as we drive in your car
i watch as another girl's picture
hanging from the mirror
swings slowly back and forth
her eyes never leaving me
and i know

you will never love me

Wow! Skye, that is awesome. Taking that everyday image of crass macho maleness and twisting it that way.

THIS is why I love your poetry so much.

I'll be in touch girl!

Brucefur

Hey Bruce, get outta the way. I want to be first!

skye...I love this. So short and simple yet so full and telling.

Jay

skye--you my dear child, are an awesome poet. xxoo mommajane

nice poem!

Wow. I really liked this poem. I can just picture the scene and it's wonderfully haunting. Is anyone else picturing rain on the windshield and the windshield wipers slowly moving back and forth. Anyway, I loved it but that's not really any different from my feelings about any of the poetry that you write. I think that everyone else would agree that you should write a book or at least read some of your poetry at a poetry reading that has hazy lights, smoke filtering from the bottom of the room up, a single chair, and you sitting alone in the middle of the stage. Damn woman, what's stopping you?

Shiva

Ahem... yes Skye, just what IS stopping you?

I have been meaning to email you... I promise that I will soon.

Brucefur

Short and crisp and very fine.

regards!

siren

Awesome poem! I can feel the helplessness of the speaker. I think the speaker desperatley wants to be loved, but just realises that she never will be loved by him. Great work!

"Argue not with dragons for thou art crunchy and go well with chocolate sprinkles"! ~Corny but cute!

It paints the perfect picture.. i can see exactly what you wrote in my head... and yes i see rain too

skye,

CAUTION: YOU ARE ABOUT TO ENTER A NO SPIN ZONE!

I would like to take a few moments to comment here, not about this submission so much, as your poetry in general. As much as I think you have an innate poetic nature, and a compelling way of expressing yourself, I am going to stand at variance here with those who say that you are a great (or comparable adjective) poet. In fact, based upon what submissions I have seen, I do not even consider you a good poet, or really even, in the strictest sense of the word, a poet at all, but I will grant you the term as it is loosely used by many today. Right now what I see in you is somewhat of a gem in the rough, perhaps, who knows, even a diamond. But you are a very long way from being a great poet. A great poet is one who has a finely developed sense of craft, and who can expound upon numerous themes, in varying styles, setting different moods and tones. What I see in you, as, to be perfectly fair, I do in so many others, is a one-trick poet. You emote quite compellingly at times in your chosen theme of the agonies and heartche of teenage angst and unrequited love, but (unless you have poems on other themes which I am unaware of) that’s it. With others it may be nature, or whimsical, or romantic, or numerous genres. There is not now, nor has there ever been, a good, and especially no great, poet who ever wrote upon one solitary theme. If you wish to aspire to this, you need to dip into more than one color upon your palette; and you have to develop poetic craft (at least a sense of rhythm, proper punctuation and grammar; you don’t strike me as the type to use structured form or rhyme.) Right now you HAVE no craft. Your effusions, again, like many others, it seems to me, are put down willey nilley, stream of consciousness fashion, without much agonizing over it or revision. Just throw it down there, get it out. Purge yourself of the heartache of the moment. Some are not much more than little snippets. Little capsule glimpses into one aspect of your life. Fine, as far as they go, but the point is they really don’t go very far at all. Not much more than a fleeting thought. You need to develop it, flesh it out, take it through some sort of logical progression, do so in an artistic way, and then resolve it. Try writing within the strict confines of a meter or poetic form. (Most will not do so because it requires of them craft, and discipline, and hard work. But, if I may paraphrase Steve Martin here, poetry isn’t pretty (well, sometimes it can be).

Skye, there is a lot more going on in your life, and around you, than what you are currently expressing. Write something funny, or meditative, or devotional. Write about your goldfish, or a pimple on your nose, or the price of eggs in Russia. Every one will bring out new aspects of your emotional sensitivity, evoke different moods, invite you to experiment with different styles. Right now the danger is that, a few people, in particular those close to you, whom you are not going to receive impartial judgment from no matter what (and I don’t mean this as a disparagement), having praised you as a great or awesome poet, you are apt to think, well, that’s it. I’ve arrived. Nothing to do now but coast along doing what I’ve always been doing. No need to branch out or agonize over a word here or an expression there. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Stick with a winner. Be a big fish in a little pond. And, ultimately be the loser; go down like so many before you, in poetic obscurity.

Skye, I hope you won’t take this as a personal attack upon you, because, although I have chosen to address it to you, it is in a larger sense, an open letter to many on this forum. I haven’t spent the last two hours writing this so that I could rag upon you. I can do that, if I choose, in a lot less time and have a lot more fun doing it. I say to you, do not take as gospel what the people close to you are telling you about your relative poetic merit, and especially not from many on this forum who oooh and aaah over just about anything and know nothing really about what constitutes good poetry. They are sheep, really. They see someone else, who saw someone else, who once saw e.e. cummings spell ‘I’ ‘i’ so they think that must be the hip poetic thing to do. You yourself are a victim of this. Don’t listen to these people, well meaning as they may be. I am a reasonably good judge of poetic horse flesh and at the risk of repeating myself, I will say again: You are not a great poet nor a good poet. You are rough around the edges and you are a long ways from greatness, and may never get there. And you certainly won’t get there writing nothing but what you’re writing now. You have the potential to fly. Spread your wings.

Okay, now that I’ve just completed the second home-study course in How to Win Friends and Influence People (the first I believe was with Bruce) I am out of here. Maybe next post I can look forward to reading about your goldfish?

David Madison




Read the poets in the Poet List on this forum and elsewhere. Study them

why do i feel like i've just been lectured to? i'm not a child and i don't appreciate being treated like one by some random person. don't tell me what to do, what to read or what to write. i've got it handled. thanks.
i've never considered myself a great poet, just a poet. i write what i want, and i post. i'm not here on the forum to show the world that i rock. like everyone else, i want to share what i write. i'm confused as to why this was directed at me. i know you said it wasn't personal, well then post it on a seperate thread. maybe you feel like you're guiding me to greatness or something, but i don't need it. save it for someone who cares.

now that i'm done being defensive...

skye

okay i have more to say now that i'm thinking a little more rationally. i think a lot of what you said is relevant and i agree with it. but i'm not going to change what i write about because you don't like it. i actually write about a plethora of things, but i don't post them. which is my decision. i also revise all my poetry and don't repost it. which is my decision. there's other things i kind of want to address, but i'm not going to justify myself to you.
i just don't appreciate you writing this long email like you're an authority about my poetry and how i write, what i should write about. i'm not going to take your advice if you write to me like i'm a child. i think you may need to check your male privilege. all in all, you're just making me think you're acting like a jackass. if you don't care, cool. ain't my problem.
if you have constructive criticism, give it to me. if you're going to lecture me, save it, cause i'm not interested.

skye

No goldfish then?

Skye, I enjoyed the poem very much. It took me back to a more simple time. I remember once when Jackie picked me up for a drive to our favorite place and I thought she had a picture of some guy hanging by the rear view mirror. He was as big as a tree. It turned out that "he" was a pine tree air freshener. Boy was I relieved. Thought you could use some whimsy. jhs

"he was a boy, and she was a girl... Can I get any more obvious?"

Have you heard that song Skye?
Ever since I saw this PROSE and that song comes on the radio, I think of you.
I think the song is kinda funny actually, and more to the point, less pedantic then the majority of new music out there, but that is beside the point.

David,
There are a few points that I would beg to differ on (please, can I? Please? okay that is it for the begging!), the first being that there have been single concept poets who HAVE lasted and are quite famous. The one that comes to mind is Homer. All of his epics were passed down the same way.

Now we could debate what constitutes poetry till the cows come home, but here is the Webster's definition;

Poetry: n. A type of discourse which achieves its effects by rhythm, sound patterns and imagery. (I personally think that Webster's is WAY behind the times here though, and that it should read; patterns, OR imagery).

Poetic: adj. of the language or meaning of a poem or of poetry//composed in VERSE.

Now yes, we could be REALLY snobbish and use words like epic, sonnet, poem, prose and villanelle (sp) and class those writing it accordingly, but really what would be the point? To create a class system within the arts?
That being the case, who would then determine which is high art, and which is base? If it was a democracy, modern verse would win hands down I think, as being better liked.

