17 comments
FireWaterBurn6 | 01-05-2016 06:09
Advice - stop being a white knight and switch your passion from poetry to something better
JDolla | 01-05-2016 19:08
Here, I'll help make it shorter, more to the point, and haiku-ier:
We used to be together
Now we arent and I am sad
Sometimes life's a bitch
We used to be together
Now we arent and I am sad
Sometimes life's a bitch
SecretPassion | 01-05-2016 22:29
Well it was actually for my grandma when she had to move into a home, so no it's not about a relationship at all. I asked for your interpretation, not for you to try and sum up my poem in a pitiful haiku Jolla. And FireWaterBurn6, thanks for telling me that my poetry sucks, really helpful man! Especially when you offer no advice!
JDolla | 01-05-2016 23:36
Calm down, i'm not the guy who put up a vague poem on a forum and told strangers to guess what it was about with no frame of reference then got mad when they guessed wrong.
SecretPassion | 02-05-2016 00:31
It was an open ended question, and who said I got mad that you guessed wrong? I mean I think people who browse a certain topic should actually know what they're talking about. It was up to an educated interpretation. Plus it's not vague if you give any thought to it. Whatever, I'm feeding a troll.
roxcyn | 02-05-2016 00:32
It sounds like someone you've loved dearly. References to a lost love or someone you loved. Welcome to the forum by the way. A lot of songs start out as poems. It's always nice to be creative so keep on doing it. We need to visit our "logical" and "creative" sides a lot so we can keep our minds sharp. It let's us see the world from different perspectives.
Captain_Keeta | 02-05-2016 00:35
Interesting poem but the most interesting part of this thread is when you said "Jolla." Had me laughing.
But dude, you asked for everyone's interpretation and that's what you got.
But dude, you asked for everyone's interpretation and that's what you got.
SecretPassion | 02-05-2016 00:38
Gotta love autocorrect. It's a beauty of a creation for sure. I wanted some educated interpretation. It's obviously about a loved one, but if you read it, then you read about how times have changed and things seem graver and how their body is weaker. I mean it's not about a break up at all, but it could be about how one has succumbed to an illness or is weak with old age (which is the case), at least that's obviously what I see. I wanted to see if possibly people had other interpretations rather than "relationships end, life sucks". If a few words were switched around what would it become, could it tell a story? Can it tell a story of something else, like possibly a romantic relation, is there something beneath the surface? All those things I was wondering. I mainly wanted advice on how to improve my style and how to get back into writing, so I should've put that as the main question. However, last night was a long night, so that was my mistake.
Captain_Keeta | 02-05-2016 00:39
Haha true that!
roxcyn | 02-05-2016 00:56
Yes, it could tell a different story if you switch some things around. Perhaps you could locate a poetry slam or group with which you could collaborate. I'm not an expert at poetry, so I couldn't provide constructive criticism.
PracticePractic | 02-05-2016 01:59
Hi and welcome to LetsSingIt!
Thank you for being "brave" and sharing your poetry with the whole world...
If you are interested (and for anyone else who stumbles in here) I have some advice (don't I always?) from experience...
Go to your library and look up This Magazine! Read as many back issues as you like "for free!" before you decide if you want to subscribe...
Also, the magazine, and other places too, run frequent contests (CONTESTS? I'm no good! I can hear you shouting!)---Yes... contests give you an embarassment free method to write poetry and send a "finished " product (not something yo wrote when 16 and left lying around)---off to a contest.
BUT--best of all for the entry fee* they will have experts there "judging" your poetry and most contests (read the rules!) will provide a one or two sentence response to help you along with your poetry writing... its far less than a class would--but far cheaper and you can do it as many times as you wish!
*Entry fee---yes most charge a fee to keep them from being deluged with a mountain of mailed entries if there were "no fee" charged!
Get out there, pick one---even if you just have this one poem to send---they will judge it for you! (oh and don't include "guess who" it is or any comments.. either your poetry speaks for you when you are not in the room to talk for it, or else its not a completed poem (i.e.it needs more work)...
That's all the thumbnail advice I have for you SecretPassion.
Write back if you do....let us know how its working for you!
I secretly love poetry, but over the past few years, I have lost touch and I want to write again. Any advice?
Thank you for being "brave" and sharing your poetry with the whole world...
If you are interested (and for anyone else who stumbles in here) I have some advice (don't I always?) from experience...
