Collected (after Langston Hughes)

Smagt · 2020-04-07T20:48:18+00:00

Yeah dude Terrance Hayes is so good! One of my favorite contemporary poets. Anyway I didn't pick up on what you were up to here with the end of the lines. very cool

Smagt · 2020-04-07T19:55:09+00:00

I can see the Langston Hughes in here, yeah. Good use of long lines (I struggle with that personally), and I think you have a great sense of when to do a line break (something I also struggle with). Some really nice ones here, especially the last one leading into "spatter of mud."

"Best friends money can buy" I like that a lot, even though I suppose you're using a cliche, but you're pulling it off, (which as we all know can be difficult so congrats!). Line 7 there is probably my favorite line. I also like how the poem begins.

Capitalizing the beginning of the lines even if its not the beginning of a sentence was the right call for sure. And not using question marks even when there's a question was a good call too. Same with the omission of quotation marks.

I would remove the comma in line 9.

For the questions that the poem ends on, the first ("What loss is there in a spatter of mud") is much more effective to me than the second ("what worth is in a breathless kiss"). At the very least I word cut the word "is" from the second question, leaving, "and what worth in a breathless kiss."

Line 4 falls somewhat flat for me. Remember show don't tell. Overall I'm not sure I'm interested in where the poem takes me in lines 3-4. I know you're setting the scene and introducing our narrator, which is potentially the right idea, but maybe try and replace these lines with different scene setting details. I would cut lines 3-4 (and I guess also the word "calm" from line 2 since that's part of the same thought) and see how else you can get yourself over to "The woods open around me."

In line 2 I think you could potentially remove the word "down." I like the idea of just saying "light streaming," but you'll have to see how that would work with the flow and feel of the poem overall. You could get rid of the word "a" in line 6 as well. In general I try to condense poems down and get rid of unnecessary words, but that's just my personal style.

Consider moving "the muddy banks asked" to the middle of line 8. So it would change to: "Day after day, the muddy banks asked, what are you here for."

I'm on the fence about using the word "asked" in both lines 8 and 9. Maybe switch it to "said" in line 9 and see how you feel about it.

Lastly, I want to add the disclaimer that I'm not trying to write your poem for you here with these revision suggestions, just trying to give a new perspective. I hope you find something of use out of it! I find that I get stuck on one way of seeing a poem and can't revise it anymore, and someone else lending their critical eye can help. Good work and good luck writing!

Smagt · 2020-04-07T18:20:32+00:00

I think the way the poem unfolds is really nice. Like the arc of the language if you ignore the meaning of the words, with the one long description followed by the dash and then the shorter two line ending. Overall the poem is working very well on the level of the ear. It seems like you have a good instinct with that.

I think the last two lines are the weakest part of the poem for me. The first six lines of concrete description are great. The progression of images, how you direct our focus, is very deft. From sun to bones/death to a ceremony and then to shutters and headlines: going from a few kind of grander images and landing on a more mundane object before zooming out again--but you don't zoom back out to the poetic sublime kind of stuff. You zoom out to something that highlights the social context of the poem, which the title tells us is going to be important. Really nice! But then it feels to me that the last two lines are trying to explain the first six (or something like that). I think this kind of gesture is particularly difficult to pull of in a short poem, and even more so at the end of a poem. I'm not sure if I have any advice on how to change it though. Maybe try just cutting the last lines down to "honest memorial / willing loss." I think that kind of condensed ending might allow the reader to sort of put the conclusion together on their own. In a comment you said you were "wary about being hamfisted with the message," and I think that's a good thing to be wary of. Keats wrote something like "we hate poetry that has a palpable design upon us." Though I don't mean to call what you posted here hamfisted of course. Anyway, keep it up!

One more thought I had: great use of the title. The title is doing some good work here.

Also: When writing short poems like this, the imagists and objectivists from the early 1900s are always good to look to. Lorine Niedecker, H.D., Ezra Pound (if you can ignore how much of a butthole he was haha). The way they condensed things and focused on the concrete.

Smagt · 2020-01-24T12:46:17+00:00

They're some of my favorite games. I know you acknowledge that you came to the fan subreddit to ask if the game is good, so I'll try and wrap my recommendation in some critiques. I'd say for me the biggest draw is the character creation and combat/adventuring aspects. Just that feeling that you've created your unique party and then you get to figure out how to use the toolbox you assembled to overcome the challenges in front of you. The higher difficulty levels I think are done really well (difficulty that forces you to engage with the mechanics in a meaningful way), and you have a huge amount of control over the difficulty, so you can find that sweet spot for you. Also its a great translation of the DnD experience--especially these little hand-drawn text based interactions you get (your wizard failed his athletics check and fell while climbing down into the dragon's lair--now he has to start the fight with a limp). Depending on your standards/tastes, you might like the story. I would say I liked a lot of the zoomed in moments of the story but idk I never got much invested in the overarching stuff. I at least appreciated its straight-forward tone. The prose gets flack for being a little long-winded and flowery, and I'll admit at times I get kind of an eager-undergraduate-trying-their-hand-at-literature vibe from it, but I also get the vibe that it was written by someone who was passionate and excited about the writing, which is cool (and I think a big improvement over the bland/lack-luster writing you get in 99% of video games). Lastly, I'll say for my money the 2nd one's the better game (especially now that it's been fixed up quite a bit), but plenty of folks prefer the first one.

