On Timeliness

[Animal Riots Activist]

On Timeliness

I am never on time and nor should you be.
The world waits for those important enough;
it all depends on how you convince yourself
that you are important, and how well at that.

[kilo.juliet]

Hey Animal Riots Activist,

I enjoyed your poem. It was like a nice neat knot: clean and contained.

1) All lines except for the second line have 11 syllables. Just wondering if that was intentional or maybe an issue still waiting to be resolved.

2) I like how the first sentence reads like spoken advice from a wiser person to a less-experienced person who basically about to get his/her paradigm shifted in the following lines. That being said, I wonder what your thoughts would be if the third line read: "it depends on if you can convince yourself." Or maybe that is the point you are trying to make, that the actual method a person chooses to use to convince themselves is of more importance than if they are able to do so.

Best,

KJ

[Magpie]

Hi Animal Riots Activist,


You've got some good things going on in this short piece. To be honest the first time I read it I wasn't a fan so I'm glad that I came back to it to find its other qualities. I think what put me off the first time was the 'preachy' aspect. I know that we are not supposed to identify the speaker with the poet but in situations like this it is pretty hard not to and because I don't know what qualifies the poet to tell me this (no disrespect to you at all) then it's not so easy to take. You could remedy this by signing it Mark Twain or probably a better option; saying something like "A wise man once told me" or something along those lines.

I like the play with the double meaning of 'timeliness' the obvious meaning of appropriateness and the less well known archaic meaning of early. The only other suggestion I would say is to possibly change 'on time' in the first line because you basically have it in the title and the play with 'on' and 'time' comes across well enough in the title also.

Thanks for the read,

Mark

[sunilmathur]

"I am never in time and nor should be". Why the 'and'? Simply because it is a poem? The last two lines: "it all depends on how you convince yourself that you are important, and how well at that". Why this ungrammatical structure? Because it is a poem? What is the long piece of dialogue at the end supposed to be? Is it part of the poem? If so, how?

[John]

On Timeliness

I am never on time and nor should you be.
The world waits for those important enough;
it all depends on how you convince yourself
that you are important, and how well at that.

Hi, ARA,

I am never on time and nor should you be. The world waits for those important enough; it all depends on how you convince yourself that you are important, and how well at that.

Is this the form known as prose poetry? When laid out as prose, it is prose. Nothing else. Irrespective of the content (could read as a notable quote) I don't get this as poetry. For me it's chopped-up prose.

Can you help and advise how this example is poetry so that I may 'get it'? I've no issue with the content - It's the form and structure that presents difficulties.

Thanks for the opportunity to read it.

Cheers.

[billy]

it's almost factual enough to be a haiku but in truth [apart form a very small amount of alliteration it hold now real poetic device. for me there's no pay off, no discernible end our juxtaposition. the writing is bad as far as writing goes but for me it needs more to be an out and out poem. one way is to use simile. example:

like cold winters, i am never on time

and metaphor;

the world waits like pebbles in a stream

On Timeliness

I am never on time and nor should you be.
The world waits for those important enough;
it all depends on how you convince yourself
that you are important, and how well at that.