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Originally Posted by 103_smalls
and I'm open to any brutally-honest critiqueing
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You asked for it
. I think one of the reasons you are in a slump is because you a lot of what you have been writing (or posting at least) has been very similar in tone. Its sometimes good to try mixing it up and work on subject matter that is very different from the norm. It doesn't have to be monumental or emotional. William Carlos Williams ably demonstrated thateven wheel barrows and plums can make for good poetry.
As far as this poem is concerned, there are a couple of issues I see. One is a lack of focus. You speak in the first line about "grotesque limbs" but you don't take the image any further. In line 4 you talk about a soul and in line 8 a heart. A poem this short has to be focused like a laser. If you are going to use grotesque limbs, have them either on the soul or on the heart, but also have them do something.
I have noticed that your poetry has improved by leaps since you have been posting on the board. One of the things you want to look at, if you are wanting to take your poetry another step forward is to focus on your word choices. Looking at this piece I see three lines which are cliches or have been done before; "tarnished soul", "hollow chest", and "beyond recognition". Stretch those poetry muscles and try and think of different ways of saying things. Use similes and metaphor. You have a good start with grotesque limbs. If you do a good job with the limbs, there is no need to say that the soul is tarnished, because the
reader will get that themselves. And that is a very good thing.
And that brings me to my next point. There is nothing here that is concrete or physical. Grotesque limbs is the only thing that provides us with a mental image. I can understand "horribly tarnished soul" and "mutated heart" intellectually, but I can't experience it sensorally, so it is more difficult for me to get emotionally connected to the poem.
One other thing to think about. Words have a pecking order. It isn't set in stone by any means, but it is a good guide. Nouns and verbs are at the top, roughly equal. Verbs are the engines that give us something to picture in motion while nouns give us something to ground that motion in. Adjectives and adverbs are lower. They augment the picture provided by the noun but can't pack the same punch as a good noun or verb.
So what does all this mean?
Instead of describing something, show it in motion, and let the reader figure out the description. In this poem, instead of "grotesque limbs" try something like "writhing limbs". Being in motion, it gives us something to picture and with some added description, we can figure out that it is grotesque.
Strong nouns and verbs generally trump noun/adjective or verb/adverb combinations. In general, "lumbered" is better than "walked heavily". If you have a lot of adjectives and adverbs in your poetry, think about how you can come up with a better noun.
Whew! This turned out to be a ramble. I hope this turns out to be useful.
Michael
