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[crstevens]

Hey,

I just started submitting work onto this great site. I haven`t written erotica before, but I thought it would be interesting to try. I submitted some of my other work onto this site, which are non-erotic, but I don`t know how to get people to read them. Can anyone help me out? I would much appreciate it.

Here's a poem as a sample:

A Hallowed Night

Deep, deep, deeper,
We plant our feet inside,
Sleep, sleep, sleep, dear,
Close your mind off to the night.

Don’t heed the whispered warnings,
That tread along the wind.
Nor the cricking flutterings,
Or the eyes that grin.

Turn over, over, over,
Away from dreaded creaks.
Avert your eyes, my darling,
Don’t dare to take a peek.

Now listen to my soothing,
For I do not lead astray.
For I’ve no fear of losing,
My sanity in pay.

Hush, hush, hush, now,
The demons press their grasp.
Pulling darkness on you,
On your heart for your last gasp.

But so deep your feet are planted,
The feet, that is, the heart.
Standing over the soul enchanted,
As a constant, beating guard.

And so I’m here, to give my aid,
To comfort that strong guard.
To not give your soul away,
To keep your life unclawed.

So sleep, sleep, sleep dear,
Allow your mind to rest.
Deep, deep, deeper,
Is the beating in your chest.

A fallen foe is rising,
Pressing its darkness,
But a hallowed friend is watching,
Defending your presence.

Any suggestions is much appreciated, and thank you for reading!

 

[butters]

welcome to Lit, and welcome to our great little poetry forum.

erotic and non-erotic material are both on display here, and this is the place to discuss your own and others' writing, get ideas, join in fun challenges to boost your own skills and just to hang out with the people here. we're an odd sort of bunch, but there are some top-notch poets here - some are prose authors as well.

the best way to get views, in my opinion, is to frequent the forums, get to know some of the posters, read and offer comments on their work and generally just dive in. submitting pieces for publication is all well and good, but it's here on this forum, with these creative people, that the business gets done. sometimes the boards will get a little quiet, but that's usually down to school holidays and stuff.

thanks for showing us your poem! i will come back to leave you some comments soon, but right now have to be busy elsewhere. so ... welcome! oh, and don't be shy about starting threads.

butty

 

[UnderYourSpell]

I like you 'near rhymes' but do be careful of using too many gerunds (words ending with ing)

 

[crstevens]

Thanks - I definitly keep my eye out for too many of them in future works!

And thanks for the welcome. I'm still learning a lot about this site and its navigation.

 

[butters]

you have an ear for sound, it's clear. i also quite liked your repetitions here that are used every other verse until you then break that pattern - why did you make that decision? the way they wove through on alternate verses carried the underlying soothing that lullabyes rely on even though the verses between carried less than comforting imagery! was it to more stoutly reinforce the message of protection?
this is like two poems, interwoven. there's more to this write than first meets the eye.

the odd line that didn't feel smooth on first read-through did on the second as i made mental adjustments, slowing down my reading pace to allow the words to fall more naturally.

liked your use of alliteration, and some surprising phrases/imagery, particularly in v2.

at first i felt L3 of v4 could be improved upon by making it 'For I'll not lead astray' but then that means losing that small continuity of sound that binds soothing and losing even closer with do. there's quite a lot of that sneaking along all minding its own business throughout the verses: inside/mind/night - deep/feet/sleep and so on - and then the sibilance of v5 works its own spell.

you know what you are doing with sound, but i am at a loss why that v7 is there at all. i really want to know why, since the rest all feels so tidy. that verse feels forced, and v6 a little ... hmmm ... explanatory. would this poem be improved if you could merge the two to make one, sounder verse? i think so.

the odd line that didn't feel smooth on first read-through did on the second as i made mental adjustments, slowing down my reading pace to allow the words to fall more naturally.

liked your use of alliteration, and some surprising phrases/imagery, particularly in v2.

at first i felt L3 of v4 could be improved upon by making it 'For I'll not lead astray' but then that means losing that small continuity of sound that binds soothing and losing even closer with d. there's quite a lot of that sneaking along all minding its own business throughout the verses: inside/mind/night - deep/feet/sleep - and then the sibilance of v5 works its own spell.

you know what you are doing with sound, but i am at a loss why that v7 is there at all. i really want to know why, since the rest all feels so tidy. that verse feels forced, and v6 a little ... hmmm ... explanatory. would this poem be improved if you could merge the two to make one, sounder verse? i think so.