Go to your library and look up This Magazine! Read as many back issues as you like "for free!" before you decide if you want to subscribe...
Also, the magazine, and other places too, run frequent contests (CONTESTS? I'm no good! I can hear you shouting!)---Yes... contests give you an embarassment free method to write poetry and send a "finished " product (not something yo wrote when 16 and left lying around)---off to a contest.
BUT--best of all for the entry fee* they will have experts there "judging" your poetry and most contests (read the rules!) will provide a one or two sentence response to help you along with your poetry writing... its far less than a class would--but far cheaper and you can do it as many times as you wish!
*Entry fee---yes most charge a fee to keep them from being deluged with a mountain of mailed entries if there were "no fee" charged!
Get out there, pick one---even if you just have this one poem to send---they will judge it for you! (oh and don't include "guess who" it is or any comments.. either your poetry speaks for you when you are not in the room to talk for it, or else its not a completed poem (i.e.it needs more work)...
That's all the thumbnail advice I have for you SecretPassion.
Write back if you do....let us know how its working for you!
Joeyy | 02-05-2016 05:20
It wasn't your mistake. One might not normally think asking for people's interpretations of a poem would open a writer up to ridicule, but there you go (always consider the possibility of this happening online). At least you got your answer - they didn't observe the lines referencing the subject's frail health, but focused instead on the love aspect; believing the grieving tone to be for a lost romantic partner. Had they taken in the second stanza and possibly not encountered so many 'love lost' poems online before now, they might have interpreted it as intended, but you wondered if altering the poem slightly could change its meaning and it seems that without those particularly lines it does sound more like a love poem.
It's been a long time since I studied poetry (and that was only up to college level, or what you call high school if you're American), and I'm not sure I learnt very much when I did. Poetry's one of those - it's something so many of us have a go at; only a small number make it to a professional level, and even the poems of professionals will be questionable to individuals, because what we enjoy is down to personal taste. Something that did stick in mind was that although poetry can be written any way, consistency seems to be important, eg in how many lines are in the stanzas; how each line ends, etc.
I notice there are eight lines in your first stanza here, then five, and then eight again - which seems consistent, but the next two have six lines and the last has five. I suppose my attempt at advice would be to be more consistent. Then again, my favourite poetry comes from Robert Frost; it's the very last stanza of his The Lesson for Today, and it's five lines in a poem that - unless the internet has its format incorrect - otherwise has stanzas of 18, 9, 15, 14, 27, 2, 18, 9, 14, 15, and 15 lines. I only care for the last five lines, but the guy's famous, so, hey, inconsistency can work. I still think poems generally sound better when consistent, though. :p
Same goes for the placement of rhymes. In your fourth stanza, you have the fourth and fifth lines rhyming. In your fifth stanza, it's the fifth and sixth. I'd say if you're going to have rhyming, again, try to be consistent with it. I'm actually not a huge fan of poetry, nor do I normally write it, but I can show you a good example here. My Mum loves poems and can recite certain ones off by heart. She used to enjoy poking fun at my love of zombie flicks, so one year, a few years ago, I adapted one of her favourites (one she'd regularly recite to me after learning it) to be about zombies*. It was just silliness to make her laugh on Mother's Day. To be true to the poem's format, I used colours to help me keep track whilst changing it. As you can see from the screenshot (click this link), the poem is consistent in which of its lines rhyme - 1 and 3, 2 and 4, 5 and 6 every time. (The poet, Wordsworth, is also fairly consistent with how many syllables are in each line, but I count nine in two of them; eight in the rest. Perhaps he pronounced words slightly differently and thought he could get away with making them a syllable less. )
*It's actually titled 'I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud', but either I was terrible at fact-checking back then or I changed the title to better fit my adaptation. :p
Edit: Last piece of advice would be, as Scott said, to keep at it. Time and practise should help improve your work - but, more importantly, do it because it's a passion of yours. Maybe no one else will ever see your other poems, or maybe you'll post them online and receive comments like the top two here, or you'll enter competitions as suggested and either win or not...but no matter what, as long as you enjoy it, you should keep writing.
It's been a long time since I studied poetry (and that was only up to college level, or what you call high school if you're American), and I'm not sure I learnt very much when I did. Poetry's one of those - it's something so many of us have a go at; only a small number make it to a professional level, and even the poems of professionals will be questionable to individuals, because what we enjoy is down to personal taste. Something that did stick in mind was that although poetry can be written any way, consistency seems to be important, eg in how many lines are in the stanzas; how each line ends, etc.
