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Raven
| Critical Analysis #2 |
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Raven |
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Musel Junior Member
since 2008-07-17
Posts 34 |
A dark haired raven flies amongst my dreams, Her memory bombards my every sense. I think of her and thoughts burst at their seams, Yet all at once she’s at some distant fence. Emotions swell just like a raging sea, Experience, it calls me to forget. These thoughts torment, tornadoes chasing me, Weighed down by a heavy cast, already set. I realise that in all ways she’s out of reach, Does this deter me? NO, I want her more. These thoughts they drain, a giant recurring leech, Fed only by her kiss that I long for. I understand that in a different time or place it might have been, I grope in fear at a chance that I have missed. Yet deep inside the monster rages green, I clutch and grasp at our forbidden kiss. In short, confusion rampant runs and I still fret, As these thoughts linger, I know I must relent. Her face, her eyes, her smile I can’t forget, For in the end I know she's heaven sent. |
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moonbeam
since 2005-12-24
Posts 2356 |
This isn't bad at all as a beginner's first attempt at writing in a meter called iambic pentameter. Elsewhere in this forum there is plenty of advice about meter and specifically about IP which is like the bedrock of metric verse. To save me typing out a whole lot of stuff about meter it would be good if you could give some feedback, and do some work! and as this is your first foray into CA, tell us what you know about iambic pentameter, and how your poem accords with that pattern. Are you able to scan it for us? For instance check out S4L1 and let me know what you think is "wrong" with it. Are there any other odd metric patterns? If you don't know what I'm talking about, just say. That's good too  .Apart from the meter there are other common beginner "errors" in this poem. If you google the phrase "forced rhyme" and perhaps "poetic inversion" that might be a good start. We can move on to abstractions and cliches later! Analysis is a two way process. Let's hear from you. You could delete the other thread too, it's just a duplicate I think. M |
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chopsticks Senior Member
since 2007-10-02
Posts 888The US, |
“Are you able to scan it for us? “ I hope you are. Here’s my try on the first line and I know that some of it is right : ( The law of average, a blind pig ) - / / - / / - / / / A dark haired raven flies amongst my dreams . (This was done electronically) |
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Musel Junior Member
since 2008-07-17
Posts 34 |
Hi Chopsticks and Moonbeam, Thank you for reading Raven. I am very new to this and so I welcome any critical analysis so that I can improve. Firstly, I am aware nof iambic pentameter and the rules that govern such poetry i.e lines of five feet consisting of stressed and unstressed syllables. I wrote this however, oblivious to IA, it's simply the way the ryhymes came out in my head. But having reviewed in in the sense of sticking to IA, I know that some of the lines do not reach the required 10 syllables in order to conform. In that sense, thanks because I realise now that the whole thing if continuing from the first verse should remain like that I realise that there are forced rhymes in some parts, due mostly to the fact that as a newcomer to writing poetry I felt that good poems needed to rhyme and as such, I tried from the beginning to make sure it had a rhyming flow to it. Since having read lots of potery recently online, I have realised that this is not the case, however I struggle to write anything worthwhile if not in rhyme. The poetic inversion in the second last and last stanza's were certainly to ensure this rhyming scheme remained, although I do feel they had some positive impact on the flow of the words. Obviously I am biased and it may not appeal to others. Excuse my ignorance, but is this technique frowned upon in as a method of effective poetry? Chopsticks, I am unsure as to what you mean by, "this was done electronically". If you mean that I somehow created this line using some sort of technology then I assure you that this is definitely not the case, everything in that poem is my own. If I have misunderstood your meaning then I aplogogise. Do you have any suggestions as to how this piece can be improved from a technical standpoint? Thanks again for your comments Musel |
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Musel Junior Member
since 2008-07-17
Posts 34 |
Also, what do you mean by, " am I able to scan it for us"? Musel |
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chopsticks Senior Member
since 2007-10-02
Posts 888The US, |
Dear Musel, I was not implying that you were using electronics to do anything. I was saying I was. I was using electronics to scan the first line of your poem , but since I was using my voice, I could be wrong. On somebody’s 20 rules for poetry, scanning is rule number 20, but for me it is quite interesting. You are in good hands with Moonbeam. |
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moonbeam
since 2005-12-24
Posts 2356 |
