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Hunger (Free verse) by Dovina
(Imagine a single line of text in a circle that you have to turn as you read - the word “Hunger” at the center. You can’t determine where to start, so start reading anywhere.) I am hungry You present me a plate of food Sensations arise I see food, smell it, anticipate eating it Volition comes into use I pick up utensils I indulge in the pleasure of eating As my stomach fills, desire decreases My mind turns to other desires New sensations Mental formulations arise

Up the ladder: Reptilian
Down the ladder: Ode to Bad poetry

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Arithmetic Mean: 6.0
Weighted score: 5.5
Overall Rank: 2696
Posted: February 20, 2005 6:16 PM PST; Last modified: February 20, 2005 6:16 PM PST
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Comments:
[9] Dan garcia-Black @ 66.159.218.91 | 20-Feb-05/10:03 PM | Reply
What means "up utensils I indulge in" or "me a plate of food?" I guess you can't start reading just anywhere and have it make sense. However, in some African countries or on a plane wreck in the Andes, "me a plate of food" does work.
[n/a] Dovina @ 12.72.4.56 > Dan garcia-Black | 21-Feb-05/7:35 AM | Reply
Allow me to explain. "up utensils I indulge in" is to be interpreted “I indulge in up utensils” If you eat them sideways you become a wine lover in Solvang region and get your butt whipped by an irate oriental woman. It’s in your own interest.
[10] INTRANSIT @ 205.188.116.67 | 21-Feb-05/5:40 AM | Reply
I can picture it . Since it happens so quickly, lose the commas.
[n/a] Dovina @ 12.72.4.56 > INTRANSIT | 21-Feb-05/7:36 AM | Reply
The commas might be needed when it’s put in a circle, just to let a person know where to pause, also to prevent DgB from diddling with it. In the format shown here, you’re probably right.
[9] richa @ 81.178.251.87 | 21-Feb-05/6:25 AM | Reply
In free verse each line should always be semi-independent from the preceeding text i.e. it should stand on its own, therefore the instructions should be to you not the reader. Other than that be wary of using labels for abstractions 'mental formulations' 'volition'. It is always better to show than tell.
[n/a] Dovina @ 12.72.4.56 > richa | 21-Feb-05/7:37 AM | Reply
It has only one circular line and may not, by your definition (which I disagree with) be free verse. I’m not big on categories anyway, except the old ones – sonnet, villanelle, etc. Show-don’t-Tell, the ancient war rages.
[9] richa @ 81.178.251.87 > Dovina | 21-Feb-05/8:20 AM | Reply
If a dunce bangs her head against stone because she believes its properties are not stoney, does that make her at war with the stone? The line break thing is correct by the way. It may happen with metrical forms that lines break for syllable count's sake etc (although they really should not), free verse on the other hand attempts to mimic the musical patterns of speech.
[9] richa @ 81.178.251.87 > richa | 21-Feb-05/8:29 AM | Reply
That is to say there is no debate over whether to show or whether to tell. The poet is supposed to communicate something. How can she communicate what she means when she forsakes the precision of image for the vagueness of abstract terms.
[9] richa @ 81.178.251.87 > richa | 21-Feb-05/8:35 AM | Reply
and stop bitching all the time about critics. It takes a lot more effort to try and communicate to you what is wrong with your poems and why such a thing is wrong (as you will not accept even the most central of poetetic tenets) than it does to simply say: Ace Dovina, and everyone's opinion is equally valid so if you think 'show don't tell' is wrong you don't even have to make a cogent argument why.
[n/a] Dovina @ 12.72.8.243 > richa | 21-Feb-05/8:43 AM | Reply
No cogent arguement intended. Sorry to have bothered you.
[9] richa @ 81.178.251.87 > Dovina | 21-Feb-05/9:03 AM | Reply
:(
[5] horus8 @ 24.130.62.63 | 21-Feb-05/3:44 PM | Reply
There is something excessively fat
about your ass, and it's not your thong.
[n/a] Dovina @ 12.72.10.107 > horus8 | 23-Feb-05/6:49 AM | Reply
It's the pain you inflict there.
[1] Stephen Robins @ 213.146.148.199 | 22-Feb-05/5:03 AM | Reply
Like a society without peasants, this poem has ideas well above those it achieves. There are too many arisions.
[n/a] Dovina @ 12.72.10.107 > Stephen Robins | 23-Feb-05/6:41 AM | Reply
Oh, it achieves its simple idea, maybe not to your liking, but it achieves it, whatever arisions are.
[1] Stephen Robins @ 213.146.148.199 > Dovina | 28-Feb-05/5:22 AM | Reply
If the simple idea it seeks to achieve is the feeling of having voided in ones brand new tweed trousers on the glorious 12th whilst standing next to the Marquess of Littlehampton then you have pitched it brilliantly. If, however, your simple idea is the idea of a revolving table of food like some form of deranged assortment of victuals which perpetuate the constant desire to keep on eating then you are a fat whale.
[n/a] Dovina @ 12.72.6.113 > Stephen Robins | 28-Feb-05/2:22 PM | Reply
You make it much more complecated than it is. Both of your suggestions are much too difficult.
[10] zodiac @ 212.118.14.17 | 22-Feb-05/5:43 AM | Reply
Dear Christ this is bad.
I mean, not just grammar bad,
Though that's a big part of it.
It's simply philosophically unsound,
Callous to the extreme,
Dangerous,
And all around poorly conceived and phrased.
To read this comment, please print it in a single line of text on a rock and fling it at your head.
I'm being absolutely serious.
So none of this 'zodiac just likes to pick out little things and ignore the blah blah blah' crap, please.

