James Mason films & cheap wine

[Ubiquitous Prat]

Hi,
I am, with more than a touch of luck, praying to be a novelist, someday. Anyway, to practice i write short poems. Inspired by just about everything, mainly though the crap that happens in modern day, lower working class England. Also by Palermo and its food, 60's English music, i suppose mainly latin women and a load of other stuff.

Anyway, i was told, some of these poems are quite good. So i just thought id ask for the opinion of people like you ;) Be as brutal as you like, but i prefer a constructive critique :D So, here are 5 of the better ones, they dont have titles yet.


1.
Kinky afternoons, with sex and brandy,
before early evening walks
Accompany fresh sea food,
and rustic Bordeaux wines

2.
This life is inextricable
It's enough to make you cry,
from the very pit of your belly

You make your excuses,
you get by on lies

Theres a fat ****in elephant
It sits on our minds,
we know nothing of it

3.
Cigarettes and Guinness
Piss on the floor

4.
They jump on the northen line
They jump form tall buildings
People travel to watch

5.
He grumbles of shanks in dimly lit shortcuts
Perhaps fist fights in the park
Retribution for ****'ups gone past


:banana:

[Ubiquitous Prat]

You could at least have given one word answers i.e good or bad. That would have done..

[stlukesguild]

First... you mention that you are hoping (with a touch of luck) to be a novelist someday... and so you practice by writing short poems. I would ask you whether such short poems are a logical way of "practicing" for composing novels. If my goal were to write Operas, I don't know that composing small etudes would be the best means of preparation. If I sought to create grandiose epic paintings I don't know that my efforts at flower arranging would be of the greatest use. Rather than hoping for a "touch of luck" you should be simply doing what makes sense in order for you to reach your goal. I would suggest that if you planned on writing traditional novels with a great focus upon narrative and character development, that you spend time practicing at developing interesting narratives (perhaps short stories and later even novelas) and writing about characters and even settings.

Personally, I find your poems far too short and limitted to succeed in and of themselves. If they were expanded as snippets within a larger whole, they might work. Of course, there are incredibly compacted poems that succeed brilliantly (William Carlos William's Red Wheelbarrow, certain Asian poems (I think immediately of haiku) but such works demand an incedible compact intensity and sense that there is an absolute perfection, like a diamond. I do not sense that here. What I do sense, however, is something that suggests quickly jotted down ideas that could be expanded upon for a narrative/story. In some way they remind me of some of the notes I jot down in developing my own (albeit visual) art.

[Ubiquitous Prat]

Thanks for taking the time to comment, nice one fella ;)

I do also practice longer writing. Just small scenes, trying to make good, interesting descriptions.