Going digital

[doingitagain]

From YouTube fame to household name
Our lives infused with digital speed and this story isn't strange.
Exposure = marketing = money,
And lifestyles pick up like graphs of exponential functions.
Facebook is all about you when you log in, but you're no star.
Always looking to win a big pot, to live everyday like Hollywood days, and we miss the jabs we can throw-
the knockout punch will come.

[hillwalker]

Interesting opening line - with a touch of internal rhyme - but then it tends to go off-track.

I couldn't really fathom what you were trying to say by the end - except that notoriety on the internet is transient perhaps - and the poetic form, such as it was, rapidly degenerates into prose.

H

[everyadventure]

First four lines were good, the last few wander...

Hey, do you mind if I sign off with a link to my YouTube channel? ;)

[doingitagain]

Gaw damn it! I do not understand poetry. A lot of my feedback is similar to the first reply on this page- the spurts of poetic techniques fade away to prose. Am I more of a prose writer? Is prose natural for everyone? One thing I do know, I don't understand poetry. Fock!


"We the mortals touch the metals,
the wind, the ocean shores, the stones,
knowing they will go on, inert or burning,
and I was discovering, naming all the these things:
it was my destiny to love and say goodbye."
-Pablo Neruda

[MystyrMystyry]

Don't worry about it - off-ball poetry is fun

The thing is if you want to reduce criticism remember you can't please everyone - two or three critical comments out of a thousand non-comments aren't the end of the world

But one thing all poets aspire to, and with practice, achieve, is consistency - it doesn't matter the length or the style or the subject so much as the quality flows through it like a cascade

If you want to write knife-edge, jolting topical poetry it still has to have the same feel throughout - not suddenly change voice and angle

Okay, got it? That's a rule, now it's up to you to break it - but with purpose, not just for the sake of it; know why you're breaking it and analyse if the breaking works - often it's better not to break it


Now for your poem: it begins as though it has something to say, which it does, but then after you've said it it seems you're hastily scrambling for something else to say - hoping it will work and write itself. There needs to be a sense you knew how you were constructing it and followed a pattern of thought from the beginning

This reads like two or three things tacked together and as a result all are lessened rather than strengthened

[everyadventure]

MM gave you some excellent advice. This poem isn't hopeless! It has a strong start. Humor me, and try again: keep the first four lines, and write a new ending. See if you can convey your message with the use of thoughtful detail, rather than TELLING us your message straight out.

For example, if you wanted to TELL us that cyber-fame is a shallow substitute for real life, you might describe the user's unglamorous surroundings: a spoon lacquered to a bowl of Spaghetti-O's, a threadbare recliner cloaked in cat hair, the odor of tuna fish from a bulging trash bag. Those things speak of a sad and solitary life, they DEMONSTRATE it, without you saying, "here's the moral of this poem..."

BTW, I think it is the rare poem that survives this forum with some editing. A few people pointed out that I didn't need the first stanza on my most recent poem, and you know what? They were right! And now I'm quite pleased with what I ended up with... feedback is a good thing. Use it :)

[doingitagain]

Thanks for the replies. Please, don't think I'm afraid of criticism. When my professor tells me that my organization falters, and that idea is reaffirmed by my friends who read my stories, I have to pay attention because I want to get better, and it's the same idea here (when I was younger I used to sell cable door-to-door so rudeness is something I can discern and block out).

The only thing I find frustrating at the moment is my lack of understanding on poetry's form. It's natural for me to write the way I did, and idk how to change it. I like Jorge Luis Borges' writing style and language, Jack Kerouac's stream of consciousness, Dostoevsky and Tolstoy's creation of setting. I'd like to mix Borges and Kerouac, and although I'm not consciously trying to do that, that's my ultimate goal. Idk.

What I was trying to say in the above poem is: Be where you are. Believing the hype and buying into a grandiose lifestyle you don't live or can afford will have you ungrateful and unhappy with what you have. I play poker, and winning small pots is also profitable, you can't just wait to play big pots, they will come. I like to box a little bit too, and my sparring partner told me, "Just work on wearing down the body, knock out hits will come." I was trying to incorporate different hobbies and lifestyles into the belief that working day in and day out will lead to the life that can sustain lavish days.

But I don't know how to say that in a poetic fashion. How can I use the stream of consciousness I love and the surrealism I love?

[hillwalker]

Did you write this poem following a 'stream of consciousness' episode? because it doesn't read that way.

As EA and MM say - you start off OK then it's as if you cut and pasted a series of related ideas you wished to include and hoped the poem would retain its shape. But it didn't.

Someone once wrote you should read like a butterfly and write like a bee - read as much as you can of everything, but when it comes to writing try to keep it sharp and focussed. Your poem does begin to wander a bit towards the end - concentrate on what you were trying to say and condense that into as few words as possible. Make every word matter.

H

[IceM]

The only thing I find frustrating at the moment is my lack of understanding on poetry's form. It's natural for me to write the way I did, and idk how to change it. I like Jorge Luis Borges' writing style and language, Jack Kerouac's stream of consciousness, Dostoevsky and Tolstoy's creation of setting. I'd like to mix Borges and Kerouac, and although I'm not consciously trying to do that, that's my ultimate goal. Idk.



I understand this issue well. I just recently finished Borges' book of sonnets and have read the authors you mention. Allow me to give you my advice.

A writer whose name I forget suggested "poetry is the selection of the best images in the best order." Stream of consciousness writing tempts the writer into writing everything conceivable that can be attached to one idea. The descriptions of writers of such a style have a tendency to go on for pages. It's a beautiful style, but is inefficient. In poetry, consistency and efficiency of image strength are essential. Rather than string together many ideas, string together only the most powerful images. The strongest one or two distinct images create more vivid pictures than five or six of lesser strength.

Borges's sonnets provide an especially difficult issue. His sonnets feel prosy, but the efficiency and clarity of his images are characteristic of the beauty of efficient poetry. I feel like, removing the line breaks, his sonnets could be descriptions in novels or short stories. But his efficiency of expression and selection of only the most important images carry his sonnets to the highest beauty of poetry and prose.

Writing like Whitman--with a comprehensive list of images to augment one subject--works only if each image is of similar strength and adds a new perspective to the topic at hand.

Regards,
IceM

[doingitagain]

Someone once wrote you should read like a butterfly and write like a bee
H



I understand this issue well. I just recently finished Borges' book of sonnets and have read the authors you mention. Allow me to give you my advice.

In poetry, consistency and efficiency of image strength are essential.

Borges's sonnets provide an especially difficult issue. His sonnets feel prosy, but the efficiency and clarity of his images are characteristic of the beauty of efficient poetry. I feel like, removing the line breaks, his sonnets could be descriptions in novels or short stories. But his efficiency of expression and selection of only the most important images carry his sonnets to the highest beauty of poetry and prose.

Writing like Whitman--with a comprehensive list of images to augment one subject--works only if each image is of similar strength and adds a new perspective to the topic at hand.

Regards,
IceM

Both of these replies are very solid. They give me a way to get better at the craft and put to words some things I've felt.