Little Poems I wrote - Feedback Appreciated

[playwithfire]

Okay folks here are a few poems I wrote -I would like some feedback on them -Positive or Negative -just interested in opinions. Note: I have never studied poetry, prose or anything related. I am a business major with finance and consulting background –so I have no formal background or training in the art of writing -but I am interested in learning.

Just wondering what people think about them? - I like them but what the hell do I know –they may suck! -It took me about 10 minutes to put these together maybe they are really super simplistic and dreadful - I have no idea? -but interested in feedback (like I said good or bad). Since this forum includes many people that are passionate about poetry and writing I thought -hey who better to critique the little pieces I wrote. Note hammer away my feelings will not be hurt if they are SUPER BAD!!

One day I will be known
One day I will be shown
Let’s hope that day is a long time away

This life is not for me and I must set myself on a path to break free
Free from my own demise and like a stiff prick I need to rise
Rise to the challenge - to receive my destiny
Destiny shall be mine -only if I choose.

[Jimmy O'Connell]

Fearful as I am to be a critic.....
a) You are tring to express your feeling. This is good. This is what poetry is about... but..
b) For it to be poetry it should have more than feeling. It must have structure. Structure imposes discipline, which is much needed in good poetry, as opposed to just venting feeling.
c) For the reader, it is helpful to create an image s/he can savour in his/her imagination. This creates an emotional bond between the reader and poet.

So...

Don't describe your feelings... show them through the power of image... in a structure (verse form/rhythm/rhyme/non-rhyme
syllabic length or line length/ alliteration/assonance...).... and...
Above all make sure you have a central metaphor. This becomes the skeleton of your poem.
For example: A door = opening, closing, transition from one state to another, or just a wooden door!!!!

Keep reading the poets you like, and the ones you know are supposed to be great, but you can't figure out why. There is a reason why they are great.
My favourites: Yeats, Heaney, Mahon, Kavanagh... (I'm Irish)
Wordsworth, Shakespeare, Larkin, Keats, Hughes...
cummings, Frost, Lowell, Ginsberg, Dickinson...

[Red Poppy]

You did say you wanted a response - so here's one to follow Jimmy's response

In general, I think you're a prisoner of rhyme. Nothing wrong with rhyme but there is a problem in making yourself a prisoner to the need to rhyme things. Often, that need cuts across the more important and central job of writing from the gut!

In this piece:
One day I will be known
One day I will be shown
Let’s hope that day is a long time away

There's a catchy rhyme but I'm not sure (and I'm not convinced you're sure either) what you're saying. What do these lines mean to you. Are they just catchy or do they have a feeling, a force, a drive, a need behind them?


The second piece:
This life is not for me and I must set myself on a path to break free
Free from my own demise and like a stiff prick I need to rise
Rise to the challenge - to receive my destiny
Destiny shall be mine -only if I choose.

You begin with an internal and end rhyme in ll 1, 2 - me/free; demise/rise
and then abandon it in lines 3 and 4. Why?
And the imagery in l 2 doesn't work -
a stiff prick doesn't need to rise, it already has.
Are you saying you need to rise like a stiff prick? I assume you are. That's not what you've written, you've written that a stiff prick needs to rise - again to catch the rhyme I suspect.
In l 3 you have the verbs rise and receive.
Receiving your destiny is a limp(excuse the pricky pun there) verb.
The last line is quite unclear .
Again, I'm wondering what you want to say in this piece?
It's not clear.

[Paula]

I do not comment on poems but can I just make a comment on the thread title it reminded me of Morcambe and Wise with "the play what I wrote"

[playwithfire]

Thanks guys bring it on -I will get back to you in a few days jumping on a plane in 7 hours and need to sleep -will comment when I get back -hey as I noted I am willing to learn about poetry so don't be shy -

[mickey_one]

Okay folks here are a few poems I wrote -I would like some feedback on them -Positive or Negative -just interested in opinions. Note: I have never studied poetry, prose or anything related. I am a business major with finance and consulting background –so I have no formal background or training in the art of writing -but I am interested in learning.

