4 replies to this topic

[JRPomazon]

So I've been working on getting a book together for the past three years. Yeah, I know, I suck. I recently finished this one right here, thought I would showcase it here before I went with the reddit option. I think people still come to this part. I like it, so that must mean there is something wrong with it:

 

Spoiler

 

Black Hole

 

They said you were the opposite of the sun
Taking in all energy and light
Canceling it out and reducing it to nothing
They went on in that direction for a little bit
Talking about catastrophe
Little did they know
That they could have saved themselves time
Just calling you a Black Hole

Because that’s the actual name
Of what they’re describing
It’s something we are all familiar with
To some extent
Instead they executed
Poetic masturbation
Pleasing themselves with all the words they knew
To describe nothingness and ruin

It was bad enough they were equating you
To a Black Hole
Something so massive and commanding
As if a single person
Could ever match that level of presence
The way they talked about you
In all the ways you ruin and devastate
And command oblivion
Oh Lordy
They must have really loved you

Because they could only describe
How you abolish all light
If there was a light present to begin with
And how the earth is shuttered into pieces
Littered with debris and corpses
How you embrace
With a gravity so immense
That you could crush anything
Compress it into atoms
So that nothing remains
You could only come up with this stuff
If you really put the time
Into putting your heart into it

I doubt they ever let it go
Whatever it was that happened here
Though I bet there would be some denial
Blush red faces and screaming dismissals
On the outside they put on a bad act
On the inside there must be
Some kind of vicegrip
Clamped to their heartstrings like a capo
Tightened exquisitely to a fine tuned point
Pumping an entire dictionary’s worth
Of drawn out overused adjectives and nouns

Then there was something
About your demand for their blood
And your wanton lust for destruction
That it’s your fault for hurting them
But their’s for setting you loose
And at that point I began to tune it out
Because they’re using too many words
To get the point across
You must have really screwed with them
If they can’t even speak straight anymore

Like I said
They must have really loved you
To hate you so much
To say you are a Black Hole
In so many words and not at all directly
And since they can’t admit it themselves
I got a hunch that after all they say
They might still love you

 

 

[Veteran]

Despite being someone who doesn't really 'get' non-rhyming poetry, I quite liked this.

[Steel Samurai]

Good, good, good concepts. I'd take another look at your rhythm - just because it's blank verse doesn't mean you don't need a beat. 

 

Ideas in here are gold, though.

[JRPomazon]

I think I get ya but how could I better incorporate rhythm in this piece? I mistook rhythm for rhyme and made a mess of things for about an hour

[Doctor Pogo]

Here are some steps you could use to approach applying some rhythm:

 

1.  Read it aloud.  Speak each word clearly, don't run anything together.  Does it make you move while you read?  If not, it might need some tightening up.

 

2.  Now read each line by itself.  Tap your hand with each stressed syllable.  Does that produce a steady beat?  They said you were the opposite of the sun  - there's a steady pulse for the first few feet, but then it breaks up.  These are the spots you're looking for.

 

3.  Now you want to think about the rhythmic feet - no need to worry about applying anything crazy like straight iambic or trochaic meter, but you do want to know your feet and use them to your advantage.  You want to position stressed and unstressed syllables so that they create a rhythm that isn't jagged or broken.  Don't get bogged down worrying about how many feet or which ones - you're going for rhythmic, not metrical.  The several unstressed syllables between 'opposite' and 'sun' spill out arhythmically and need a stressed beat to avoid it.

 

4.  Work each line with your ear, pinching and tucking syllables and words - 'They said you were the opposite of the sun' - some of it could be tightening up the words, knocking out filler like 'the' and 'of the,' unpoetic words all.  'They said you were opposite the sun' - the syllable 'were' loses its stress, now there's a steadier pulse, but the phrasing is a little clunky and flat.  A prosaic phrase like 'said you were' could probably be made into more of an image, something that leads the reader a little rather than gives them straight information.  'They placed you opposite the sun' - there's rhythm, with a little bit of a bounce, da-DA-da-DA-da-da-da-DA, and the language is economical and clean.  You can no doubt get an even better result than my example.

 

5.  Finally, step back from lines and look at sentences - you chose not to use punctuation, but there are still pretty clear sentences in the poem.  Ignore the line breaks and take each complete thought as a unit.  Listen for how the rhythm works across the lines, tap the beat of the entire sentence.  Apply the same process as above to work the sentences out, then split them back up into lines and stanzas.

 

That's one approach.  Hope it helps.