Musings of a Former Poet

[Chronologik]

Just a note, this was completely written on a whim. I just wanted to get back into the swing of writing. I haven't written anything in ages right now, so I really had no idea where to begin or where to go with this piece. Critique would be greatly appreciated so I can improve any pieces to come.

Musings of a Former Poet

To be bound by rhyme and meter,
O, can my words not be freed
From these constraints of classic verse?
For who's to say that poetry
Must follow mindlessly these rules
Of poets past and text rehearsed?
Carelessly, Stumbling, I find myself mumbling
Musings of inconsistency, I find puzzling
As poetry breaks into prose, and thus begins the utter entropy within the confines of my mind. As meter breaks and rhythm stumbles, and rhymes are all but lost and forgotten, I cannot seem to find the thoughts amongst the feelings floating free. Feelings of love, and hate, and pride and regret, of everything of every nature and everything in between, fogging every morsel of logic that once was and always has been. As thoughts degrade to simple chaos, I begin to miss those fine constraints, which led me to create literary gold, in times of past and times of old...

Tick, tock, as the pen in hand ceases scratching, and the clockwork is heard yet again. Thoughts have left and cleared my mind, and naught but a single thought remains:

I am not a poet.

[Whimsical||MUSE;]

FIRST OFF -- I'm really not great at critiques, but I'll definitely give it a try, so ... forgive me if I go too far, or if ...I'm detrimental and not helpful at all >.<

Okay, brutal honesty:

My first impression:

This poem is about nothing. I may admire the fact that you bridged your writers block by writing about said writer's block, and I do, in fact, enjoy the change in structure that gives the otherwise meaningless jumble of words a path to follow, but I can't, in all sincerity, say it was well done. It fell flat, to be frank. You got hold of an idea, but you didn't quite follow through with what you were trying to say. It's not just the writers block, or the sense of words and juxtaposition (And whatever other meaningless literary words you might want to throw at it) but the feelings of frustration that you've failed to express. Or joy, anger, sorrow, etc etc.

From your introduction thread, I gathered that you want to bridge that gap that has opened up between yourself and your writing; when I saw your mini intro here, I was hoping to see some sort of effort into finding the beginning of your path, if nothing else -- but as a poet (or a non-poet as you call yourself) it's like you're hiding behind structure as an excuse, instead of letting go ---- which is what poetry is, in essence. Yes, there is structure, which you've done splendidly (the break of the usual "meter" to your "chaos" is well done, for sure!) but to me, at the very least, it's not just words, or structure, or "constraints" --- the soul of poetry is the stuff of your own soul.

It's meant for anyone, if you're willing to just stop hiding from what's lingering in your mind. As it is now, this poem is salvageable, if you're willing to describe emotions. There are so many ways to do this -- with metaphors, blatant truth, similes, anything -- your vocabulary is the limit, no, your creativity is the limit. Perhaps by stimulating your creativity you'll find your way through.

Second Impression:

I've read this poem over and over and over, and the more I read it, the more I think I've been mistaken. I see that there are hints to this effervescent side of yourself that /is/ trying to link words to emotions. Or the other way around. I still find that the beginning falls rather flat, but maybe that can be altered with less purple prose. Once you "break free" of the structure, there is something amazing. "Feelings of love, and hate, and pride and regret, of everything of every nature and everything in between [...]" is pure gold, though the end of that sentence definitely flounders about like a dying fish.


Third impression:
Grammar. I'm not a grammar Nazi; I'm horrendous. I'm thinking of dragging Sam into this thread to help me out with it, but after I took my eyes off of the meaning of everything I noticed a few things that had to be changed:

The random capitalization have to go. If there is a point to the caps, then it has been overlooked, and perhaps as a writer you should expound on that. There is also a smudge of purple prose (a fault of mine, too ._.) that might sound professional to you, but definitely comes off as immature, which is perhaps something you'd like to avoid. Phrases like "O, can my words not be freed" and "text rehearsed" and a handful of others really need to be altered. It sounds a touch juvenile, like a little kid trying to play dress up. It hinders.

[Chronologik]

Thank you very much. In all honesty I had no sense of direction with this piece, and I do have a tendency to come up with certain fragments of sentences that sound great in my head, but I never quite find a way to fit them into a piece, which is why it falls flat at certain points.

But I see what you mean with the purple prose. In retrospect it seems far to forced. I suppose I'm just used to decorating things so extravagantly that people assume meaning where there is none, which is a habit I've had for a while and really need to break.

Maybe I should try a bit if new sincerity to try and break the habit.

Really appreciate the critique, and don't worry about sounding too harsh, I prefer harsh critique. I tend to slap together my work haphazardly when I don't get a lot of practice, I'm guessing it's part of my impatient attitude, so harsh critique without the sugarcoating really motivates me to think of my own work much more critically.