His Terminal Monomania
 

I want constructive critisism, please.

Nobody? :confused::(

Constuctive critisism; as follows,
 

The mixed duality of content seems contrived and purposed. Miserable bliss, is a bit used, and you can't ascend any where but up,:nono: redundant. Try keeping all your tenses the same, if he's searching and dying he should be fading and atrophying, just suggestions. :p: Alas, we come to cadence, iambic cadence, poetry can be very dark, we(artists) like dark, but the heart is rythymic, :drummer:the brain isn't always as rythym bound. It's learned. keep writing. Have you ever read any Vogon poetry? Check it out.:thumb:

True, you can't ascend anywhere but upward. I should change that in my copy. As far as the fading and atrophying, the problem is punctuation. The poem is just a story of what happens to "Him". I was trying to say that His closer allies (friends), and His beautiful value (value as a person) fades and atrophies. He is not fading in atrophying, it is his friends and self-worth. It's something that happens to him in the story. I'm afraid I don't know how to punctuate that stanze to make it seem like I'm not saying His beautiful "value", as in something that is beautiful that he has, or something of value. Oh, and, thank you so much for feedback.

I suppose that's constructive. Any suggestions?

Just a quick note, Your Welcome, thanks for having the nards to put it out there, i'm looking forward to posting mine tomorrow. Have you read Lies? Check it out, 7gauge.

this.

^ I wish I could figure out a way to change that.

Schiz,

I wish I could offer some constructive criticism here, but I'm afraid I'd have to re-write the entire work. That is not a reflection of your abilities, only a reflection of my biases in relation to creative writing in general.

I would be interested in reading anything else you may have floating around, though.

I really like it! ^_^

^If you could, I love to hear your views.

^Thank you.

do you have more coming? :)

I'm thinking of re-posting some poems I posted a while back, but maybe not. Right now I'm just trying to get as much critisism on this piece as possible so I can revise it correctly, and I have barely any. I found a poetry website that I could post it on, but I have to make a few comments first, and also I feel insecure about being called retarded there. Oh well, guess I should man-up!

To answer your question, not any time soon. I like every poem I write to be better then the last, and as of now I don't know how to improve. Also, I only have an incentive to write when I have something I think is a really good concept to write on. Elsewise it's boring and not as challenging.

Although, once I get much, much better (as I tried this before, put in four hours, failed miserably, and put the porject on hold) I would like to write a short and eerie story in either iambic or torchee octameter and with some rhyme scheme to it about a woman being traped to see her naked flaws for eternity, this would tourture her forever because of her denial of her own sick actions and innability to deal with life.

My most recent poem; as follows,
 

I don't know if I should post this here or not, I don't know how to start my own thread.



fear of being wrong,

Searching for entrances into the conversations of others, re-reading their history to quell the fear, I was ready.

Agreements made and rejections dodged I stay, antisipating the next segue, it doesn't come and in fear I move on, I hunt again.

Laughing at one and angry with the last, my opinions are stated, looking to defendand and getting chastised, can they sense my fear? I am waiting.

^ There's a button on the top right of the songwriting forum that says "New Thread" Here: Link back to Song Writing Forum and the Direct link to "New Thread"

I look forward to more Schiz! ^_^

I know i havent been here long, but its very nice to read your work! :)

Schiz,
Here is my revision based on personal preference. And like the little bottles of herbal remedies proclaim; the following statements have not been evaluated and should not be used to diagnose or cure any defects.
So to speak.

I changed the title a little, a lot of the word useage, and the outcome of the story.
Let me know what you think.


BETRAYAL OF A TERMINAL MONOMANIA

A pleasant coma
He'd die to obtain
In pursuit of a cause
And astray of a reason

His painful escape,
That beautiful hold
Would find herself in atrophy again

A desire and decay
Surrender him, it should
And aggregate to expedite his end

If not for that descent
His contradicting indecision
Inescapability that's real

Expending resolution
Would he remain the tortured lonely
Just for the ability to feel.

^Beautifully done! It gives me a warm feeling to see you using specific diction to play around with the concepts, makes me feel like someone knows where I was coming from when I wrote it. So, in the end, are you leaving it a choice? Like a decesion he has to stay tourtured and lonely for his obsession? Or did I misinterprete?

Basically what I re-interpreted it as is:

He's tortured by his existence, but he's torn between the pain and a fear of the end.
He can't stand the pain, but it weighs equally with his fear of feeling nothing at all.

Ultimately, he's at a crossroads where he either sacrifices his life to end his pain, or sacrifices everything else in order to keep feeling anything at all.

The concept is a tug-of-war that has equal stregnth on both sides, leaving the protagonist ultimately torn.