Hi Musel, thanks so much for coming back on this. I asked you the questions I did mainly to try and establish how much you knew about what you were trying to do. I know that sounds a bit patronising, I don't mean it to be, it's just that one can waste a lot of time covering ground that someone already has a good grasp of. You clearly know a bit about meter. IP is indeed lines of 5 feet. Each foot comprises an unstressed first syllable and a stressed second, so: da DUM You can show this effect on the first lines of your poem as follows: a DARK/haired RA/ven FLIES/am MONG/my DREAMS, her MEM/or RY/bom(BOM) BARDS/my EV/ry SENSE [Bom could be stressed] If you follow that, you should be able to apply it to the rest of your poem. Have a go a typing it out, showing the feet split by the / and the stressed and unstressed syllables UPPERCASE and lowercase. You will find that you are unable to make some of your lines fit the iambic pattern. Don't worry about that right now. Just see how you get on. If you can do it, you will have learned how to SCAN a poem for its meter. You might wonder why I'm apparently avoiding just telling you what's wrong with this poem specifically, and why I'm not just making suggestions for improvement. Think of it this way: One day you're walking down a street and you see a guy trying to repair a road. The surface of the tar keeps breaking up, and as it happens you have in your car some wonder quick fix tar which you know will make the surface quite pretty for a while. You leap out and give the stuff to the poor guy, telling him where to put it and all the while practically holding his hand to help him do it. You know however that the problem under the road which has caused the tar to break, a leaking drain, will reoccur pretty soon after the repair has been made. More to the point you don't have the time or energy to show the guy the root of the problem and show him how to fix the underlying issue. So some weeks late you are driving the same way, and there he is again, stuffing tar in a crack, trying to make the surface seem whole. So long as he doesn't understand the root cause of the problem, and so long as he just applies quick fixes in a mechanistic manner without actually understanding what he's doing, his work will never produce fine long lasting results. Sure I can help you do a quick fix on this poem. But tampering with it won't ever make it particularly good. You won't learn a great deal, and I won't feel like I've done much to help improve your writing. What you have to decide Musel, is whether you are interested in writing just for your own pleasure and that of, say, your girlfriend/boyfriend, family and (not meaning in anyway to be unkind) the readers of the Open forum who are there to be kind to you as a person, or whether you want to write to appeal to a wider audience who don't know you as a person and don't even care about you as a person, but nevertheless think that your writing is wonderful. If it's the former, then you may be sure that you will likely receive praise for whatever you write, and what you write may be good, but may perhaps be awful! Because you've posted here in CA I'm assuming you might like to improve as a writer of poetry. If this is the case then you need to think beyond this particular poem to what your poetry is all about. First off, good poetry is not about good rhymes! It's not even about good meter! Sure, they might be part of a good poem, but the very last thing you should be thinking about is producing "good" rhymes at the expense of everything else. Moreover writing well with perfect end rhyme and therefore meter is hard! So hard in fact that even experienced poets have problems sounding convincing sometimes. Many experienced poets writing using rhyme and meter "take refuge" in one of the well established "forms", like the sonnets you'll see posted here recently. From what you've written in your poem above I suspect you have what might be called a "natural" ear. You've written quite a few lines of near perfect IP without apparently doing so consciously. Some people have quite a few problems teaching themselves to do that. So you clearly have an ear for meter. That's good because understanding how to write metrically is an underlying skill for all poetry, including free verse! There's a saying you probably know: "you have to know the rules, before you can break them". By all means practise writing in the different forms of meter. You could try, for instance, just writing in un-rhyming iambic pentameter, called "blank verse". Forgetting about the rhymes helps you to concentrate on writing something sensible and interesting! But the core of my advice to you is to think about making your poetry fresh and appealing. Rehashing, phrases that have been used a million times before like "heaven sent", and writing using a lot of abstract nouns like "fear" and "confusion" simply turns experienced readers of poetry right off. What close readers of poetry want is for you to SHOW the fear and confusion you feel, not simply to tell us you feel them. To some extent you are moving toward that with such images as the "raging sea" and the "monster raging green", but these are tired overused phrases, which to a great extent have lost their impact to be able to show your particular story, through being written so many times before. No! You must grab your readers' attention with original thought and image. One of the best ways to do this is to write from your own every day experience in a simple straightforward manner. Take a look at the poem on this board by BobK "The Unseen ..." - note how the language is uncomplicated, and the story unfolds gently portraying the scene with the use of some very novel imagery. You can almost see those little bars of soap hanging there in the cut off panty hose, no? Images can be very powerful. Try describing some of the different emotional states you might feel during a week. Instead of saying "I was real nervous when my boss called me in", say "a nearby Dracaena trembled as I stepped through the boss's door". See how the image of the pot plant gives a new slant, and the strong verb "tremble" helps to bring the action alive? Note too that this isn't any old plant. I didn't say "the plant trembled". Introducing specific detail into a poem GREATLY increases the chances of it becoming compelling reading. Look again at BobK's panty hose image (you can tell I'm into panty hose, no?  ), he doesn't just say that some soap was hung up, he describes exactly what soap it was. Higher up the poem, he pins the sheets of paper and describes the exact make of knife. This allows the careful reader to build up a convincing interesting picture of the scene. I could go on all night to talk about, sound in poems, tone, slant rhyme, pace, use of line endings, etc etc. but what you really really need to do next is to start reading as much good contemporary poetry as you can lay your hands on, and buy yourself a good poetry handbook, which will help you far more than we can here. I use this amazing little book: In the Palm of Your Hand: The Poet's Portable Workshop (Paperback) by Steve Kowit (Author) easily obtainable from Amazon. I hope this has helped. Are you reading any poetry now? If so I'd be interested to hear who? If not, get reading!! And when you've delved into a handbook, and read a few good contemporary poets, perhaps the anthology: Staying Alive: Real Poems for Unreal Times (Paperback) by Neil Astley then try your hand at writing another poem about your love, or anything else for that matter! It will be great to see how you progress. Any questions, don't hesitate to ask. M |
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chopsticks Senior Member
since 2007-10-02
Posts 888The US, |
Musel, now that I know my scanning of your first line was wrong, I can see my mistakes . Although my voice stressed haired as much as it did black, I believe there is a rule about a word having as many vowels as consonants then the word would be unstressed . I may be wrong about that too, but thanks for the use of your thread. Btw, (raven) was a typo, I had it reversed and (my) was a dumbo |
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Essorant Member Elite
since 2002-08-10
Posts 4769Regina, Saskatchewan; Canada |
I would work on carrying on with a given thought longer and even making an effort not to use a period until the very end of the stanza. Practice focusing on something and carrying through with it more instead of moving to a different aspect so quickly. For example, your Raven metaphor at the beginning could be worked into something much more. Here is a suggestion: A darkhaired raven flies amongst my dreams And turns her flight upon my every sense, Reflected in the underflowing streams, But soon is hid behind a distant fence. Notice how I tried to keep focus on the raven idea and even carry it to the end of the stanza. In the below stanza I replaced the pronoun "I" with the name "Bob" In short, confusion rampant runs and Bob still frets, As these thoughts linger, Bob knows Bob must relent. Her face, her eyes, her smile Bob can't forget, For in the end Bob know she's heaven sent. Do you see how unnecessary it is to use "I" so often? |
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Musel Junior Member
since 2008-07-17
Posts 34 |
Moonbeam, Thanks for your clarification on the previous issues. I only read up on iambic pentameter after you told me that that was the basic form Raven is written in, while I had brief memories of Shakespeare in school it was only after looking up the rules that I realised how exactly it works. It is therefore encouraging to know that I have the basic potential needed, a "poetic ear" as you nicely put it and so at least I have a solid base from which to start. I have scanned the poem as you suggested and realise that some of the lines are outside the IA rules and so will make an effort to rectify them. Your road repair analogy explains my predicament extremely well, you can offer advice on my technique but only I can put in the effort to improve. I suppose you can lead the horse to water but cannot make it drink. But I am willing to put in the effort. It's funny that you mentioned my reasons for writing, as I said I haven't been doing it for very long and I posted some work on a different site only to receive glowing praise from everyone who read it. The thing is however, that everybody was praising everybody all of the time which made me realise that while pleasant for the ego, this would never get me anywhere. Hence why I have joined pip talk so that I can get some real and honest feedback on the positives and limitations (of which thankfully I now understand are many)of my work I have always thought of writing as a pastime and now that I've started I feel that I should give it my all to make it as good as I can, so I value having people like you to lead me the right direction. From your analysis, yes I have definitely used too many overused and tired phrases and so need to be more imaginative and honest rather than searching for rhyming platitudes to make up lines. I guess what you are saying is that I need to be more vivid with my metaphors and imagery? While this presents a challenge to rectifying raven without changing it completely, I do enjoy a challenge I have ordered The Poet's Portable Workshop on Amazon and look forward to reading it. Similarly, I will read your suggestions in the forum to see how I can integrate the styles into my own. Could you clarify your thoughts on my use of poetic inversion? e.g. S5L1. is this not an accepted method of good writing of the flow is nice or do you consider it simply a cop out to match the meter of the lines? Essorant- thanks for your comments. You are certainly right I shouldn't entitle a poem Raven without making more reference to the raven, and so I will take that on board, likewise with my overuse of I, although i sense I will find it more difficult to change that for the moment. Thanks again for your help, I will revise the poem and hopefully can come back with something better soon. Regards Musel |
