elizabeth georgina meynell - second opinion needed

Decent vocabularly, but the poetry itself seems pretty pedestrian. As in, if I were this 15-year-old's English teacher, I'd probably think she had some potential and look forward to challenging her to break out of cliches (and improve her spelling) -- but as stand-alone poetry, eh.

Interesting that you made this post this morning on the Philosophy Forum and signed it: Elizabeth Georgina Meynell.



I think poets should be honest.

I agree with soz--and Noddy.

No matter who actually wrote this, I'd already written my criticism.

To wax and wane in undignified solitary,

"Wax and wane" are used frequently, and as soz suggests, they are generic terms that need to be added to another thought, if this line is to be communicative. Poetry, in the opinion of some, is a free-wheeling, free-style communication. Your words don't have to be grammatical or traditional in the context you use them--they just have to say/communicate something worth saying.

This poem hints at a mood, but nothing more. (To me, anyway.)

I liked your use of "undignified", but again, even that has become cliche --You seem to be expressing the inexorable passing of life as solitary and undignified.....but all the lines seem to be saying the same thing. What about all this sadness and loneliness?

To gasp and breathe with out mortal feel,

(Something about this line, I liked. Maybe the language barrier worked in your favor with this line, or maybe I'm having a weird day. Something about it is raw. It's a twist on being able to feel touch--it also denotes to me that you also can't reach out to touch... I think it was unexpectedly touching.... (Translation: She liked it.)

a decadance of no slumber nor rest ,

(This line wrecked the others for me. It seemed fake and presumptuous with decadence, in addition to being the third line on what I felt was a singular feeling. This is the line to expand on your thought process in the poem. What about solitary loneliness???

a tide of lonliness and sorrow

Expand on your imagery and your thought.

cliches
truth , yea i wrote it , the reason because is due to the fake critasism in the past , .How do you break out of cliches?

I know what you mean about fake criticism -- I thought that it was likely that you wrote it but it still freed me to be more blunt than I usually am.

How to break out of cliches... hmmm... the first step I think would to be as specific as possible. The words you use are almost all very general. Try to convey the same mood by describing something with a lot of observed detail. Get some object -- one that comes to mind for me is a fake crow I have, made with real feathers -- and choose the most interesting, evocative details you see, leaving out the obvious stuff. (Like, if it were the crow, try to avoid anything about "black" or "inky" or "night" or stuff like that.)

There are many ways to write poetry, as Lash indicates in her nice analysis, not one right way. That would be my suggestion for an exercise to start to get rid of generalities and cliches, though, and then you can move on from there.

Here's something I tried when I had the same problem:

Write what comes to you first-- what you're thinking, or how you're feeling.

Let a day or so pass.

Go back to what you wrote and write it a different way.

You could re-write the same poem thirty times.

It helps you practice thinking about what you're feeling. When you have a good grip on your feeling, you express yourself more naturally--and that comes through in your writing.

To wax and wane in undignified solitary,
To gasp and breathe with out mortal feel,
a decadance of no slumber nor rest ,
a tide of lonliness and sorrow

What about a life would emphasize this type of loneliness?

What things in your life or someone else's show this kind of loneliness?

I don't know why I get a visual of some young girl, standing near a romantic spot--on a riverbank in some lovely, European city--she's been alone for so long, she no longer knows or cares how to make herself attractive... She's given up on relationships, and is momentarily caught in a reverie about being there with a lover--maybe a past lover, or an imaginary one.

And for a moment, a guy passing, sees her, hesitates, but she's so wrapped in her illusion, the moment passes, and he's gone.

This line:

"To gasp and breathe with out mortal feel"

and your name made me think of the little story.

Anyway. I was thinking you may want to use that story --or something similar as a background for some poetry.

It made me think of vampires, which is itself a terribly cliched subject -- hard to do ANYTHING about vampires that's not cliched.

More good stuff from Lash.