SupremeDreamer15 Jan 2005

Its core is worthwhile, what you're trying to express, but the poem you have here lacks experience and skill--it's limping.. flailing.


One: you can drastically cut down on the use of the word "I". "I" in poetry is decrepit and weak, and offers little more than rigidness along with insipidness. Consider sticking to a rule of using no-more than one "I", and strive to have none.

For example, the two first lines can be edited like so:

I live in a barrio, dreaming,
bathing in the brooks with friends.

Notice how it grates less on the ears? More fluid, atleast I'm inclined to think so.


Two: Grammar.. particularly your use of past or present tense. FYI, past would be "lived", present "live", present tense usually carries more force or expression, past tense tends to make it seem as if your merely reminiscing-- most times appearing dull.

"i lived in a barrio where i dream"

This is using both in contradiction, and is poor use of the english language.. a no-no.


Three: Your way of detailing your "friends" character has a good base, comparing them to vultures, snakes, etc, but has no force or impact.

"i befriended crocodiles hungry for power..."
"i met birds in vulture's feathers..."
"i knew snakes with the stingiest scales..."

You expressed this as past tense, so it suffers a loss of meaning, force, and ample definition. You give no example of how they are as vultures, snakes, crocodiles. Plus, you could cut out crocs and stick to slithering and hunger, scavenging. Simplicity and potency, consider this example:

My friends linger, shoulders hunched, coveting,
and wary they creep slowly, serpents tongue forked,
hissing, pursuasive superiority offering deceit.

Not the best example, but you get the idea, I hope.


Four: Your poem is littered with ellipses, those "..." are a bad, horrid habit to have when writing, it mostly gives people the impression that your really muddled on heroin while your writing... and... constantly... jarring yourself... from the emptiness of... dope... space... arhhhhhhhh...

Refrain from littering your writing with the cursed dots, you're better off with out them-- whatever anyone may have told you, its not poetic to pause and doze off between stanzas.

That pretty much covers the essentials for now.. or more precisely, what I felt compelled to impart.

No vote for now.