Date: Thu, 10 Apr 1997 15:42:28 EDT From: crack pottery again? Subject: Re: CRIT, TECH:GiW (Gone in Winter) On Wed, 9 Apr 1997 19:36:51 -0400, Nancy Dunlap wrote: :) I get a bunch of crap for my poems because they are mean spirited, :) but a peice of crap like Gone in Winter goes by like its frigging T.S. :) Eliot. [incidentally, try: but a piece of crap like "Gone in Winter" goes by as though it's frigging T.S. Eliot.] :) I can't crit it, because I am not a poet, but I know sappy drivel when I :) see it. I think there is an imbalance. You people are driving me to drink. First, thank you, Nancy, for having the courage to admit that you don't think you know how to crit or comment. I think it must be very difficult for you to try to participate here struggling under that misconception. I hope this piece will help you see some ways that you can contribute. Second, Kirsten, let me explain that I am going to walk through this crit in fairly excruciating detail. I also will do some rewriting, trying to show how I might approach the same material. This helps me learn more about how to write and I think can provide you with some hints about another approach. Please don't consider what I suggest as hard and fast rules, just suggestions. Take what works for you, and consider the rest as just my confusion. Third, let's take a moment and consider an approach to critiquing which Nancy or anyone might use. (actually, it takes more than a few minutes.) Suppose we start with simply reading the poem. There are at least two points which anyone can supply as a reader: 1. how did it affect you (what did you feel or think as a result of reading it?) 2. were there any points in the poem which made you stop, blink, which were difficult or confusing, etc.? Even if this were all the crit that we supplied, I think it would help the writer quite a bit. So in your case, Nancy, you might tell Kirsten: I thought it was too sweet. It made me gag. I felt sappy reading it. I also don't understand what you mean by "words spoken foolishly, in anger". I don't think angry words are ever foolish. or whatever you feel and think in response to the poem. It's sometimes important to make it clear that this kind of crit is about how you respond to the poem, not about the poem itself, but of course, all of us are really writing about our response to the words, even when we try to be very objective. Now, if you want to go a bit farther, we can try to analyze what about the poem made us react and how it might be changed. I find it useful to look at the words and presentation very closely when I'm doing that, rather than just frothing at the mouth. So let's include Kirsten's poem here: On Wed, 09 Apr 1997 10:42:22 PDT, kirsten white wrote: :) Gone in Winter :) :) Long-winded March blows away :) The dead-celled discards of my youth :) reminding me that a new season arrives :) Yet you don't. :) :) Words spoken foolishly, in anger :) Carved eternally, in memory :) Punishing me with lonesome nights :) Without you. :) :) The new budded trees mock me :) With their open arms :) And I rage at the beauty :) That I can't share :) :) You are gone and I'm forgotten :) like the melted snow taken away :) By miles of river and years of time, :) Drained, drained. What is the message of this poem? It appears fairly simple to me--it's about separation and how that makes a person feel. It is a topic that has quite a few odes, stories, and other bits behind it, and yet is still always freshly painful. :) Gone in Winter :) The title "Gone in Winter" has a faint echo in three of the verses, from "March...arrives...yet you don't", through "without you", and into the final verse, with the "You are gone...the melted snow..." Still, I don't think it adds much to the poem. I'd suggest thinking about something that pulls the reader in, makes them want to see what kind of poem could have a title like that, perhaps even one that poses the problem or point of the poem, especially in an interesting way. Maybe something like: Melted Snow and You Anyway, I'd suggest working on the title. Consider that the first chance the writer has to "catch" the reader--it deserves polishing, baiting, sharpening until it really shines. :) Long-winded March blows away :) The dead-celled discards of my youth :) reminding me that a new season arrives :) Yet you don't. this feels too poetic to me. "long-winded March" -- that's a conceit, a fancy. "dead-celled discards of my youth" also is oddly detached. the poem is about you, about the feelings, the torn struggle to go on even though "that significant other" has left. And this kind of poetic distance makes me feel distanced from that. Suppose we talked about a wind, a cold blustery wind. Maybe the dead-celled discards