I need a females opinion

[greatwh1teshark]

Hey there everything, I liek poetry, not afraid to admit but every time I write about love, well I never like what I wrote, so please can you tell me what you think of these things I just wrote now. Normally I write about death and seeing as Valentine's day is coming up, I don;t think a Death poem would be ideal, so please help me:

Love is Lost poem: By Jack Longman

It is such a shame that our love run out,
relationship end after a the days of scream and shout.
Love is lost, love is gone,
for our love is over time to move on.
What started out to be great, I really thought you were my soul mate.
But now I realize it is all over forgot you I shall not,
to future I promise to give love all I've got.

Love is Kind: By Jack Longman

Love is beautiful love is kind,
when you're not in the room I go blind.
Love is like gambling don't be afraid to roll the dice,
just being with you is like paradise.
Your trust and respect I am earning,
all about you I am yearning to do some learning.
Nothing can separate us not even Death and his scythe,
let me tell you all the things I love about the love of my life.

I love the way her voice softens and her mouth opens when she says my name,
she is my prize for playing love's game.
I love the way she turns a bad day great.
loving the how how every day is like a first date.
I could be full of rage and then she comes along and I walk on rainbow.
when with her I write like the great Edgar Allen Poe.
Her eyes like ocean pearls,
she is a women amongst girls.

Posses a body to die for,
a moment with her and I begin to soar.
Her lips they are just divine,
one kiss from her makes everything fine.
When together nothing matters but me and my love,
she has the beauty the grace and elegance like a white dove.
Everything about her body is shapely and right,
not even the Gods could break us try if they might.

A Hapless Romantics Poem: By Jack Longman
(Dedicated to my friend Harley Lingerfelt)

Love is an emotion you'll experience at any age,
it is something to be written on an empty page.
Truly is the greatest thing you'll ever know,
bringing you more happiness then money and dough.
Open to all whether you find it or it finds you,
and when it comes choice is yours on what you do.
Everywhere you go you'll always find love,
because it flies around like a majestic dove.

Don't get me wring love isn't perfect it has it's ups and downs,
you'll know you're in trouble when lover frowns.
It can bring you happiness or make you sad,
one moment in perfect bliss and then completely mad.
It isn't perfect requiring a lot of work from both sides.
like oceans waves love is like moving tides.
Love is many things but never is it stupid,
I count myself lucky I was struck by arrow from Cupid.

Love is brilliant love is great,
you truly are my soul mate.
Chosen by the stars to be together forever,
our love is for eternity extinguish never.
Nothing shall separate us for we are always one,
you are the moon and I am the sun.
If our life were a movie it'll be Titanic with us as Jack and Rose,
with each passing day my love for you it always grows.

[Version2]

You're forcing your rhymes to much, there's no meter here, no cadence. Your lines don't flow. It would probably be good practice for you to start using a syllable count.

Also your grammer needs some work. "It is such a shame that our love run out" should say our love ran out, "after a the days" is probably a typo but should be corrected anyway, "for our love is over time to move on" could benefit from a coma between the two thoughts.

I'm not a chick, but if I was, I wouldn't exactly be swooning over your poetry.

[greatwh1teshark]

Well thanks for the comment, but the female teacher who taught me how to write poetry, she was an award winning poet and did some Shakespeare acting and I was her protegee, this is how she would write.

[RWT]

At 2/4/10 05:31 PM, greatwh1teshark wrote: Well thanks for the comment, but the female teacher who taught me how to write poetry, she was an award winning poet and did some Shakespeare acting and I was her protegee, this is how she would write.

If you wouldn't mind, show us some of hers. The more the merrier!

Now, the biting criticism. Not everything has to rhyme. AABBCC doesn't work as well, either, as something more interwoven like ABAB, ABCABC, or AACBBC. And then, a lot of poems don't rhyme at all.

Next, cadence. Did you ever have to write in iambic pentameter? How about a haiku? Count out the syllables on your fingers. Paired lines (or the entire poem) should have the same number of syllables. Try messing around with it.

When two lines make a rhyme
Is just one part of poetry;
When two have symmetry
Is another altogether.
It can be just the thing
To give it that lil' zing.

Oh, yes, and my advice on love poetry: Don't write it unless you've fallen in love.

-~RWT~-

[Version2]

At 2/4/10 05:31 PM, greatwh1teshark wrote: Well thanks for the comment, but the female teacher who taught me how to write poetry, she was an award winning poet and did some Shakespeare acting and I was her protegee, this is how she would write.

