12-12-2012, 06:14 PM
I know what I like in your poem and what don't like about the suggested revisions and the revisions themselves and I would still work with the original version and none of the revisions. However, the only person who I think is qualified to make and approve any changes is you, so I don't want to keep dwelling on details or specific feedback given about the poem.
My advice is to write from your heart and not from your head/intellect. You have the language in your head and you don't need to apply deliberate thought or analysis to your poetry writing. The language is already innately integrated in your heart--this is something that most who begin writing are greatly lacking in, but you have it and it is one of the harder aspects to get when writing poetry. That's what I think.
When you write, use your heart to write intuitively what feels like what you want others to feel. Shut all deliberate intellect and thought out, quiet your mind and your feelings and then view the poem as a whole life, each phrase dependent on the other, each word dependent on the others, and then as you look at that life, feel (do not think) where its expression may be faltering. Then use the same method to improve any sections that you can feel are faltering.
Maybe I'm wrong, but to me it feels like the original version of this poem was written from the heart, but the revisions are being written from the head and in a way that does not keep the full poem in view--in a way that is disconnected from the rest of the poem.
In my opinion, it's your poem and you need to weigh the feedback we give in your heart, not in your head, and any revision you do ought to be from your heart with the input of the intellect (and not really from the intellect with just the input of the heart).
I think the best poetry a person can write comes by intuition and by heart, if that person already has a good feel for words and language, and in my opinion you have a better than average feel for the words and language than others who are just beginning. Then all that remains is to learn how to write from your intuition and your heart.
One example of a poem written purely by intuition is this one:
http://pigpenpoetry.com/Thread-Soft-spoken-Musings
I wrote this poem without applying my mind for even one second. The poem just came into my heart and completely bypassed my head. It was like someone was dictating them to me. I didn't know where it was going or even what it was about. I just wrote down the words. At the time I wrote it, it was the best and most uplifting poem I had ever written, and the easiest to write, because all I had to do was receive the words, then write them down before they disappeared from memory and before the next words came.
I have written a few other poems in the same way and they always turn out to be very interesting, if not always understandable to me. I would like to be able to access that kind of poetry and method of writing regularly and to develop that as a skill. I'm sure if I could, my poetry would become much better.
The thing is, no one who is in their head can receive this kind of poetry. As soon as you enter your head, the source of that poetry is blocked out.
My advice is to write from your heart and not from your head/intellect. You have the language in your head and you don't need to apply deliberate thought or analysis to your poetry writing. The language is already innately integrated in your heart--this is something that most who begin writing are greatly lacking in, but you have it and it is one of the harder aspects to get when writing poetry. That's what I think.
When you write, use your heart to write intuitively what feels like what you want others to feel. Shut all deliberate intellect and thought out, quiet your mind and your feelings and then view the poem as a whole life, each phrase dependent on the other, each word dependent on the others, and then as you look at that life, feel (do not think) where its expression may be faltering. Then use the same method to improve any sections that you can feel are faltering.
Maybe I'm wrong, but to me it feels like the original version of this poem was written from the heart, but the revisions are being written from the head and in a way that does not keep the full poem in view--in a way that is disconnected from the rest of the poem.
In my opinion, it's your poem and you need to weigh the feedback we give in your heart, not in your head, and any revision you do ought to be from your heart with the input of the intellect (and not really from the intellect with just the input of the heart).
I think the best poetry a person can write comes by intuition and by heart, if that person already has a good feel for words and language, and in my opinion you have a better than average feel for the words and language than others who are just beginning. Then all that remains is to learn how to write from your intuition and your heart.
One example of a poem written purely by intuition is this one:
http://pigpenpoetry.com/Thread-Soft-spoken-Musings
I wrote this poem without applying my mind for even one second. The poem just came into my heart and completely bypassed my head. It was like someone was dictating them to me. I didn't know where it was going or even what it was about. I just wrote down the words. At the time I wrote it, it was the best and most uplifting poem I had ever written, and the easiest to write, because all I had to do was receive the words, then write them down before they disappeared from memory and before the next words came.
I have written a few other poems in the same way and they always turn out to be very interesting, if not always understandable to me. I would like to be able to access that kind of poetry and method of writing regularly and to develop that as a skill. I'm sure if I could, my poetry would become much better.
The thing is, no one who is in their head can receive this kind of poetry. As soon as you enter your head, the source of that poetry is blocked out.