The Writer's Odyssey- please criticize

[SleepyWitch]

Hey folks, here's my latest poem, no real title yet,
please give me lots of feedback
THANKS,
Sleepy





Oh lisp, sweet muse, in languid tones,
affecting fake impe-pe-diments
to soften down the playful pain
of unabashed false modesty,
lisp, muse, of the man, so pallid and sleek,
who wandered, in lonesome company,
not very far or wide to flee
from nineteenth century city drunks
to luscious, green suburban lawns.

Who wandered not so very far
from crumbling backyard citadels
to second-rate suburbia
and there wrote what the reviews call
Ein Roman über die Liebe
a novel about the love,
as if there was just one of them.
Now tell me muse of the man,
without undue prolixity!

And many were the times
that he despaired,
idling through strange metropoles,
of learning his own mind.
Tell me muse, of the man
who travelled on the scent of coffee
to mysterious Kenyan hills
and found in the magic of chocolate
what Starbucks buys in bulk.
Ach ja, die Liebe.

[PrinceMyshkin]

Frankly, I worried initially about the archaicism of the opening lines

Oh lisp, sweet muse, in languid tones,
affecting fake impe-pe-diments
to soften down the playful pain
of unabashed false modesty,
lisp, muse, of the man, so pallid and sleek,
who wandered, in lonesome company,
not very far or wide to flee

so it was with immense relief and pleasure in your sense of humour that I encountered your blunt entry into the contemporary colloquial world with


from nineteenth century city drunks
to luscious, green suburban lawns.

and continued so confidently from then on! I loved Ach ja, die Liebe. Ja! virklich un verhaftig!

[SleepyWitch]

thanks Prince :)

hehe, it's wirklich und wahrhaftig.
verhaften means 'to arrest' like the police does with criminals :) but verhaftig is a funny new word :) very creativ :)

[PrinceMyshkin]

thanks Prince :)

hehe, it's wirklich und wahrhaftig.
verhaften means 'to arrest' like the police does with criminals :) but verhaftig is a funny new word :) very creativ :)

Zo! You can see zat my Cherman is a little, how do we say? - farshimmelt! I vas speaking Yiddish, dumkopf! from vich, as you know, Cherman vas derifed! Vake up and zmell zee lexicon!

[SleepyWitch]

oi, sorry :) i didn't know that was Yiddish :)

[Virgil]

Oh I thought it was great Sleepy. It's mock Homeric epic. I absolutely loved the first stanza:

Oh lisp, sweet muse, in languid tones,
affecting fake impe-pe-diments
to soften down the playful pain
of unabashed false modesty,
lisp, muse, of the man, so pallid and sleek,
who wandered, in lonesome company,
not very far or wide to flee
from nineteenth century city drunks
to luscious, green suburban lawns.
"Oh lisp sweet muse" Hahahahahaha!!!! How tongue in cheek. :lol: But the language is so sharp and witty. Your poetry has gotten so much better Sleepy. That brightened my morning. :)

[SleepyWitch]

aw, thanks Virgil your feedback brightened my morning :)

[PrinceMyshkin]

oi, sorry :) i didn't know that was Yiddish :)

No, no, I was kidding! I did speak Yiddish as a kid with my beloved immigrant grand-mother and refreshed my knowledge of it later when, of all people, my "Gentile" son took a course in it then proposed that we correspond in Yiddish. On assignment in a conversational Yiddish course I took, I wrote the following poem, in which the language, "Yiddish," is synecdochic for the speakers of it who were all but wiped out in WWII. Do please let me know if some or any of it makes sense to you:



YIDDISH

Shvach iz di shprach
uhn knappe ge-endikt.
Tsurissen fun moil iz di tsung.
Verbs fun zachverter,
vi kinder fun ihrer elteren,
zenen opgezundert.
Es bleibt nit kein gantsen zatz.
Nor an otem basetzt zich
--di klentste preposityeh:
"fuhn," oder "mit," oder "tsu".

[blp]

I like it, but I still worry about the archaic language. Not saying you can't use it at all, but you could tone it down, I think, and gain by it. e.g. 'As if there was just one of them.' The beginning, as PM indicates, is offputting if you worry about this sort of thing, which is a shame since it gets so good later.

[SleepyWitch]

I like it, but I still worry about the archaic language. Not saying you can't use it at all, but you could tone it down, I think, and gain by it. e.g. 'As if there was just one of them.' The beginning, as PM indicates, is offputting if you worry about this sort of thing, which is a shame since it gets so good later.

ok, I've changed but to just

does all of the first stanza sound archaic?

[SleepyWitch]

No, no, I was kidding! I did speak Yiddish as a kid with my beloved immigrant grand-mother and refreshed my knowledge of it later when, of all people, my "Gentile" son took a course in it then proposed that we correspond in Yiddish. On assignment in a conversational Yiddish course I took, I wrote the following poem, in which the language, "Yiddish," is synecdochic for the speakers of it who were all but wiped out in WWII. Do please let me know if some or any of it makes sense to you:



YIDDISH

Shvach iz di shprach
uhn knappe ge-endikt.
Tsurissen fun moil iz di tsung.
Verbs fun zachverter,
vi kinder fun ihrer elteren,
zenen opgezundert.
Es bleibt nit kein gantsen zatz.
Nor an otem basetzt zich
--di klentste preposityeh:
"fuhn," oder "mit," oder "tsu".



hehe, yes I can understand most of it.. well some of it at least :)
what does uhn knappe ge-endikt mean? nearly finished off?
what's "moil"? hehe I guess i understand most of the words but they don't form a gantsen zatz yet :)

[PrinceMyshkin]

hehe, yes I can understand most of it.. well some of it at least :)
what does uhn knappe ge-endikt mean? nearly finished off?
what's "moil"? hehe I guess i understand most of the words but they don't form a gantsen zatz yet :)

Bang on for knappe ge-endikt, and "moil" is the Yiddish pronounciation of "maul" (mouth if my German is off...)

The prepositions at the end were meant to signify

"fun" that the Jews have a sense of their history;
"mit" that they still constitute a community, and
"tsu" that they have a sense of where theu are headed or at least that they ARE headed somewhere.

One of my beloved grandchildren, who lives in Zurich, translated it into Swiss-German; which needless to say made me very proud!

[Pendragon]

Frankly, Sleepy, your poem sort of sounds as though it were written about a certain old mountain hermit who drops in once in a while... I'm shameless :blush:

Pen

http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l108/AbsalomKane/Smilies/PuppyLove.gif

[SleepyWitch]

Frankly, Sleepy, your poem sort of sounds as though it were written about a certain old mountain hermit who drops in once in a while... I'm shameless :blush:

Pen

http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l108/AbsalomKane/Smilies/PuppyLove.gif

:confused:

hehe, it is about a real person, but not about a mountain hermit :) it's about a local writer from my region whom I had a crush on when I was 15 but whose latests books sound kinda blah

[Virgil]

The first stanza sounds great to me. It's mock epic and that requires exaggeration and bombast.

[SleepyWitch]

:) yep, maybe i'd better stick to nasty poems in the future :) when I want to write something beautiful, no one likes it but when I trash another writer in a poem, people like it :)
(erhem, I think you haven't criticized my second but latest poem yet -cf. my sig.-. you'll probably find it appalling cliched and schmalzy :D of course I don't mean to be pushy at all :D :D :D )

[blp]

ok, I've changed but to just

does all of the first stanza sound archaic?

It's probably just the repeated 'muse' and the 'oh' at the very start.