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Something deeper inside...
| Critical Analysis #1 |
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Something deeper inside... |
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The Exile Member
since 2001-07-14
Posts 52Ontario, Canada 
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“Take her,” they say. I stood numb. Is it the hitching inside? “Take her hands.” They say that I am too weak, To take the first step, To make that ice break, To let it all out and complete. But what after all do they know? About the meaning of “friends”, And how much more that word holds, Than a fire that burns only to one night’s end? If I left my thirst to quench itself, Upon the mountain of vows and promises, O’ how then could this misery ever resolve, And leave not both hearts in broken pieces? I sure have emotions just as all others, Stirring memory and desire sometimes bothers, But why does a spirit so pure and high, have to confine To the staleness of that common ennoble, and say: “so do others”? I turned around and looked at my friend, Her eyes bright yet slightly puzzled: “What shall we do then as the day ends?” I did not answer but only took her hand. Under the assembly of every heavenly eye, We rested and talked only throughout the night, At that time, we both knew: That something deeper inside would never die… - Alex |
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| © Copyright 2001 Alex D. Ni - All Rights Reserved | |||
Janette
since 2001-07-20
Posts 2843Chicagoland for now |
This is lovely and speaks volumes! Yes two people can "connect" in a special way...without becoming sexual. "We rested and talked throughout the night At that time, we both knew; That something deeper inside would never die..." Your ending is very powerful!!! It made me Thank you for sharing this one with us...I love it. |
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The Exile Member
since 2001-07-14
Posts 52Ontario, Canada |
Hi Janette, Thanks for the comments!  I am really happy that i got the meaning accross, and you liked the ending? Cool!! I had tried to think of (or manufacture) something fancier but at the end i decided to stick with my own original idea of the true romantic moment: holding hands lying on the grass together, conversing freely while watching the summer night's sky filled with stars ... ummmmm! [|8^)Alex P.S: just one question: do you think the first stanza is kinda like... extra in a way? Please let me know cuz i don't think it fits too well into the whole poem, i kinda regreted not cutting it. Again, thanks!!! |
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Bilby Junior Member
since 2001-07-31
Posts 14Northern Territory, Australia |
I thought the tone of this poem was somewhat inconsistent from stanza to stanza which didn't help me all that much in 'connecting' with it. The first stanza seems really tangential ... if you've had thoughts of cutting it then go ahead IMHO. It might be a useful start point for another piece so keep it handy somewhere :-) |
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polarflame New Member
since 2001-07-30
Posts 9Az, USA |
Very impressive poem... You know, I can relate to what you're expressing: quote: They say that I am too weak, To take the first step, To make that ice break, To let it all out and complete. >> some of my friends couldn't understand why I don't want to lay my gf... so I know how to relate to this stanza... quote: Under the assembly of every heavenly eye, We rested and talked only throughout the night, At that time, we both knew: That something deeper inside would never die… >> Indeed, that's whjat I'm trying to tell them... But they can't seem to comprehend. Anyhow, as long my my gf can understand, it's gonna be fine. Like what Bilby said, your stanzas seems to get inconsistent. I mean its hard to convey something if we put restrictions to ourselves. But as every good poet, we need to learn how to abide in 'rules' so that people can understand our poems better and to make it look good. In retrospect, re-read your poem, revise it. Try making it consistent and if you do that, a lot of people will love you poem, just as I do. ---------------------------------------- the heart is an organ of fire... >> PolarFlame [This message has been edited by polarflame (edited 07-31-2001).] |
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hush Senior Member
since 2001-05-27
Posts 1653Ohio, USA |
