I like it, but is it a poem?

[Miss Oatlash]

I wrote something recently that I like, but I keep wondering if it's really a poem.

Then I thought that maybe there could be a thread where poets post something they like, but aren't sure it's really 'poetry' and get some pointers/feedback.

Here goes mine:

Too Many Years

10:06 AM
“I’ll be home late tonight,” he says.
“Hooray!” she thinks to herself.

3:38 PM
“Appointment cancelled…I’ll be home on time,” he says.
“Oh, good,” she answers out loud.

Thoughts???

 

[Maria2394]

maybe it would fit into one of the senryu type categories? cause/effect type poems, I dont know all the names though, but it definitely conveys emotion and thought, hope and disappointment, and that you chose to speak one line aloud and not the other shows that you dont want to hurt or anger ( maybe) the other party, this is short but rather complex I think, and lord know,s I have felt exactly that way many times!!

I bet if you submit it, you will have people telling you, yes it is and just as many saying, no, it aint

thats the way that particular debate usually goes around here

best wishes

 

[twelveoone]

I wrote something recently that I like, but I keep wondering if it's really a poem.

Then I thought that maybe there could be a thread where poets post something they like, but aren't sure it's really 'poetry' and get some pointers/feedback.

Here goes mine:

Too Many Years

10:06 AM
“I’ll be home late tonight,” he says.
“Hooray!” she thinks to herself.

3:38 PM
“Appointment cancelled…I’ll be home on time,” he says.
“Oh, good,” she answers out loud.

Thoughts???

I think it's funny, most of the stuff, I write, I'm not sure it's poetry either. Can't help you there, all I can say is I would have stopped read it, laughed, and gave it 100, title really makes it, extra. Has a good balance to it. If you fleshed out both parts, with descriptions of stuff, nobody would question it as to whether it is poetry and it still would be funny as hell.
Go read some Dorthy Parker, people say she is a famous dead poet, I think she is funny as hell. Not many laughs in Ezra Pound.

 

[Miss Oatlash]

Re: Re: I like it, but is it a poem?

I think it's funny, most of the stuff, I write, I'm not sure it's poetry either. Can't help you there, all I can say is I would have stopped read it, laughed, and gave it 100, title really makes it, extra. Has a good balance to it. If you fleshed out both parts, with descriptions of stuff, nobody would question it as to whether it is poetry and it still would be funny as hell.
Go read some Dorthy Parker, people say she is a famous dead poet, I think she is funny as hell. Not many laughs in Ezra Pound.

"Men seldom make passes At girls who wear glasses."

Not in my experience...I wear glasses and I have no problem getting men to make passes at me...must be the crop!

Thanks for the feedback!

 

[Miss Oatlash]

maybe it would fit into one of the senryu type categories? cause/effect type poems, I dont know all the names though, but it definitely conveys emotion and thought, hope and disappointment, and that you chose to speak one line aloud and not the other shows that you dont want to hurt or anger ( maybe) the other party, this is short but rather complex I think, and lord know,s I have felt exactly that way many times!!

I bet if you submit it, you will have people telling you, yes it is and just as many saying, no, it aint

thats the way that particular debate usually goes around here

best wishes

Thanks for the feedback. Mutt and I have been debating it. I even thought about making it an 'illustrated poem', but I like the simplicity of what the words convey.

 

[average gina]

Girl, either it's a poem or a REALLY short story!

How about these (all of which are posted and I'll tell you what I thing they are):

Everything Is Everything
Everything is everything
So nothing is nothing
And something is something
And wherever you are you are there
But I am here
Until I am there
And there is not there anymore
Because there is now here
There does not exist
Where I am
Because I am always here
And when I get there
I am here
And there disappears.
So you don’t miss something
Until it’s gone
But what is there to miss
If I were never there?

A View On Nothing
Everything relies on something to make that thing something
So that thing can be a part of everything except nothing.
Yet even nothing relies on something to be nothing
And everything includes a lot of somethings.
But is nothing included in everything?
Well, if nothing is nothing, but nothing has to be something simply to be nothing,
Then nothing is a part of everything and nothing is also the opposite of everything.
So in essence nothing is not a part of anything and nothing is a part of everything!

Who Anger Does
Awfully angry
I find myself
Beside myself.
Myself and I
Become two.
I bring in me to see
How I let anger get to myself
Knowing that when I am upset
It bothers us all:
Me, myself and I.


Yeah, yeah, yeah... beat me down. I smashed them all here.

 

[Angeline]

It's not a sonnet or a triolet, Miss O but so what? "Poetry" is so subjective. I've been to readings where people read crazy avant garde stuff and call it poetry. Once I saw two guys stand on opposite sides of a stage, and one said A and the other said B, over and over. After a while it became funny and then weirdly significant. It was performance art for sure and, in its context, poetry. Why not? I think it depends more on how you feel about it and how readers react to it. Your "poem" has balance and a message with punch about internal versus external.

 

[Miss Oatlash]

It's not a sonnet or a triolet, Miss O but so what? "Poetry" is so subjective. I've been to readings where people read crazy avant garde stuff and call it poetry. Once I saw two guys stand on opposite sides of a stage, and one said A and the other said B, over and over. After a while it became funny and then weirdly significant. It was performance art for sure and, in its context, poetry. Why not? I think it depends more on how you feel about it and how readers react to it. Your "poem" has balance and a message with punch about internal versus external.

I can only imagine the reading you describe. I think I might have gotten up and left...but then again, I probably would have stayed and waited endlessly for someone else to walk on stage and shout "C!"



Thanks for the comment...I know it's all subjective. I've spent a god deal of time reading (since I got involved with Lit) about different types of poetry and the 'latest' fads. I struggle with my classic training that a poem must contain a certain structure, or meter, or rhyme...if not all of the above.

 

[The Mutt]

It's not a sonnet or a triolet, Miss O but so what? "Poetry" is so subjective. I've been to readings where people read crazy avant garde stuff and call it poetry. Once I saw two guys stand on opposite sides of a stage, and one said A and the other said B, over and over. After a while it became funny and then weirdly significant. It was performance art for sure and, in its context, poetry. Why not? I think it depends more on how you feel about it and how readers react to it. Your "poem" has balance and a message with punch about internal versus external.

That A / B thing you describe is an acting exercise they make you do in acting classes when they can't think of anything worthwhile to make you do.
So basically, people paid to watch two guys play scales.

 

[SeattleRain]

I wrote something recently that I like, but I keep wondering if it's really a poem.

Then I thought that maybe there could be a thread where poets post something they like, but aren't sure it's really 'poetry' and get some pointers/feedback.

Here goes mine:

Too Many Years

10:06 AM
“I’ll be home late tonight,” he says.
“Hooray!” she thinks to herself.

3:38 PM
“Appointment cancelled…I’ll be home on time,” he says.
“Oh, good,” she answers out loud.

Thoughts???

sure why not a poem!

you should chat with Anna, she has similiar thoughts in think it was cuckolds lament.

Must be a common occurance!

If you are looking for advice on this poem: I like the conversational tone. Think about different ways you could present the lines. It might feel more like a poem if you think it needs to

You naughty girl
what were you planning while "he" was away?

 

[LunaKat]

I have been writing poems for four years, and never really thought about what constitutes a poem. Its one of those, "I know it when I see it" kind of things.