Where to now, Adelaide?

[Allefgib]

Here ya go JohnK - critique this piece I wrote back in 2004 for me. (NB: no formal training or studdy of how to construct poetry other than the standard 'how to do a haiku' in primary school ) Written around the time of my first Christmas living alone O/S after visiting a street all done up 20x better than lobethal (the snow makes up most of that 20x )

First White Christmas

The snow smothered yards draw my eye.
The wind cuts cold, I seem to cry
Maybe I do, I'm often alone.
But I'm happy inside, just far from home.

And the people I love are not with me tonight
as I shuffle along, the strung lights so bright
Down Candy Cane Lane, the snow soft and falling,
The houses all dressed up, but my mind is broiling.

This is a dream, what I've always wanted,
Since 'White Christmas' the carol seemed so disjointed,
When as a kid I would sing it with delight
But felt strange to look out to a sun shinging bright.

Now I am living that dream, walking along
In a magical landscape of snow and of song.
The cars crawling by showing diamonds and rubies
It reminds me of Paris and Christmas time movies.

I walk on, my soul and lips singing,
From the beauty around and the joy of living.
And my mind drifts over the things I have seen
The places I saw, the fulfilling of dreams.

But my mind still drifts back to the fact I'm alone,
A Green Day song replaces my carolling drone.
I softly sing a Boulevard of Broken Dreams,
But even as I do I realise its not what it seems.

I've not always walked alone with only my heart,
My family and friends have played a huge part
In the joy I am feeling of having this dream
In this collage of light on white, not green.

The pain of the absence of company this night
Is washed away by sentiments which might seem trite
Of knowing there are those that think of my often
And into their hearts and lives I am woven.

I think of Christmas and how I'm never alone,
Of the beauty in life and examples shown
That with love and giving how the world seems so bright.
Just like this street filled with people and white.

I come to the end of Candy Cane Lane,
The lights were amazing on most window panes,
My smile is infectious, I've left others grinning
At this Austrlian guy who strolled along singing.

This is my White Christmas, I'm living my dreams.
I'm taking my time to see where life leads.
You are all with me inside of my heart,
Especially at this time, though we are miles apart.

 

[ltdamn]

Top work, Allefgib!

 

[JohnK]

First White Christmas

The snow smothered yards draw my eye.
The wind cuts cold, I seem to cry
Maybe I do, I'm often alone.
But I'm happy inside, just far from home.

And the people I love are not with me tonight
as I shuffle along, the strung lights so bright
Down Candy Cane Lane, the snow soft and falling,
The houses all dressed up, but my mind is broiling.

This is a dream, what I've always wanted,
Since 'White Christmas' the carol seemed so disjointed,
When as a kid I would sing it with delight
But felt strange to look out to a sun shinging bright.

Now I am living that dream, walking along
In a magical landscape of snow and of song.
The cars crawling by showing diamonds and rubies
It reminds me of Paris and Christmas time movies.

I walk on, my soul and lips singing,
From the beauty around and the joy of living.
And my mind drifts over the things I have seen
The places I saw, the fulfilling of dreams.

But my mind still drifts back to the fact I'm alone,
A Green Day song replaces my carolling drone.
I softly sing a Boulevard of Broken Dreams,
But even as I do I realise its not what it seems.

I've not always walked alone with only my heart,
My family and friends have played a huge part
In the joy I am feeling of having this dream
In this collage of light on white, not green.

The pain of the absence of company this night
Is washed away by sentiments which might seem trite
Of knowing there are those that think of my often
And into their hearts and lives I am woven.

I think of Christmas and how I'm never alone,
Of the beauty in life and examples shown
That with love and giving how the world seems so bright.
Just like this street filled with people and white.

I come to the end of Candy Cane Lane,
The lights were amazing on most window panes,
My smile is infectious, I've left others grinning
At this Austrlian guy who strolled along singing.

This is my White Christmas, I'm living my dreams.
I'm taking my time to see where life leads.
You are all with me inside of my heart,
Especially at this time, though we are miles apart.

I'm sorry for the delay in responding to your excellent post.
I've been tied up with some intensive PMs with piledriver waltz on anger management/denial issues… but my mind is clear at the moment.

critique this piece I wrote back in 2004 for me.

Concept/Poetic Conceit
Brilliant, actually. The early Australian colonial poets stood on Australian beaches facing the sea, with their backs to the Australian landscape and wrote a lot of stuff about imagining they were still home or, at least, pining for home. Your poem is about being in England knowing that you are not at home. It's a two-hundred year reversal. It's post-colonial writing. I like it.

Execution
You get one for degree of difficulty. Without any formal training, you've given the rhyming couplet a fair shake. Well done.
You get another for writing about emotion. Excellent. Poetry is not about being clever. Poetry is about giving shape and making sense of emotion.
And you get a third for exposing this poem on this site.
Smart-arses could sneer. The simpler ones could say this has nothing to do with footy. Your poem has everything to do with footy. Footy is only about the individual's emotional response to a collective event. The sense of nationality is the biggest and most personal collective event of them all.

