By Any Other Name

[Lu59]

I saw a red rose lying on the ground
while walking on the cliffs one summer’s day.
I thought about the treasure I had found:

had someone marked the spot, this grassy mound,
a blossom for a loved one, passed away?
I saw a red rose lying on the ground,

incongruous, ignored. Yet I, spellbound,
believed it might some vast event portray.
I thought, about the treasure I had found…

a failed proposal, or a May Queen crowned,
perhaps? The strangest thing it is, to say
I saw a red rose. Lying on the ground,

I tried to dream an answer, to expound
romantic fancies, change the way
I thought. About the treasure I had found:

a rose is just a rose! Yet I propound -
it must some message silently convey…
I saw a red rose lying on the ground,
I thought about the treasure I had found.

[Lu59]

Any comments, anyone?!

[penguin]

Well, the comment that springs most readily to mind is that if you don't comment on other people's work you can scarcely expect them to comment on yours. That's a short version of the site rules. But just this once.
The poem has a certain charm, I'll give it that. There's too much repetition for my liking but some people like that kind of thing.
These two lines ought to be reconstructed so's to appear more natural.

believed it might some vast event portray

it must some message silently convey

You should have your question mark after May Queen crowned, forget "perhaps". This is the best line, I think.
I find the punctuation a bit baffling here

I saw a red rose. Lying on the ground,

I tried to dream an answer, to expound
romantic fancies, change the way
I thought. About the treasure I had found:

[Lu59]

Thanks penguin.
I have been absent from this WOrkshop or a couple of years because of health problems and am now disabled - I think I last posted in 2009.
I'm sorry I haven't critiqued yet, I do intend to, I just wanted to get back into the swim again first.

[Nash]

Hello Lu,

I know that villanelles are not to everyone's taste these days, but I quite like them when they're done well.....and I think it's a bloody difficult form to do well.

I think that you've had a fair old crack at it though. The central theme of the red rose is perhaps a little tired but the whole thing reads quite nicely. Not too keen on the awkward sentence structures in S3 L2 and S6 L2, and I think the word 'rose' is perhaps used too often in the final stanza.

Overall though, a pretty good attempt I think.

Thanks,
Nash.

[Arian]

Personally, I think that all pre-packaged forms tend to straightjacket the poet into producing near-nonsense, and the villanelle is more guilty than most. There's a handful of honourable exceptions (Thomas, Plath, a few more) but -even then - I can't say I admire them much.

So, in that context, it would possibly be contradictory to say that I like this. I don't.

Which isn't in the least to say I don't appreciate the effort - along with no little skill - that's gone into producing it. Given the constraints of the form, I think you've done an admirable job in producing something with a coherent narrative and one or two nice lines (especially: I tried to dream an answer - that's really very good, to my mind. Pity it's wasted in this piece).

One thing I (sorry) really don't like about the piece is the throwback technique of syntax inversion. For example:

it might some vast event portray.

and

some message silently convey

grammatical structures which have the sense and mood of 200 years ago.

Still, as I've said, it deserves marks for application, if not (well, not many) for style.

Cheers
peter

[JohnLott]

Not bad and reasonably balanced.

Unfortunately I didn't think the red rose was worthy of being called a treasure because you didn't make it so.
Some phrasing was positvely Romantic Victorian.

A good try but....

Sorry you have had a hard time - but critiques don't take much effort to type up once you have thought about it.



J.

[Lu59]

Thanks for all your comments, I appreciate them.

It's interesting that this poem has, on the whole, not been received too well - but it has being accepted for publication anyway, so I guess one man's meat is another man's poison!
(By the way, I think that some poets avoid attempting a set poetry form as it is too tricky, but I reckon it's worth a go and the more I practise the better I will get.)

Nash - I really did find a red rose lying on a cliff edge, and one from a florist, not a garden! It seem such a strange thing to stumble (almost literally!) across. That is what inspired my poem. I chose the villanelle form specifically because of the repetition, which I believe reflects the conundrum that I kept coming back to: that of why was the rose placed there?

By the way (Arian. penguin), I have now commented on several poems - which I enjoy and I fully intended to do anyway, I just forgot the sequence in which posting/critiquing should take place, having been absent for 2 years!

[brianedwards]

Well, the first comment that sprung to my mind was: are your cuffs frillier than your collar? Seriously.