I think that's an interesting concept, and I like it. Do you mean keep from feeling anything at all? The protagonist obviously doesn't want to feel anything throughout the entire poem, It's actually his method of achieving feeling nothing at all which eventually takes his friends, family, self-worth, and most importantly who he is emotionally (in my version anyway); IMO basically leaving him as nothing to the world and nothing to himself but his achieved vegatative state. The question of his pain (in my version) only comes when diving deep into the conecepts, seeing as how it never speaks of why he needs to be so fukking gone, it's only implied that he has some pain he is running from. I suppose it's also implied that there is some actual emotional pain he must be experiencing in the fact that he changes throughout the poem, and in the fact that he offs himself in the end. After all, why would all his friends/possesions being gone and his worth to himself and the world effect him at all if there wasn't some part of him not in this bliss and vegatative state, actually feeling/running from some sort of pain. Personally, I like my ending because it highlights how his worth disintegrates and I think serves a few good points. Your is great too, though, and to each is own anyhow.

I understand your point of view.
I used to write dark poetry that ended as dark as it began, but eventually I began finding an admirable human quality in the ability to overcome. A tragedy is never told in first-person, but when someone comes close to a tragedy and pulls through, that person can shine a light in the darkness of his/her soul and speak of a process that is learned by trial and error, and it can ultimately help others who're in the same position.

If there's one thing I've learned from doing anything that requires a gift of creativity, be it music, poetry, art, etc... It's that unless you're sharing it with others in a way that benefits both parties, then it's a selfish waste.
It took me a long time to learn that.
When I finally did, I found a deeper reason in doing the things I do. I was no longer doing things for myself only, but benefiting others in the process.

Ultimately, that's the only thing you leave as a legacy when you're dead and gone.

fukking brilliant!

Honestly, there are times I knew what was going on... but there were completely overshadowed by the times when I was so confused, I skipped the stanza.

I think I was primarily thrown off by the title.

Here, xxawwxsugarxx, and everyone; now you can understand what the heck I was trying and failed to do. Not that failing is a bad thing IMO, just means I can get better. Would love any suggestions.Before you read, think of it as a story, a progression of events told about Him by an omniscient narrator.

His Terminal Monomania Having an obsession that kills you
A content comatose A happy, vegatative state (being too high to really be considered alive)
He is dying to obtain Dying = wanting, and literally dying

Searching for cause He searches for why
There is no reason To him, there is no reason

His closer allies, His friends
His beautiful value And his self-worth
Fades away and atrophies Because he is not using them, like a muscle, atrophy. They melt away, he doesn't have them anymore.

His desire and his decay His desire for the vegatative state (which he clearly puts over everything) and his decay (his slowly dying)
Unwilling to surrender him They have power over him and will not let go.
Have intercourse and multiply This line says a few things: His Desire and his Decay are related to each other, and effect each other. They work together to kill him and are lovers. Also, their synergistic (make each other more powerful), and they will not surrender him, and they multiplied (it's getting worse), and now he's fukked.

He ascends upward A metaphor for him getting worse and worse
to a miserable bliss Drugs are very polar (oposite), so this is where he is. miserable in life, blissful in being high
on pink fluffy clouds He is finally there, he actually reached it, where he wanted to be from the start of the story. He's in a content comatose, on pink fluffy clouds, constantly high, doesn't have to live, etc.

Expended relations, He spent all his friends, family, etc.
and traded possessions He has nothing but drugs.
He observes the milieu, This line is Ironic, because here he is finally where he wanted to be the entire time, and he observes the milieu (milieu meaning environment)...
Felo-de-se Felo-de-se is a person who kills himself intentionally. He finally got there, looked around, noticed he had nothing, and killed himself. Ironic.


In that minute In the minute that he died.
The world had lost People living in the real world
His carnal remains Canral, meaning of or relating to the body or flesh, and remains being the left overs- I'm saying they only lost the physical left over to this guy and that he had mentaly and emotionally died long before.

=\

When I write a poem, I can never explain it that clearly. That usually tells me that I did an alright job. >.<

When I write, I write a paragraph on what I want to vent and then I make a list of all the characters, possible metaphors, structure, etc. Then I write. Takes some time, and usually ends-up too vague. I'm still working on figuring out my style, I don't think the above is it. I want to figure out a way to make it artistic, beautiful and simple at the same time. A good challenge, still working on it.
How does not being able to explain your own peom mean you did a good job?

Goodness.

I suppose I'm more spontaneous with my writing unless I feel something and decide to write something about it.

Not being able to explain my poetry means that I was caught completely in the moment. It means that there was nothing planned, I spilled the feelings I felt without thinking ahead.

I suppose it's a weird way to interpret it.

well what is this about?

I was sitting there one day with a huge craving to get really ****ed-up, and I decided to go off on that. It ended-up being about a look at the progression of desire for wanting to be completey gone and the consequences of that.

I tried writing a simplier version of this that said things just plainly, but it was harder to capture enough feeling in that. I'm still working on it. Baby steps.

So its a "poem" about wanting to get ****ed up?

your explanation gives reason to the madness. thank you. youve seriously gotta be a genius for that to have made sense beforehand. wow

No, it's not really. My post with with the decription of what each line meant in green by it didn't help?

I just wouldn't have understood without the green lines.