No offense, but your teacher is the award winning poet, not you. And nothing that you have posted is award winning. If you don't want the advice, that's fine, I'll leave. But that doesn't change the fact that you are forcing your rhymes, and that your grammar could be improved.

I'm not trying to be mean or malicious, it's just my opinion.

[Dubbi]

At 2/4/10 06:02 PM, Version2 wrote:
No offense, but your teacher is the award winning poet, not you. And nothing that you have posted is award winning. If you don't want the advice, that's fine, I'll leave. But that doesn't change the fact that you are forcing your rhymes, and that your grammar could be improved.

I'm not trying to be mean or malicious, it's just my opinion.

I admire your candid criticism, please review my short story, A nod returned. :)

[TrevorW]

My friend, remember that just because it may LOOK like her work does not mean that you write as if you were her. There is so much to a style that goes unspoken -- so much is internal. Sure you may have learned much from the women and they may even resemble her's, however chances are they are not the same (yours and hers). Also you would not WANT them to be...your hardly a poet if you live off of someone else's style; your style is like your soul, it defines you.

As for the poems:

The major issue with your poetry is that you are so bent on forcing the rhymes when you lack meter all together. That strikes me as odd. (Perhaps she used stressed and non-stressed syllables...some do not catch that when they try to learn off of someone.)

The words are rather well placed, but the line variants to such a large degree that the reading of the poetry because difficult -- again, no meter. This is not bad if you do it correctly. You have to understand the human ear/ability to read. READ YOUR STUFF OUT LOUD.

The poetry also contains many grammar errors and general "re-think it" portions.

Finally, (perhaps the second biggest issue) these poems are horribly two dimensional. There is little to no feeling in these poems, and the voice seems as if it is under ten feet of water, so to speak.

NOW DO NOT GET ME WRONG there are good parts to these poems too...they just get lost under the force of the negatives. They are alright poems. They are better than the average person's. They need work, however.

Also I would like to know why you want a women's opinion over a man's. If you think a man can not understand love OR the point of view that you wanted to get across, then sir, you are greatly misjudging the ability of men.

I do not feel very well and I will not be overlooking my spelling/grammar in this post -- if I messed up anything consider it expected.

KEEP THAT PEN FLOWING and HAPPY WRITING!

Cheers

[Deathcon7]

At 2/4/10 05:31 PM, greatwh1teshark wrote: Well thanks for the comment, but the female teacher who taught me how to write poetry, she was an award winning poet and did some Shakespeare acting and I was her protegee, this is how she would write.

If this were the case, you would be writing sonnets in iambic pentameter. I've yet to see anyone into Shakespeare not obsess over his technique. If you are looking for criticism, don't get defensive when it's given.

I agree that this is not something you would show someone, especially a girl, and expect them to be impressed. It's just not that quality. Plus, people are stupid, they wouldn't get it even if it were pristine technique.

Your poetry has to be rough around the edges, it has to be blunt, and it has to be gimmicky. People only generally read into the gimmicks, the catchy one liners, or clever rhyme, innuendo, that type of loaded language.

And no, no one in their write mind would use the syntax you used in your poems. It's not stylized, it detracts heavily from the piece, and it can make you difficult to understand. I'd say fix that first and foremost before trying to improve your technique.

[PaNicATtaCk64]

I actually am a girl and I can tell you right now there are too many cliches throughout. If you give this to someone who doesn't know you write poetry they'd think it was cute you made the effort but if the do know then they'll think you didn't bother at all and just repeated tired lines...

Just being honest...

[InsertFunnyUserName]

Well, women don't have a superior knowledge of poetry, but I can give you my female opinion regardless.

Yes, I agree with the above posters that your meter seems forced and awkward. But in my mind, the biggest problem with these is that they don't seem personal. They express a message of cliche love that we all understand on an intellectual level, but the love poems that truly make an impact on the reader are ones that reflect the author/character's own personality and history. For instance, take these four lines:

"Love is beautiful love is kind,
when you're not in the room I go blind.
Love is like gambling don't be afraid to roll the dice,
just being with you is like paradise."

On a sort of objective observational level, we all know that people who are in love want to be with their lover. But consider these questions: What about the girl makes the character want to be around her? How have his feelings regarding this changed over the course of the relationship? What is unique about their time together that other couples don't have? People just don't connect to lines like "being with you is like paradise" because they've heard them again and again. What will pull them in is vivid imagery that makes them feel as though they understand the character's personality and the personality of his lover. They want to read something with a message that is unique, just like every relationship is unique in its own way.