Re: Better Off Dead by wilco	cyan9 217.40.63.105	8-Dec-05/5:25 AM
Could be much better. Lackluster. Not really but its the kind of comment you leave on even the pieces of work of others that outshine this. Getting back to reality, this is an aimiable piece with good flow, the modern language could have made it seem unorigional and cliched were it not for the rich abstract imagery.
Re: The Third Fall Of Jesus by amanda_dcosta	cyan9 217.40.63.105	8-Dec-05/5:33 AM
You have definately achieved something here, since the piece has mustered enough interest for me to read the whole of it, and there is a lot of it. The piece loses realism in places where it appears you are yearning to be christian and pandering to christianity with aspirational images based on christ. I am not saying that you are not a christian, but I am saying that it appears that you are trying to be a christian (perhaps unnecessarily)
Re: Hope by sliver	cyan9 217.40.63.105	8-Dec-05/6:51 AM
Nice + quaint pleasurable read, good image with the symbol in the snow. It lacked a bit in language and didnt do anything with rythm or flow but otherwise quite nice.
regarding some deleted poem...	cyan9 217.40.63.105	8-Dec-05/6:56 AM
would have voted it 7, but the starkly romantic line "We met in Coventry" pushes it to an 8.
Re: Thespian by BrandonW	cyan9 217.40.63.105	8-Dec-05/7:09 AM
Poor, Im sure Ive read work by you that is much better than this. Im sure this represents something very emotional in your life, but the simplicity and lack of elegance makes me just not want to care. It adhears rigidly to some form or another to the cost of the piece.
Re: Chills by BrandonW	cyan9 217.40.63.105	8-Dec-05/7:11 AM
Nice flow, borders on humour, good metaphors.
Re: Emma Barksdale by rahson_s	cyan9 84.12.172.126	8-Dec-05/12:28 PM
Ouch.
Re: Emma Barksdale by rahson_s	cyan9 84.12.172.126	8-Dec-05/12:35 PM
By the way, the site sends more chills through me the more I read. Heart provoking.
Re: Relief (Ventilation Shaft rewrite) by cyan9	wilco 24.92.74.122	8-Dec-05/1:10 PM
Ok, I can dig this..It's pretty and has a lot of good imagery. I honestly don't know what the hell your talking about, but sometimes it doesn't matter.
Re: Emma Barksdale by rahson_s	wilco 24.92.74.122	8-Dec-05/1:20 PM
I'm curious if you are the one who wrote this or if it is from Utopia Wright's journals. Also, I'm curious as to your connection to him. The poem is good but the "definitely" in the next to last line bothers me..I'm not really sure why. Other than that, I wouldn't change a thing.
Re: loneliness untold by francis nor capule	candaliesa 69.106.144.180	8-Dec-05/10:23 PM
i have tryed to put into words how i felt after finding out my ex-husband cheated on me. the words just never seemed right. this poem is as close as i could find. i love it, yet hate it at the same time. for me it rings all too true....
Re: The Third Fall Of Jesus by amanda_dcosta	zodiac 69.132.67.140	9-Dec-05/1:47 AM
Okay, here's the score: I've been trying for ages now to write you some good advice for your poem and I'm tired now and it's driving me crazy. The short of it is, I think you're good and I'm so glad to have you on the site. But I think you need to work a lot harder on the technical side of this poem. Don't misunderstand me, I have no problem with your message or plot. I like it. The telling needs fixing, though. Here are some basic rules that can help guide your rewriting and future writing: 1. Do not use "doth". Especially don't use it just for rhythm, which is what you're using it for. 2. Do not do what we call "inversion"; that is, writing a sentence backwards so you get the rhyming word, usually the verb, last. Some examples of this from your poem are "While this earth with love You save", "The Lord indeed doth promise keep", "Next morning, I, the road did cross", and so on. Obviously, you'd normally say "While you save this earth with love", "The Lord doth keep his promises", and "Next morning, I crossed the road". Yes, it's harder to get the rhyme that way. Poetry writing is hard. Rather than trying to rhyme "love", "promises" and "road" instead, I'd suggest using a technique we call "enjambment" - running the phrase through the end of the line. This way, lines like Next morning, I, the road did cross Surprisingly I had a toss become Next morning, early, while I crossed the road I had a frightful toss. - Or something such. See what I mean? If not, let me know and I'll try again. 3. Pay attention to the grammar and punctuation connecting lines or thoughts. What I'm thinking of is lines like While this earth with love You save On us who doth with anger rave If you write it out as a paragraph you get "While this earth with love you save on us who doth with anger rave." Or, the Lord saves *ON* us. That's not real grammar. It's easy enough to fix, just do like I suggested and write everything out as a paragraph to check. You see pretty quickly that you'd have done better to "for" or "and" instead of "on". 4. What's really going on is that many of your phrases aren't 100% relevant or connected to what you're saying at the time - or rather, you end up fitting them in in a way that's distracting or confusing because you need the rhyme. Sure, they're all connected in that they're about God's love and God really does save all the people who rave and so on, but that make a really untight and confusing poem. Um, I'll say it this way: A lot of your rhymes are too often used to make this a compelling or very precise poem, so there's no reason to fight to keep them. I would start working (and I mean really WORKING) to find new rhymes that don't require distracting or unnecessary ideas, phrases, or grammar inversion. I'm sorry to tell you it's going to be hard, that it'll take a lot of frustration to do well, but I can tell you've got the smarts to pull it off. Don't give up. And don't ignore my advice, please. People are going to tell you this is a great poem. It's a good story and a good Christian message coming from a good heart - I agree. But just like there are people who are only going to look at the story and faith side of this, there need to be people who only look at the grammar and structure side. If you listen to BOTH of us, you're going to come off better. Good luck. If you have any questions, just ask. zodiac
Re: no title by candaliesa	cyan9 217.40.63.105	9-Dec-05/3:18 AM
morose with improved potency from the use of melodramatic cliche's. The rhyme was nice and it made a pleasurable read. You presented a common theme here, and you presented it well, but you did nothing to it, there was nothing new here, no inticacies (unless I am missing something) and so I can only rate it a -7-.
