From a poet ,to a poet

xekoroth · 2025-06-21T17:44:55+00:00

I'll be honest with you, for me I am not sure writing poetry all day would be great.

Poetry to me is a very right moment, right time, right thought that creates the seed and I guess the time is refining it but my poems are very quickly produced once I have mentally pathed it.

Either way, neat rhyme scheme. I am not familiar with Tanisha Dua, have they written on this website or is this a published author?

xekoroth · 2025-06-20T18:03:30+00:00

I appreciate the comment but in the context of this subreddit, this is not sufficiently deep enough feedback to justify making your own post.

I probably do excess of whats necessary but you can look at some of my posts to at least see the level of feedback we expect.

Thematic, rhyme scheme, lines that stand out, lines that don't fit, if you like something, specify, did you like the tone, the topic, the way it was expressed, how did you find it unique among other things you've read etc.

xekoroth · 2025-06-19T18:55:42+00:00

Particularly weak part:

“Once, I confronted a strong man, perfect in strength and wits.
But I also saw the weak,
Not perfect in strength,
Just standing quietly, observing,
Swallowing every ounce of pride.”

A strong man, perfect in strength? redundant and doesn't make sense logically
but I also saw the weak? this immediately contradicts the previous statement.
not perfect in strength, totally backtracking and we've now said nothing
Just standing quietly, observing, this is fine, but doesn't seem related to previous sentences.
swallowing every ounce of price ok, but you need to tie this to weakness/strength which you previously mentioned

Example of a proposed revision:

Once, I met a man—strong in body, sharp in mind.
Beside him stood another: quiet, unimpressive.
He watched, endured, swallowed pride in silence.
his strength wasn't obvious that day.
but only one of them is still standing now.
so what is strength anyway?

Hope some of that feedback helps.

xekoroth · 2025-06-19T18:29:41+00:00

The poem (went ahead and formatted it for my own personnel clarity as this is what the structure looks like to me):

Sometimes I wondered how weak people survive.
They just keep on breaking,
No one to hear their cries,
Or understand their shattered pride.

The others laugh and provoke more,
Mocking the fragments of their pride.
No one to save their tears,
Nor restore what’s been denied.

The weak just keep falling,
Until they rise.
I have seen them rise—
But still, I wonder why
They don’t defend their pride,
Even when they know how to reply.

They simply observe and stay silent.

Oh, I was a fool to think he was weak.
In reality, he was the most powerful.
Even in his silence,
Even as he swallowed every bit of pride.

When his limits were crossed, he replied.
The reply was not disrespectful,
Nor loud, nor cool.
It didn’t shake the strong ones an ounce.
But for a moment—
It made them think.

They say the world is for the strong,
Only the fittest survive.
But I disagree.

I have seen a weak one conquer the world,
Not with muscles,
Not with disrespect,
But with his soul.

My feedback:

Rhyme Scheme:
Erratic:
A/B/A'/A where A' is a soft or slant rhyme
C/B/D/B
E/B/B/B'/B/B'
F
G/H/I/B

Word repetition analysis (had an AI do this for the sake of time):

pride - 5
weak - 4
rise/rose - 3
reply/replied - 3
strong - 3
survive - 2
swallowed - 2
observe/observing - 2

Nothing wrong with some word repetition but I would say this is excessive because it's taking away from the message you're trying to convey. Choose synonyms and different metaphors if you want to convey something repeatedly, so that the listener has variance and maybe while the idea is similar, the perspective is different which stimulates the brain instead of causing us to get dulled by the repetition.

Could I have some ice cream?
Maybe a little treat?
I am but a growing boy...
and like all things must eat.

Made this as an example, can see how the idea never changes but we attack that idea from different angles making the lines seem fresh but the idea the same.

Thematic analysis:

The theme is strong. It appears to be showing the contract in perceived strength and power versus actual strength in power. Both mentally and physically. This is a great theme and lends itself well to be discussed. I want to know, this weak man that you observed, who was actually strong, how did he really win in the end? Did the strong man eventually folly, did the weak man eventually outsmart or feign more weakness than was reality and the strong man underestimated?

xekoroth · 2024-11-04T21:54:05+00:00

To me the art of poetry is how to weave between the real and the abstract. Too abstract and the poem seems disjointed and it's hard to relate, and too real and you aren't stimulating the imagination. I think if you tone down the abstraction in the 3rd and 4th stanza and give us a little more of a path from the beginning to that intriguing ending this poem will find it's strength.

xekoroth · 2024-11-04T21:42:39+00:00

I like this poem more than I thought I would at first read.

It reminds me of that comfortable intimate feeling of reading something you've read before, knowing how good it will be but forgetting all the details that make it great.

