#What did I see?

11 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

twin cliff
#

What did I see? , What did I see?
In the short while i slept, what did I see
It all started with some Physics book reading
Which clearly , was NOT engaging

What did I see? , What did I see?
In the short while i slept , what did I see?
Tired and spent with the lack of sleep
I rested myself , on the book i was supposed to read

What did I see? , What did I see?
In the short while I slept , What did I see?
Within minutes I let myself fall into slumber
And whatever I saw next was clearly a wonder

What did I see? What did I see?
In the short while I slept , What did I see?
Images , distinct and confusing
Some of them , clearly not pleasing

What did I see? What did I see?
In the short while I slept , What did I see?
The moment I woke up , Why wasn't I me?
Forgot everything for a while , Why would that be?

What did I see? What did I see?
I know what I did see
The interpretation of it is clearly not to play
Maybe I'll talk about the pictures on another day
For now , feel free to stay
And when time comes , help me translate these images in your own ways

alpine jasper
#

Ok now I am very interested in what monstrosity you saw 😭

twin cliff
twin cliff
#

@gusty acorn Although i like this one a bit more

gusty acorn
#

Lets see...

gusty acorn
#

OK. Pretty interested poem right here mate.

  1. Your use of anaphora for the first 2 lines is very interesting. The anaphora not only reinforces the urge and importance of What did I see, but also really helps in "occupying space" in your stanzas. What I mean by that is this - For most ot the poem you've maintained a steady type of stanza - a Quatrain. But, you've also gone for an AABB rhyme scheme. Now, this often gets pretty difficult because newer poets struggle to find the necessary words to keep AABB going for a long period of kind, and thus using an anaphora as a workaround essentially 'occupies' 2 out of the 4 verses. This effectively cuts your work in half, without looking cheap becoz anaphoras do help build up emphasis and attention. Honestly, really smart move. 👏

  2. Falling asleep whilst reading Physics is truly the universal experience that ties us all together. 😂

  3. Some of your punctuation are looking a bit off. For one, there is a space between the letter and the comma multiple times. We can probably excuse this becoz formatting on Discord is pretty hard. But next, you've got a comma after a question mark (Stanzas 1, 2 and 3). Thats straight up wrong punctuation, and what makes it even more confusing is that this isn't followed up in Stanza 4 or 5.

#
  1. Although you have mostly taken care of this, I can't help but notice in some places that the syllable count isn't constant or semi-constant. Now, I know every poem is different and artists get their creative licenses. As such, not every poem need to be written with a meter in mind either. However, it is always preferable to give a consistent (preferable) or semi-constant (Plus or minus 2) number of syllables per verse. At minimum, we try to strive for a constant 6 syllables, so that the poem continues to roll off more easily when it's being spoken. At maximum, we keep it to 10 or 14 (but then every verse has some kind of punctuation in between like commas or semicolons to give a little pause to the reader) (this is how Poe did it). We try to maintain this consistency throughout the poem, or at least keep it constant in any given stanza, so that the poem (or stanza, as applicable) has a certain 'feel' to it when its being read. However, that 'feel' is disrupted if one line is noticably bigger or smaller than another. Now, I'm not saying that you never stray from this. So, imagine I have 100 units of attention per verse. If I got 4 syllables, I'm putting 25 per syllable, but if I have 6 or 8, I'm putting 16.6 or 12.5.
#

  1. ... This might sound like an extremely nerdy analogy, but the point is to show that shorter syllabled verses make us pay more attention to those particular verses. This is good for bringing great attention to a verse by breaking the flow, but in your poem I believe this isn't working in your favour and instead we're seeing too much inconsistency, leading not to emphasis generation, but instead to confusion and breakage of flow. Why? Because its not a case that a small verse is clumped between bigger verses. Its instead the case that a bigger verse awkwardly comes up along the smaller verses. This is especially true for the last Stanza, where you've also broken with the quatrains pattern (though to be fair, that much is acceptable because it can be justified by saying that breaking the flow at the end makes the experience more memorable).

  2. I'm also gonna have to hold some reservation on how little you explained your dream. Yes, I get that you're gonna explain this better in another poem and are holding out on that information, but this feels very incomplete. See, the title of the poem itself is "What did I See?". But in actuality, you described what you saw in only 3 lines. Then too, your descriptors have been pretty vague It made me wonder, but the images were confusing and I didn't like some of them. This isn't gonna be enough to give the reader a cliffhanger! If at all, some might feel a bit cheated for having invested the effort in trying to know what you saw, only to be given 3 vague lines and being told to wait for the next poem. So, my advice here would be to write maybe 2-4 more quatrains (seeing your anaphora intact), so that you have 4-8 more lines to actually give an outline of whatever you saw. After this, armed with some idea, viewers might be more interested in your next poem.

So, this is the extent of my feedback.

#

Do note that all opinions are personal. I'm not claiming my thoughts to be "right", 'cause of course poetry can be subjective in many places. Still, take it as you will.

All in all, I think this poem certainly had a lot of potential. It had a good sequence and a pretty great anaphora going; its only missing some details. Still, solid stuff mate 😄

twin cliff
# gusty acorn OK. Pretty interested poem right here mate. 1. Your use of anaphora for the fir...
  1. DANGG YESS , I actually intended that tbhh
  2. LOL boards 🤕
  3. Well yea , tbh i think Ill correct it , it DOES sound confusing
  4. I didn't even know I was taking care about it , Thanks for the tip man , it might improve my writing skills by great levels
  5. The next one might have some of your tips , now that I've read my other poems and this feedback , I can see thats a repeating habit 😭
  6. Well yeah , That would be pretty bad trying to find what the poem is about to only be another mystrey

And thank you for the feedback!! Its rare seeing honest , USEFUL feedback here , And I love what knowledge you've given me with that , I'll keep that In Mind in the next poem and , try and keep the reader interested

gusty acorn
#

Well mate, this is gonna come off as a little forward, but would you like to follow me? I usually like poetry in a highly structured and ordered format, and kinda won't be posting too much due to exams (and hence won't disturb you too much).