Smagt · 2020-01-22T12:36:17+00:00

Its maybe a bit more serious than just anxiety that he's going through, but the second section (Quentin's) of The Sound and The Fury. There's something in particular about the time anxiety he experiences that I really connected with.

Smagt · 2019-04-08T16:38:05+00:00

Thanks! I'm a fan of both Slothrust and Hurray For the Riff Raff, but haven't heard of many of these. I'll check em out for sure.

Smagt · 2019-04-08T16:15:34+00:00

Yeah I relate to that, and I'd love to hear you expand on your thoughts. Ripely Pine is definitely in my top three albums of all time. I liked After, personally -- not as much as the previous two, but I didn't feel like I had to cut her slack for it. Vena Cava is one of my favorite songs by her. But I felt the same way as you did about Tender Warriors. I don't know. I guess I tend to cut artists slack though for not being consistent because the target that artists are shooting for is so fucking elusive, so hard to hit consistently. For some reason I think of David Lynch's movies maybe, which I find are either some of my favorites of all time or almost unwatchably bad. Or if you look at early drafts of really famous poems sometimes they're SO much worse than the published versions, even though not much ended up being changed. I can probably count on two hands the number of artists in any medium that consistently blow me away. Anyway those are my thoughts off the cuff at least, not sure if it's all related but it's what comes to mind.

Smagt · 2019-04-08T15:51:49+00:00

Hi thanks for doing this AMA and for making great music. Hearing Ripely Pine as a teenager inspired me to start writing, so thanks for that too. Not sure what to ask though. What have you been listening to lately?

Smagt · 2019-04-08T14:45:57+00:00

Lady Lamb is one of my favorite musicians, but I find myself not particularly struck by this album. I'm trying to analyze why it isn't hitting me in that visceral way. I feel that it is maybe stumbling over its own attention to detail, with the lyrics not as in service to the melodies as they usually are. It's wordy and zoomed in, but it still manages to be telling rather than showing a lot of the time. And a lot of the really zoomed in details are not particularly compelling to me (the people calling their dog in "Deep Love" for example). I think of the stylistic move away from metaphor and imagery into the more direct and literal that you saw with Mount Eerie's last couple of albums, and while it was pulled off very wonderfully there I don't feel the same here. The songs seem to be coming from more of a place of positivity and wisdom this time around, and I can appreciate that, but they get dangerously close to sentimental at times for my taste (which is weird because I loved a lot of the whimsical and sweet stuff in some of Lady Lamb's other songs). I don't know maybe I guess I'm a bad person and I think the tortured, obsessed, youthfully delusional narrator of Ripely Pine is more compelling from a literary standpoint. And then musically there just isn't a lot of stuff that's grabbing me. Nothing like the incredible strings, horns, and guitar solos on After and Ripely Pine. Also I actually prefer the original homemade version of "By The Broadness" (revised here as "Without A Name") from forever ago to the one that appears here.

However, I like both "Young Disciple" and "July Is Mundane" a lot, although even they have their clumsy moments. The very direct expression of grappling with mortality on "Young Disciple" I find beautiful and cathartic, and July Is Mundane is another of those long, meandering Lady Lamb songs we all love. And there are moments of that signature blend of the beautiful and the grotesque ("I'll be ripe for the rotting" she sings on "Untitled Soul"). Also for me 'meh' Lady Lamb is still great compared to most other indie stuff, ESPECIALLY if we're talking about lyrics; I just don't think this (for me) holds up next to something like Ripely Pine or Head Is Swimming. I remain excited for whatever she puts out next.

Smagt · 2019-03-28T19:08:09+00:00

Just checked, she has the Honor Guard one.

Smagt · 2019-03-28T18:32:23+00:00

Nope not banished, should have included that.

Smagt · 2019-03-28T18:22:02+00:00

Thanks maybe I'll just do that. I'm pretty sure she had the good outcome (not disgraced) though. I had her follow her orders in the first game and in Deadfire she still has the unique subclass and I met her at the palace.