Re: Relief (Ventilation Shaft rewrite) by cyan9	zodiac 69.132.67.140	9-Dec-05/3:32 AM
Here's my critique: 1. The first two stanzas aren't real sentences. Don't overuse present participle (ie, "-ing") phrases. It weakens your verbs. Not to mention, you'll forget to make it a sentence. 2. You don't actually have something coming from the charcoal sky, only something that's LIKE cool ash. You need to at least drop "as" and have cool ash coming, or say what it is you're comparing to ash. On a similar note, it takes more than half the poem to get that it's the strangler "glaring" at the drops of steel, or almost half a poem too long. 3. The ending may be true enough, but I can tell you know it's going to get you in trouble with almost everybody. Basically you've placed the entire responsibility for "remedying" the situation on your strangler, who should (it's implied) just be able to decide to change and do it. By extension, that diminishes or frivolizes his complaints and disdain when they don't need to be. Whatever Bush and his smug aristocrat cronies prattle on about it, the reality of the situation is not that all these whining disdainful downtrodden should just one day up and decide to fix themselves and stop whining so much. At least, that may be the reality of the situation, but I'm not going to say it even as a joke. Otherwise, it's good writing. Keep on the ball about your grammar, sentence structure, your message, holding your images together (I just noticed, "calming the very soul" is a very weak and off-message thing to say at that point.) I think you can take my word that I got all your subtle metaphors and such. Yet, I'm going to go with wilco. -8-
Re: Rub You Out by TLRufener	cyan9 217.40.63.105	9-Dec-05/6:57 AM
Adds to the sadness of count all the stars, and the slammed door in the face adds a element of shock to the end; but you will attract cricism for the use of cliches and the lack of richness in the language you use. It seems to me that you use cliches as power sentances to demenstrate emotions in a powerful way, but other people are taking them as just cliches. To richen the language and reduce the critism for using cliches, why not start with a thesaurus and replace lines like 'Tearing down my dreams' with 'Castigating the meat of my accomplishments' or 'Excoriating the flesh of my aspirations' .... It may help on both accounts. Overall, just a bit sadder than the last.
Re: almost missed work by calliope	ALChemy 24.74.101.159	9-Dec-05/7:04 AM
Here's what I can make of this: Your head's on the tracks listening for the train, You see it in the distance. The crossing gate lifts. The train goes by. You're almost late for work. If I'm even close to right I must be psychic because this is one of the vaguest things I've read in a while. Please use capitals when needed. I don't particularly find "i" cute or sweet, just lazy. And believe me if anyone knows about lazy it's me. Some good use of rhyme placement though. "Trainy"? Would have been cuter if it was "Tranny trails".
regarding some deleted poem...	ALChemy 24.74.101.159	9-Dec-05/7:18 AM
Lose stanza 3. line 2 of stanza 6 leaves to many questions in the readers mind. The last stanza seems out of place in it's style and format. The other verses are great.
regarding some deleted poem...	ALChemy 24.74.101.159	9-Dec-05/7:34 AM
The first half of it's great but the end rhymes seem forced like you got half way through and just said "fuck it I'm bored" and so you wrote a bunch of rhymes ending in "ash" and "I" sounds. I prefer in a prose poem that the rhymes appear like as Bob Ross once put it "happy little accidents". Actually I prefer the whole poetic quality of a prose poem to appear that way. *My props for inventing a word.
Re: Better Off Dead by wilco	ALChemy 24.74.101.159	9-Dec-05/7:48 AM
Just be glad you don't live were they make paper. It smells like rotten sauerkraut. Lose "that we’ve thrown." Change "leper" (throughs off the poem). Change "paper airplanes"(a little too obscure) to something like "waste-paper". First 3 couplets are the best part of the poem.
Re: Hope by sliver	ALChemy 24.74.101.159	9-Dec-05/7:55 AM
The first stanzas real nice but the others dwindle a bit.