 

[UnderYourSpell]

I look forward to reading more of your work and hope you stay around

 

[crstevens]

Thanks so much for the support and feedback. And, to clarify, the sixth and seven verses are there solely to give an explanation and meaning to the poem. I didn't really mind that it didn't fit the pattern, but I now that I've focused on it, it bugs me more and more. I'm wonderin how I can fix this problem. I need to keep the pattern from before, yet I would still like to keep the explanation at this point in the poem because I like how it gives credence to the ending. Any suggestions? I'm thinking I might just have to discard those two verses and write new ones completely.

Thanks again for the feedback!

 

[Angeline]

Thanks so much for the support and feedback. And, to clarify, the sixth and seven verses are there solely to give an explanation and meaning to the poem. I didn't really mind that it didn't fit the pattern, but I now that I've focused on it, it bugs me more and more. I'm wonderin how I can fix this problem. I need to keep the pattern from before, yet I would still like to keep the explanation at this point in the poem because I like how it gives credence to the ending. Any suggestions? I'm thinking I might just have to discard those two verses and write new ones completely.

Thanks again for the feedback!

Hi and welcome! If I were you, I'd take those two stanzas out and replace them with something that is more thematic. But by all means don't discard them. I save bits and pieces of poems all the time; sometimes what doesn't work in one poem fits well in another.

 

[crstevens]

Thanks Angeline, for both the welcome and the suggestion. I might have to do that. I was thinking maybe rearranging the stanzas to fit into the pattern, but I can't get them to fit properly. I'm glad this was spotted, though.

 

[UnderYourSpell]

I hope you don't think I am being flippant but it reminds me of being hypnotised! well he tried lets say perhaps I'm a bad subject!

 

[Angeline]

Thanks Angeline, for both the welcome and the suggestion. I might have to do that. I was thinking maybe rearranging the stanzas to fit into the pattern, but I can't get them to fit properly. I'm glad this was spotted, though.

You're most welcome. You'll get lots of helpful feedback here on the forum (and if it's not so helpful, do what I do: keep what works and jettison the rest).

There are also lots of challenges here, which I've always found good for inspiration.

Have you considered writing some free verse poetry? Seems to me the more one struggles to make words fit a form, the further one gets from poetry (and the closer to puzzle-solving). Don't get me wrong: I like writing form poetry, but when I really want to jog my creativity I usually go for free verse.

 

[butters]

Thanks so much for the support and feedback. And, to clarify, the sixth and seven verses are there solely to give an explanation and meaning to the poem. I didn't really mind that it didn't fit the pattern, but I now that I've focused on it, it bugs me more and more. I'm wonderin how I can fix this problem. I need to keep the pattern from before, yet I would still like to keep the explanation at this point in the poem because I like how it gives credence to the ending. Any suggestions? I'm thinking I might just have to discard those two verses and write new ones completely.

Thanks again for the feedback!

i would still recommend a blending of the two - take the thoughts of them both, coalesce, refine them into one image, write that. allow the reader to do the rest.

 

[crstevens]

Alright, how about this? Take those two stanzas away, and replace it with this one:

So deep your mind is planted,
But I am here within your heart.
Standing over the soul enchanted,
To keep your life unclawed.

Is there something missing? Are some of the lines too long?

 

[UnderYourSpell]

At first reading I thought the whole rhyme pattern had gone out the window but on rereading the original I see some stanzas don't have the rhymes anyway

 

[butters]

Is there something missing? Are some of the lines too long?

A Hallowed Night

Deep, deep, deeper,
We plant our feet inside,
Sleep, sleep, sleep, dear,
Close your mind off to the night.