You know?

Yeah, I do. It's hard for me to see how the audience is going to interprete it. I'm working on it, but I just have so little time lately. But I'll defenitly keep trying until I get it.

It's difficult for anyone to know how their piece will be interpreted.

Everyone interprets pieces different.

wow man, that is very deep. I like it

=] I rest my case.

I'll eventually post on this thread a different version of this poem, but it will most likely be almost unrecognizable. It will take countless revision and lots of work though, and I'm FULLY packed for about a month of school before I graduate so I don't know when I will have time to get around to it.

Hi, Schizotypic,
After reading your community center thread posts about the songwriting section, I looked up your poetry posts and would like to comment on "His Terminal Monomania." First, however, I noticed you appear to have several separate threads rather than one main poetry collection in the Songwriting section. If you ask a moderator to merge them then s/he will probably do so. All your poetry posts would then be in one section, which would make it easier to analyze them as a whole.

I read all the posts about "His Terminal Monomania" to understand your goals and the reactions people have had. I feel the topic of the poem (tracing the person's desire for lack of feeling, leading to drug use, leading to the decision to commit suicide) is strong and is presented in an original way, because it looks at a variety of factors leading up to this decision.

You wrote that you are interested in making the poem's meaning clearer, and several people commented on ways you might do this. I have the following suggestions:

There were two words I didn't understand at first (and had to look up on Wikipedia): "Monomania" (obsession with a single thought or emotional) and "Felo de se" (suicide). I feel "monomania" describes the feelings of the person in the poem very well, and the poem serves as a definition for monomania. However, my preference is for the poem to describe taking one's life more directly, without using "Felo de se," because for me Latin creates an unnecessary barrier to understanding the poem.

You also used the French word "milieu" to refer to the person's social/cultural environment. That's a lot of different languages (English, French, and Latin) in two short lines...not that this is wrong, but the words themselves start to distract from the poem's meaning, I feel.

One other comment about "milieu": "milieu" is a very soft-sounding word, as is "Felo de se"--they seem very removed from the harshness of suicide. This may actually help the poem create a sense of distance from reality. I don't know if this was intentional, but as I read the poem I was aware that the feeling of the poem might be very different if you had used more straight-forward language.

When I read "A content comatose" I first read "content" as if you were saying "the content of a book"...so I got momentarily confused by the fact that "content" has two meanings: feeling contentment (which is what you mean) vs. the contents of something. Perhaps you could use, "A comatose contentment" instead of "a content comatose" because "contentment" has just one meaning?

When you wrote, "Searching for cause," I would recommend, "Searching for the cause" or "Searching for a cause," to make sure that the word "cause" relates strongly to his search for the cause of his desire for contentment through a comatose existence. Currently, "Searching for cause" could be interpreted as searching for the cause of the universe/existence or some other event.

You asked about the appropriate grammar for
Since "his closer allies" and "his beautiful value" are plural, they should be matched with a plural verb (fade), as in "they fade and atrophy" rather than "they fades and atrophies":

Perhaps "his beautiful inner value" might clarify that you are talking about his sense of self-worth?

I like the following stanza very much because it is conceptually interesting: you almost turn abstract concepts (desire and decay) into physical entities. They ("desire" and "decay") remind me of vultures picking at his living corpse, copulating in the process to make more vultures, and refusing to stop eating him.

I feel that in your final stanza it would be good to consider (as an earlier posting person said) the tense of the verbs you are using throughout the poem.

Here you use "had lost," which is the past perfect tense, while earlier in the poem you use present simple and present progressive (I had to look up "English Verb Tenses" online to remind myself what those all are). I feel that the shifting verb tense can be an effective tool to get the reader to shift the frame of reference within time, but you may wish to make sure the shifting is what you intend. For example, if you write "the world has lost / His carnal remains," then the impact (to me) seems stronger because "has lost" is in present time, whereas "had lost" is farther removed in the past.

One final comment (I can't remember if someone else commented on this): when he dies the world actually is *left* with his carnal remains (the body, etc., stay firmly on earth). Gone or lost is his sentience. Would you perhaps consider writing:

...or you could say "The world retains," if you wished to go the rhyming route...which is probably out of character with the rest of the poem! :)


I hope this helps!

--Erica

Why thank you for all your hard work, I'm absolutely flattered! I wrote this back when I was going through a poetry phase, which I am over now. Though I must say I miss the kind of research you had gone through to experience and give criticism (which I am so grateful for). Ahhh, poetry. The complexity, the way a few condensed lines can catch the torture of a lifetime- I'd fall for that concept over again for eternity. Obviously you must have an appreciation for it too or else you wouldn't have gone through so much trouble, and I admire that. It shows a depth of a part of you that I can relate to very much. I agree with you on all your points, and if I had the time I would work to death to fix it. But I'm so tied up in figuring out directions to wherever it is I'm going if you catch my drift. Definitely looking forward to seeing you around the forums. If you ever want to chat give me a PM, or I guess I'll give you one.