We're not biased against you. Your poems you've showed us suck, in our opinions, and that's what matters. We can't judge your entire book, no, not unless you're willing to show it to us (and, god save us, we're willing to read it), but that's what the samples are for: so you can judge the contents of the book without reading the entire thing.

I took all 14 credits available at my highschool, including two creative writing classes under one of the greatest writing teachers in the northland. I taught creative writing. I'm consistantly the first place holder of a competative poetry group. I have a chap book coming out sometime this summer.

But you're right, I'm uneducated, and unable to identify your poetry as subpar , abstract, and consistant with other 18 year old wish-they-were-poets.

You shouldn't have bothered with a book. Books are self-published when people constantly ask for copies of your poetry. When entire groups of profitable people agree that your work is sellable. You can argue until your blue that you're poetry is great. Regardless, it's not "book great."

Also, to illustrate my point: You wrote poetry with an intent to put it into a book. Poetry books are made because your already written work is in high demand. Not because you want to put out a book.

I didn't write these for a book. They have just collected over the years.

I'm a creative writing major--yeah, yeah, laugh at my artsy-fartsy degree and my future of poverty--and I'm willing to give you some honest, constructive criticism, SAJN. I bring this up not to throw my weight around or claim to be an expert or anything, but I have spend a lot of time reading others' work and commenting on it.

One of the weaknesses of your work is its abstractness. Everyone in the history of the world has written about love, hate, pain, etc. It’s boring. Writing about concrete details and specific images is much more interesting. In this way, a specific image comes to represent the emotion that you want to convey. Take for example the poem that everyone is discussing, “The Road Not Taken.” Frost describes a tactile scene—two roads in a forest—in order represent the emotions and concepts he wants to explore.

As others have mentioned too: the emo aspect. Just try to avoid melodrama. By going for more imagistic writing, though, I think this would address that problem anyway.

Also, if you want to be taken more seriously, then presentation is always important. Punctuation shows the reader you know what you are doing and that you are confident (rules of punctuation can be broken, but should only be done for artistic purposes and even then you have to earn it). In modern poetry, the beginning of a line that follows an enjambed line isn’t usually capitalized. Furthermore, I would recommend using a less cutesy font.

I’ve tried to be a constructive as I could. I hope you find these comments helpful.

The fact of the matter is, you asked us to spread the word about a book which everyone agrees is bad.

Do you often go up to friends and say "This book sucks, read it"?

I don't typically tell my friends about stuff that is bad unless I want them to AVOID it.

I often go up to my friends and say "Hahahahahaha, this book sucks". I guess that's technically 'spreading the word'.

*List of things to buy*

-SF_Gold's MMORPG
-SAJN's Poetry Book

-Tiberium Empire's old PC

- Friend14's perpetual motion machine.

- Kirby's book of witticisms.

You ruined it

I don't get it

I laughed :downs:

.......actually I think you may be onto something here.

I pretty much agreed with the idea of the poem until it was all like "the only ends of ultimacy...are darkness"

Also, it did evoke powerful feelings of displeasure.

cool, dudes.

Except we aren't basing our opinions on only three poems.

We're basing them on all the other horribly written crap you've posted too.

I LOLED IRL

... but seriously, anyone who is willing to sacrifice and put in the effort to publish a book gets a boatload of respect in my book. Seriously, good luck.

I would agree if it was a real book--it's just his poems amalgamated into a book. Nothing special--it's not a novel, or anything nearing that complexity. That's what poetry books are.

If it was a real novel, even if it sucked, I'd congratulate you on putting forth the effort even if it was in vain.

Mein Kempf

How come Aglar started this thread?

Well, no one can say Hitler wasn't ambitious...

He didn't. OP was deleted so that the thread could not be closed.

hmm if poetry is making someone feel a certain way...

you will die
maybe young
maybe not
but you will die

how does that make you feel? sad? Depressed? did you know it all along? I kick ***

terrible poems sajn
malcontent we are all today
go back to bed, suckah

i suck

You should write a poem about the solitude of the life of one who pees on cars.

We're trying to forget that, thanks.

That's one of the best gems in this thread. I also move that SAJN's custom title be changed to, "Poet14". This is a minor, yet important event in Massassi's history, and should be remembered as such.

Hell, maybe SAJN should write a poem about this whole experience.

I liked the beginning of tomorrow however i'm afraid i have to agree with the majority here, I wasn't too keen on your stuff as a whole. It seemed a bit too emo *shrug*

If you honestly are expressing yourself then just ignore the overly negative comments in this thread and just go enjoy yourself doing it.

http://forums.massassi.net/vb3/showthread.php?p=788824#post788824 (Fresh)

Okay I'll admit, I lolled. And not just because I'm drunk either! It would be funny if I were sober too.

Kyle posted drunk. Instaban!

Tracer is a narc!

Those are much better. You still use a lot of abstracts, and you still shouldn't be coming out with a book, but these are at least entertaining, and somewhat associable.

They ARE better, but "Grass" is painfully ironic

?