Tears of Rage

[Pete Ak]

We should all cry with rage,
To remember the age
When a black man’s every bone
Was legally owned
By white men growing sugarcane, tobacco and cotton.
They built a trade so wrong and so rotten.
Supported and justified by profit…
Even their prophet -
Their pure white God
Supposedly smiled on their plantations,
Sent them slaves,
For inhuman trade.
The legacy of such abominations
You’ll see to this day:
Colour blinded goodness
that still devalues,
Kneel down integration
White determined virtues.
Carnival ghettos,
Rock against racism;
And we still sing the blues.
So cry my brother,
Continue to cry and think.
I hope the tears somehow assuage
Though I fear we might as well drink
The tears of rage

[hillwalker]

Oo-er - definitely a rhyme-driven poem. Which makes me wonder, did you really want to write 'a black man's every bone' or 'a trade so wrong and so rotten'?
Also one normally associates regular metre with rhyming but there's none here so it reads rather awkwardly.

The problem with recurring rhymes is that the poem ends up more like doggerel. It's impossible to treat an issue like slavery with the gravity it deserves with such a blind determination to find words that rhyme rather than expressions that strike home. To make matters worse you give up on rhyming once it becomes too difficult to maintain (presumably) so why bother in the first place?

If you doubt the perfidy of rhymed verse, try reading William Topaz McGonagall's 'The Tay Bridge Disaster' while keeping a straight face.

Fine sentiments but they're undermined by the choice of form.

H

[Pete Ak]

Oh my fukin God!! This may be my last post here, not sure I can stand to be exposed as so useless. It's true I'm addicted to rhyme and very, very often consider my poems may come across as immature or forced because of that. However I did think I avoided the kind of excesses that led poor McGonagall being described as the 'worst poet in history'. You see the truth is I did mean to write "a black man's every bone" and "a trade so wrong and so rotten", because I believe both statements. Clearly, at the time of writing (embarrassingly not that long ago) I thought, with enjambment and sentence construction/placement, the rhymes worked. As for metre, I have performed this piece without stumbling - but I know that's not difficult for authors despite severe clunkiness. Also when I'm reading it I can maintain rhymes right thru the piece - they clearly didn't help your reading of it tho, which I suppose is your point.
I think I'll just crawl under a rock, maybe re-emerge when people have forgotten. Thanks for the time and thought H.

[hillwalker]

We've all been in the same situation as you find yourself in now... part of the learning curve of becoming a better writer is taking criticism with dignity (which you have done) - another is standing up for what you have written.

In my mind rhyme is a curse that infects all writers of poetry at a certain point in their lives. It can indeed give the impression of immaturity - or of a writer not taking the topic they are writing about seriously enough. It often becomes an exercise in finding words or expressions that rhyme rather than writing something that has significance to them personally.

I didn't take your sentiments seriously because of the method you employed to reveal them. Learning to express yourself effectively and concisely has to come before finding more original ways of rhyming.

As for 'a black man's every bone' and 'a trade so wrong and so rotten' - is that the best you can come up with to convey what you believe in? I think not based on some of your other posts on here.

And I wasn't comparing this poem to McGonagall's - just trying to show how rhyme can be so distracting that the reader forgets what the poem is supposed to be saying (and often the writer does as well).

H

[Xillus_Xavier]

Pete, I absolutely agree with Hillwalker. I have also been where you are, being ticked off over the fact my rhyming poems wasn't liked. I've since moved on (mostly) from rhyming, but I do think it can still be a great way of presenting certain types of subjects. Your subject matter, however, is not one of those.

There's two options for you, really: stay upset and stop putting your work out to be critiqued or learn from this, grow thicker skin and improve as a poet. It's all up to you.

[Pete Ak]

Guys... of course my motives are to improve my writing and of course I don't expect everything I write to be greeted with glorious acclamation. Indeed the feedback from this site is EXACTLY what I've been looking for on the 'net for a while. I'm sure both of you have tried other sites about which the kindest thing that can be said is they're hilarious!!