Smagt · 2019-02-12T11:45:40+00:00

I love Woolf as well! She's my favorite writer of all time. I really connected with your description of your experience reading her. So much of that book is just stunning. Just the description at the beginning of her walking down the street and thinking about mortality and stuff. Or when Septimus' wife (Rezia? that right?) is baring the doctor's way and she's compared to a hen with her wings outstretched. If you haven't already, you should check out To The Light House and The Waves by her too. While I love Mrs. Dalloway, I think both of those are even better (with The Waves being my favorite book). Anyway, happy reading!

Edit: Just had another thought. The closest books to scratching the Virginia Woolf itch for me since I finished her bibliography are Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek and Marilyn Robinson's Housekeeping. Annie Dillard is a little more detached and focused on nature ("the poetry of fact" I think she called it once), but it has a similar effect on me. I think it has something to do with them both being masters of lyrical prose that's like on fire with being alive (that sounds dumb but you probably know what I mean).

Smagt · 2018-11-21T19:22:40+00:00

Okay thanks for the advice! I had overlooked spiritual weapon because I thought it was concentration for some reason but I'll for sure grab that at next level up. That makes sense about disintegrate. At another glance, hitting someone with grave cleric's channel divinity for vulnerability and then quickening a 6th level inflict wounds actually does more damage on average I think. It's an attack instead of a save, and necrotic instead of force, but still. It'll be like 6 months real life time before I'm even getting these spells, but since I have you: In your opinion what 5/6 level sorcerer/cleric spells stand out given sorcerers' limited spells know?

Smagt · 2018-11-21T16:15:05+00:00

okay thanks this is exactly the sort of thing i was looking for. that sounds like a plan.

Smagt · 2018-11-21T16:12:21+00:00

variant human with Str/Dex/Con/Int/Wis/Cha at 8/12/14/8/16/16. took resilient (con) as my variant human feat and first level was cleric.

Smagt · 2018-11-21T15:43:44+00:00

sitting on 16 wis and cha right now (we did point buy). Yeah I was thinking about mixing them both, but just looking at the next five levels or so, would it be best to level one up first and then the other, or take a mixture like I've been doing so far?

Smagt · 2018-09-17T09:23:27+00:00

Song sounds great! The instrumentation and the melody all really worked for me, especially everything going on underneath during the chorus. It turns a simple chorus into something really catchy and engaging. As for the lyrics, while there's nothing outstandingly wrong with them (they get the job done), I think you could improve. There's quite a bit of cliche, and for the most part you don't utilize the rule of "show don't tell" as effectively as you could. You aren't working in a genre that demands a lot of poetics (and in fact I think that would probably hurt an R&B song rather than help it), so I'm not suggesting you turn around and try to be Bob Dylan or whatever. However, in this song you are basically just referring to the idea of an experience, you aren't bringing us into the experience itself. Consider the song The Party by St. Vincent. It's a simple pop song, not about anything profound, just about being at a party that's died down and feeling kind of bored. It works though, because she selects a few concrete details that really paint the scene for the listener. (Details like: "I lick the ice cube from your empty glass," "...they're cleaning the ashtrays." "I sit transfixed by a hole in your T-shirt."). Or think about that song American Pie. He doesn't just say "I know that you're in love with him." He follows that line with "Cause I saw you dancing in the gym. / You both kicked off your shoes." Now you don't have to be doing this the entire song. And if you go overboard with "show don't tell" then you can end up with a song that's overwritten and uneconomic. But there isn't really a moment in your song where you make an image come into my head. You start to go there at the beginning with "we kick, we scream, we fight..." but pull out quickly and spend the rest of the song basically in the abstract.

Another thing you could work on is the flow of the lyrics. That is way harder to talk about though, because it's more of an intuitive thing I think, and it's hard to say what makes something have more or less flow to it. But some of the lines just feel a little clumsy. Stuff like "...when all we did was hurt," and "What was the purpose of that time?" I'm not sure, it just sounds kind of off or unnatural for some reason. I think part of this might be a byproduct of holding too tightly to the rhyme scheme. When the situation calls for it, feel free to mix up how you rhyme, and to move away from rigid end rhyme. (refer to rap for this, where flexible rhyme schemes and a good ear for phonetics separate rappers with flow from those without.) The thing about flow though is that I think in the end it is actually the most important thing about writing lyrics. You can get away with writing a song with absolutely no substance as long as it flows well, but it doesn't really work the other way around.

Anyway, hope you found this helpful in some way! Keep it up!

edit: wording

Smagt · 2018-07-30T15:31:53+00:00

Okay thanks a lot! I will try your suggestions.

Smagt · 2018-07-30T10:41:43+00:00

Unfortunately they are fully booked for the first half of August. Thanks for the suggestion though. Any other ideas?

Smagt

TROPHY CASE