ONE OF MANY SAILOR TALES by Babali Boon Part One: We didn't realize how mischievous she'd be, but told her otherwise and she hated us for it. Untied to the family convictions she once knew she had some more confessions... ...breeding again... "Bring me the kettle, Timothy." It was just about dark when I heard the rats come to the door. "Didn't mum tell you that we can't have the windows open this late? It's dangerous. Who knows the people who lurk about this valley... ...Timmy, bring me the kitty..." Her habitat was founded as and a colony of "The plan didn't go that well and now they're burning them alive!" For heaven's sake! She's got the gall to try and tell me these things? I could hear her whispering when it was time to send me off... "Impossible love... Impossible trouble... Much loneliness" Part 2: This didn't happen. This space I love you, I love you! You love me? I knew it! We are meant to be together! In all of this?! ...In all of this?! In all of what?! ...In all of what?! Part 3: In memory of you We'll be home soon I awoke suddenly. With a flash there was an understanding of the lights before me. Scribbled: Just before I'd heard what many washed to sea, what we could have been Now coming over me with it's presence No place like it... "Hallelujah! I say I've got my faith back from our sails. My head hurt like crazy, and now I am humbled, And all over the ocean graced it's openings. ...crawling fires, the breath - sea demons we hovered over." Scribbled: Inching on but inching slowly... They didn't want us I said, "This isn't my home and it's not who I am. Not anymore, my friend, I'm not Annie." Author Comment: This piece is a bit of writing where I tried to write as differently as possible from my normal writing style(which I usually try to do to push myself in different creative ways). For those who may be confused, it's a concept about life. It's about a young lady who grows up in a dysfunctional family living in a dysfunctional world and has several losses throughout the way as we all do(family members, relationships). She also gains things(marriage, moderate success). In the end she doesn't feel like she's the same person any longer. It's not the most original story but I tried to express it in a different way that you might enjoy. Thank you for reading, please leave a comment. Much love, Babali
I read it without much aim to understand (was feeling lazy), but it had a nice way of flowing through my mind. Good job.
Hmm...I'll have to consider this one. In case this post gets approved before either of my other poetry critiques do, I'll post my disclaimer here as well. As a writer, I hate when I present work to someone, be it a forum, a friend, or a writing workshop, and have them tell me how wonderful it is. I don't want to know how wonderful it is; I want to know what's the matter with my work, what I can improve upon, how I can make it as perfect as it can be (because let's be honest: there's no such thing as perfect, and hardly so in writing). Because I'd like people to be as honest as possible when reviewing my work, I am honest with others when they present a work for review. I'm not trying to be mean, elitist, or antagonistic; I'm just doing what I can to help my fellow writers be the best writers they can be, even if the fact is they're better writers than me. That said, I can find very few things to complain about here. The transitions are slightly jarring, but in a way that adds to the poem rather than detracting from it. I'd say the same about your alignment; I usually will immediately condemn a poem that uses center alignment, the "nuclear bomb effect" as I've learned to call it. Oddly enough, it looks like that too is no small boon to your narrative. One thing I would like to say however is you shouldn't have told us what it was about. The great thing about this work is its ambiguity, and the freedom the reader has to transmit his or her own meaning. I mean that's supposed to be the great thing about any work (the ability to have your own interpretation, not ambiguity; having every poem be ambiguous would probably be very tiring), but for this one especially, you do yourself a disservice by assigning a meaning or even by telling us what it is, because then the reader can't interpret it any other way (or at best that makes it difficult to forget those new preconceptions). Remember, the purpose of any great work of art is for those appreciating it to glean their own unique interpretation and in this way get a message from it that is meaningful to their lives. Your first stanza is ominous and seems to serve as an introduction. However I felt like it was the most difficult passage to get through. Poetry needs no introduction; let the narrative speak for itself. If you feel that it's necessary to keep that in however, then by all means, leave it as is. I for one believe that your poem would be better without it though; I don't know why, but the tone of it seemed so drastically different from the rest of the poem, or maybe it was something about the language. Regardless, it felt like the black sheep of the poem. Either way, this really piqued my interest. I read your other poem, Something, and your style interests me greatly. For certain, your subject matter may be the most universally human (though truth be told, Something still confuses me), but the way in which you convey it is so damned atypical and (dare I say it?) unique. The way you use language reminds me of some of my favorite poets, like e.e. cummings. If you would like me to continue to comment and critique anything, please respond to either of my posts (as soon as they get approved).
Right now I'm going through a writers block and so these couple of pieces I posted here on LPA, 'One of Many Sailor Tales' and 'Something' are very experimental in that they don't specifically follow a structure and don't belong anywhere else, so I posted them here for people to read. When I'm writing, I don't think of rules, I think of it as art like I'm painting, so I just paint the picture I want with the words in whatever way I feel is the best. Sometimes if I feel like rhyming or if I'm writing a song, it'll be more obvious. I wouldn't have posted the meaning if I wouldn't have thought people would have absolutely no idea what I was talking about and just taking it as a bunch of words. I wanted to at least explain that I wasn't just putting words down. The particular story I mentioned is just one of a few stories that are in it and many more individual interpretations can be found. Thank you for your very kind, thoughtful feedback. I can tell you took a lot of time reading and thinking about it and replying, and I appreciate it. This forum has some good writers and I'd like to see it thrive more.
Your statement here struck me the most, and here's why: Buffalo Bill's: anyone lived in a pretty how town As you can see, sometimes a bunch of random words can carry greater meaning than just out and saying it. The irony of it is my poetry tends to be rather conventional myself. Alright, I really wish I could make this response longer, but now I g2g to class, I'm almost late. Cya and good luck!