Just wondering what people think about them? - I like them but what the hell do I know –they may suck! -It took me about 10 minutes to put these together maybe they are really super simplistic and dreadful - I have no idea? -but interested in feedback (like I said good or bad). Since this forum includes many people that are passionate about poetry and writing I thought -hey who better to critique the little pieces I wrote. Note hammer away my feelings will not be hurt if they are SUPER BAD!!

One day I will be known
One day I will be shown
Let’s hope that day is a long time away

This life is not for me and I must set myself on a path to break free
Free from my own demise and like a stiff prick I need to rise
Rise to the challenge - to receive my destiny
Destiny shall be mine -only if I choose.

hmm, no-one but no-one would write such a bad line as "like a stiff prick I need to rise" unless it was a wind-up. surrounded by the rest of these awful lines, I say "thanks for the wind-up but just not subtle enough to be entertaining".

[Red Poppy]

Well Mickey, wind up or not, it's probably as good as this:

cut some chicken
with bite sized peas
might taste like a crock
'less we add chablis
eat it off my belly
with some nice nuteees
recipe must rhyme
so cook it with thyme
with corn starch of course
from a very good source

Now who would have the hard-neck to post that!

[mickey_one]

Well Mickey, wind up or not, it's probably as good as this:

cut some chicken
with bite sized peas
might taste like a crock
'less we add chablis
eat it off my belly
with some nice nuteees
recipe must rhyme
so cook it with thyme
with corn starch of course
from a very good source

Now would have the hard-neck to post that!

hmm, gaze into the distance a few hundred miles and you might just spot the point you missed. there she goes running over the horizon trying to escape your suspicious attentions.


you can't compare an affectionate parody desiccated to the author of the starting peas, which must work from the original words and where the limit is low in any event, to a poem where the writer has all the freedom of her talent without any limit.


Red Poppy, don't feel embarrassed that you foolishly took this woman's wind-up seriously. I'm sure you've made mistakes before many times, you all have.

warmest wishes

mickey_one

ps some of us don't think she is a woman at all but a man pretending to be a woman (and just as convincingly as you pretend to be a red poppy instead of the famous Irish author that we know you really to be).

Please note that the above post has been entered into the Most Unnecessarily Aggressive Response monthly contest and it will win as I am the Judge. By contrast, you are not the Judge. This is a subtle but rather important distinction.

[Manna]

you can't compare an affectionate parody desiccated to the author of the starting peas, which must work from the original words and where the limit is low in any event, to a poem where the writer has all the freedom of her talent without any limit.

can you please translate this into English? or at least into American? Desiccated?

[Red Poppy]

Or even semi-comprehensible legalese - or is that a contradiction in terms?

[Joney]

Desiccated?

Obviously written by a coconut

[Jimmy O'Connell]

Ah lads...

Give playwithfire a chance
to prove he's not a stiff prick

and

is mickey_one taking the mickey with his
desiccated coconuts...???

[Red Poppy]

Mickey - coconuts - a Freudian connection?
And if he wears a wig then the proof of the pudding ( ) is in the briefest of meetings m'lud.

[Manna]

sure, I got it, I know what's going on in this thread. Mickey the One teetotaller drank too much innocent coconut milk and now cannot stop micturating, therefore Red Poppy is here to help take the Sir Michael Bliss out of Mickey, leaving him decidedly decimated, desiccated and despondent. Deffo McDefferson. Right-o. Jolly good. Wot wot.

[mickey_one]

Ah lads...

Give playwithfire a chance
to prove he's not a stiff prick

and

is mickey_one taking the mickey with his
desiccated coconuts...???

10 points to Jimmy, 5 to Joney, 0 to Manna, -5 to Red Poppy.

"desiccated" for dedicated and "peas" for piece in same sentence- the tiniest clues to the awake that it was continuing the food prunes?