Shower of Imagine

First of all, welcome to Shakespeare's Monkeys! We're glad you're here, and hope you jump right in reading and commenting and being a part of the conversation here.

Next, before I offer any thoughts on your poetry, what are you looking for? Do you just want the stnadard heavy duty painful critique, or do you want a softball -- happy happy joy joy, oh your so wonderful sort of thing?

 :)

Fondly,

stephan 

• stephan

I can picture you there
Standing by the door
Your body still damp
Dripping on the floor

There are three basic problems throughout, all are solvable,b but it's going to hurt. A) Blandness. B)Tendency towards cliche C)poetics.

In S1, you start 'i can picture' -- can picture is a weak verb. Try to use verbs that describe as well as provide action. For example... 'i ogle you there' 

Then you are redundant, 'still damp' -- 'dripping', the still damp isn't necessary if you're going to say she's dripping.

 The blandness is due to the lack fo specifics. What kind of door? Maple? Pine? Glass? Stained Glass? Broken? heavy? Why floor why not an oriental carpet? Ceramic Tile? Beige? Azure? Details.

Don't confuse details with adjectives and adverbs. I'm not saying not to use them, but just dumping a bunch of them into the work will not help. It requires thought. 

Your skin shimmering
With a soft unearthly glow
Peaks at attention
Hard in the slight cold

This makes me think of those glowsticks, more than some sort of angelic glow. unearthly has the connotation of ghostly and supernatural more than holy and beautiful.

the off-rhyme of glow and cold isn't that bad, but by this point, I'm basically wondering why you saddled yourself with a rhyme scheme. It doesn't really do anything for the piece, particularly as there isn't a meter to this. 

A beauty and perfection
That cannot be reproduced
Marble statues and paintings,
Inadequate next to you

Cliche alert. Also at this point, as I'm reading, i'm noticing that we dont' seem to still be near the shower. We have no notable metaphor or image building, and I have no idea whatsoever if there's a point beyond 'hot girl stepping out of shower, boy drooling' -- the lack of cohesion makes me feel a bit distracted. And now the cliche indicates that the poet isn't  building some image for me, but instead just trying to hack a few thoughts together.

With eyes that invite me
Arms that call out to my heart
And lips that beg to be kissed
There's no safe place to start

The rhyme in this stanza seems to control the message, and of course heart/start -- kiss, arms, eyes... all go together to form the classic greeting card style verse.  

But you're not really here
Just a figment, a mirage
Brought on by famine
A vision so real I can almost touch you
From out of a shower of imagine

the last line is interesting. Definitely you can build a poem around it. Let it be the metaphor, and build from that. Before you write have at least a few ideas of what you might be trying to say. (I realize a lot of people don't know where they are going when they start, and it's a perfectly valid way to write, however, in the end, the work must have a point.)

I don't see any particular connection between the stanzas. Except perhaps the first one and the last two lines. The aforementioned 'famine' has no support around it to give the audience any idea where it came from or what it means.

the lack of foreshadowing of the imaginary nature of the lover makes the last stanza seem completely random.

I'll be curious to see where you go with this.

• stephan

I came up with this draft some time ago, but for one reason or another hadn't gotten around to reposting it here. I hope that you all like it and please tell me what you think.

Garrett