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201118 - A Triptych of Poems (sort of, but not really) - Robinski (no tags) - 870 words


Robinski

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1 hour ago, Snakenaps said:

Booooo.

I can't do accents, so I'm jealous. I literally can't hear them in my head unless I am actively hearing them in real life. It's like my brain forgets what accents sound like without constant input. Which means I am always stuck in American. Californian American, I suppose, with all my dudes and rads. At least I don't say woke

Okay, maybe I'll record two versions, if I can get around to recording one! Singing is a funny thing when it comes to accents, because there is a real default to singing in an American accent by a lot of singers from around the world, I think it's because that is what is heard a lot of the time, and it becomes an unconscious bias, for the rest of us anyway!!

11 minutes ago, ginger_reckoning said:

Bruh. I'm shook. No need to flex on us like that. 

Hey, Ginger, I didn't know you could speak Gibberish :o;)

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Oooh, more poetry!

These were so much fun! The last one had me in tears. I feel like it needs to go on Twitter immediately!

 

A Mariner's Heart

For some reason the second stanza I don't care for. The first and third are perfect, and I see the need for the second noting the first and third. Maybe it's repetition (the sea the sea, a storm a storm)? I agree that you need something about storms there in the second to have the power of the third though. 

a thousand storms she hurls at me / fiercer still than man can be <--- although likely unintentional, I like what you've done with pronouns here. The sea is a woman, fiercer than a man (using man as a single gender, not as a word to mean all people). I think it's more powerful this way, especially noting the sort of patriarchal bent of many sailors

- the stanza about peace seems out of place though. What war is happening? I thought we were talking about the raging sea and yearning for home? Though the yearning for home stanza would be more powerful if we had a specific thing to yearn for. Like a lady perhaps?

'fore death upon the land <-- oh I see. There's conflict on land so the narrator chooses the sea. I think this conflict could be brought out a bit more. You really might just need one more solid stanza to give us a bit about conflict, or even to compare land conflict to sea conflict outside of the sea being fiercer than man. Maybe the sea being fiercer than a soldier? Some kind of specific soldier? That might tie this together nicely.

 

Jack

love the imagery in here! The pacing/rhythm seems a bit off though, or I'm not familiar with the style. Every stanza has one sentence (never the same one really) that I want to cut a syllable from (or two). It makes reading it jarring, which is in contrast to rain which I feel like is smooth and slick

- you lose me with the metaphor of the distant mother. At first I thought snow but by the end I was just confused. 

- he comes again? He who? Weren't we just talking about a mother?

- oh, so it IS snow but....mother snow and jack frost??? Hence the title Jack I assume?

- wish we had the nerve.... the nerve for what? Didn't the narrator just come in out of the cold? It's almost like the narrator wants to confront mother snow/jack frost but I can't quite grasp the story

- a smile to freeze upon their face....LOVE THIS

- she again. I'm confused as to who the players are

- I don't feel like the end fits the general narrative here. It almost seems like a personal battle, but then has a sort of moral ending to it. I'd prefer the first, as it has real spark to it (though I'm confused as to who all the players are)

 

The Editor

OMG from the first two lines I adore this already

- I don't know if I care for the playin' type language in an editor. I'd expect her words to be crisp, cool, and perfect

- There’ll be time enough for Tweeting / When the subbing’s done <-- I died.

 

We weren't supposed to read The Gambler???

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11 hours ago, kais said:

A Mariner's Heart

For some reason the second stanza I don't care for.

Yeah. Written in my callow youth, I had no notion of some of the narrative requirements of storytelling (in any form), so there are various faults, as others have pointed out too. Actually, I reordered some of the stanzas before subbing this latest version, but that was a sticking plaster. Likely I will have another go at it some time, which I have nothing else to do!!

11 hours ago, kais said:

a thousand storms she hurls at me / fiercer still than man can be <--- although likely unintentional 

Yes, an uncanny presaging of my enlightenment 25 years later :blink:

11 hours ago, kais said:

- the stanza about peace seems out of place though. What war is happening?

It was intended to be the war between 'man' and the see, unmatched (arguably) by anything on land

11 hours ago, kais said:

Jack

Every stanza has one sentence (never the same one really) that I want to cut a syllable from (or two).

Again, not really knowing what I was doing, probably I needed to more clearly communicate the intonation, and maybe too I let it slip. I'll look at that, by and by.

11 hours ago, kais said:

- you lose me with the metaphor of the distant mother. At first I thought snow but by the end I was just confused.

The imagery and narrative flow may well be a bit confused, as I tended to run away with imagery and the effect of words without ensuring that the flow of logic and clarity was maintained, going somewhere because I liked the image, and losing sight of the logic/clarity. Much like in my early drafts of novels, as you all have discovered over the years!!

11 hours ago, kais said:

- wish we had the nerve.... the nerve for what? Didn't the narrator just come in out of the cold? It's almost like the narrator wants to confront mother snow/jack frost but I can't quite grasp the story

It was an allusion towards (physical) numbness, if I recall without rereading.

11 hours ago, kais said:

- she again. I'm confused as to who the players are

Happy to concede that the players are somewhat confused.