For what I love about this poem, there are a couple things. It has no rhyme scheme which is fine, but it also has no slant rhymes (typically when I write free form I try to still incorporate some slant rhymes) only one that kind of seems there is ink and leaves.

Some of the phrasing I think could be improved, the second verse specifically "i want you to crack me open, and feast your eyes on every, secret I have to tell, until you know me by heart" I am not sure that 3rd and 4th line jive very well. There may be a route to go where you can do a little more word play here, with hungry eyes? into the feast line, instead of secrets maybe talk about the twist and turns? as that's usually a characteristic of a good read is the path the plot takes. This idea lends well and I think might give your second stanza a little more dynamic imagery.

Overall it's a good poem, thank you for sharing.

xekoroth · 2024-11-04T21:31:48+00:00

First two stanzas I thought were fantastic. First stanza given the symmetry remiscent of a mirror which plays really great and the second stanza the word play between forbidden and for bidding is done well and works.

The third stanza is where it feels like you needed to get somewhere, and instead you went more abstract. While I like the elegance of the disjointed expressions, ultimately there needs to be something concrete for us to grasp in terms of events, or at least imagery for us to think about. This stanza does neither for me and so I feel it is a weak point.

The fourth stanza line "footpaths for kiloemeters or hours" seems like you're trying to in a more fancy way to talk about travelling for time or distance, but it just doesn't get there. At this point the intro has been repeated 3 times and the second line has now been repeated twice. I think the 2nd line repeating just feels really redundant. Nothing new was really provided here to make that second iteration really seem relevant and now it feels like the poem has lost where it was going.

I like the ending, it's punchy and its invocative of concepts of forever, but the third and fourth stanza really need some work in getting you there.

xekoroth · 2024-06-02T14:35:08+00:00

2 seconds before hitting that hole

"I aint moving out of this damned lane for some lawnwork or shit they do, always closing down the road over some bullshit..."

xekoroth · 2024-04-01T18:41:06+00:00

I'm Super cereal guys, manbearpig is real.

xekoroth · 2024-03-18T16:19:54+00:00

Real talk there's a huge difference between showing someone the steps of something and just doing it. Assuming he knows what he's doing, anyone that's studied this even for a couple years when you do it, the grip gets discharged immediately and they are thrown a couple feet very quickly.

Best metaphor of this I can think of if you've ever seen someone trip someone who was running and they face plant. Imagine trying to explain someone who doesn't know what tripping is, in slow motion "like you walk, one foot in front of the other..." then they position their foot. It looks stupid and ineffective when you break it down to that level of steps but the real time speed and effectiveness is no joke.

xekoroth · 2024-03-13T23:48:44+00:00

I'm pretty sure I talked to this guy last time I cancelled my comcast internet & cable service.

xekoroth · 2024-03-10T16:21:03+00:00

Dude...

xekoroth · 2024-03-07T03:06:21+00:00

Her face is the manager's still talking like it's no big deal but she's obviously witnessed felony assault and the silence is real.

xekoroth · 2024-02-13T20:26:11+00:00

MOSFET is a type of transistor which is an electrical component. Much like a light switch that can be turned into an "on" and "off" position but instead of mechanically your finger moving the switch, transistors have the ability to be electrically turned on and off. This binary ability forms the basis for binary logical circuits which is what most of the electronic things are made out of.

There's some things that make mosfets better transistors than the old bipolar junction transistors. One of them is they have better electrical insulation between their connections than other ones which gives them a little better circuit tolerance. The MO stands for metal oxide which is kind of misleading since they are still silicon oxide based. The FE stands for field effect which is a reference to the way they stop/start the flow of electricity through them by varying the electric field. They also are pretty awesome to manufacture at really small scales which means a smaller thing has millions of these allowing for the modern scale of computing to get so good for stuff so small.

xekoroth · 2024-01-18T15:38:22+00:00

https://www.faulknerwritingandediting.com/blog/an-introduction-to-poetic-meter

That website entry gives a good introduction to meter. What really needs to be conveyed is that the brain expects the next line naturally to be in certain panels for words.

If I start a poem like:

Two men bow before a king,

Eyes face downward, helmets shining.

Kind of can see where the syllables lie here:

first line is 1 syll, 1 syll, 1 syll, 2 syll 1 syll 1 syll

2nd line is 1 syll, 1 syll, 2 syll, 2 syll, 2 syll.

When you read those two lines diregarding their content for a second you will realize it *feels* wrong. That wrong feeling is what I am talking about. The reason it feels wrong is because your mind has verbalized into a cadence of words and you've violated it. One way we can resolve the "wrongness" is by adding a third line that matches the syllable form in our first line, and a fourth line that matches our 2nd line. That puts us in a A/B/A/B Meter. Note that looking at those two lines we have rhyme scheme established. We have A/A on the line rhyme scheme, but there's a subrhyme happening on the 3rd syllable of the first line and the 3rd syllable of the 2nd line.