Through-out history, poetry has evolved into new forms; at one point Sonnets were practically the only form of acceptable poetry out there, to name just one. Also, let us note that the word poetry stems from Greek origins (who didn't rhyme their verse to my knowledge-so if we want to be truly anal retentive we could state our case that all RHYMING poems are not true poetry at all). The Celtic bards with their oratory traditions also practised this art, and again it was sans the rhymes. So are we then determining that ONLY one culture gets to say what determines a poet?

Also, might I state that you are relatively new here, and therefore may have missed Riot Girrrl, which was in fact NOT about unrequited love, or love of any kind for that matter. I thin Skye has posted a couple of others too, that dwell upon a separate subject matter. So you may wish to do a search.

Um... and Skye is in her 20's, so calling her poems teen angst IS rather insulting, because frankly, they are better WORDED than that.

Now, having said all of that, I do think that you Skye, are over reacting a tad, but I do agree with you that this should have had its own thread, and not mentioned you specifically.

Well, I have certainly run on here...

Brucefur

Ever heard of free verse?
To not call skye a poet is to strip the title from the likes of people like Federico Garcia Lorca, Langston Hughes, Leonard Cohen, Sylvia Plath and many others.

There is such a thing as evolution and poetry has not only evolved but grown arms and legs. It is no longer required to write poetry that is perfectly structured with a proper rhyme scheme and flawless metre. The beauty of evolution is that we can now put on paper a sting of thoughts and feelings and call it a poem. As many of the greats have.

I have read David's poetry and read his critiques and can't help but wonder if he still gets around in a hansom cab. David, your poetry is good poetry; make no mistake. However, to condemn a person for choosing a style different than that you would choose for yourself is just wrong.

As for this point you attempted to make - "They are sheep, really. They see someone else, who saw someone else, who once saw e.e. cummings spell ‘I’ ‘i’ so they think that must be the hip poetic thing to do."

Allow me to share with you a poem by Michael Ondaatje:

Taking

It is the formal need
to suck blossoms out of the flesh
in those we admire,
planting them private in the brain
and cause fruit for lonely gardens

To learn to pour the exact arc
of steel still soft and crazy
before it hits the page
I have stroked the mood and tone
of hundred year dead men and women
Emily Dickinson’s large dog, Conrad’s beard
and, for myself
removed them from historical traffic
having tasted their brain. Or heard
the wet sound of a death cough.
their idea of the immaculate moment is now.

The rumours pass on.
The rumours pass on
are planted
till they become a spine.

As for style, I wonder if you would consider this piece by Leonard Cohen a poem:

Song

I almost went to bed
without remembering
the four white violets
I put in the button-hole
of your green sweater

and how I kissed you then
and you kissed me
shy as though I'd
never been your lover

Lighten up, David. If you don't like someone's poetry, don't read it. If your purpose in life is simply to be contrary, you have achieved success as you are really the only one who doesn't care to call skye a poet.

Jay

overreacting? me? never.

skye

Jay,

Free verse, in my opinion, is just that: an entity unto itself, "verse that does not follow a conventional metrical or stanzaic pattern and has either an irregular rhyme or no rhyme." It is an entity unto itself and something that I would hold apart from the strict definition of poetry (to follow shortly), not a sub-species of it.

My purpose was, and still is, to prod skye, and others, to become better poets. I offered it as constructive criticism; she has chosen to regard it as a lecture. Well, I don't really know that I can say where the dividing line is between the two, or if, in fact, they're not really one and the same. And, no, I don't really expect everyone to write structured/rhymed poetry. But that does not mean that writing in free verse one is free of the demands of craft and artistry. I'm merely urging them to spread their wings and move on.

When I say that skye is not a poet in the strict sense of the word I meant, there is, and I think it is important to preserve, a clear distinction between the literal definitions of poetry and prose. If there weren't, we wouldn't need two separate words; one would suffice. Poetry, as defined in 'The Poet's Craft Book' is

"…the expression of thoughts which awake the higher and nobler emotions or their opposites, in words arranged according to some accepted convention…whose rhythm tends toward uniformity or regularity."

