Poemranker [Replying] Thu Nov 21 21:41:04 PST 2024

Replying to a comment on:

When I become god of a far away planet, Iâll set up my world with great beauty and wit. And to keep me from getting too lonely, Iâll make beings to admire my work. My creatures will discover all that Iâve made quite pleasing and right in their finite minds. Iâll show them in love how their world was formed, remove any doubt of who did it or why. Ancient texts on how I created, Iâll not leave about to conflict with evidence for some other way. No, Iâll make plain how to seek me and praise, if they wish to, but never they must. Then they will let me receive them and heal their self-made diseases. Thatâs the kind of god I will be. Not the unknowable elusive kind.

zodiac

24-Oct-04/5:03 AM

And then, because you always make me feel kind of furtively generous, here's some real criticism for your poem. It's more and better than you've done for anyone else here in recent memory. That's the whole fucking point. Check out this hook:

1) "with great beauty and wit" is poorly phrased and an innaccurate description of how you'd set up a world. If "with great beauty and wit" is how you'll be acting while you're setting up the world, then beauty seems kind of out of place. If the world is going to have the qualities "great beauty and wit", even before you've made people in it, then wit is out of place. You might consider changing it.

2) "discover all ... quite pleasing and right" is an innappropriate use of discover. You can't or shouldn't, for example, "discover a dog friendly". You might consider changing it.

3) I don't understand why you're not "leav[ing] about" ancient texts, when you just said you'll "show them... how their world was formed" etc. Aren't those pretty close to the same thing? You might consider changing one of them.

4) What are you on about "self-made diseases"? That's all kind of pleasing and nice, but if you're going to believe in a God, you pretty much have to believe He made diseases, too. Oh, right, you're not going to be that kind of God. Well, you might consider changing it so people don't think you're just taking a super-easy way out.

5) In fact, there's no kind of conflict here, except the half-alluded-to one with the real God, which isn't really enough and isn't fair since God can't answer. Besides, almost everybody in the world besides you and me, practically, thinks God IS exactly like this poem. As it is, this poem is just kind of a daydream and fluff. You might consider doing something about it.

6) The places where the rhythm is off make the rest of it - the rhythmed part - seem kind of jumpy and weird. You'd do better to either loosen up the rhythmy parts or tighten up the non-rhythmy ones.

7) Stanzas 2-4 just repeat the same idea, sometimes contradictorily. The last stanza, particularly, doesn't pack very much of a punch, mostly because it's already been said. You might consider adding some more ideas and condensing these to one stanza.

8) Other than an inconsistent rhythm and the big honking central conceit, there's not really a lot of poetic phrasings or devices (like bits of simile, metaphor, alliterative words, or original ways of describing things.) You should consider adding some of these.

9) By the start of the twentyfirst century, this is all kind of old hat. The only part that makes it not old hat is that most twentieth and twentyfirst century writers have figured, probably rightly, that their worlds would have all sorts of problems, too, while you haven't.

10) If you say this isn't criticism because I haven't added some, I don't know, praise-thingy on the end here, well, sorry, that's not my idea of criticism, and I guess I should have a pretty good idea about it by now, shouldn't I? Well, ta-ta!

Yours truly,
zodiac in Karak Islamland

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