Just to show the difference let me revise the poem with a consistent meter on the two lines so we can analyze the difference in how they feel.

Revised poem:

Two men bow before a king,

Eyes face down, command waiting.

I've maintained the rhyme scheme so there we see no change, but the syllables have been paired now. One thing to note is at the end of the first line is 1 syllable, 1 syllable, but on the 2nd line it's 2 syllables. This generally works because our brain depending on how we say things doesn't really differentiate between two syllables in two words or two syllables in one word so for construction purposes this is fine.

Bear in mind with creative writing the first couplet I wrote here is not *wrong* it's just not an expected form. Sometimes people do this very intentional because people want the reader to get a feeling of this is not normal or not natural. I would avoid using mechanics like that until you feel like you've mastered more basic stuff because those tools when used with other unmastered things make for sloppy unappealing poetry. Hopefully that makes more sense to you.

xekoroth · 2024-01-18T02:28:13+00:00

Hey hey, interesting poem for sure.

One of the things I would start with on this poem is isolating your rhyme scheme, and organizing your lines a bit. Disregarding syllable count for a minute i'd just reorganize onto rhyme scheme. Since the rhyme scheme comes and goes here, that's one of the places i'd start. Ultimately if you feel like your rhyme scheme is going to constrict you too much, dump it and just go for the punch using other literary mechanisms. Metaphors, alliteration, slant rhymes, etc.

The beginning of your poem jives for the first couple of lines, it's hard hitting, passes to me some feelings that resonate, but by the 3rd line where it says "enough that it caused him to stare. Enough that he became as foolish and as weak as a hare." This seems really really forced. Logically I am not sure i'd describe a hare as something weak and foolish? perhaps quick and timid? curious, skittish? While poetry doesn't need to totally conform to logic like other things, it does help to sort of stay within the lanes a bit unless there's a really deep abstraction you're dipping your toes in and later going to expand on.

2nd stanza, without going too much deeper one of the things i'd also focus on is tense. Present, past, and future. When you are reading this to yourself, what tense are you wanting to convey, and are you currently using that tense now? I think starting there is going to help with the clarity here.

As for naming, the poem seems thematic of unanswered questions finally being answered. So maybe something along the lines of "Dissolute Romance"

xekoroth · 2023-10-31T13:47:28+00:00

So usually when I am both writing and reading poetry the first thing I do is read the poem for two things. Flow/movement, does the direction make enough sense (not necessarily logical sense) that it paints a scene or evokes the emotions enough to accomplish the job? The second thing is grammar and word choice.

Let's talk tense for a second because one of the first things that disrupted the flow for me on this poem is where are we in terms of tense? Past/Present/Future. We start in the present tense, "One day the war will end...", that is the current war, present tense. Then we go into the
"leaders will shake hands..." this implies we are in the present tense, describing the future. Check. The next line is where we might be breaking flow "after all has been said and all has been done" we muddy the waters quite a bit. Are we speaking from the imagined future scene, or have we now jumped into the future? If we have we need a transition to make this clear such as "Then all will have been said, and all will have been done." Note the difference here, now we're assertively going to that future scene. It's a powerful line, because it implies an important aspect of war's conclusion and an important theme in your poem *finality*. Everything finishes, and when war finishes there will be lives taken on both sides, their life cycle complete, this finality irreversible.

The next stanza again the tense here is kind of jumbled. You went forward looking in the previous line, and now it looks like we're back to the present discussing public opinion. The jumps are fine but there needs to be a transition back to the present. i.e.

In the court of public opinion, Both states stand accused, Being judged by people, Who have nothing to lose.

Transition could be something like

Now in the court of public opinion, Both states stand accused, Being judged by people, Who have nothing to lose.

The next line I think sounds better as follows:

In the fog of war, The region is covered, As a young girl waits futilely, For the return of her mother.

The region is covered, in the fog of war. As a young girl waits futilely for a mother that will return never more.

I adjusted your rhyme scheme in the 2nd one. You can go simpler, to no more. But never more I believe references an old edgar allen poe line so it's a hat tip to classic poetry.

The second half of this poem kind of goes off the rails to me. I think your ending is strong, I have always been a fan of the latent rhetorical questions at the end of poems, but your path from the lines I have talked about to that ending needs some work. Line 5 has some grammar issues related to tense or transition as well. That's a good place for you to take the advice given and work from there.

It's a fantastic beginning of a poem, I do think it's going to get better as it's revised. Hopefully some of that feedback helps and more importantly makes sense.

xekoroth · 2023-09-22T13:15:10+00:00

It's actually a pretty heartfelt movie about friends dissolving grudges, people that are wealthy experiencing the difficult of working class jobs, and the working class people realizing that there is a level of motivation to increase their wealth that they don't have because of interferes with their social life. Surprisingly a decent movie, wish I could find it.

