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Guilt Driven
| Critical Analysis #2 |
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Guilt Driven |
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Kevin
since 1999-11-02
Posts 729Torrington, Ct, Usa 
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Well, I'm about to take two poetry classes at Uconn next semester and I figure its time to see where I stand on the way in. So rip me apart guys, Everything you help me with is appreciated. Especially the grammar and structure end. Thanks a bunch kev He looked down at his hands as if they were of their own being He looked up to a mirror and a stranger he once knew His eyes, they narrowed smaller, if to guess what he was seeing Was some cruel trick of the lighting though he knew it to be true Then giving up so slowly he allowed his eyes to close And turned a rusty faucet ‘till it refused any more Amidst the sound of dripping he threw on some tattered clothes Emptied out a pint sized bottle, staggered to the door He gazed into an orange glow he held within his palm And drew in clouds of comfort as he shivered in the cold He tried to avoid thinking as he hid within the calm Of smoking away regrets like the pastimes of the old Faces of his family flashed from corners of his mind With eyes of disappointment, though he still thought his own worse He turned away in shame with feeble hopes to leave behind The blessing that he that day swore had turned into a curse He flicked his fingers briskly, watched the ashes sail away Then turned to grab the handle of his ever-aging car And stepping in with haste he then drove off into the gray With no real place in mind on the condition it was far |
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| © Copyright 2002 Kevin Bednarz - All Rights Reserved | |||
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Trevor Senior Member
since 1999-08-12
Posts 700Canada |
Hello Kevin, Pretty good poem, takes a bit to get going but I liked the build up. Thought the structure was fine for the content but could have used periods to end lines and omit some commas. "He looked down at his hands as if they were of their own being" I think you can exclude "of". Not sure though, maybe wait for a second opinion. "He looked up to a mirror and a stranger he once knew His eyes, they narrowed smaller, if to guess what he was seeing" Consider rewording this section a bit, "looked" was just used in the first line, "smaller" seems redundant with narrowed...can you really narrow something bigger? Also "stranger he once knew." Kinda also seemed to be a contradiction. Also punctuate, find consistency in your punctuation, if you don't want periods then consider line breaks instead of commas unless of course you are using punctuation as a more specific tool and it has a more important meaning to it. Just a suggestion for a rewrite for this part...only for example purposes, I'm not trying to rewrite your poem so please don't take offense. "He stared into the mirror to face the man he once knew. His eyes narrowed to a squint as if to guess what he saw." "Was some cruel trick of the lighting though he knew it to be true Then giving up so slowly he allowed his eyes to close" Watch wording, "he knew it to be true" seems to be describing the lighting rather than his unfamiliar appearance. Perhaps change "some" to "a" or find a more descrip. word than "some",. Consider chopping out bit words that only lengthen a sentence while adding nothing, for example, "the"-"so". With omitions my suggestion for rewrite would read something like... "Was a cruel trick of lighting though he knew this not to be true Then giving up slowly he allowed his eyes to close" Like I said earlier, just an illustration of what I was talking about and not to be taken as literal. "And turned a rusty faucet ‘till it refused any more Amidst the sound of dripping he threw on some tattered clothes Emptied out a pint sized bottle, staggered to the door" I really liked this section. I thought the wording was pretty good and the flow of it was really good. Only suggestion I have is to lose "some", doesn't help describe anything or conjunct with anything. "He gazed into an orange glow he held within his palm" He held the cigarette in his palm? Ouch, must've hurt, but its very hard to smoke a cigarette when its burning a hole through your hand  Doesn't really fit content wise. "between his fingers"? "slipped between his stems"?"And drew in clouds of comfort as he shivered in the cold He tried to avoid thinking as he hid within the calm Of smoking away regrets like the pastimes of the old Faces of his family flashed from corners of his mind" Another good section. "With eyes of disappointment, though he still thought his own worse" I thought the wording in this could be tighter. Seemed really cluncky and hard to manage, may distract reader too much and doesn't fit into the flow and meter you created so well in the last half dozen lines. "He turned away in shame with feeble hopes to leave behind The blessing that he that day swore had turned into a curse" You doubled You "that" in the second line here. Consider dropping "that day", ie "The blessing that day he swore turned into a curse." or "The blessing he swore that day had turned into curse." or "The blessing he swore had turned into a curse." "He flicked his fingers briskly, watched the ashes sail away Then turned to grab the handle of his ever-aging car" Consider chopping away "Then". "And stepping in with haste he then drove off into the gray" Consider omitting "then" and "off". "With no real place in mind on the condition it was far" Really liked the way you ended this poem. Seemed to tie it up nicely. Thanks for the read. I hope this helped. Good luck at U-Conn. Trevor |
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Kevin
since 1999-11-02
Posts 729Torrington, Ct, Usa |
Hi Trevor Thank you so much for your time and effort Your suggestions Have helped alot Just one clarification for you, on the orange glow in the palm thing you know when you light a cigarette and you cup your hands around it to prevent the wind from blowing the flame out, thats what i was going for guess i need to be more discriptivebut thank you again for you effort I appreciate it |
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Kirk T Walker Member
since 2000-01-13
Posts 357Liberty, MO |
I would suggest de-prosing this a little. Let's not start a debate on prose vs. poety, okay? Basically, I suggest the chopping away of unnecessary words and phrases that Trevor suggested, perhaps to the point were complete senteces are not necessarily present. Anyway, nice start. Disclaimer: The preceding statement is just my opinion. |
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R. Dean Junior Member
since 2002-07-26
Posts 37Illinois--USA |
First off, Kevin, this piece cries for punctuation. Not only would it make it more clear, it would make it more readable as well. You might also consider a division into stanzas. Now let's look at some individual points (my comments in brackets) He looked down at his hands as if they were of their own being He looked up to a mirror and a stranger he once knew [Ok, right away you begin two successive sentences with "He" and it is not a legitimate use of anaphora, because they are not related. It makes the poem choppy in this case] His eyes, they narrowed smaller, if to guess what he was seeing [both subject and pronoun reference...not good] Was some cruel trick of the lighting [comma]though he knew it to be true Then giving up so[delete "so"] slowly he allowed his eyes to close And turned a rusty faucet ‘till it refused any more [delete "any more"] Amidst the sound of dripping he threw on some tattered clothes[comma] Emptied out a pint[hyphen] sized bottle, staggered to the door [comma, "and"] He [delete "He"]gazed into an[the] orange glow he held within his palm And drew in clouds of comfort as he shivered in the cold[try "Drawing in clouds of comfort, he shivered in the cold."] He tried to avoid thinking as he hid within the calm Of smoking away regrets like the pastimes of the old[delete all the words in this line after "regrets"....it is forced rhyme and an awkward sentence.] Faces of his family flashed from corners of his mind With eyes of disappointment, though he still thought his own worse [confused sentence] He turned away in shame with feeble hopes to leave behind The blessing that he that day swore had turned into a curse["blessing he would swear had turned into a curse." He flicked his fingers briskly, watched the ashes sail away Then turned to grab the handle of his ever-aging car[period. then delete "And" and capitalize "stepping", beginning a new sentence. And stepping in with haste he then drove off into the gray With no real place in mind on the condition it was far [after "mind" try ".....only far away."] Yours in peace, |
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