Ok, I just got booted and lost my nice long reply to this post, so I'm gonna keep this brief. Polarflame, I think your bit about needing to follow rules is bullcrap. There are no definite rules in writing, and summing it up like that is unfair to all writers, especially if someone happens upon this post looking for help and sees that there are rules they must follow. There are personal standards of quality, but those are much different than rules. So here are my personal suggestions. Exile, There are several things I don't like about your poem. First of all, it's about how "they" shouldn't matter in your relationship- but obviously "they" do matter... you bothered writing a poem about it. Try to get away from the accusing tone of this. Second of all, there's a lot of archaic wording that sounds really awkward and should be totally eliminated. When someone always makes a poem more confusing than necessary it always seems to me that they are trying to sound smart or sophisticated, even if that wasn't your goal. Make the poem more natural- speak through it as you might actually speak. Third, these lines: But why does a spirit so pure and high, have to confine To the staleness of that common ennoble, and say: “so do others”? well, I found this as a definition to ennoble (I wasn't familiar with the word). en·no·ble (n-nbl) tr.v. en·no·bled, en·no·bling, en·no·bles 1. To make noble: “that chastity of honor... which ennobled whatever it touched, and under which vice itself lost half its evil” (Edmund Burke). 2. To confer nobility upon: ennoble a prime minister for distinguished service. So, it being a verb, the placement in the sentence doesn't really make a lot of sense. Even if you wanted to nounify the verb (which I think is cool, because I love verbifying nouns) it just doesn't make much sense where you have it. On the other hand, I loved the line: 'Under the assembly of every heavenly eye,' it's nice, pretty, concise, and best of all, clear. I would try to stay along those lines if you do a rewrite. Hope I helped- sorry if this sounds rushed but after spending 20 minutes typing only to see it disappear, I'm a little too disgruntled to take that much time again. You are more than the sum of what you consume |
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polarflame New Member
since 2001-07-30
Posts 9Az, USA |
Well Hush... everygood poet knows that they have to follow guidelines to write good poems. And I agree that sometimes too much concentration on these guidelines may affect how you write your poems... you'll somewhat become a zombie .I believe that we should follow booth, creativity and rules, so that people can understand what you write easily... If guidelines aren't so important, then why do people have to publish tons of books about poetry writing? About how to write sonnets, it's various forms and those pentatonic, aimbic etc.... Think about it. But try not to think to hard :p. ------------------------- the heart is an organ of fire... >>PolarFlame |
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Hegemon New Member
since 2001-08-01
Posts 1 |
Now, to the actual poem... The wording of it seemed somewhat awkward in some ways... Almost seemed like it lacked a rythm, but with more experience that shall be improved... As far as the usage of archaic words is concerned, I feel that they are their for more symbolic purposes than anything else... Poetry is not like a piece of technical writing... It is an artform, thus in some ways the actual clarity of the message being told is less important than the form that the message comes in... It also facilitates the possibilities of multiple meanings, hence letting the reader come to a more personal understanding of the poem... Where form is concerned... While typically it is preferable to write within some sort of stratified form, it also restricts the creativity of the writer.... For a writer to truly express their feeling well, they cannot be too tied to a certail style, since that limits what they can say... It should also be noted that many of what we now consider the "great" poets, broke the mould of their time... They developed their own styles, which had there own form of beauty... Finally, as far as the content is concerned, well all that I really have to say to the guy in the poem is "Stop being such a fag and nail the chick!!!" lol, just kidding... Actually, since I cannot really relate to the people within the poem, I do not really have much to say about it... [This message has been edited by Hegemon (edited 08-01-2001).] |
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hush Senior Member
since 2001-05-27
Posts 1653Ohio, USA |