Peter has a huge issue with forms that I suspect might be traced back to an old repressed homosexual schoolmaster and repeat detentions for accidentally feminised iambs, but that's pure speculation and please don't quote me on it. Personally I think fixed forms, if lubed just right, can penetrate the deepest holes of poetry itself. But I agree that when handled badly they can end up in lots of dry humping and bruised inhospitable orifices. Excuse my poor metaphors, I try to save the good ones for the poetry, y'know. Which brings me to your poem. It's just a lot of dry humping. The opening stanza offers a red rose on a cliff on a summer's day - phew, that is a real test of any 21st century poetry reader's patience surely? And then we have a treasure on a grassy mound, a blossom for a loved one, perhaps passed away . . . and then PARRRP, after all that, the form reveals itself in line 6 like a poetic whoopee cushion. There's just no life in any of it, no spark, nothing that convinces me for a second that the either the poet or the poem's speaker were really walking on a cliff on a summer's day and happened to find a red rose. You know? Don't get me wrong, I don't subscribe to the idea that contemporary poetry must cover exclusively modern themes, nor do I believe it impossible that a person might wander cliffs finding flowers and thinking beautiful thoughts, simply because other people might be jogging across that same cliff listening to their ipods or attending conference calls on their Androids. But, one thing contemporary poem must do, and bear in mind that all poetry was contemporary at the time it was written, one thing it must do is attempt to connect with its contemporary readership. This poem makes me feel like I'm being force-dressed in Victorian fashion and then dragged to a very boring fancy-dress party where everyone is afraid to fart.

Sorry, I'm rambling. Been away for a few days and need to get back to grips with this critting swingy thing. I hope you can accept my comments in the spirit they are offered. We could go under the bonnet, but personally I think the poem is beyond repair. The poet, on the other hand, is more than capable of moving on, developing, learning, growing, evolving . . add your own verb(s). You have some good control of language, clearly. You can count meter and handle (simple) rhymes. You have a sense of romance and you clearly love poetry. If you add just a bit more of yourself to that mix, you might have something, y'know?

Hope that, err, helps . . .

B.

[twoleftfeet]

I agree 100% with Peter, I'm afraid, Brian.
I'm looking forward to see what Lu/ (Lou?) comes up with next.

I shall now spend the rest of the day thinking back to all those detentions to work out what where it all went wrong..
I distinctly remember Drawling, Stretching, and Fainting in Coils, but not much else.

Geoff

PS Brian, if there was a Featured Crits section, yours would get my vote.

[JohnLott]

It's interesting that this poem has, on the whole, not been received too well - but it has being accepted for publication anyway,

I admit to being a teeny weeny bit confused.

I thought poems were presented for comment/revision to get them ready for publication etc.

Why are you looking to us to comment on a finished product?



J.

[Lu59]

John, I have re-checked the Post a Poem rules and there is nothing to say that published postings are prohibited, only vanity publishing. The reason I posted this poem was to get opinions: whether a poem is published or unpublished, surely poets are always thirsty for feedback? It might mean that, on the basis of feedback received on this forum, I decide to edit it or use the comments to write another poem. So to me feedback is always valuable, and nobody is above it.
So I’m sorry if I’ve done something wrong.

Brian! What a rant! I agree that poetry should contemporary, but not every member of the public enjoys ‘poetry that doesn’t rhyme’, as the uninitiated would call it (I do, by the way.) I thought poetry was about writing what moves you in whatever way you feel– freedom of speech and all that – so can I help it if I really did see a red rose just left there, on a cliff, on a sunny day, throwing up all kinds of questions and begging to be written about? I will post some of other poetry (after undertaking the required critiques first, of course), which perhaps has more of ‘me’ about it…be careful what you wish for springs to mind!

Twoleftfeet – it’s Lu with no ‘o’ and comes from Lulu, not the Scottish singer, but from a jingle on tv in the 1960’s: apparently I used to sing along to the jingle at the end of the Smarties advert, where they sang “Buy some for Lulu”. I was very young and don’t remember it, by the way…

Hang on, maybe there’s a poem in there somewhere…better do my best to beat it off!

[Arian]

Peter has a huge issue with forms that I suspect might be traced back to an old repressed homosexual schoolmaster and repeat detentions

Blimey, Brian - how on earth did you find out? I hardly told a soul! You didn't used to work for a Murdoch media organ did you?

Cheers
p

[edgarallanpoet]

I'm new to this site; relatively new to poetry. I always get confused by the various pigeonholes: What is lyrical? What is performance? What is traditional? etc. I don't think pigeonholes help anything much. I liked By Any Other Name. Do you classify it as traditional?

