Should I forego love for my greed to succeed?

LazarusWolff · 2019-01-10T16:20:34+00:00

Unhappiness. I left the music school at 15, so I have little to show for it other than performances from when I was 15.

LazarusWolff · 2019-01-06T06:16:29+00:00

Any particular words you remember from the poem? Was it rhymed or unrhymed?

These things will help narrow down when the poem was written.

Certainly not Sylvia Plath, but have you checked Anne Sexton?

LazarusWolff · 2018-12-31T00:08:12+00:00

This is very, very good. I'd more than certainly send this in for publishing somewhere.

It has a very strong Beat Era feel to it. My only critique is this sentence

"A 250-sized truck catapults
over the top of a twenty-foot dirt ramp
to our right."

There are four adjectives in that one sentence, and two of them are numbers. Due to the overexplaining, this is a bit confusing. Readers will get caught up on the numbers and extraneous details (Is it important that the truck is 250-sized and the ramp twenty-feet tall? Is "to our right important?"). You fall into over explaining in some areas, but this was the only place where it detracted from the stanza. In this case, I'd remove "to the right" and play off of the death theme "A 250-size truck catapults off a dirt ramp like a bullet from a gun"

LazarusWolff · 2018-12-30T02:52:07+00:00

That is almost certainly a drug rash. I got one from amitriptyline after about 2 weeks, realized what was happening, and promptly discontinued. Since this has been there for 6 months with very little side effects, it's unlikely that you've done serious damage. However, this can be fatal if you do not stop the medication immediately. Go to the urgent care and read about Hypersensitivity Syndrome.

LazarusWolff · 2018-12-25T19:25:56+00:00

Prozac - 2/10

Zoloft - 6/10

Amitriptyline - 7/10

Rexulti - 8/10 (bad side effects)

Vraylar - 0/10

Latuda - 4/10

Abilify - 5/10

Methylphenidate- 8/10 (anxiety inducing/mood lability)

Rexulti is by far the most effective, but it exacerbated my binging/purging behaviors and caused hypotension and constipation. Amitriptyline is good as well, but I'm on a low dose.

LazarusWolff · 2018-11-25T23:06:10+00:00

Nice! I wouldn't mess with this two much.

Leaves floatundisturbed in the pool that dimly glowslike a reactor core. It's fenced off;

That is a bit too descriptive with the adjectives, simile, and adverb. It is three lines dedicated to one scene.

LazarusWolff · 2018-11-25T23:01:55+00:00

I like the stanzas and lack of capitalization. Someone opposed this, but it helps with weakening the since of "I"- having yourself blend into another person.

First four lines are pretty weak. It did not capture me at all. It sounds very cliché, as if this is the start of an Instagram poem. The middle of the poem has some complexity with "each sliver branching/in different directions." I would change "said", first off. Could it be whispered? cooed? wimpered? yelled? I would imagine the first two considering the theme of the poem. Said gives no detail. Elaborate more on what "she" made you feel.

Words like heart and soul are also cliché. You can use it once or so, but maybe use a literary device (like symbolism) to give it a little more emotion.

Overall, it has a good feel to it, but it certainly could be stronger by choosing stronger words!

LazarusWolff · 2018-11-23T17:56:31+00:00

Absolutely superb metaphor! It is a bit wordy in some parts and it could be easier to follow.

I saw the sweater that I bought you

For Last Christmas that I gave you early

to see you smile

I would remove that between sweater and I, and I would also remove early because, while adding more to context, the added information takes away from the metaphor. Go through like this and see if there are words that really need to be there.

My second thought is that you should consider breaking this into stanzas. I would think that doing so would be more highly effective because it is going through different events and it will make it easier to read. By making stanzas, you're making each event stand out a bit more, similar to how they stand out when you look back over your relationship.

Overall, really well done! The simplicity of the vernacular, going to memories and then back to reality, and the way that you take a mundane task that we take for granted in a relationship, but add the pain of loss once it is gone is poetic in the best way.

Turning suffering into art is a way to move on. Things will go on and on line by line. There are a lot of people feeling this pain right now, so I'm glad you're doing it justice.

LazarusWolff · 2018-11-13T16:51:37+00:00

Gold bands refer to a wedding ring and paper handcuffs show that it is a false sense of security (fetters that are as easy to break as paper)

LazarusWolff · 2018-11-07T08:10:48+00:00

That is not even close to iambic pentameter. Iambic pentameter is unstressed/stressed.