Thanks for the come-back H. It may surprise you to know I see absolute sense in everything you've said, although I won't agree rhyming is a "curse" even though with this piece it appears to you that I have been afflicted by it. You used the word "doggerel earlier H which I've used to describe some of the comic pieces I've written, interestingly I couldn't point anyone to (or hardly imagine) pieces of comic poetry that don't use rhyme. As comic (light) verse is commonly regarded as the least 'worthy' of poetic forms (even the really clever stuff) I guess rhyming suffers devaluation because of this. It's as if the further one moves from the lowest form, the more 'sophisticated' will be the product. I'm sure you'd agree this is at least unfair and in many cases clearly not true. Nevertheless the stigma is so pervasive as to tarnish rhyme with this image of immaturity and 'unseriousness'. I use rhyme in my fight against this view. The easiest way for me to do this is to tackle topics of importance and gravity and try to apply (my) poetic gravitas to them; the same as you except, I WILL utilise rhyme even to broach topics such as slavery. Yes there are times when in search of the right thing to say, I will perhaps rejig phrases, and reject some apt words for lack of rhyme but I would never compromise meaning nor knowingly strip a poem of its imperiousness for the sake of it. I should add that I don't think rhyming is necessary for poetry - I believe it can add flavour to a bland poem, sweetness to a sour one, even nobility of a sort, to poetry which comes across as unassertive or servile.
(Here comes the bit where I stand up for what I've written!)
The two phrases we've used as exemplars in this debate are defendable. (IMO) "A black man's every bone" is a clear indication of the extent of the ownership. Not just body/clothes/limbs (used to carry out the work) but even the internal structure of the man, that which every other person in the world would justifiably and correctly consider to be theirs - was owned by the slavemaster. (NB I didn't use 'spirit' or 'soul' because he couldn't own them, despite his every effort).
And "A trade so wrong and so rotten" I can't think of words to replace 'wrong' - immoral, perverse, bad, ugly would all have done a job - but I felt 'wrong' is what it was so that's what I said. I could have just called the trade wrong but I added rotten not just for the rhyme (with 'cotton') but also to emphasise that I think the trade to be loathsome, corrupt and disgusting. (OK I accept any of those words might have worked too).
I've also learned how important it is that poetry be succinct - you'd never guess from this rambling response.

XX I'm really grateful for your comments and - well I'll select option 2 I suppose!

I will post again - blank verse next time (maybe!)

[hillwalker]

You might be surprised to learn that I often write rhyming poetry - even on this site - but it's almost always tongue-in cheek or humorous verse (I never attempt doggerel), or perhaps I'll use a rhyming couplet to end a piece of blank verse for effect.

It is possible to approach 'serious' topics through the medium of rhyming poetry but you have to use subtlety - I still think 'so wrong and so rotten' is a rather lazy cop-out but we can agree to disagree.

The whole point, of course, is that blank verse is just as difficult to write but you're choosing words for internal rhyme, alliteration and impact rather than because they fit the rhyme scheme - so in theory there's more chance that we get to hear the poet's own voice rather than discover how nifty he is with a rhyming dictionary.

H

[Pete Ak]

I have questioned the "so" in that line and I'm coming round to your view now... thanks.
Looking forward to debating stuff with you again.

[AuntShecky]

Yours fooly is a champion of rhyme in modern verse; I agree with Miller Williams that rhyme is a tool in the writer's tool box which is there when it's appropriate to use it. One appropriate use is in light verse, especially the little ditties intending a comic effect.

As the very astute Hillwalker previously pointed out, it's very important to avoid using rhyme when it tends to make your topic seem trivial. On the other hand, many of the world's deadly serious poems rhyme -- in the original Italian, The Divine Comedy was written completely in terza rima.
Aspiring writers who favor rhyme must make it their business to learn how to use rhyme properly and effectively.

The reason I wasn't crazy about this particular piece is that it seems to exist as an opportunity to grind your ax. Not that the reader is unsympathetic to the cause which the verse address; it's that the narrator seems to have mounted a soapbox in order to rant at the converted. More to the point, the form and content of this piece are not original; we've been down this road before in more artistic vehicles on less bumpy rides.

I read how you want to try to write blank verse. That's admirable, but again, brush up on what blank verse is: unrhymed lines of iambic pentameter.
(That means the lines have to scan.)

Sorry if this critique sounds harsh, but one assumes you're here to learn. (That's one of the reasons yours truly is here-- to learn.) So if you post more work, we'll be happy to offer comments and help whenever we can.

Best of luck!

[Pete Ak]

Thank you Aunt for reading and commenting. I can handle the accusation of unoriginal content, I'm pretty sure 99% of all poems address issues that have been addressed before and I accept there is nothing new in the 'form' of the piece. I'm disappointed tho that my use of rhyme has trivialised the message. My problem of course is that I definitely didn't intend that, yet I've still done it - I've baffled myself!!

[Delta40]

I think it's absolutely wonderful that you've received such feedback Pete and secondly that you're willing to keep posting. For me as a member, I really hope to learn from these pieces of advice myself on both counts! It's all very encouraging.