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I Sleep (Free verse) by Sunny I sleep to fight off yesterdayâs embers,
I sleep to separate one dawn
from the next, I sleep
as a nomad
that listlessly tosses
one dayâs plain and settles in on
another, I sleep to show the people
my lovely side-my separated hair and
glaring eyelids.
Life remains outside,
staining morning in itâs conclusionsâ¦
when I sleep to dissever from reality,
to discriminate from sin that
divides my head into halves.
I ramify from the heavy flesh,
lazy and mortal, at night.
Up the ladder:
diamond of love
Down the ladder:
Apostrophetic Loss
Votes: (green: user, blue: anonymous)
Arithmetic Mean: 4.571429
Posted: April 24, 2006 12:25 PM PDT; Last modified: April 24, 2006 12:25 PM PDTWeighted score: 4.8847394 Overall Rank: 9938 Comments:
"Dissever from reality"? I think you mean, "sever reality"
"the people" seems unneeded - who elsw would you show it to? I don't know what you mean by "my separated hair." "to discriminate from sin that WHICH divides my head into halves." - a provocative line with lots of implications. "at night" at the end seems unnecessary. Does it matter whether or not it's at night. Dovina, Thank you, thank you & more gratitude thrown your way!! You are of such help to the overall improving in my poetry, or attempts in creating true "poetry". In regards to your comments: I did mean "dissever" could be a synynim for "sever," BUT the point of me using "dissever" was for alliteration purposes, later comes discriminate & divides...however, this was not done successfully or people would have noticed what my intentions were now wouldn't they? So, I'm revising, applying many of your knowledgable commentary, & change dissever to sever, also by your critique, I have taken out "the people" in L3S2 & taken out "at night" in the last line of the poem. You, again, were of great help to me, which I am very grateful for :) Be on the look for yours, ~Sunny
I didn't really understand the poem
I "dissever" from reality (severed)?? discriminate from sin? ramify from heavy flesh?
Dissever,
discriminate & ramify all corrilate with the UNDERLYING pattern. You might want to look up this vocabulary. The theme of the poem of this poem lies in these words. ~Sunny
I got the idea of the transferral from living to the afterlife then back again perhaps - reincarnation. I like the idea of the nomad - going from physical life to spiritual life (can also apply to going from waking reality to dreaming). The passage has a slight grammatical glitch to my eyes. 'I sleep as a nomad that listlessly tosses one day's plain and settles in on another' - you don't often find people tossing a plain. I guess you might mean tossing blankets and then whirling landscapes in dream but still...I'd consider possible revisions for that. I'm still musing over 'seperated hair', it seems very meaningful but isn't evident to my eyes (I'm tired, bear with me). 'Life remains outside' is a good way to talk about a dead body - or even a body in a coffin. Then you have the play of morning/mourning. 'Dissever from reality' is to split from reality, either by dreaming or by death. 'Discriminate from sin' is understandable, but it feels like you're playing with grammar there...ideally you'd discriminate something from sin. I assume you're using it reflexively there...well I've never come across it as a reflexive verb. 'I sleep...to discriminate myself from sin'. 'Ramify from...' works well to show the dreams seeping out like the soul from a newly-deceased person.
All-round good work, really it's only the grammatical points which need working on.
Christ, I come back for one second and my eyeballs are smacked with this. Why don't you try explaining the difference between the words "sever" and "dissever"? Oh, I know why. Because I won't be here to care.
Dearest Zodiac, I chose "dissever" rather than "sever"...oh yeah, you won't be back to care to my response, my bad :) ~Sunny
I think this might be stronger without the repetition of "I sleep"--it breaks the flow, IMO. Also, "yesterday's embers" borders on cliche. I think the line "I sleep as a nomad [sleeps] is one of the most interesting and would make a good opener, e.g.:
I sleep as a nomad sleeps, separating one dawn from the next, listlessly tossing, settling on another day's plain. Life remains outside, staining morning , etc. Of course, that's what I'd do; not necessarily what you'd do, but I do think that cutting some of the extraneous and weaker lines (e.g., the hair and the glaring eyelids) would make this stronger. Re: dissever versus sever--it's anologous to irregardless versus regardless: No real difference in meaning, and they're all real words, but unless your intent is to jar (and I don't get jarring from the rest of this), "dissever" sort of jerks the reader from the piece. Last line (sentence) might read a little better if it were "from my heavy flesh" (interesting image of branching out from flesh). I assume the "at night" is there to signify that the branching is in the realm of dreams or otherwise sleep-induced? Also, everything seems disassociated from a central focus--what is the sin that divides you into halves? This doesn't seem to have a real hook.
