2012 - Who cares?

[Alucinary]

Killing with cruelty
obstructing joy, there's
never a reason, for
young boys with guns.

I previously had young children which seemed to stumble on the toungue but i prefered the word



This has been a tricky one for me, the first letters are forced but I wanted this fact to hide unnoticed and I wanted to leave the main impact right until the very last moment if I can. I realise the content is political and not everyone will share the same stance on the inspiration behind it but I want really to cast that aside for now and just focus on how the lines can work together...

[Tim Love]

It doesn't work for me. I would have missed the Kony connection had you not mentioned it. I thought it was about youth gangs and guns.

I couldn't work out what the target audience was. What type of reader would finish the poem and say "Ah, so true!", or "Well, I've thought these thoughts too, but I've never been able to express them so powerfully"? One can agree or disagree with the poem's statement, but the argument's not advanced one way or the other by the poem.

[EatMyPoetry]

For some reason I had jumped to the conclusion that this going to be a poem from a Londoner moaning about the Olympics Well, I was pleasantly surprised.

I agree that is "young boys" is better than "young children" for the last stanza. Still, I feel this last line can still be improved on.....I'm just not sure how yet.

[Arian]

What type of reader would finish the poem and say "Ah, so true!", or "Well, I've thought these thoughts too, but I've never been able to express them so powerfully"? One can agree or disagree with the poem's statement, but the argument's not advanced one way or the other by the poem.

That's a well-expressed point. It would surely be a naive reader indeed who thought this added any dimension at all to what is, essentially, a simple statement. And Tim's also right with his point about agreeing or disagreeing with the "message" of a poem. Your "politics" are neither here nor there. Poetry is about how you express your view, not about what your view actually is. Not that this has a view, beyond expressing the - perhaps slightly unsurprising - opinion that you are, in general, against the mass-arming of young boys. You old controversialist, you!

Generally, I like to say something positive about a piece, especially on the B board. But with just 4 lines like this, you've given us very little to work with.

Sorry
peter

[Alucinary]

Hiya,

Those are all fair points and thanks for making them - I think essentially I tried too hard to write something just using the first letters of his name (which is rather limiting in terms the number of letters!) and the arguement (although I agree I don't sell it) was supposed to be along the lines of whether anyone even noticed the name Kony at all...

Nevermind, I think I can count this as a lost learning curve and something to avoid in future

[EatMyPoetry]

Hiya,

Those are all fair points and thanks for making them - I think essentially I tried too hard to write something just using the first letters of his name (which is rather limiting in terms the number of letters!) and the arguement (although I agree I don't sell it) was supposed to be along the lines of whether anyone even noticed the name Kony at all...

Nevermind, I think I can count this as a lost learning curve and something to avoid in future

Maybe you could try to allude to the subject of the poem in the title. Maybe something like 'LRA' or 'Uganda' or just something that gives the reader a clue.

At the moment I don't think the title adds anything to the poem.

Cheers.

[RichardSanders]

This doesn't grip me. I might be mistaken but I think I've heard the expression "There's never a good reason for" to often to think this piece to be original. As this makes up the center of the poem, the entire poem strikes me as a cliché.
I might be alone in this though.
Also, without the explanation, I wouldn't have know what to relate it to.
Sorry to be so negative but I think it's to short to properly convey your meaning.

[Alucinary]

This doesn't grip me. I might be mistaken but I think I've heard the expression "There's never a good reason for" to often to think this piece to be original. As this makes up the center of the poem, the entire poem strikes me as a cliché.
I might be alone in this though.
Also, without the explanation, I wouldn't have know what to relate it to.
Sorry to be so negative but I think it's to short to properly convey your meaning.

Thanks for the feedback, and don't worry about being negative - I am inclined to agree with yours and other peoples views and I've dropped this one as a lost experiment really

[Lovely]

A bit short here methinks there are so many topics on 2012: planet nibiru, mayan end long count calendrical date for end of world ets etc.

Try some backlog it's interesting and it would help you to a better involved construcion about this date and others

Dave

[camus]

Acrostic name poems (of which this is one) are generally short and to the point. So you've not gone far wrong.

BUT, much like rhyme can control a poem's journey, so (as you mentioned) the usage of the letters has guided/limited this one. How's about:

Killing with cruelty
obstructing joy, there's
never a reason, that
young guns be boys.

Just a little twist there and the rhyme makes it flow that much better. Just an idea, maybe have a play about? Just because it's a short poem doesn't mean it's not worth honing.

Re the title. As mentioned there's plenty of 2012 nonsense around. Personally I think Kony Island baby would be a great title, if it had any relevance, alas it does not. Perhaps something short like Guerrilla, again just thoughts.

cheers
Kris