Now, the critique.

Or, rather, the bad bits.

The title is wrong. White Christmas is a well-worn cliché. Change the title straight away to Candy Cane Lane. Those four syllables have lovely internal rhymes and, also, an exotic charm and a lovely sense of place.. and an Australian echo. Candy Cane Lane reminds me of Archie Roach's Charcoal Lane. It's a counterpoint to the misery and sheer beauty in Archie's song.

Next, you intervene in the poem too much. Or, rather, I or my appear in nearly every line. You don't have to do that. Readers accept, from the outset, that this is your poem and no-one else's. Suggestion: try redrafting this poem without using the first person

Hint
Rather than writing:

I've not always walked alone
with only my heart…

try this:

No-one always walks alone
with only their heart…


You can turn an individual emotion into a collective one. It's still yours, because you are the poet, but you begin to speak for others and not just yourself. Your poetry, then, assumes a wider purpose.

Major bug
Rhyme. Rhyme is easy. Too easy.
The rhyme must serve the poem.

The poem must never serve the rhyme.
If it does, you get the singsong effect.

You have a simple AABB/CCDD/EEFF structure…ad infinitum. The rhyme takes over. The reader knows that the next line is about to rhyme and that the intention of the poem is only about its rhymes.

Rhymes have been abandoned in the last century or so because the form wasn't matching the function. I welcome their return but, also, I acknowledge that they are very very hard to pull off because they dumb down the subject matter.

If you are going to use rhymes, try to disguise its use, slightly. Don't do singsong. Try to introduce some complexity into the structure. The rhyming should be a background technique that's almost invisible. Or, if it's upfront, play with it:

Vicki's IPad
I bumped into Vicky tonight in Halifax Street.
She’s of to Singapore tomorrow for a week
and she thinks it’s time we had another treat.
A Saturday morning breakfast, when she gets back,
after our gym and rowing. I think Hawker Street.
Let’s remember this… eggs and the coffee black.

She’s buying an IPad in Singapore. I was jealous.
“I’ll bargain them down,” she said. “As soon as you
make your deal,” I said, “get a better price for two.”

Masculine rhymes (one syllable) are relatively easy.
Feminine rhymes (two syllables) are not. The rhyme
should serve the poem. The metre becomes lousy
if the poem serves the rhyme. It will take some time
to find a word that rhymes with jealous. Until then
my second stanza is bare, nearly nude. It’s lineless.

​

Only the best poets on this site will recognise my dreadful attempt to rhyme jealous with lineless.

Critique over.
i enjoyed your poem. Revisit it
and, if you can, post more, Allefgib.
Don't hide your unquestionable talent
in this site, under a footy fib.

 

[JohnK]

We are still waiting for PileDriver's sonnet which he has promised me in a private message… BTW, Piledriver. I don't owe you $22.35 at all. You said that it was your turn to pay. And it was.

piledriver waltz now says that I owe him $258 not $22.35 for our last dinner with Outback Jack. He says, in a private message, that the amount of $22.35 was a figment of my imagination.

I have three things to say to pildedriver waltz.

First, I drank no alcohol on that night. Four bottles of an expensive red were consumed but not by me. I drank green tea all night. OK, I also had a glass of soda and lime before the food came but I did not drink any of the wine. Let's make that perfectly clear upfront. If you and OBJ forgot that you guzzled four bottles of wine in rapid time all by yourselves, i'm not in the least surprised, but count me out of that portion of the bill.

Second, I left early. Have you conveniently forgotten that I skipped dessert and went home early to catch the last half of the State of Origin game? And that I was less than impressed by your behaviour towards the waitress. The fact that she was a university student didn't give you the right to treat her as if you thought she was willing to engage in your dubious seduction techniques.

"I'm interested in your mother," you said to her at one point. "Do you think she's jealous of your freedom and your beauty or do you think she's proud of you?"

Give me a break! If you are going to come out with lines like that, please make sure i'm not there.

Third, I paid the whole bill for the previous dinner with you and OBJ and that was a disaster. Or have you forgotten that? Posting $5000 bail when you were arrested for telling a cop that his di ck was smaller than his firing pin or what ever it was that you said. This dinner, a year later, was always going to be on you. I didn't want to come. I only came because you said that you owed me one and that even if i wanted to end our annual tradition, I should at least front up and say so.

I did front up and I did say so. Remember? I ate a piddly amount of poor food and I left.

Your request for $258 is denied.

 

[Allefgib]

Cheers jk feedback greatly appreciated.

As to your last post......?!???!!!?7

 

[JohnK]

Cheers jk feedback greatly appreciated.

As to your last post......?!???!!!?7

Does ?!???!!!?7 mean what the!!??

My sentiments exactly when I read piledriver waltz's last PM.

 

[Allefgib]

Which none of the rest of us have any idea about...

 

[Slippery Pete]

"I'm interested in your mother," you said to her at one point. "Do you think she's jealous of your freedom and your beauty or do you think she's proud of you?"