PS-I just read your comment beginning "War is bad." Consider taking some of your own advice.
[n/a] Dovina @ 12.72.10.107 > zodiac | 23-Feb-05/6:51 AM | Reply
Callous is good.
Dangerous is good.
Perhaps "poorly conceived" should be "simply conceived."
Grammar is bad only if you fail to see it in a circle.
Serious is good
Apparently, bad is good.
[10] zodiac @ 212.118.11.12 > Dovina | 25-Feb-05/10:37 PM | Reply
Hey, that's a great proof. Start with a bum assumption and who knows where you'll end up? Hanging yourself in confusion probably.

Now let me ask you something: At any point during your realization of this fabulous idea did it occur to you that a lot of people - most of the people in the world, in fact - ARE ACTUALLY HUNGRY? I can guarantee you most of them wish the problem was as simple as "You present me a plate of food" (false passive be damned). And where the fuck is their fucking plate of food anyway? You're sure as fuck not presenting them to it, you're just writing illiterate bumfucking bullshit socalled poems about the most illiterate misrealization of the heirarchy of needs I've EVER SEEN in a long time looking at illiterate misrealizations of things.

AND WHAT'S THIS???!?!?!? After I eat my plate of food I just become hungry for OTHER THINGS??!?! Psychological and SPIRITUAL things?! Well Jesus Christ I might as well just hang myself in confusion right now. I'll just STARVE FROM SPIRITUAL HUNGER otherwise.

Oh no wait. I'm starving from physical hunger first. And where's my fucking plate of goddamn food?

Or maybe you simply thought you were relating to starving people - you know, I know you're hungry for a plate of food to present itself, but I'm hungry for mental formulations, and that's like the same thing, it's a loop see. Fuck you. If you've ever been hungrier than when your Happy Meal takes longer than the required five minutes at the drive thru, I'll eat my own shmaugh*.

In short, I am so sincerely horrified by this poem I dream of it. I'm being absolutely honest, so none of this zodiac's just a big website flamer and hopeless gay introvert to boot. This is wrong, wrong beyond almost anything I've read in 4000-something poems on poemranker, to say the least. If you haven't gotten yet that everybody else to post on this poem feels exactly the same way, please take my word for it and delete this now. Thank you very much.

zodiac

*=that patterned headcloth Arab men wear, otherwise known as a towel.
[n/a] Dovina @ 12.72.4.80 > zodiac | 26-Feb-05/6:51 AM | Reply
You recently told someone that the 10 you gave him was the only sincere 10 you gave that day. Perhaps your comment flows from the same kind of reasoning that uses “your” as a contraction for “you are” because it’s “funny.” Or maybe it’s from the sort of logic that posits an implied proposition in this poem and than rents in vulgarities on the falsity of your straw man. Or the same kind of insight that claims world hunger as a an argument against what this poem is saying.

Oh, guru of sensibility and logic, please teach on.
[10] zodiac @ 212.118.11.12 > Dovina | 27-Feb-05/9:57 PM | Reply
Yes, random 10s are funny. That has nothing to do with "sensibility and logic".