I notice there are eight lines in your first stanza here, then five, and then eight again - which seems consistent, but the next two have six lines and the last has five. I suppose my attempt at advice would be to be more consistent. Then again, my favourite poetry comes from Robert Frost; it's the very last stanza of his The Lesson for Today, and it's five lines in a poem that - unless the internet has its format incorrect - otherwise has stanzas of 18, 9, 15, 14, 27, 2, 18, 9, 14, 15, and 15 lines. I only care for the last five lines, but the guy's famous, so, hey, inconsistency can work. I still think poems generally sound better when consistent, though. :p
Same goes for the placement of rhymes. In your fourth stanza, you have the fourth and fifth lines rhyming. In your fifth stanza, it's the fifth and sixth. I'd say if you're going to have rhyming, again, try to be consistent with it. I'm actually not a huge fan of poetry, nor do I normally write it, but I can show you a good example here. My Mum loves poems and can recite certain ones off by heart. She used to enjoy poking fun at my love of zombie flicks, so one year, a few years ago, I adapted one of her favourites (one she'd regularly recite to me after learning it) to be about zombies*. It was just silliness to make her laugh on Mother's Day. To be true to the poem's format, I used colours to help me keep track whilst changing it. As you can see from the screenshot (click this link), the poem is consistent in which of its lines rhyme - 1 and 3, 2 and 4, 5 and 6 every time. (The poet, Wordsworth, is also fairly consistent with how many syllables are in each line, but I count nine in two of them; eight in the rest. Perhaps he pronounced words slightly differently and thought he could get away with making them a syllable less. )
*It's actually titled 'I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud', but either I was terrible at fact-checking back then or I changed the title to better fit my adaptation. :p
Edit: Last piece of advice would be, as Scott said, to keep at it. Time and practise should help improve your work - but, more importantly, do it because it's a passion of yours. Maybe no one else will ever see your other poems, or maybe you'll post them online and receive comments like the top two here, or you'll enter competitions as suggested and either win or not...but no matter what, as long as you enjoy it, you should keep writing.
SecretPassion | 02-05-2016 16:37
Hey thanks Joeyy! I have to admit when I was rewriting it down here, I noticed some of the things you did and it made me question what had made me think it sounded good that way. Well it was over 2 years ago and it was required for a class, I tried to make this one special, but I would definitely change a few things looking back. I probably thought it would be corny if I had rhymed it consistently, but that doesn't mean it wouldn't be good. I really appreciate the suggestions, I'll have to have a go at it with a consistent use of rhymes and lines in the stanzas.
FireWaterBurn6 | 02-05-2016 17:44
Rhymes are too forced
l0ck3y | 07-05-2016 09:27
Last thing you wanna do on here is pick an argument with JDolla. I miss the old days of arguing with him about my sh*tty poems. But that's been on gone now. xD
roxcyn | 07-05-2016 10:12
* offtopic :
Hey, Lachlan. Long time no see.
Yeah, I figured as much.
Hey, Lachlan. Long time no see.
Yeah, I figured as much.
Captain_Keeta | 07-05-2016 11:53
I don't think anyone here was picking a fight as he asked for everyone's interpretations anyways.
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Read more:
It's weird how everything has changed
No longer are we surrounded by history
And told stories all day and night
But that will never be forgotten
It will always be with me
In a sea
A sea of memories
Your bones may have weakened
And your spirit may waver
Things may seem graver than before
But I know you are still strong
And you will always get along
We cannot drive around town anymore
And I know you miss it, we all miss it
But we will still visit
Not all hope is lost
We simply must remove the frost
Everything may seem new to you
And everything may seem to have changed
But everything remains
Love
You always asked
"Why do I love you?"
Jokingly of course
But love comes from a source
That source is your heart
Love
Love looks not with the eyes
But with the mind
Love defines us
Love is a force of nature
And you are the translator
I will always love you
Like the sky will forever be blue
It is written in the stars
Highlighted with Mars
And forever ours
I wrote this poem when I was 16 and it was for someone (who do you think it was for?). I secretly love poetry, but over the past few years, I have lost touch and I want to write again. Any advice? Also, should I revise this poem at all since it was given as a gift? Any suggestions for the future? Thank you.