to discriminate from sin that
divides my head into halves. ecargo... could it mean that when he sleeps, he doesn't have to bother about whether he chooses to be good or bad, morally upright or not.... every step of the day that would determine his life's grading? At night... he just gives it all a rest by his sleep.
Is it 'one day's plan'? Verse 2 line 2.
I haven't read all the critiques yet, that's posted below this poem.... looks like I must, but no time now. However, for my part of the critique.... personally, I liked the idea behind the poem. Sleep! Maybe it could have been put into more expressions, or perhaps the presentation better... but it has potential. Amanda, First off, you exactly right on your thesis about separation that takes place by way of sleep...this makes me very happy that you picked up on this HUGE theme going on here. Second, in L2S2 you mentioned of my intended meaning of "plan" instead of "plain" is not correct. I meant to use "plain," which is a corrilation to the nomad metaphor & the lands they "separate" from everyday, or quite frequently anyway...double meaning here, you see? Thanks so much for your commentary, accuracy of the underlying pattern in the theme & all of your knowledge given :) ~Sunny P.S.-I'm a she, ha ha :)
A 'She'? How deceiving!... ha ha ha. I think I have to be careful how I address my fellow poets here.
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This is getting silly. The seven most recent poems all have no comments on. There are thirteen votes among the twenty most recent poems. I might even delete this comment if it means that we get a 20-most-recent-full with no comments whatsoever. Surely it's not that difficult to realise that if someone wants to get feedback they're going to have to give some? After all, it's been said more than enough times. You get what you give, and all that jazz. If you're not prepared to give votes and/or comments, what's the point in submitting poems? No attention will be paid to them, until the whole thing becomes redundant. It's a real shame, because a lot of the good poets have left poemranker, and they are the ones who a lot can be learnt from - and the majority of those who do remain have no reason to comment on poems by people who don't participate themselves.
If anything, commenting on other peoples' works makes you better as a poet: you learn to give appropriate readings to poetry and you pick up tricks from other poets. But first you have to apply a little time and effort to reading through poems and putting your thoughts down in print. And if you think that you already know enough about poetry to not have to waste valuable time this way, well that's fair enough...so why are you posting it on the internet rather than getting it published?
Sorry, Sunny, if this seems like I'm ranting at you - this is a general whinge. I should put it on the Suggestions board but a) wilco got there first, and b) the people who bother to check the suggestions tend not to be the ones at whom this is directed.
Is there really that good a reason why it's not possible for people posting to spend a little while giving feedback on the twenty recent entries?
I'm certainly going to be checking out Eratosphere in detail tomorrow though - do let me know of any other sites you come across though, and whether they're worthwhile or not.
Since all the "good poets" have left due to little commentary, & there is no poets left to "learn from," I would only feel a bit silly to stay here & dwell in a place I feel I cannot be learned from or just considered mediocre, whether I am to you all or not...can't help but make me wonder if all your critiques were because I'm an easy read or easy reading material that can be picked through by the "bigger fish".
After listening to this conversation of sorts, who wouldn't be tempted to pick up their things & go...why not, all the "real poets" have.
There are still poets from whom a lot can be learned. And I have made a point of saying on various occasions that reading other peoples' poems here and leaving a comment of some sort is also useful for improving your own poetry. But really, we have to make the place more appealing for new poets to come along. And that won't happen while the participation is as low as it is. Not only that, but I doubt many new poets would want to read the sort of tripe that I spout. So how am I going to remedy that? By improving. And if I have to use other sites to improve in order to be better here as well, then so be it. I hope I don't sound like some stuck-up teenage English cock, I probably do though. Sorry to have posted it on your poem; if it's any consolation, more people are likely to read it here. Eugh, I'd better stop before I make even more of an arse of myself.