Give me a break! If you are going to come out with lines like that, please make sure i'm not there.

Outstanding.

 

[Slippery Pete]

This is the funniest thread I've ever read on the Adelaide Board. I highly recommend it.

Even if I have stuff all idea what any of it is about.

 

[JohnK]

This is the funniest thread I've ever read on the Adelaide Board. I highly recommend it.

Even if I have stuff all idea what any of it is about.

It seems perfectly clear to me what is going on.

Piledriver waltz made a commitment to write the perfect sonnet in order to show us how it is done. And he's obviously struggling to create anything that's worth posting on this site.

Meanwhile, he's trying to divert attention from this inadequacy by raising matters that have nothing to do with his promise.

Call me dim if you want but I fail to see anything that's funny in any of this.

 

[jenny61_99]

This is the funniest thread I've ever read on the Adelaide Board. I highly recommend it.

Even if I have stuff all idea what any of it is about.

First time I find myself agreeing with you SP!

 

[JohnK]

An amazing thing has happened.

Piedriver waitz has sent the first line of his sonnet.

His sonnet will consist of 14 lines, each line containing ten syllables and written in iambic pentameter, in which a pattern of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable is repeated five times. The rhyme scheme in PileDriver's sonnet will be a-b-a-b, c-d-c-d, e-f-e-f, g-g; the last two lines will be a rhyming couplet.

Here's his first line.

Defeat demeans no man. Only craven…​

PDW says:

The next line will come when i feel like it.

Yeah, not bad PWD. Do they only give you access to a pen for five minutes a week at that horrible prison? At this rate, the whole thing won't be finished by Christmas.

 

[JohnK]

Two lines of PileDriver Waltz's sonnet in 24 hours!
This is like extracting blood from a rock.

Defeat demeans no man. Only craven
Undeveloped minds turn to loud complaint…
​

I admit that this is impressive, so far, PDW. You've set up two difficult feminine (two-syllable) rhymes for lines three and four. I don't know if you are going to be able to pull that off.

Meanwhile, Vader thinks this thread is bizarre and irrelevant to the goals of the AFC and he's switched it to the Backyard. Fair enough. It may be irrelevant to some; it may be a breathe of fresh air to others.

I thank him for not trashing it altogether. Some emerging poets (like PDW) are not in situations that are totally within their control and they need time and space to develop their work. I'm glad that Vader runs this forum as a tight ship. I'm also glad that on occasions, he is kind enough to extend the hand of includibility to those who need a little more.

I've sent a PM to PDW to not take Vader's kindness for granted… to be aware that he is skating on very thin ice and that unless he gets back on topic very soon, there might be dire consequences.

PDW is, we might say, a reluctant poet. He's had few breaks in his writing career. I'm glad this site is big enough to give him one now.

 

[FR0GGY]

I think you wrote it JK. Talking to yourself is the first sign of madness is it not?

 

[footy4ever]

Two lines

Defeat demeans no man. Only craven
Undeveloped minds turn to loud complaint…
​

Reads like self indulgent wank.

 

[JohnK]

Reads like self indulgent wank.

I don't think it's that bad. In any case, it's only two lines. Give PDW the chance to finish his damn sonnet before you wade in with your jack boots.

 

[Big_D231]

Despite only joining a few months ago, Iv been lurking around this board for a couple of years, and this is quite possibly the strangest and funniest thread iv ever read

Edit, there are some fair poets on here as well, quality stuff

 

[rayven]

Let the witch hunt begin.

that was a land grab, what does crowmo own?

 

[footy4ever]

I don't think it's that bad. In any case, it's only two lines. Give PDW the chance to finish his damn sonnet before you wade in with your jack boots.

Yer - nah, Its already s**t.

 

[JohnK]

PDW says that he is mainly encouraged by the responses to this thread and has supplied his third line:

Defeat demeans no man. Only craven
Undeveloped minds turn to loud complaint
When their team falls down. Hurt needs its haven…
​

I post this without comment.

 

[OldCrowBloke]

PDW says that he is mainly encouraged by the responses to this thread and has supplied his third line:


<B><B>

Defeat demeans no man. Only craven
​

</B>

Undeveloped minds turn to loud complaint
When their team falls down. Hurt needs its haven…
​

</B>


I post this without comment.

Not sure about the sonnet structure so far, but I like the direction this seems to be going...

 

[Slippery Pete]

Not sure about the sonnet structure so far, but I like the direction this seems to be going...

[YOUTUBE]r2vGa-yLiso[/YOUTUBE]

 

[OldCrowBloke]

Thanks SP - being an old bloke I was not familiar with that song (or the group!).

But it's a pretty good song.

 

[Slippery Pete]

Thanks SP - being an old bloke I was not familiar with that song (or the group!).

But it's a pretty good song.

Here to help!

Released in 1997 too. Popular year around these parts.

 

[JohnK]

A very soulful song, Slippery Pete. I enjoyed that.
Thanks.