Want To Trash This Poem (serious critics invited)?

Question

THE VALUE OF THE MIND, SIMPLIFIED

How about the conceptualization of
intra psychic structures? For fun?

Balderdash, say you? Tennis, anyone?

Tennyson, anyone? Not keen on Lord Alfred?
Can't say I blame you. Being long dead
might just explain why he's under-read.

While starlets and scalawags share a bed
true genius seldom keeps the family fed.

Stephen Hawking taps his fingers to the beat
of Coleman Hawkins, while his quarks collide
with grand octaves - music and math glorified.

One bled this from his soul.
The other one just knows.

While there is no correlation between creativity
and financial gain, both provide their rewards.

The trick is in choosing
what the spirit can afford.

How much is one willing to give up to ensure
either smugness of mind or stock options galore?

How readily do we barter the soul?
And when we do what's left to show?

And when all is said and done
who dictates who really won?

(Yes, I wrote this drivel.)

I had to edit out several stanzas to get this into the alloted space. But the edited out lines don't detract from the meaning implied here.

Answer 1

I actually really like it. I'm very fed up with suicidal dark poetry now-a-days so this was a breath of fresh air.

Good luck in your endeavors.

Peace.

Answer 2

I don't know if I'm a serious critic, but I like to try to help sometimes. The line "seemingly self-imposed, quite often/ self-inflicted" confused me, because I wasn't sure if you meant that the indifference was self-inflicted, or the deprivation of it. Since "deprived" implies an outside force, I think it refers to the indifference, but it isn't clear. Some of it felt wordy: "the once diminished/ embers of care." Embers are diminished, so it felt repetitive. The problem I have with it (since you asked) is the lack of meter. It felt too chaotic, and the changing structure (four-line stanza to two-line, back to four for awhile, then back to two) added to the chaos. I like ash/ kindled/ flame/ fuel/ ember though-- how you keep the images close together (you lose that toward the end). And I know that meaning is often subjective, but when I read it (especially with the title: From the Ashes of Celestial Debris), I imagined two chunks colliding in space to form new worlds, or maybe the collision that resulted in our Earth being formed, and our moon, so that the two "beat in unison" (the ocean tides/ one revolving around the other), and how the two are "thriving within the rhythm of one/ mated heartbeat." And I liked how the poem worked on that scale and on the human scale-- debris colliding in space, or humans colliding in love. I think the poem has great potential with some revision, and I hope I've helped you some. Edit: in response to the meter: I should have clarified. I see that it is metered by syllable count, but I meant metered by this definition: a systematically arranged and measured rhythm in verse (with an emphasis on the word rhythm). When I read a poem, syllable count doesn't stand out. What stands out is the beat of the words, and reading it felt awkward. I don't care what T.S. Eliot did; it felt wrong here. While you might be able to get away with the 4-2-4-4-4-2 structure or the lack of a solid rhythm, both combined felt like too much to me. But what do I know? I'm a novelist. I hope your ego is still healthy, and that you realize I still like much about your poem. Good luck.

Answer 3

I like the way you muse comparing and contrasting between types of success and spew images of several types.
Some words used seem to lack any power. I feel like "choosing" seems too plain a choice.

"How readily do we barter the soul?/And when we do what's left to show? " I feel like this is a letdown because the first part of the stanza is so open ended! why squander it with some greed cliche?

So many pronouns are weighing down your flow! Get them out of there and you might have a serious keeper.

the last stanza really brings it home. i feel like it might scan better for me if you added a sylable in the first line (unemphasized)

I'll stop pretending like i know anything, hope that helps.

Answer 4

I like the bantering quality of this poem, but one part it could lose-

One bled this from his soul.
The other one just knows.

should go. It doesn't belong.

But the rest is playful and fun but makes a point

"The trick is in choosing
what the spirit can afford." = great.

Overall, a 4/5. I was getting sick of poems about crushes, not being asked to the dance, and how much of a victim of the universe I am.

Answer 5

Dude, I kinda like it :)

I do have some disagreeances of course, mainly with the "While there is no correlation between creativity
and financial gain, both provide their rewards." But it's all relative I'm sure...

Answer 6

The successive couplets make it hard to get through.

Answer 7

I actually like that bizarre drivel, it was quite funny in places.

Answer 8

Too many questions. I want a poem that tells me what you think not one that makes ME think. I think enough on my own. Seriously. If you tell me what you think, I'll think about it and that will be thinking enough.
And "Tennyson, anyone?" is just silly.

Answer 9

I rather like it- a bit John Lennonish, have you read his stuff?(the books not the music lyrics) Its old now but I think you'd like it!!

Answer 10

"stock options galore" has one too many syllables. Of course that opinion is mine....otherwise it's just "fine!"