could be...a pile of leaves that we played in last fall, when we were young, oh, so young? So we might do something like: A cold March wind blows away That pile of rotting leaves you pushed Me into, then laughed at the autumn Stuck in my hair. A new season turns Yet you are gone. Not very good, but perhaps the idea of pushing down to some details will help. One other suggestion might be to scan the poem for meter or rhythm. (a dictionary can be helpful with this, although your natural speech rhythms are usually enough) so, maybe: :) Long-winded March blows away - / - / - -/ :) The dead-celled discards of my youth - / - / - - - / :) reminding me that a new season arrives - / - / - - - - / - - :) Yet you don't. - - - I'm not sure, but I don't think there's a rhythm here, at least one that I fall into and follow. Probably one way of changing the poem would be to use the language rhythms, probably starting with a rhythm and then deliberately breaking it when talking about the significant other, now gone. I.e., use the rhythms to reinforce the story the words are telling us about. So maybe something like -/-/-/-/-/ -/-/-/-/ /-/-/--- --- (start with iambic pentameter, establish the rhythm, then break it.) [for some more words on the subject of beating out poetry, you might look at http://web.mit.edu/mbarker/www/writers/tech961004.txt ] :) Words spoken foolishly, in anger :) Carved eternally, in memory :) Punishing me with lonesome nights :) Without you. again, this seems distant, removed from the real agony that I feel the poem is about. The play of anger carving eternally or memory carved eternally and the matching play of memory punishing vs anger vs words is somewhat interesting, but I'd rather get more details in here. Make me feel the loneliness, the longing. Perhaps: "Don't ever come back" I said And echoes now in memory Punish me through sleepless nights Of single coldness :) The new budded trees mock me :) With their open arms :) And I rage at the beauty :) That I can't share this is a bit confused. First, does the "new budded"ness of the trees have anything to do with the open arms or the unshared beauty? Perhaps something about the leaves reaching into the spring sunshine would go with the outstretched arms. However, I don't think this quite works for me. The reaching out is part of the separation, not something that the speaker of the poem doesn't share. Only if the trees "found each other" would it be something the speaker doesn't have. I think I'm finding it hard to accept the vision of beauty that is unshared. I think in this state, the person won't see the beauty, but will focus on the dirt, the trash covering the buds, almost anything except the actual beauty there. So the poet needs to make us see both the actual beauty of the spring and the darkened vision that is all we can see in our loneliness. Very difficult to do, especially with the first person voice that this poem is written in. :) You are gone and I'm forgotten :) like the melted snow taken away :) By miles of river and years of time, :) Drained, drained. The first line rings in my ears like a country and western song - 'you're gone and I'm forgotten, let that dog go on barking..." The simile here is again too archly poetic for my taste. It's also slightly off focus, if the point is to share the loneliness of separation. I.e., talking about being forgotten switches suddenly from the feelings of the speaker to the significant other not paying attention, not remembering. Perhaps focusing on a patch of snow, with the slurry of mud and that crystal hard coat of icy chunks, melting in the March sunshine, would make a useful metaphor. Something like: You are gone, as the last snowbank Melts into mud, leaving an empty can Settling on the dead grass Under the harsh spring sunshine. My steps (this time! see http://web.mit.edu/mbarker/writers/technical.html for some other attempts to discuss this topic): Basic 1. How did the piece affect you? What did it make you feel or think? 2. Were there any points in the piece which were especially good, difficult, etc.? What stands out? Extra Points 3. What about the poem specifically made you feel something? 4. How would you suggest rewriting or changing it to improve it? Bonus for Poetry 5. Scan for rhythm, rhyme, and other poetic "devices". How do they work in the piece? So, with a bit of thought about why this poem causes us to respond, and some time spent thinking about how we might try to say something similar, we can try to help the author see their work through our eyes. And that's the magic of writing. Thank you, Nancy and Kirsten, for the opportunity to share some of what I'm doing in a crit, and think about the learning we can do together. hope this helps tink