Why is Nobody Honest Here?!?

I am working on a few comedy/satire type songs to break up the regular line of pretty ballads in the acoustic duo Jay and I are working up to give people a chance to laugh.....or be outraged...either way they'll be talking about us.......

Yeah, it's harder to crtique music than poetry -- poetry is all there on the page, music has extra elements that aren't on the page. The second line of the chorus seems too long, for example. (But I LOVE "But Lordy by gosh/ Won't you give your Bush a wash/ it's stinking up the promised land" )

You know, it is difficult to interpret just words with no melody, Bi. I think lyric poetry was originally meant to be accompanied by music.

We're heading' for Armeggedon
with our Bush and our Dick in our hand
But Lordy by gosh
Won't you give your Bush a wash
it's stinking up the promised land
If you think that your bush is nasty
just check out that dirty old dick
so everyone get in line
for a big dick from behind
and four more years of a little prick.....

I've been singing this in sort of a country-ragtime rythym, and I'd only suggest that the last three lines are a bit awkward. How about simplifying it and singing:

Get in line, big dick from behind,
four more years of a little prick.

your line one doesn't work at all Cav, but your line two is much better and works better than mine.....

Yeah, it's hard to tell without having the tune.

Ok, everybody. Take a look at this line posted by a newbie:

The place that leech-like mouth had touched me was tattooed forever, frog-white, into the skin of my now-withered shoulder.

He/she was asking about it in the English forum.

I would say frog belly white or maybe fish belly white.....other than that it's pretty cool.....

No, too many hyphens. (I mean I'm the queen of hyphens, but I don't claim to be trying to write particularly well when I'm just yammering on here.)

I'll go find it and comment there rather than here...

Soz, free style writing is a signature, and I'm off to cite an example of what I mean.

Seeing as I can't find the original post, I'll comment here. It does need tightening, and yes, less hyphens. It could work as a very short poem if edited (just my opinon here) as:

The place that leech like mouth
had touched me
was tattoed forever, frog white,
beneath the skin
of my now withered shoulder.

Cav, the newbie was simply asking for clarification of the lines. It was not meant to be in poetry form.

Now without citing the author, how do you view this poem:

take it from me kiddo
believe me
my country, 'tis of

you, land of the Cluett
Shirt Boston Garter and Spearmint
Girl With The Wrigley Eyes (of you
land of the Arrow Ide
and Earl &
Wilson
Collars) of you i
sing:land of Abraham Lincoln and Lydia E. Pinkham,
land above all of Just Add Hot Water And Serve--
from every B. V. D.

let freedom ring

amen. i do however protest, anent the un
-spontaneous and otherwise scented merde which
greets one (Everywhere Why) as divine poesy per
that and this radically defunct periodical. i would

suggest that certain ideas gestures
rhymes, like Gillette Razor Blades
having been used and reused
to the mystical moment of dullness emphatically are
Not To Be Resharpened. (Case in point

if we are to believe these gently O sweetly
melancholy trillers amid the thrillers
these crepuscular violinists among my and your
skyscrapers-- Helen & Cleopatra were Just Too Lovely,
The Snail's On The Thorn enter Morn and God's
In His andsoforth

do you get me?) according
to such supposedly indigenous
throstles Art is O World O Life
a formula: example, Turn Your Shirttails Into
Drawers and If It Isn't An Eastman It Isn't A
Kodak therefore my friends let
us now sing each and all fortissimo A-
mer
i

ca, I
love,
You. And there're a
hun-dred-mil-lion-oth-ers, like
all of you successfully if
delicately gelded (or spaded)
gentlemen (and ladies)-- pretty

littleliverpil-
heated-Nujolneeding-There's-A-Reason
americans (who tensetendoned and with
upward vacant eyes, painfully
perpetually crouched, quivering, upon the
sternly allotted sandpile
--how silently
emit a tiny violetflavoured nuisance: Odor?

ono.
comes out like a ribbon lies flat on the brush

I'll find the link to the thread, but I hated to do it because I wanted all here to maintain some objectivity.

The times I have specifically asked for criticism - once in photography and once with help on a story - I found that I received very honest feedback.

Other posts - mostly in original writing - I haven't asked for criticism since I really just wanted to share something I'd done and see how people reacted to it.

I have a feeling that everaugust is holding back and I think s)he should go about offering her opinions on some of the threads s)he's talking about.

Hey, boomer. I seldom ask for feedback, either...but often I like to post a link to other poets on this forum because often what I write is inspired by what they wrote.

Here's the link to the thread of which I spoke:

http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=38630&highlight=

I often lurk and rarely comment in the Original Writing forum, because I am too afraid of hurting someone's feelings if I offer real criticism. So, if people do start tagging their writing with "criticism welcome" or whatever, I would be much more luckily to comment. After all, receiving constructive criticism is a good way to improve as a writer.

If people are posting on a public forum that everyone in the WORLD can see, isn't it a given they want comments?
Or at least should expect them, whether good bad or indifferent?

Probably, yes, but it seems like A2K has become too nice in dealing with Original Writing. There isn't much of a precedent for bad or indifferent comments here.

Comments, sure, but what kind of comments?

I like the poem you posted, Letty. Forgive me if I'm misreading your intentions, if its not your intention we'll just call it an excuse for me to say the following anyway --

I don't think there is a universal right and a universal wrong when it comes to poetry. There are many different forms that have validity. When I was writing the "bad" poem I thought hmm this actually flows kind of nicely and was going to break it up in a more awkward way but it gets silly to expend too much time on making a bad poem bad. ;-) I have nothing against free form poetry as a concept.

However, I also don't think that absolutely anything goes, and think it in fact denigrates poets with talent to say so. If I said that absolutely everyone in the world was an excellent teacher -- not has the potential to be, but is -- that takes away from the accomplishments of truly great teachers. Teaching is hard, teaching well is hard, and no, not everyone can do it. It takes a combination of training, inspiration and experience (among other things.) I see poetry and writing in general in the same way; because I think it is important, I don't want to denigrate what is stellar by elevating the pedestrian.

When I critique poetry -- and I consider no poetry above critique -- I look at it in two different ways. One is in terms of construction. There is a lot to that, hard to summarize, as there are exceptions to most any example I could give; for example, I could say that a well-written poem must be consistent within whatever form it takes, whether iambic pentameter, limerick, or free-form. But that's not always true, I can imagine being impressed by the technique of a poem that purposely plays with and moves among many different forms.

The other way I view a poem is through a filter of personal taste. I can recognize that a poem is supremely, flawlessly constructed, but still just plain not like it. Conversely, I can see that a poem has weaknesses, but have an affection for those weaknesses, prefer the poem to stay as it is, weaknesses and all.

I think, he may be onto something, but, after he posted his little thing on how we all need to critize each other, he hasn't even posted a way to defend himself. So I say "let's go back to business as usual"

Just followed the link, Letty, thanks.

It looks like that person was going more for grammar/ meaning, so I won't comment there. If it was a part of a prose story that someone had asked me to critique, I would probably say: