What Have We Become?

The world is not kind anymore

The sky that was filled with rainbows,

Promptly resembles the sadness of the pouring rain.

The sun had settled itself away in the shadows,

Accompanied by the ghastly sinful clouds.

Oh! How we used to credit the world,

Now all one doth is contradicts itself.

The voices have become so numbed,

Silence surpasses any words aloud.

All believe in the epitome of lies,

Defying the truth beneath their piercing gazes,

What have we become?

From what we have been.

Author's Note

Sad yet the truth that I see.
What do you think?

Reviews

[JayG]

Well, you did ask...

This stanza embodies much of what you need to look into.

• The sky that was filled with rainbows, Promptly resembles the sadness of the pouring rain.

You're thinking in terms of informing the reader, in the way we learned to do in school. But poetry needs to have a smooth flow of words —to flow trippingly on the tongue, as Hamlet puts it. What does the word "promptly do?" Who cares how fast it does it? Replace the word with "now" and it works better, and, has a smoother read.

So you need to look at HOW to provide information to best effect. If, for example, you tell the reader of a sky filled with rainbows, must you explain that rain represents sadness? Won't saying that it now holds only rain say it more evocatively, and with fewer words? And won't using fewer words to say the same thing speed up the read for more impact? use implication, and inherent meaning in place of explanation.

• The sun has settles itself away in the shadows,

Did you edit this before posting? You actually meant "settled." But that aside, in the previous line you told the reader that it's raining. Given that, how can this line work? And how can a cloud be "sinful" to a reader who has no clue of your intent for the meaning of that word? Remember, your intent for the meaning doesn't make it to the page. The reader has what the words suggest to THEM, based on THEIR life experience, not your intent.

What you're doing is having your intent generate the words and their relationship, but, not giving the reader the context to make those words meaningful. Abd because you have the intended meaning before you read the words, it works perfectly...for you.

Everything I've mentioned is the result of writing your poetry with the nonfiction writing skills we're given in school. The poem works for you because before you begin reading you already have context, and know the emotion to place in the words. The reader has neither, which is part of the reason why we must edit as that reader, and, dig into the tricks of poetry that have been developed over multiple centuries. Now, you're telling the reader the result of the emotions you feel. But as E. L. Doctorow puts it: “Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader. Not the fact that it’s raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.” And how to do that is a learned skill. — knowledge that must be acquired in addition to the general skills of our school days.

It's not a matter of how well you write, or talent, it's that the report-writing skills we're given in school are inappropriate for creating poetry.

The fix? Simple. Read a great book on the basics, like Mary Oliver's, A Poetry Handbook, and apply those skills to your own work.
https://www.docdroid.net/7iE8fIJ/a-poetry-handbook-pdfdrivecom-pdf

You will be amazed at how much more evocative your words are when they're the words of a poet, one making use of the tools of poetry.

Not good news, I know. And I truly wish there was an easier way to break such news. But, given that the problems are invisible to the author, I thought you might want to know, And, well...you did ask. 😆

So, jump in. Try a few chapters of that book. I think you'll find it both eye-opening and filled with little gems of knowledge that are so obvious AFTER they're pointed out, that you'll wonder why they had to be. But like all professions, poetry is filled with things that are obvious once pointed out, but which we never notice till they are.

So, don't let it throw you. Hang in there, and keep on writing.


Jay Greenstein
Articles: https://jaygreenstein.wordpress.com/category/the-craft-of-writing/the-grumpy-old-writing-coach/
Videos: https://www.youtube.com/@jaygreenstein3334

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“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”
~ Mark Twain