Accepting that definition, skye's and other's writings, not excluding your own, are not truly poetry. That is not to say that it is not good writing, or that it it doesn't have elements of beauty and artistry. It is, again in the strict sense of the word, prose. Certainly there can be, and are, many lyric, moving, even beautiful works of prose. However you choose to regard it, that is the distinction which I continue to hold to.

As to my being contrary and the only one to not call skye a poet, it has been said that "sometimes in the course of history, one man can be right against all the world." (author unknown). People are, by and large, sheep. There are many who not say sh-- if there mouth was full of it. And many there are on this forum, and elsewhere, who consider virtually ANYTHING poetry if it is stripped of all punctuation and given a few random artificial line breaks here and there. As you know, I am not in that camp.

Jay, you ask me to lighten up, but I rather think that I need to be more of the gadfly to cause people to think for themselves instead of mutely following the wooly posterior in front of themselves.

Lastly, you say that "poetry has not only evolved but grown arms and legs." I would rather say that it has lost some rather crucial body parts along the way.

Truly lastly, I am spending far too much time on these critiques and rattling cages when I should be doing the devil's work (though I have no doubt that some feel I'm doing a pretty good job of it now. You, perhaps?)

No, truly, truly lastly, this is the first time that you and I have ever had a direct interchange. Could it be that SOMETHING is changing for the better (maybe)?

You want to urge people to spread their wings and move on, but what if they don't want to move on?

Personally, I don't view my poetry as a stepping stone with the eventual goal being to write the perfect Ode, Sonnet, Ballad or otherwise. I will continue to write as I always have and that is to write whatever I want. Poetry, to me is like any other art form in that it is a medium.

You want to be a gadfly? Seriously, don't you think you contradict yourself by saying you want to cause people to think for themselves? In my opinion, allowing people to post free verse or whatever other type of verse they choose to write is in fact letting them think for themselves.

Again, if you don't want to read it...don't read it. If you don't want to critique it...don't critique it.

To critique a poem is one thing, but here you have critiqued a person and her style of writing.

Maybe the forum should undergo a name change? May I suggest "The Forum for the expression of thoughts which awake the higher and nobler emotions or their opposites, in words arranged according to some accepted convention…whose rhythm tends toward uniformity or regularity AND NOTHING ELSE WILL BE ACCEPTED HERE!"

Jay

Post Edited (03-08-04 14:50)

The poets craft book is written by whom?

Not that I am disagreeing with it's definition, but I do like to be able to know that there is some expertise behind it, and not say, just some English major with an opinion. (Was it written by SUCCESSFUL poets, with a million copies sold, for instance?)


This debate strikes me a bit like modern science, where by spending millions of dollars on research, and by excluding all contradictory data (i.e. the egg itself), we have arrived at the fact that the chicken came first. Funded by Poultry farmers inc!

Pushing people to improve their art is great, and I believe it is necessary as well. The continued learning and stimulation that new thoughts engendered, does in fact raise our level of consciousness.

I do believe that splitting hairs is unproductive though.
Take yourself for instance David; you use words that are not yet accepted forms of the English language in order to achieve many of your rhymes. Should we then state that you are not a poet, because you do NOT in fact use words, but Babel instead? By the definition that you have quoted, this would discount much of your work.
You are in the process of adding on those arms and legs that Jay has mentioned, and personally, I think that it is great, but my Step-father who is a published poet and a retired English professor, would have flunked you in nothing flat, because of your lack of adherence to the English language. He may very well have deemed you too lazy to find a real word, and condemned you out of hand. An injustice I think, but one that does certainly have its adherents.

I also don't see anything in your particular quote stating that one must practice many styles in order to be considered a poet. Perhaps that is elsewhere in this book by authors anonymous?

We all have opinions. We all have are own definitions of who is a poet, and whom is a poetaster, but really that is all they are; opinions. Each are valid, and redundant at the same time.

I agree that there is a surplus of crap on site, but I differ with you, in that I find that Skye's work is cutting edge. Just as yours is. Although, in both cases, I have read works that didn't appeal to me. Doesn't make it bad poetry (or prose, epic blah, blah, blah), just means that I either don't relate, or didn't like the use of wording, etc...