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moonbeam
since 2005-12-24
Posts 2356 |
quote: >>>Yes that partly, but I was also making the point that tinkering with this particular poem to try and make it better isn't necessarily the best way forward. I can do as Essorant has so very expertly done, and rewrite a stanza or two for you, or even make very specific comments about certain phrases and line ends. But that's not going to help you develop the mind-set which will allow you to develop your own way or writing. BobK a while back gave some extremely good advice to another poet. I don't think he'll mind me copying it to you here: "Also, graeshine2006, I wasn't trying to nitpick myself. It's simply the advice most people get is to look into your heart and write, but they don't get told much about the language to do it in. It used to come naturally in the language of The Book of Common Prayer or The King James Bible, because this was the language people shared at their most contemplative moments. With Emily Dickinson it came in the language of the hymnal, and the rhyming four foot three foot lines that all her stuff was written in. This was her language of the heart. This is one of the reasons I recommend the reading to you. By reading aloud the poetry of others, you may find clues to what your language of the heart may be. I urge you to listen not solely for sentiment, but for sound. Sentiment is something that may be achieved without much difficulty in poetry. It is not difficult, though it is rewarding and will gain you applause. If you had no sentiment, you would have no interest in the field to begin with, would you? Listen to the way that others use words for hints of what you want to do with yours, and try to begin incorporating some of those things into your way of writing, at least for a while, and making them your own. Think of these explorations in reading new poems aloud as voice lessons, if you will. There is no other way to get the sounds of those words into your brain as clearly as through putting them through your own voice, where you can actually experience their music." I can't say it much better than that! quote: >>>PiP is a great resource, but much of the site, the bigger forums are in fact centered mainly around the "social" side of poetry. People post their poems and share them as friends or family would. That's fine of course, but as with the other site you went to, that's a showcase forum, not a workshop forum. Here at CA people post usually to specifically improve their writing. All too often newcomers such as yourself, regrettably post a poem and expect to be told step by step how they can make it better. They may or may not listen, and that particular poem may or may not get a bit better, but one way or another what they do not do is get to put in the effort to learn what makes contemporary poetry work for the modern reader. That's why I tried in this thread to pique your interest in learning more. And may I say that it's an absolute delight to hear that you've ordered the Kowit book - I am sure you'll get a lot out of it, and it will help to open your eyes to the possibilities of modern poetry! Try working through the exercises he suggests. It's fun and challenging - and if you do them properly, wonderfully rewarding. Feel free to drop me a line if you want to know anything. quote: >>>Yes - and new! Part of the fun of writing for me is to CREATE. You aren't creating if you are simply churning out old images and descriptions - the dreaded "cliche"! But don't worry too much, everyone stumbles into the odd cliche, it's hard not to after all with a few thousand years of writing behind us and all those zillions of poems out there. That's where Kowit comes in! Hopefully you'll find your mind being stimulated to new things. quote: >>>Don't get too hung up on specifics right now. If I've understood correctly and your reading of contemporary poets is relatively small, then right now your mind is a clean sponge (see a cliche!), waiting to soak up others' writing. Rather than trying to analyse bits of poems to incorporate them into your own style, go BIG look at the wide picture of poetry. Maybe even slow down on the writing for a few days, read read read, preferably aloud as Bob says above - your own "style" or voice will come naturally in an unforced way over time. Sometimes many months or years are needed for a poet to find a voice. I might be able to suggest some online resources for reading if you find it difficult to get contemporary collections. The reason I suggested the anthology is that by reading a very wide selection of poets in one book you may find some who particularly appeal to you and then go after their specific collections. I have my favourites and I'd be happy to share! >>>Yes you are right, inversions are often used by beginners to "make" a rhyme, or to accommodate meter. They then become very obvious, contrived and distracting. They aren't of themselves "wrong" as such, but you need to be very cautious in contemporary writing about writing poetry that departs in a contrived way from how you speak in everyday dialogue. So for instance you wouldn't walk into your local store and start chatting to your friends on checkout: "Guys hey, goes it good? With me not ... in fact confusion rampant runs!" If starts your mates in the store giggling then you can be pretty sure that it will start most of your readers doing the same if you write your poems like that. If you really want to sound like Yoda from Star Wars then used them in abundance, but otherwise make sure that you have a very good reason for using an inversion of the usual speech pattern. >>>Also, be very cautious of this word "flow"! More on that another time maybe. Best. M |