Edgar Allan Poet

[brianedwards]

I'm new to this site; relatively new to poetry. I always get confused by the various pigeonholes: What is lyrical? What is performance? What is traditional? etc. I don't think pigeonholes help anything much. I liked By Any Other Name. Do you classify it as traditional?

Edgar Allan Poet

The form of this poem is a Villanelle. It's not a "pigeonhole" but a fact.

[edgarallanpoet]

Point taken. I suppose a villanelle by any other name is just as constraining.

[brianedwards]

I suppose a villanelle by any other name is just as constraining.

Wow. Such confidence for one "relatively new to poetry" . . . Can't wait to read your offerings . . .

B.

[Arian]

I always get confused by the various pigeonholes: What is lyrical? What is performance? What is traditional? etc. I don't think pigeonholes help anything much.

Are you suggesting - you seem to be - that we shouldn't attach specific words to specific meanings? Wouldn't that make life a tad difficult? And if you seriously have a problem understanding the words (and their ilk) you mention, in the context of this Board (certainly this part of it), then I think you're not going to make sense of much of it. None at all, in fact.

Cheers
peter

[edgarallanpoet]

Relatively new to poetry -- not Planet Earth. I know a bloke of 74 who likes to wear a hoody: Bit dumb really, but it's amazing how many people think he's a 16 year old thug. Pigeon holes! I suppose that's why forward thinkers invented Free Jazz, Free Verse, Free Willy...Seriously, isn't conforming just a form of plagiarism. What was that quote? "An original idea. That can't be too hard. The library must be full of them."

[Ros]

Seriously, isn't conforming just a form of plagiarism. What was that quote? "An original idea. That can't be too hard. The library must be full of them."

Not sure I see how this argument works. All poetry will tend to fall into some classification or other - as your last sentence says, being completely original is extremely hard. So conforming isn't a form of plagiarism, no - it's merely following in the tradition of some type of genre which already exists. Don't really see how discussing that helps a great deal with judging the particular poem.

Ros

[Arian]

Relatively new to poetry -- not Planet Earth. I know a bloke of 74 who likes to wear a hoody: Bit dumb really, but it's amazing how many people think he's a 16 year old thug. Pigeon holes! I suppose that's why forward thinkers invented Free Jazz, Free Verse, Free Willy...Seriously, isn't conforming just a form of plagiarism. What was that quote? "An original idea. That can't be too hard. The library must be full of them."

Talking of plagiarism...

*sigh*

Sorry, edgar. Bit of an in-joke. But if ever a comment deserved it...

peter

[JohnLott]

.....Don't really see how discussing that helps a great deal with judging the particular poem.

Hear hear, well said, Ros.
No doubt Neanderthals coughing started the Vicks plagarism?

So does the poem work or doesn't it, Mr edgarallenpoet?



J.

[twoleftfeet]

I can see where EAP is coming from wrt pigeon-holing, but a form (e.g. the villanelle) is a vehicle rather than a classification. There is the obvious constraint that you must conform to the prescribed pattern but there is no restriction as to what you can write about.
So, Mr Poe(t), I can't really see what you are objecting to in this instance - if you don't want to be constrained by form
then that is your choice. Others see them as a challenge, so good luck to them, I say.

As an aside, the idiots who run our local libraries have sub-divided non-fiction into various genres e.g crime, adventure,
sci-fi fantasy etc: now you have to look in several places for your favourite authors, because the librarians can't seem to agree, from book to book, which genre each author belongs to.

[edgarallanpoet]

Hi J,
You don't need to use my full title, just Mr. Poet will do. "Does the poem work or not?" This is the crux: Who the hell are you, me, Ros, Peter, Fred, Jim, whomever to judge someone elses work. If you like a poem -- fine: If you don't -- fine. I shouldn't be on this site; won't be after this. Like I said I'm moderately new to poetry but I've been a fairly successful professional writer for many years and I've had it up to here (I'm now making a gesture towards the top of my head) with critics professional or otherwise. You do realise that if Wordsworth, Keats, even old Will were around today some clown would be criticising their work. As to your poem: I read it, it was OK.

Peter,
IN jokes should remain exactly that.

Ros,
You mentioned "Classification", "Tradition": They are a big part of exactly what's wrong with the world today.

[David]

Well. What a curious little diversion that was. Is it over now?