What I consider hopeless, I simply don't critique.

Almost lastly, by the definition listed above, most of what I consider crap would in fact be considered poetry, for apathy and disgust are certainly the opposites of higher thought. That is often my reaction to the simplistic; let's MAKE this piece of crap rhyme, so that we can call it a poem, complex.

By that same token, I have read work that could have been thought provoking if they hadn't been trying so hard to get a rhyme in there.

Roses are red
Violets are blue...
this is silly
and I am too.

Poetry?

Not to me thanks!
I think that it is metric (so I have rhythm), it rhymes, (so I have a uniformity and regularity with my A A rhyme scheme) and I have certainly made people say; my, that is incredibly vapid! Groan! and have therefore achieved the opposite of higher thought.
So by the definition posted above, this would make me a poet. Pshah!

I would like to see the poets, lyrists, balladeers, prosers... um... am I leaving anyone out? Oh, we don't have a definition yet for those like me who write in both prose and poetry? Perhaps a Proet?

Wait, I think that to be truly accurate we must add in other possibly defining factors; Brucefur, Proet-Protestanta-Blanca. There! I think that covers my style, religion and race... now, what symbol should I wear?

Or we could instead base our criteria upon the individual merit of the work in question, rather than trying to stick round pegs in square holes.

Brucefur
-Sorry David, but with all of the Neologisms that you tend to use, you are being a bit of hypocrite. Glass houses and all of that.

"Don't throw stones at your neighbors', if your own windows are glass." -Ben Franklin

I think this is what Brucefur is meaning.

"He that scatters thorns, lets him not go barefoot." -Ben Franklin

A different wording of the previously stated quote.

"Tart words make no friends; a spoonful of honey will catch more flies then a gallon of vinegar." -Ben Franklin

I put this one up here to tell you something David... I'm pretty new to this forum, only been coming here for a few weeks, reading all of the works that these fine people have written and in my honest opinion there are some wonderful peices of poetry and prose here and for every comment you've made that I've seen, there hasn't been anything but "fix this" and "fix that". Why can't you just read the words, interpret them your own way, and then either tell them that it was good or don't say anything at all? I think most people put thier work up her not just for the critiquing but mostly for the praise! They want someone to just say "oh man thats great!" or "I like it" because they, in thier own mind, think that thier writing is great and they don't care if someone thinks otherwise. They just want to find out if someone else thinks its great also. If noone else does then they don't take it too personally because that person doesn't know what they are/were feeling at the time. I think I'm getting too long winded so I'll try to rap this up soon. All in all David, I think the people that post on these forums want someone who agrees with them, they want a friend.

I don't mean to speak for everyone on the forums because, I don't know you so I can't begin to comprehend why you put your writings on this site. But I truly believe that most of you just want to share your work with friends.

Well that's my 2 cents!

-Justin

P.S. I must say it was pretty scary when I was reading your post above David because when you said "Okay, now that I’ve just completed the second home-study course in How to Win Friends and Influence People " I was just at that time rearanging my bookshelf and in my hand happened to be Dale Carnegie's 'How to Win Friends and Influence People' must be a small world i guess.

By the way David if you have that book I suggest you read over Part Three, Chapter 2 especially. If you do not have that book then I also suggest going to your library, checking it out and reading it from cover to cover because Carnegie is a master of changing your way of thinking when you deal with people. Actually it really is a good read and if anyone on this forum has a bit of time to kill go get that book and sit down with it because it will BLOW YOUR MIND!!! The chapter on conversationalists alone is great! and thats just a couple pages! Read it.

-Justin

If this debate is to continue, perhaps we should open a new topic rather than hijacking skyes thread further.

Jay

Zactly!

David Madison, Brucefur,

thank you for a controverse discussion! I love to see a good fight! Hang on!

rubs hands and grins

skye, short and sweet. Comes near to a Haiku.

siren

Skye I really like your poem. Yes it is a poem. and the fight was very entertaining.

Ah, the good ol' days! Bump!

Emule ate my earlier post.

Good to see you again Jay.

I have lost contact with Skye and her mum. If you could find a way to drag them back here I would be in your debt.