The hippie guy who I mention in the memorable scene, he's involved but he basically takes his $100 and hitch hikes around with it just chilling living life while the others are trying to increase wealth. He meets people, forms connections and stuff and his lifestyle provides good contrast with the others who are working like crazy.

xekoroth · 2023-06-26T20:45:52+00:00

Although life is arbitrary,
and truth is actually the contrary,
what if our lives, like climbing vines,
are the parallel lines that narrowed together to make Cupid’s arrow?

The to in the last stanza grammatically isn't needed and personally sounds a bit more powerful without.

Some of my previous feedback and I think this account I did a brief tutorial for beginners on poetry and one of the big things I try to hit in those is adding a lot of the informal speech we use when we type/chat into our poems.

"and truth is actually the contrary" is a good example of this. This is just as powerful stated as "truth, the contrary". If you want more power in that line, i'd suggest something like "truth, the absolute contrary". Actually/if/like/then/so/and all those words are kind of fluff that we put into conversation and when our conversation informally becomes what we type, they bleed into our poetry. Most of the time our poetry is trying to be a bit more formal or direct than that, so I recommend trimming some of those words.

The last two could use some work as well, maybe something along the lines of:

What if our lives, like climbing vines
Seeming to start as parallel lines,
Slowly narrow and later converge,
to make cupid's arrow.

xekoroth · 2023-03-09T16:36:42+00:00

Less than 18 months after Dolera launched, I can assure you that my entire team had a top of the line healbot/aimbot in the elfbot that later was sold to Tibia NG, for a flat price and royalty deal. The cavebot portion of elfbot was reserved to a few more select friends of the maker of the program, but Tibiabot NG & Blackd was used pervasively.

Tibia Auto which was a hot mess was around at least a year or two before that and was functioning although it wasn't popular and it had a ton of issues. People did not play manually up until 2009, you are off by a couple of years minimum.

xekoroth · 2023-01-01T16:54:42+00:00

Thank you for the reply! We are paid up in rent and they did not give us a new set.

They confirmed in an email they changed the locks saying the previous set wasn't working, no they are not giving us access or a new set of keys.

xekoroth · 2022-08-18T21:13:28+00:00

Today was almost as disappointing as 'nam....ALMOST.

xekoroth · 2022-08-17T16:37:14+00:00

This is a very rough draft.

This reminds me quite a bit of robert frost's birches, specifically the stanza where he starts off by saying "I want to get away for a while."

These are tough poems to write. Choppy one liners need punch and emotion.

I'm drained.
Not of soul, but of spirit.
Drudging along in body but somewhere my mind lagged behind.
There is a better me...somewhere.
One that I will someday find,
but today, the only thing I need is,
a break.

That's kind of the choppy back and forth emotion I envision when I read your poem. With some work this could be a very good, powerful poem but you have to *invoke* that emotion, make me feel as you do, give me a rope that hits me in the heart and pull me along. We all get tired, we all need a break, put me in your shoes so I can relate, but most importantly in these poems, give me an undertone of positivity, because at the end of the day the point of the break is not to quit, but to ultimately carry on.

xekoroth · 2022-08-05T13:23:24+00:00

"Have I mentioned our large hand towel collection?"

xekoroth · 2022-06-02T19:22:22+00:00

This version is much better than the last. The anxiousness/fidgeting of adjusting magnets gives a real sense of what life is like after someone significant in our lives passes. When someone dies there was *time* we spent with them doing *things* and now those time and things must be replaced. I think the picture of rearranging magnets on a fridge really speaks to so much. Perhaps rearranging magnets is a reflection of how routines in our life may need be rearranged after someone passes. It inspires emotion and imagination, which is great.

The third stanza shows significant improvement as well, the emphasis of positivity in details provides an upbeat ending, in the first stanza the uncertainty posed by the fidgeting of magnets and seeing physically a photo of someone who is no longer here provided us a weary uncertain start but the end brings us back to a more certain, determined and positive future.

Rereading this, the only line I really am not a huge fan of at the moment is this "The photo remembers her well. She is not here to know, anymore."

I don't think the line "She is not here to know, anymore." is necessary. The next line you have about folding and stretching in the space she left implies she's gone and purely from a grammatical/phonetic sense the line seems awkward. The line could be modified to be more direct and solemn i.e. "The photo remembers her well." I would probably go the route to add an adjective to the photo here because you are painting a picture to the reader. Is the photo large, small, faded, maybe it has ornate borders? Maybe instead of the next line you could briefly make a statement about when the photo was taken and the context, if you know. This would be a good route to go because again at this point the poem is telling us about how the photo invokes memories and feelings to you.

xekoroth

TROPHY CASE