Don’t heed the whispered warnings,
That tread along the wind.
Nor the cricking flutterings,
Or the eyes that grin.

Turn over, over, over,
Away from dreaded creaks.
Avert your eyes, my darling,
Don’t dare to take a peek.

Now listen to my soothing,
For I do not lead astray.
For I’ve no fear of losing,
My sanity in pay.

Hush, hush, hush, now,
The demons press their grasp.
Pulling darkness on you,
On your heart for your last gasp.

So deep your mind is planted,
But I am here within your heart.
Standing over the soul enchanted,
To keep your life unclawed.

So sleep, sleep, sleep dear,
Allow your mind to rest.
Deep, deep, deeper,
Is the beating in your chest.

A fallen foe is rising,
Pressing its darkness,
But a hallowed friend is watching,
Defending your presence.

okay, that fits in a whole lot better - for me anyway. having said that, there's one word that scraped my sensibilities before and still does: unclawed. granted, it holds the sounds or 'or' you've introduced earlier, but i don't believe you'd be losing anything by swapping it for something better.

as to length:

But I am here within your heart.
Standing over the soul enchanted

you might shorten 'I am' to 'I'm' if you thought it warranted the loss of a syllable, but you have slightly extended lines previously in other verses, so it's not entirely mis-placed as it is. the next line has a slightly different problem, imo: it's not a question of length but image, for me. 'standing over' holds darker connotations in my mind than i'm guessing you wish to convey to the reader. i'd suggest a different word-choice there, perhaps 'warding the soul, enchanted'.

there are also some issues with punctuation, for me, that run throughout. would it be possible to allow the line-breaks to do their job in some instances, and there are places where i feel the periods are too much - a semi-colon would work better.

for example, with the first three verses:

Deep, deep, deeper,
We plant our feet inside,
Sleep, sleep, sleep, dear,
Close your mind off to the night.

Don’t heed the whispered warnings,
That tread along the wind.
Nor the cricking flutterings,
Or the eyes that grin.

Turn over, over, over,
Away from dreaded creaks.
Avert your eyes, my darling,
Don’t dare to take a peek.

Deep, deep, deeper
We plant our feet inside;
Sleep, sleep, sleep dear
Close your mind off to the night.

Don’t heed the whispered warnings
That tread along the wind;
Nor the cricking flutterings,
Or the eyes that grin.

Turn over, over, over
Away from dreaded creaks;
Avert your eyes, my darling,
Don’t dare to take a peek.


one other niggle in this would be the rep of 'For' in consecutive lines v4. swapping one for something else might help that a little.



anyway, all minor stuff, just a bit of spit and polish, really. maybe something i've pointed out will help, maybe not. up to you, it's your baby

 

[butters]

At first reading I thought the whole rhyme pattern had gone out the window but on rereading the original I see some stanzas don't have the rhymes anyway

this one has lines1& 3 rhyming instead of 2 and 4

So deep your mind is planted,
But I am here within your heart.
Standing over the soul enchanted,
To keep your life unclawed.

and the last one is stretching the soft 'eh' sound in 'ness' and 'ence'.

A fallen foe is rising,
Pressing its darkness,
But a hallowed friend is watching,
Defending your presence


a little more jiggery-pokery with the former would fix that. maybe we can forgive the latter?

crstevens, how about using the planted/enchanted lines as 2 and 4, then fiddle with the other two (retaining your thought-processes) to sort that out, using it as an opportunity to lose unclawed and, possibly, 'standing over'?

 

[butters]

little bumpeth for crs

 

[crstevens]

Alright, I see what you mean. I think I might leave that second stanza (A fallen foe is rising...), at least for now. I'm going to look at that first stanza as soon as I can.

Thanks for continuing to help!

PS. sorry if my replies are slow; sometimes I can't just can't get around to checking these forums, but the help has been great so far!

 

[butters]

you're most welcome.

please feel free to comment on the works of others here; your thoughts are as valid as the next person's, though never expect people to act upon your advice. some will, some won't, but the fact you read and engaged with them via comments is always appreciated. or should be