11 hours ago, kais said:

- I don't feel like the end fits the general narrative here.

As with other things, this is down to my lack of understanding (at the time?) of how a complete narrative should support any 'message' in a piece, and just lumped it on the end, not even considering if it is/was the right message!

I have scheduled a rewrite of this for 2027.

11 hours ago, kais said:

The Editor

OMG from the first two lines I adore this already

:D 

11 hours ago, kais said:

- I don't know if I care for the playin' type language in an editor. I'd expect her words to be crisp, cool, and perfect

Good point. I've rewritten this a bit since subbing, and added another verse. Also, I considered changing the title, and the piece, to the effect that it was not an editor, but a writer that the 'person' encounters. In the original, the two parties are the same, both gamblers of different levels. That alone might recommend the fact that it should be two writers, and the title can allude to either or both at the same time. It does maybe gel slightly less well with a couple of the lines, but gels better with others.

11 hours ago, kais said:

- There’ll be time enough for Tweeting / When the subbing’s done <-- I died.

Truths hurts.

11 hours ago, kais said:

We weren't supposed to read The Gambler???

I didn't want it to distract, and it's only in the file as a my reference for constructing the piece, but of course by all means chance the colour as you desire. It's just a paste of the original lyric.

Thanks so much for reading. Love the feedback :) 

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 11/19/2020 at 1:30 AM, Robinski said:

...which again, may not help you a jot if you do not know it. For some of us 'old folks', or musos (looking at you, @Silk), it's a classic.

Just going to conveniently not ask whether you were tagging me as a musician, or as an "old folks"... :P

Ahem.

AMH:

Not much to comment about this one, honestly. The images and the narrative are pretty clear. Some of the contractions (“o’er” being one example) and the order of the words definitely invokes an archaic feeling, but I suspect that’s entirely what you’re going for.

I did stumble a bit on the second line, rhythm-wise; it has a few too many syllables and feels a little crammed in there. Hard to get away with because the rest of the poem is so consistent rhythmically – I think this is the only place that gets away from the “three lines of four iams/one line of three iams per stanza” format.

The first line of the first two stanzas sets up, at least potentially, the expectation of repetition in that first line of each stanza that isn’t carried through the rest of the piece. But I think the meter here is strong enough to carry you through without.

“I’d through swamps…” in the second last stanza – missing word on this line? Perhaps delete “through” and replace with something like “travel,” which would preserve the meter? (Iambs and all!)

Jack:

Some beautiful images and powerful lines here. To the extent that there’s a narrative, it’s obscure by design I suspect, but it does feel a little more buried than needed. There is an emotional sameness here that I think makes it a little hard to follow the whole way through, especially as some of the individual lines suggest (to this reader’s mind, anyway) that there should be some sort of emotional progression. Right now, I feel more or less the same at the end of the poem as I did at the beginning – which is not a problem in and of itself, of course, but I’m left with the nagging feeling that I’m supposed to be feeling something different at the end and just missed a signal somewhere.

Only other comment is that the last few stanzas suddenly seem to become a bit uncomfortable with the lack of rhyme scheme, and suddenly start trying to rhyme in a few places. Of course, sometimes you will just have lines that happen to end with the same sound, but it happens enough in the last few stanzas that it’s quite noticeable.

The Editor:

This one had me giggling the whole way through. I’m only not gonna record it because I think you should. :P

But! Second verse, the rhyme scheme is off: lines four and eight should rhyme, and “goodbye” and “done” … uh… don’t. Going to be pretty noticeable, I think; even if it wasn’t a well known song, the first verse sets up the rhyme scheme for the second. Worst comes to worst, you could just use the last line from the original. Changing it would be more fun, but it’d work just fine.

Same is true, honestly, for cut/done in the chorus, but it’s a different melody than the verse obviously so I think you can get away with it here… doesn’t mirror the rhyme scheme of the original, but, parody!

“Shred it/edit” is absolutely fantastic btw. Standout set of lines. “Bleeding in the margins” is a near second.

Third verse: “to die in your sleep” since this is exactly the same as the original, maybe something more writerly is in order for this couplet?

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5 hours ago, Silk said:

Just going to conveniently not ask whether you were tagging me as a musician, or as an "old folks"... :P

Now then, I drafted that carefully so that the subclass specifically follows 'musos'. Specifically!!

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Thank so much fo reading, Silk. Good comments throughout, and plenty to think about, but very focused, which is super useful. I will pick up the two poems sometime down the road, but I definitely intend to record what I've retitled 'The Author', as it matches the original syllabolically, of course. I'm now on version three or four of the lyrics, so some of those points have been addressed, but others not, and I will look at those. I've got my Garageband up and running, and mic set up. Just practicing, but I will defo record when I get the house to myself next time. (I don't like playing / recording with other folks around :rolleyes: ).

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5 hours ago, Robinski said:

Now then, I drafted that carefully so that the subclass specifically follows 'musos'. Specifically!!

You did, but if I'd acknowledged that I noticed, I wouldn't have been able to give you a hard time about it. ;)

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