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moonbeam
since 2005-12-24
Posts 2356 |
Also Musel I just thought I’d draw your attention to the following passage from Kowit on pages iv and v in the Before We Get Started chapter: “The poetry writing exercises you are asked to complete in the following chapters are also going to be useful jumping-off points, pretexts, ways to encourage you into beginning to shape your own experience, language, and insights into poetry. They are simply there to get you to pick up the clay and begin forming it into - whatever you wish to form it into. The model poems are here to inspire you by showing you what others have done before you, and the commentaries in each chapter are here to help you see something of how they’ve done it - the structures and strategies of those poems - and to give you whatever techniques you will need for your own work. If you have never done much writing, are timid about approaching poetry, or have little formal background in the subject, I urge you to use this book in the most active way possible. Please do not allow the spinning mind, with its inexhaustible genius for resistance, to keep you from writing the poems suggested in each chapter - or from reading this book thoroughly rather than merely skimming it. We often begin a new project with the best intentions, but easily grow distracted, frustrated, and impatient before we have hardly begun. This is really a work book for poets, and the advantages to be gained from it will be fully realized only by those readers who use it in the most active way - those who read it closely, participate in the processes, and actually write the suggested poems.” If you use the book as he suggests, you’ll get a great deal out of it. M |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
Hello, Muse1! You seem to have a very good knack for meter and form,which not a lot of people have, and I strongly suggest you continue using that style. You begin the poem perfectly in the first stanza, as far as form and meter is are concerned, with excellent iambic pentameter (ten syllable per line). The second stanza is also very good iambic pentameter, with the exception of the last line, with one syllable too many. This is very easy to correct, since the word "a" is not necessary, and can simply be omitted, bring the meter in line with the rest of the poem. Beginning the third stanza, the first line goes from the standard 10 syllables you have maintained in the poem to 12 syllables. The second line goes back to 10. The third line has one syllable too many and, for the first time, deviates from the iambic, perfect up to this point. "giant recurring" kills the meter and needs to be changed. The the word "they" needs to go, also. My suggestion to correct these errors would be....."These thoughts drain like a large, recurring leech". You begin the fourth stanza by going berzerk!!! Instead of the ten syllables, you shoot up to 16!!!! The second goes down to 11 and the last two lines back to the standard pentameter. The second line needs to be reworked a bit. I would suggest something like "I fear for chances that I may have missed". In the final stanza, your sylables per line are 12-11-10-10, once again top-heavy on the first two lines. As far as the wording, be very careful not to stick in extranneous words whose sole purpose is to maintain the rythym of the beat. I see that happening here..... Emotions swell just like a raging sea, (ok, this one is marginal. I'll buy it if you insist ) Experience, it calls me to forget. These thoughts they drain, a giant recurring leech, In summary, I applaud you for the effort you put into the poem. You have a natural ability to sense correct meter and you put in the effort to stay true to the a-b-a-b rhyme scheme, whereas others (like myself, at times) take the easy way out with the a-b-c-b format. You have some excellent stuff here and I encourage you to write on!! This is the revision I would make to your poem. Feel free to use or disregard any of them. I wish you the best.... A dark haired raven flies amongst my dreams, Her memory bombards my every sense. I think of her and thoughts burst at their seams, Yet all at once she’s at some distant fence. Emotions swell up like a raging sea, Experience calls on me to forget. These thoughts torment, tornadoes chasing me, Weighed down by heavy cast, already set. I know that she's completely out of reach, Does this deter me? NO, I want her more. These thoughts drain,like a large recurring leech, Fed only by her kiss that I long for. In different circumstance it might have been, I fear for chances that I may have missed. Yet deep inside the monster rages green, I clutch and grasp at our forbidden kiss. In short, confusion reigns and I still fret, Thoughts linger and I know I must relent. Her face, her eyes, her smile I can’t forget, For in the end I know she's heaven sent. |
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