Thread: Description of a Cardboard Room

Here's a fresh one.

There's really nice imagery, a great mood and some excellent descriptive phrasing. The poem is a little prosaic for my personal taste but I've enjoyed reading nonetheless.

I'm not a poet so you can probably safely ignore my comments, but I thought the places you'd chosen to break your lines here seemed petty random. I'm used to seeing line breaks and punctuation used to provide more feeling and emphasis, probably because the people I listen to are used to reading their poetry aloud, performing their poetry, and maybe that's different.

Taking punctuation, the following lines:

A picture of Michelangelo stirs loudly on the floor.
It has not been hung and has not been framed.

To me, the second line has no real impact because it's written as though it's being read by a geography teacher. "It has not been hung and has not been framed."

Plenty of options for making the second line that more emphatic, including the simple:

Not hung. Not framed.

The additional punctuation introduces a pause at the end of each short, punchy statement. Reading this aloud, it stands out more than the original.

There are throw pillows just ahead-
overlaid with geometric patterns crisscrossing downward
and across.

The line breaks here are an example of what seems random to me, or maybe there's something going on here that my untrained eye is missing, in which case please ignore.

You seem to elevate the status of downward by placing it at the end of the line, which seems odd to me. There are several different ways to cut this up, and I'd also be tempted to get away from the full-sentence format and focus more on the words that create the images.

another implodes on itself as if it were struck by a meteor,

Doesn't implode imply 'on itself'? If so, you only need:

another implodes as if it were struck by a meteor,

I would consider dropping the full-sentence format and adding some punctation here, so that instead:

another implodes, as if struck by a meteor,

To me that gives implodes more emphasis. Or you could split the lines:

another implodes
as if struck by a meteor,

Or use different punctuation:

another implodes - as if struck by a meteor,

again creating that emphatic pause to give implodes more impact.

Problem for me though is that something being struck by a meteor doesn't create an image of implosion, more of explosion.

As I say I'm not a poet, so if anyone wants to point out where my suggestions are garbage, that's fine and I'll learn from it.

Cheers,
Rob

Originally Posted by Rob

I'm not a poet so you can probably safely ignore my comments, but I thought the places you'd chosen to break your lines here seemed petty random. I'm used to seeing line breaks and punctuation used to provide more feeling and emphasis, probably because the people I listen to are used to reading their poetry aloud, performing their poetry, and maybe that's different.

Taking punctuation, the following lines:


To me, the second line has no real impact because it's written as though it's being read by a geography teacher. "It has not been hung and has not been framed."

Plenty of options for making the second line that more emphatic, including the simple:

Not hung. Not framed.

The additional punctuation introduces a pause at the end of each short, punchy statement. Reading this aloud, it stands out more than the original.


The line breaks here are an example of what seems random to me, or maybe there's something going on here that my untrained eye is missing, in which case please ignore.

You seem to elevate the status of downward by placing it at the end of the line, which seems odd to me. There are several different ways to cut this up, and I'd also be tempted to get away from the full-sentence format and focus more on the words that create the images.


Doesn't implode imply 'on itself'? If so, you only need:

another implodes as if it were struck by a meteor,

I would consider dropping the full-sentence format and adding some punctation here, so that instead:

another implodes, as if struck by a meteor,

To me that gives implodes more emphasis. Or you could split the lines:

another implodes
as if struck by a meteor,

Or use different punctuation:

another implodes - as if struck by a meteor,

again creating that emphatic pause to give implodes more impact.

Problem for me though is that something being struck by a meteor doesn't create an image of implosion, more of explosion.

As I say I'm not a poet, so if anyone wants to point out where my suggestions are garbage, that's fine and I'll learn from it.

Cheers,
Rob

For what it's worth, I don't think your suggestions are garbage. I do think that the way that the enjambment works in this poem suits the mood of the piece but, as you say, if I were looking for a more aural quality then I'd work it differently.

Thanks.

Originally Posted by Rob

Thanks.

Just a slight afterthought. If I wanted to present this poem as an aural work then it would benecessary to do some work on the phonic qualities of the poem. As it stands, as I commented before, it's a little proais. I see it more as a filler piece for a magazine than as a spoken word poem. Tha isn't a bad thing because a lot of the mags are always on the lookout for pieces of flash fiction and poems like this to help their layout.

Hey thanks for the responses you guys. I appreciate it.

Rob, I certainly appreciate the detailed crit. I think you're right about the working on some of the lines and as for enjambment, well that's always been my downfall. I'll admit I wasn't thinking it was of much importance in this poem, but I will take another look to see where I can use it to my advantage.

Thank you guys again.

Pretty interesting. I'm not quite sure about how it actually reads though. Some of the line breaks seem to come at unexpected places.

I like the subject. It really reminds me of a description of a painting or photograph -- mainly because it's more like you've captured a specific moment. I think that's what makes it work. Good job.