Yes, using "your" instead of "you're" is funny. So is using quotation marks when they're not needed. Neither of them has anything to do with sensibility and logic. They more have to do with things that make me laugh or at least smile.

This comment so far has used a fair amount of sensibility and logic. That I have to batter you with it is simply beyond my capacity for understanding. You should just get how it's logical. Anyway just trust me, it's logical. Of course, you're not going to believe me, so I'm applying to an outside source:

AHMED THE INTERNET GUY: Oh, yes, definitely logical. Sensible too.

As for the rest, there is no "straw man" and stop using that for an argument. The thought of trying to adequately explain why simply exhausts me, but in short you're bound to have heard about Mark Twain's famous novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and His Accompanying Negro.
Q: Is it racist?
A: Probably.
Q: But how? It doesn't "imply" any specific "propositions" about the inferiority of Negros!
A: Because it doesn't imply anything except Negros are larkey, goodnatured, and easily handled.
Q: I don't think that makes it racist.
A: Whatever, your entitled to your own opinion.

[10] zodiac @ 212.118.11.12 > Dovina | 27-Feb-05/9:58 PM | Reply
World hunger is cogent, and an argument against what this poem is saying. I know I said why above, but this is how committed I am to your improvement:

1. "You present me a plate of food" is not an adequate answer to the statement "I am hungry". The problem's not that simple, and anyways, most starving people are not presented plates of food. "I am hungry / You present me a plate of food" comes out facile and classist beyond belief. Just say, When *I*, Dovina, am hungry, someone presents me with a plate of food. But why would you want to?

2. The "New sensations / Mental formulations" clearly means you're going toward Maslow with this. "I am hungry" in successive repetitions comes to represent, in this order, hunger for safety/shelter, hunger for love/esteem, hunger for knowledge, hunger for beauty, hunger for self-actualization, and hunger for God. You probably didn't have it this clear in your mind when you wrote the poem - that's irrelevant. Anyway, I doubt very much that a starving person gives much of a fuck that his hunger is just going to become a hunger for mental formulations while he's starving. Even Maslow made sure of saying that, and Maslow's completely bum. By repeating the poem with the same words you're basically making all those other hungers equivalent to physical hunger. Do you understand why doing that is bow'ls? Because that's what you're doing.

I'm sorry I use so many vulgarities in my comments to you. The problem is that I think about you and your comments all night, and by the time I make it to the internet cafe I'm just frothing at your persistent headbutting into the jellyish paunch of stupidity. I can honestly say you're the most willfully ignorant person I've ever met, and I've met a lot of ignorant people. If you've got a problem with me, with my comment style, or whatever, fine. Personally, I have a problem with you. But that shouldn't stop you from at least comprehending one - just one! any one! - of my points. That you haven't yet is another stain on your muchsmeared buskins of repute.

zodiac

PS-Ace distinction on "sensibility and logic". I bet you a nickel you can't explain it!
[n/a] Dovina @ 12.72.11.131 > zodiac | 28-Feb-05/4:41 AM | Reply
Cerebral slop. So many words for so little content. Please strive for brevity.
[10] zodiac @ 212.118.11.12 > Dovina | 28-Feb-05/9:28 PM | Reply
Are you actually insane?

I'm only asking because I spent months once arguing with a guy who'd convinced me he held the Prestigious Whemying Chair at New School, New York, only to find out later he was completely bonked. And also you seem to be insane.
[n/a] Dovina @ 12.72.6.133 > zodiac | 1-Mar-05/7:37 AM | Reply
Yes, I am insane.
[10] zodiac @ 212.38.134.51 > Dovina | 6-Mar-05/7:11 AM | Reply
Oh. Well then it might interest you to know that when an Islam is hungry he says 'The birds in my stomach are singing'. Or maybe it won't. In any event, I'm afraid that's the only thing it'll be any use talking to you about now.
[4] edpeterson @ 68.79.203.220 | 22-Feb-05/7:31 AM | Reply
ugh
[n/a] Dovina @ 12.72.10.107 > edpeterson | 23-Feb-05/6:45 AM | Reply
huh?
[n/a] -=Dark_Angel=-, P.I. @ 82.39.21.223 | 23-Feb-05/4:16 PM | Reply
Are your breasts floppy?
I imagine they droop below her pubes, which isn't hard as they stretch as high as her chin.
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