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Critical Analysis #2
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Diamond Eyes
| Critical Analysis #2 |
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Diamond Eyes |
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Russell8624 Member
since 2006-11-28
Posts 99Minnesota |
The bed sheets are soft tonight, And I could smell her fragrance, Like cold ice, Or a winter breeze. She now smells of smoke and alcohol, And I only of smoke, But so seducing was her skin, I could think of nothing else. I grasp her firmly, And she trembles. Looking at me with tearing eyes, and a vulnerable glance, which I cannot deny. Her heated feelings are, Ephemeral, And her taste, is bittersweet. Like a red wine, I am not supposed to drink, But have already opened. Slowly, I peel away all her clothing, And reveal what most would consider, A living paradise, That gives contour a new meaning. I no longer care, That she is fighting, because her resistance, will be short lived. Her legs open gently, and for an eternity, I ravage. Her quiet whimpers, Sometimes turn to cries, But I cannot stop, Or relent. Then, it has ended. And she is asleep on my pillow. I can only look at her, In her beauty, For hours upon hours, Until her eyes open. Diamond eyes, Filled with pain from my affliction. She tries to shift, But finds it painful, And falls back into sleep. I cover her with another blanket, As you would cover, A treasured statue on display. Yet still, My heart starts pounding, And I rip the cover off, Grasping both her legs [This message has been edited by Russell8624 (04-28-2008 02:47 PM).] |
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chopsticks Senior Member
since 2007-10-02
Posts 888The US, |
Hi Russell, I ‘m not sure if you are writing about a rapist or a pedophile, but in any case you need to fix the oxymoron’s in your poem. There’s a big one in the first stanza : ( I can smell her fragrance of smoke and alcohol ) |
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Russell8624 Member
since 2006-11-28
Posts 99Minnesota |
It certainly doesen't involve anything like that, and I fail to see how smelling of smoke and alcohol is an oxymoron. |
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Brad Member Ascendant
since 1999-08-20
Posts 5705Jejudo, South Korea |
I think he means the whole group of lines: quote: It's not an oxymoron but the images clash. If it's not on purpose, I would try to fix that. Whether or not it is a rape scene, you do realize that it will be read like one, don't you? The woman has no voice. I like some of the things you're doing but some of the similes seem a little over the top: quote: Really? Best of luck. |
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chopsticks Senior Member
since 2007-10-02
Posts 888The US, |
Russell, ravage is a legal term for rape ( I ravage) I can smell her fragrance ( fragrance: sweet perfume ) She smells of smoke and alcohol ( not a sweet perfume ) Two contradicting lines. |
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Russell8624 Member
since 2006-11-28
Posts 99Minnesota |
Yes I understand now, I will correct that stanza. I agree that some of the similes are over the top, I will also try and resolve that. Besides those to faults, what are some of the things you would keep and or like? As for the meaning of the poem, it is about having intercourse with a person who is sexually inexperienced and unsure of themselves. It can often bring about feelings of guilt, yet feelings of pleasure as well. These two states of mind often collide, and a mental struggle begins. |
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chopsticks Senior Member
since 2007-10-02
Posts 888The US, |
Russell,, maybe this will help in your rewrite : Sex is the second strongest human emotion and when two consenting adults have sex there should be no guilt or mental struggle. I hope this helps. |
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Russell8624 Member
since 2006-11-28
Posts 99Minnesota |
Okay, I see where this is going. You are posting on here because you do not like the content of the poem, not because you want to provide constructive critisim. You are right that everything should be completely consensual, but that doesen't mean we as artist can't explore the darker aspects of the human phsyche. I greatly appreciate you taking the time to read the poem and comment on it, but I am not here to argue the morality of the piece. |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Dear Russell, Okay, I'll try. Moral content aside, the poem at first glance has the appearance of groundedness in the real world, but doesn't actually seem to be so. The speaker doesn't present the poem as though he were experiencing it; the impressions the conveys show an inability to actually be in of stay with the experience being described. For example, in the first stanza, "The sheets are soft" is quickly followed the the tense shift to "and I could smell" "she now smells" leads to "I could think." These tense changes are typical of a writer who isn't paying attention to the flow of time in his writing, because he thinks that the flow of time inside his head must be the same as the flow of time in the world. This is not so. It must be checked and traced to avoid confusion. The sort of confusion we see here happens throughout the poem, and it throws the reader off kilter and goes unnoticed typically by the writer because, Heck, that's the way everybody sees things, isn't it? Nope. There is no real understanding of the other here, and it throws the reader off. Whether or not you could make the subject more readable or interesting, I don't know, but there is a literature of this sort, you know. Criticism of such writing for the content is something that isn't new, and if you want feedback on the form of it, you need to get used to feedback on content as well. Feedback on content, if you look closely enough can point out places where the form has difficulty as well. The lack of empathy for the other, though, is a problem here because it leads you to occasionally assume that she is feeling things you have no idea about whether or not she is feeling. Because this way of seeing feels perfectly straightforward to you, you have no idea that it feels odd to others. "But so seducing was her skin" stands out early in the poem as an early example. The feeling that the speaker see there, the speaker has no way of distinguishing from terror; the "seducing" quality the speaker identifies so clearly can come from only one source, then: The speaker himself. What the speaker sees as a scene of excitement comes across to the reader as something very strange that the speaker is doing to himself, and that the young woman in the poem is not human to him at all but "A treasured statue on display," first for the speaker, and now in front of the readers, whom the speaker is inviting to become complicit. And, you see, to confine such pieces of art to the pages of a book is one thing, but to invite criticism on them without acknowledging the wish to be admired for the form the Speaker's joy may be taking is something else. To say that the Speaker's joy here is discomforting is not only, I suspect, an artistic response but a statement of sexual preference as well. It's simply bad manners to drag your readers into a sexual fantasy you have good reason to know will be unpleasant to many of them and then suggest that finding it so is a breach in their artistic integrity. It may be an attempt to do to your reader's minds what the speaker did to the young lady's body in the poem. Whatever the truth of that, the issues of time and of projection of the Speaker's thoughts and dreams into the behavior of the woman in this poem will take some heavy lifting. If you can present a version that takes care of most of those issues and that may not be an attack upon your readers, it'd be interesting to see what we could work on next. There's actually some talent here. Yours, BobK. |
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Russell8624 Member
since 2006-11-28
Posts 99Minnesota |
You are completely right about the timeline of the piece. It makes perfect sense to me, yet to others it no doubt seems confusing. I considered explaining it, but that wouldn't do any good for the poem itself. The reason that I wrote the poem is to make the reader uncomfortable, because that is how the character feels. He knows what he is doing is wrong, yet he can't help taking pleasure in it anyway. I want people to ask themselves, what constitutes consensual sex? At what point does intercourse become rape? Is it blatently forcing somone into the act, or can taking advantage of somone you know to be vunerable just as inhumane? These are the things I want the reader the think about, and I want them to draw their own conclusions. Most of my poems aren't meant to be soothing myriads of hope. They are very dark, sometimes disturbing pieces of literature, and are intended to be so. |
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Russell8624 Member
since 2006-11-28
Posts 99Minnesota |
Is there anything about the poem that anyone would keep? |
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beautyincalvary Member
since 2006-07-13
Posts 98 |
I get what you're saying, but your poem makes readers too uncomfortable,because we don't see that the girl is feeling any pleasure. We only see that she is resisting and terrified, which makes it seem more like a rape than an internal struggle for both the characters. |
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