I wrote it but it doesn't seem to flow...most of my poetry doesn't rhyme and I've been experimenting. Opinions

Question

welcome always. :)



Excuses, excuses all sound the same.
Lets find somewhere to lay the blame!
Certainly not on the parents or the offspring,
let’s just sue and see how much money it brings.
It’s OUR generation, all these little *****
mortgaging their futures to old navy and starbucks
$4 cup of coffee and making the minimum payment (if we can)
our lives are owned by sally mae and uncle sam...
Not to mention mom and dad
they seem so proud of their little grad
the last day of kindergarten we celebrate
and the TRUE milestones dissaparate.

and I know my puctuation and capitalization are erratic. sorry.

Dancing Bee- I like your answer. I felt the same way about it. However, being a little brutal brings something out in people. Guess I may have been ranting a little :)

Answer 1

The points you make in the poem are powerful, and powerfully made. I love the intensity you have here. The trick is to keep the intensity in a more controlled form. Poetry, even free verse (yes, I know this is not exactly free verse), is tightly controlled language, and can express powerfully through that control.

You noted the capitalization and punctuation, so I won't belabor that. A way to help with the flow is to begin by picking out lines that seem to either go on too long or lose the rhythm within the line. Count the number of syllables in each line, and see if there are lines that stick out in this regard. Look also to see if there are phrases you can tighten up, cutting words if you don't need them.

One line I would take as an example, in large part because it sticks out quite a bit for me. The line that begins "$4 cup of coffee" has 19 syllables, far more than any other line. It also seems to ramble within the line; you could shorten it, while retaining the near-rhyme with the next line, to simply "buy four dollar coffee, pay bills if we can." It says the same thing, but more tightly and more rhythmically.

I am not in the habit of re-writing others' poetry, and you may well find another, better way to re-write the line. The point is to focus in, line by line or even word by word, and fine tune it.

Answer 2

One of the problems with the flow is that some of your lines go beyond where people's normal breathing capacity is. There is a reason that Shakespeare typically used Iambic Pentameter as it mirrors conversational speech.

It's fine not to rhyme. I know you didn't ask for a rewrite but here's another way to look at this (forgive the extreme liberties I took here it is mainly for example--ignore it if it doesn't work for you). I would make Excuses, Excuses the title and eliminate those words from the first line. Here we go:

Excuses, Excuses

It all sounds the same. We need
someone to blame. Not the parents,
or their precious children. Where's the money
in that. Let's just sue!
.
It’s our generation, all these little
f**ks mortgaging their futures for Old
Navy and Starbucks $4
cup of coffee and always, well sometimes,
making the minimum payment.

Lives owned by Sally Mae and Uncle Sam,
Not to mention ol' mom and dad
they seem so proud of their little grad
the last day of kindergarten
we celebrate
while the true milestones
we disregard

I know I made a lot of changes--sorry, but like I said just an example. I think you can fix the flow. Consider specifically your line lengths and transitions.

I hope some of that helped.

Take care

Answer 3

Well, there are some words that sound right, and then there are some words that make your cheeks red when you write them...when you feel the red...back away..that's the bird on your shoulder telling you that you might have crossed the line. You could even use a spoonerism to hide the word and make the same point, if the word really needed to stay in. For example, they could have been "fittle lucks", or "all fese thittle lucks".
But I digress. Yes, you're ranting, but you can rant and rhyme at the same time. If you want to go after a machine gun pattern, go for it. I would have added "they" in the first line to get:
"Excuses, excuses, they all sound the same" to get four solid down beats. The second line is weak, weak, weak. Maybe, "Let's find some nimrod who we can all blame" (or any two syllable substitude for "nimrod"...use your imagination...start with 'a') to follow up with another four beat, multisyllable line. Then, maybe "certainly not on the parents or their precious offspring" You need another word like "precious" to even out the beats, or you'll fall short and the line will stall. Good rants are predictable in their pattern, if not their rhyme. You'd go down through the rest of your lines and pretty much do the same...even out the beats, make sure the lines flowed with the same staccato-voce and voila! a ranting poem is born!

...oh, and I feel your pain :)

keep writing

Answer 4

What Todd did was pretty good, with what he had to work with.

HOWEVER, you need some sort of literary device, even if thinly disguised in a rhyme, and meter would have helped too. Otherwise its a rant. You don't have any images to anchor this to, other than the pop references of the day. This poem could very well die in another ten years or so, because it depends on the pop culture references, and pop culture is constantly changing. This is so much a rant, that it is like a blunt weapon used to bludgeon people. I'm sure you'd add to this with a a good delivery and performance if you read it aloud, but it doesn't make for a great literary read. A little too on the nose, you didn't leave anything for the reader to do other than sit there and take it.

Answer 5

I do do not know what I'm talking about most of the time -I have an opinion tho--
It seems to me that your poem says a lot -I like it
The thing missing for me is meter and it seems to need 'tightening'
try using fewer or different words to say the same thing and get a rhythm going .

Answer 6

Doesn't necessarily have to rhyme, but rhythm is in the speaking aloud thereof. Divide this somewhere in the middle to create a beginning, middle and ending. Keep on truckin'!!

Answer 7

using swear words turns me off right away, no need for it.

Answer 8

trulyyyyyyyyyy
no idea about this