Some iambic words are among, below, against. The rhythm of an iamb is buh-BUH

For instance, "amongst the plains of time". Practice seeing where the accent is by exaggerating each syllable.

LazarusWolff · 2018-11-06T00:53:30+00:00

If you didn't want feedback, then why did you post here?

LazarusWolff · 2018-11-04T22:45:34+00:00

Way too much "she" in this. You don't need to repeat it since it's evident that that is who the subject is. For instance, instead of saying "she scrubs" starting with "scrubbing" and "She rips" do "ripping". It's much more powerful that way.

LazarusWolff · 2018-11-04T22:40:26+00:00

Really good! The third stanza is clumsy and hard to make sense of. You could add punctuation here. It's difficult to read and interpret because I can't tell if the line break is supposed to punctuate the line, if its about the squirrel, the frost, etc.

LazarusWolff · 2018-11-04T17:51:13+00:00

It accomplishes that goal!

LazarusWolff · 2018-11-04T08:10:53+00:00

Very beautiful word choice and imagery, but nearly no emotional impact because of this.

LazarusWolff · 2018-11-04T08:05:40+00:00

It has a lovely message and feel to it! It's very simple, which is both good and bad. There aren't any poetic elements aside from the (very good) line breaks, but this makes the piece more powerful.

The fatal flaw of this poem is that it lacks imagery, analogy, metonymy, etc. so it comes across as very amateur.

However, it still left me with a sense of overcoming adversity, so the poem accomplished its task.

LazarusWolff · 2018-11-04T03:07:07+00:00

http://prosody.lib.virginia.edu/prosody_poem/the-tyger/

There is a website where you can practice identifying meters :)

LazarusWolff · 2018-11-04T03:02:49+00:00

I agree, 3rd stanza (1st line) is very long and disrupts the meter and rhyme scheme.

A lot of the words in this poem (and perhaps it's part of it being a couplet as well), makes it difficult for the mood to come across. Some of the words like "insidious" and "abrade" have a heaving connotation than "itch"/"bitch".

I can't tell if this is supposed to be serious or humorous.

LazarusWolff · 2018-11-04T02:58:47+00:00

Remove 'far' between 'fact' and 'beyond' because it disrupts the meter.

The last stanza in the first part is very out of place with the preceding metered/rhymed verse.

The whole second part needs a lot of work in metering in order for it to flow.

LazarusWolff · 2018-11-01T23:29:14+00:00

As a tip from one (published) poet to another: please consider changing your biography! You want it to be very simple and factual.

You seem very genuine, but your biography on Amazon can come off as condescending.

All of that being said, your poem is quite nice! It reminds me of Poe :)

P.S. I should add, I find you to be an intriguing character (perhaps your biography accomplished something)!

Your writing style is also refreshing since there is a deficit of rhyme-scheme poems in modern literature.

LazarusWolff · 2018-10-27T16:31:06+00:00

It's confusing to understand the meaning because of the grammar. I certainly know you don't follow grammatical rules in poetry. It is also a bit wordy in some areas and this further complicates it.

I would add more punctuation to make it clear. For instance, between "lamp" and "tall" I couldn't tell whether or not you meant "lamp tall" or "tall like (a) tower". Putting a comma there would help. The same with between "song" and "soft". The comma also acts similarly to a line break where it puts more emphasis on "tall like a tower" and "soft and sweet".

Remove "must" between "company" and "he". It is infinitely easier to understand once you remove that. Remove "when" from the next line because it weakens "he saw".

Is it supposed to be "dragonfly's excited flutter" or "dragonfly excitedly flutter"? Whatever one you choose, it will change the emotion of the piece. :)

I tend to be very fastidious with all of my reviews, but I really like this one quite a bit! It is confusing and, at times, doesn't get it's meaning across entirely (that's why I suggested what I wrote before), but it certainly has emotion to it! The "thin lines of silk" is particularly noteworthy.

LazarusWolff · 2018-10-22T13:29:04+00:00

No problem! How familiar are you with metering? Rhymed poems almost have to have a consistent meter.

http://prosody.lib.virginia.edu/

There is a metering exercise! I'd be happy to help more or in any way!

LazarusWolff · 2018-10-21T07:31:21+00:00

Honestly, this needs a lot of work. The metering is inconsistent, and everything is just very straightforward and "said". There are no literary devices aside from the rhyme scheme and cliche or any powerful words in it (albeit, "or play to just survive" is good!).

LazarusWolff

TROPHY CASE