persecution complex when I merely state that the ‘youth’ is represented in the passive sense with an almost ‘deer in the headlight’ look on their collective face.  It doesn’t make me the smarter for pointing out what needs work.  I suppose you keep people on your friends network as long as they give you glowing reviews and not criticism of any sort.  

This guy’s just jealous

Thanks, I’m glad you liked it. Your right, that apostrophe doesn’t belong there, thanks for pointing it out. Did you really feel I was degrading todays youth? I’m surprised at that, as I never intended it to sound that way. Anyway, yes, I like the random rhyme, most of my work is done that way. Thanks for your review.

You’re welcome, and well, yes, you slightly insult the younger generation but it is very subtle. And don’t worry, it just makes it that much better.

My oh my. While I very much appreciate your review, and that you enjoyed this piece, how can I say this without sounding ungrateful? 518 words, and a cost of 300 credits to me to find out that you simply liked it, and wanted to repeat most of it back to me was a little excessive. I wasn’t going to open this, because of the cost in credits, and I actually checked out a few more of your reviews first, and saw that they go into the hundreds of words even on something as simple as a haiku. I paid the 300 credits just so I could suggest to you that when doing reviews, it’s really not the proper place to practice your writing skills, or see how many adjectives you can cram into one piece. The longest reviews I have recieved were perhaps 100-130 wrds., and were that long because they were filled with suggestions. If you want to tell someone you liked their work, you can do that in a sentence or two, allow them to reply, and then expand on your thoughts in the reply, where it costs nothing. Basically, it looks like you write them so long just for the credits you are paid, not because they are filled with helpful info.

Sorry, this is not meant to offend in any way, but eventually, people will just stop opening your reviews at all, beause they’ll feel that it’s probably ‘padded for points’, and nothing more. I would hate to see that happen.

You obviously didn’t get me.  I was trying to be specific, not repeat things back to you.  If that was my intention I would have cut and paste sentences from your work as others do.  It’s not for credits, sorry I wasted my time. I won’t repeat this in the future.  

I understand you were being specific, and I’m sorry that my 4am bluntness offended you. Believe it or not, I was trying to be helpful. Your profile says you’ve done 114 reviews, yet if you look, only 50 of them have been actually opened, which says that more than half of what you had to say never got heard, probably due to the length of the review. If I didn’t think you had anything valid to say, I wouldn’t have bothered to explain this. This is supposed to be a writers workshop of sorts, and you have to grow thicker skin. I was merely offering you a suggestion to get more of reviews heard, which will give you the opportunity for more give-and-take with other writers.
Again, my intention was not to offend.

Oh, and BTW, in the reference to ‘a few righteous men’, I was talking about John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and others who were assasinated/murdered during this time. Kennedy’s death allowed a shift of power, and those pushing for the Viet Nam war were able to get their way, once they got the ‘problems’ out of the way.

C’mon, don’t be mad, I have PMS, so I’m grouchy to everybody....(smile)

Oh I see. Although I suppose these were important events it is hard to wrap one’s mind around the effect they would have had since these are before my time.  At best my understanding is purely intellectual since I can only guess at the state of the country prior to these happenings.  The spiritual, cultural and even emotional climate prior to these, not to mention the attachment the average person did or did not have to each of these figures.  It’s funny, but most people my age spend a much larger amount of brain juice pondering the deaths of Janis J., Jim M., and Jimi H., not to mention John L.  Perhaps because we can connect to them through their music and in that way experience losing them. Oh well, at least gas is down to $2.19 a gallon…

In thinking about it, you’re right, youth should be Youth. Thanks for pointing that out. Yes sadly, the same movie keeps playing; oh, they’ll do a remake every twenty years or so, change the characters around a bit, give them new names, but in the end it’s the same old horror flick…the fodder of what all bad dreams are made of.
This subject is personal to me for many reasons, one of them that I live in a military-based community, (just outside one of the largest army bases in the US), and I actually SEE these kids that are being sent to war. See them every day, and I can tell you, they do not come back the same. The stories they have to tell would infuriate and horrify you. The nice, neat images we are given on TV are mostly staged, they’ve told me, guys told where and how to stand for the tv crews after they’ve cleaned up a bit. I could go on and on, there are so many stories, but you’re probably right, free speech is costly now-a-days.

Yeah…America is ugly…we train our puppies to heel and kill, not to play and love.  Anyone whose ever been anywhere else knows how skewed our self-image is…that media is the worst source of information, filtered and edited…it’s called television “programming” for a reason.

lol…very well put.

Well, thank you so much. I’m glad you liked it.