polarflame: "everygood poet knows that they have to follow guidelines to write good poems" Really? Let me use the examples i was using earlier that got deleted. Emily Dickinson broke a pretty standard poetic rule- rhyme. While everybody else was concerned with whether their lines rhymed exactly and ended on a stressed/unstressed syllable, Dickinson figured that everyone must have done that before and became one of the first poets to use slanted rhyme. Emily Dickinson's poetry was only published a few times, all anonymously. Once her poetry was rejected, she never tried to publish it again and continued on as a recluse. Now she is one of our most celebrated poets. Walt Whitman did the same with free-verse. And take a look at Allen Ginsberg and some other Beats. They used shorthand, their own spellings, and not only had to deal with the criticism of breaking grammar "rules", but also the consequences of obscenity trials- and their work is cherished and admired today. They broke rules.... are they not good writers? I don't think the question here is the breaking of rules- it's more a matter of understanding the rules before you break them, and breaking them for a specific purpose. Do I think that's usually the case? No. A lot of people give me the old "there's no rules" argument when I would generally regard their poetry as pretty bad- in the sense that (to me at least) it seems like you can tell if a person is breaking a rule intentionally or not. I guess my biggest problem with your comment was that you didn't cite what rules exactly were broken, and how to correct the errors. It's pretty self-defeating to say "obey the rules" when you don't even explain to the person what those rules are in the first place. If you are going to talk about sonnets and iambs (neither of which seem particularly important to the development of this poem) at least explain what sonnets and iambs are. Hegemon: 'It is an artform, thus in some ways the actual clarity of the message being told is less important than the form that the message comes in... ' In one sense, I agree with you- that is, if the development of the message either carries a meaning of its own (like in Dickinson's slanted rhyme, you'll notice that most words that are off-rhymed will make you stop longer than a melodic rhyme would... and then you think more about that line. It increases impact.) or has some bearing on imagery, dialogue, emotion, etc. However, in this poem, all I can see is that the idea gets lost in so many syllables... it's just so stilted that it's hard to figure out what it means. I don't think archaic wording facilitates multiple meanings any more than modern wording does. In fact, there are probably more words now with double meanings or homophones than there were back then. I don't mind archaic wording... but only if it is consistent throughout the poem, and it isn't here. A person has to have a really thorough understanding of archaic wording to write well in it, and I have seen very few people do it well... my muscles even tense when I see Ginsberg throwing a thy or thou in out of nowhere, because I think it's so unnecessary. You are more than the sum of what you consume |
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The Exile Member
since 2001-07-14
Posts 52Ontario, Canada |
Okay boys and girls, sorry about the delay of this reply. First of all, I have a “BIG THANKS!!” to everyone who took their time to read my work, especially to the ones who took longer than 20 mins in commenting on it (Hush and Polarflame, here’re the candies!! >[@]< >(@)< >[@]< >(@)< ) Hush, I read what you said and I think there are definitely a lot of good insights you offered that can improve my writings big time: first of all, I must admit that I was trying to make it sound somewhat more powerful by using some of the archaic words like “staleness” or “ennoble”, but just in opposite of what I had expected it did not only make the poem sound awkward but also hard to understand for some. I see it much a sign of weakness in controlling the natural flow and expressing a deeper, and often times much simpler emotions. Well now, as to the “they” in the poem, which according to you, “shouldn’t matter” in a relationship, I have different personal views: yes a relationship is an intimate thing between two people, but does it concern anyone else? Is it worth to bother to listen to what friends have to say about it just out of their feelings and observations? I don’t know if there’s a fixed answer for everyone but far as I am concerned I think it’s worth to at least listen and respond at least from your very own consciousness, or in your own words to make that “they” of some matter: after all, we are not really made to see things from third-person perspectives all the time are we? And I do think it’s helpful to listen to others’ opinions- either “good” or “bad” ones, although I tend to ignore them often times. Another thing: I REALLY LIKED what you said about “breaking the rules”, yes all the well known masters in poetry and literature in general, furthermore to arts in general break the rules only under the conditions that they know the rules cold! Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure broke a lot of the “rules” in pre-modernist time England and he took shots from a lot of critiques because of that, but it’s not like he didn’t know anything about what he was writing: the Catholic Church, the institutions such as Oxford, the life of mid-lower classes and etc. Just on the opposite, Hardy KNEW them cold. Another classic example of this: T.S. Eliot broke perhaps more conventional rules than any other American or British poet ever did in his masterpiece “The Waste Land”. At the time lots of critics thought the poem was lousy: a complete lacking of form and pretty obvious absence the theme that any epic poem should have as well. But then as discovery went deeper into the content, which the poem was presenting, the connections were slowly revealed, through subtle chains of literary allusions and crossed use of legends. This revelation, although deeply appreciated by scholars later in the serious academic circle, did not originate from a clear, conventional, rule-abiding usage of language and structure. Quite on the opposite, nobody could stand on solid ground and make the claim that “The Waste Land” is of a certain form, or the language in it is relatively “nice, pretty, concise and even clear”. For example: what is an “other withered stumps of time (line 104)”? And also what’s the meaning of “Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata”? And again how about “Shantih Shantih Shantih”? (line 432, 433) Without Eliot’s own notes of ancient Hindu religious writings probably not a lot of people could ever figure out what on earth those lines are. Anyhoo, its shocking sensations were only means but never the ends of its purpose, neither should it be to any poem, that is: no matter how good the poet is in “shocking” her/his readers if the poem itself is empty in content, personally I don’t think it’s going to be a great poem. Hush, just wanna yell out a big THANKS for all the great advices and critiques, I am REALLY pleased that you could take so much time and even go through the trouble of rewriting all the comments after you got booted the first time. It’s really awesome and definitely inspiring! Thanks!! Okay, PolarFlame: I really appreciated the encouragement you’ve given, and the fact you could relate what I’ve written to your own feelings also made me feel a little better (just quite in contrary of Hegemon’s comments, which I will refer to later, but not now). To the issue of inconsistency: I don’t think I meant to write a very consistent poem in the first place, but it’s definitely a fine piece of advice you gave! Again, thanks! Now finally Hegemon, first of all I would like to quote one line from your reply: “Finally, as far as the content is concerned, well all that I really have to say to the guy in the poem is ‘Stop being such a fag and nail the chick!!!’ ” Really? Is that what you’ve gotta say about the content after reading the poem? Well if it is so, then I’d have to say it’s quite sad that I wouldn’t really even bother to give any personal comments on such a “critique” but I still quoted it out, because I want to get a few things cleared out first before we get on the road to talk about other things about the poem. First of all, I admit a hundred percent that the voice of the “guy in the poem” was a voice of my inner-self, whatever “he” said did represented what was actually going on in my head, although I didn’t mean that whatever happened in the poem did take place in reality, still it certainly did all in my wild fantasies. Now, let’s talk being “such a fag”, I looked up some definitions of a “fag”: a: An English public-school boy who acts as servant to an older schoolmate b : DRUDGE c: usually disparaging : FAGGOT - fag·gy /'fa-gE/ adjective, usually disparaging FAGGOT: usually disparaging, a male homosexual And etc. Well, I am not sure which one of them were you referring to because honestly, non of makes any particular sense to me put in this case here. Although that is the case, I’d still presume that you meant the third one: “a male homosexual”? I actually thought it funny for a while that somebody who suggested to “nail” whoever close to him was giving such a comment on sexuality to others: what’s a person who is only able to appreciate a bare, immature sex appeal- if that’s not the only thing he/she can find, among all qualities of another sex? After I while I just kinda figured that, it’s probably just the thing about sex that everyone has different views and sure there’s nothing wrong with it, it’s just different perceptions of different individuals, right? But try to avoid such a general comment on such a specific issue: if I am a “male homosexual” would I be interested in holding hands with a girl and having a deep affection with her? Or are you really saying: “anyone that doesn’t always perform actively in engaging the other sex in a sensual level is a ‘fag’?” Try to get away with that. LOL Another thing, in which way do you find, or what specific wording (well, besides that “ennoble” which I admit wasn’t the most appropriate) do you find this poem awkward? Just curious to know. :-) Anyhoo, thanks for the comments! - Alex [This message has been edited by The Exile (edited 08-04-2001).] |
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