unremembering
-
theres a neat little creative arts camp called CAP. i just came back from it.
i miss it already. so.
~ - ~
Back, to the cold
air-con room, and hot showers
Leaving behind a million lessons
in (soulheartmindlife) creative arts, over a week-long camp
and Us
Saying goodbye cheerily, and forgetting-
accidentally-on-purpose
to take down all your emails
in a bid to not hold on
too tightly to good memories
fated to fade
in time, with time
It hurts less, I know, this sad
way
of looking at things
or life
In this world of overmuch relationships and lost
faces and names
within the tidal wave of MSN and email
Ironic (literary tool, we learned together
how to exploit it, and us, and technology)
that all that is left of us is
an exchanged piece of adolescent prose and a
T-shirt
We Are One (such a cliché
DidnÂ’t we learn to avoid
them? but it was the soul of
Us) I...
...t proudly proclaim
s
Unremembering
Too early mornings and too late
nights, spent on creative tasks
And so we spread our myriad lives
and hearts and souls
like peanut butter and
sweet-and-sour
jam, onto canvas
Our food for thought
before breakfast
Our laughter spilled onto paper
from borrowed pens and shared experiences
Within those five short days
and Endless Moments
(Past tense
expected,
like v knowingly sucking on a lemon
the taste of
losing touch on purpose
So We are reduced from carefree laughter
and understanding
and frie---
---d rice and cheery soulsharing for lunch
To an odd sickness within me
in the vicinity of my stomach (perhaps it was the sorry excuses
for food that we had, or something else)
or a little bit higher
Like a photograph under too little light
We fade
Blurring into the background of Life Goes On
And I won't remember Us much at all, only with
every word I say
~ - ~
please critique
EDIT:
points to comments* it's alright. constructive critiscim is good. but i guess i better explain my reasoning for each one of these, huh?
ok. first. line breaks. there is usually meaning behind them. like the first line; back to the cold/ air-con.... this one should be obvious. cold, as opposed to the warmth, of friendship, back at camp. or another; and frie---/
---d rice and cheery soulsharing for lunch. the first bit is supposed to remind you of the word friend, or friendship. then it should be as though the poet denies it, and makes it more shallow. Or 'but it was the soul of/Us) I.../...t proudly proclaim/s'. Again, shallow-fication (pardon the imaginary word). the speaker thinks 'I', changes it in afterthought to 'it'. so 'Us) I proudly proclaim' becomes 'Us) It proudly proclaims' through the speaker's denial.
actually, i should probably be talking about what this poem is about first. it should be about trying to ignore the existance of friendships made during the camp, after the camp, so that one doesnt feel pain when said friendships are lost eventually. so it's a little on denial, i suppose.
back to the complaints. punctuation? i don't quite get what you mean. could you elaborate?
capitalisation. I capitalise not at the beginning of every line, but every line of thought. As for the 'We' and 'Us', and 'Endless Moments'. It is meant to make it special, it means something more to the speaker, instead of just a 'we' and 'us'. but perhaps you do have a point here.
ok, i agree to the 'overmuch' point. in hindsight, i have absolutly no idea why i wrote that.
as for the title. it means that the speaker does remember, the friendships and the joy, and is trying not to in order to feel less of the pain when friendships are lost after they have deepened. forgetting seems more voluntary, unremembering less so, thus the title.
and yes, this is a very experimental way of writing for it, so i do apologise if i'm terribly unskilled at it. -
Um, I'm going to be harsh, but it's not targeted at you but rather the poem, alright?
Your poem strives too hard to break the conventions of language -- awkward linebreaks, atrocious punctuation, and non-uniform capitalization. There's more, but these three elements are most prevalent.
Your title, "unremembering" has the potential to intrigue the reader (it suggest the unravelling process of forgetting), but the context does not support it.
How so?
"In this world of overmuch relationships and lost/ faces and names" -- what do you mean by "overmuch"? It's not a word, and even if it's a neologism (a invented word) it fails because I can't derive a plausible definition from the verse.
In other words, bad english.
Another example - "Within those five days/ and Endless Moments" -- what's the deal with the capitals? Are you suggesting these are elevated entities? Like the characters in a morality play? If so, why didn't you elaborate on it?
Likewise for the royal "We" and "the soul of Us".
I'm not going to even ask what's the deal behind the alternating font sizes.
Reading this poem is infuriating because you, as the poet, is telling me how I should react to your poem. It's rather self-absorbed and pompous, and has the opposite effect of what you're trying to achieve.
But most glaringly, I don't sense a focus in your poem. What are you trying to say? Was your camp worth going or not? The messages are way too conflicting. -
thanks for sharing
. Sentimental piece, i do like the interesting last stanza and the feelings behind the poem, but i must agree with PB that its a bit distracting how the poem has been formatted, as well as the punctuations. -
Hey preya,Originally posted by preya:theres a neat little creative arts camp called CAP. i just came back from it.
i miss it already. so.
Can you tell us more about this camp? Thanks!
-
hi preya,
long time didn't hear from you.
i would like to know what's with the line breaks and font sizes. Are you trying to be experimental, or is it something you learnt at your camp? -
To be fair, this
And so we spread our myriad lives
and hearts and souls
like peanut butter and
sweet-and-sour
jam, onto canvas
Our food for thought
before breakfast
and this
Our laughter spilled onto paper
from borrowed pens and shared experiences
are quite interesting.
I think peebrain has covered most of the points. Just one thing to add on, it is good to be creative but do so with good reasons. -
Hi Preya,
I think I understand your sentiments; that feeling after breaking camp (i used to deride myself for being overly sentimental, but I'm glad I'm not alone).
Thanks for sharing with us whats most immediate in your mind at this point.
Technically, my opinion is that the use of the line-breaks to the point of breaking words into two or more pieces, together with "..." should be thought about carefully first.
Visually, perhaps the implied hesitation (e.g I...t..[]..s and frie...d) might work (even then it might be a stretch; I certainly didn't think of 'friend' when I saw 'frie', my first thought was 'fry' or 'friar'..!).
However, from an aural perspective (if this poem is to be read aloud, as is often intended, maybe less so today) how could that be pulled off? Phonetically, 'I' and 'It', 'fried' and 'friend' are as similar as birds and mailboxes, so personally it was a stretch for me.
Its a brave stab at something different (and I've seen weirder stuff), but its raw.
The theme is actually very exciting for writing: the awkwardness of a brief friendship grown too close too soon, and its tension with the reality and mundane groundedness of normal life (how do we react to such friends usually when we bump into them later? Whats there to talk about after the first flush of recognition and nostalgia?). Some worthwhile statements could be made about human relationships (some relationships we give too much weight, others we over-trivialise [was that the word you wanted?])
I'd write about it again if I were you. hmm perhaps I will write about it when the occasion arises
p/s: pardon my irritating penchant for parenthesis (bad habit).... -
thank you for your critique. hmm... i didn't think about it from an aural perspective, and im glad you pointed it out to me. this is a new technique which occured to me, so i thought to try it out. i still think it is a useful technique, but youre right in saying that it is probably not so in the context in which it is used here.Originally posted by Aeolius77:Hi Preya,
I think I understand your sentiments; that feeling after breaking camp (i used to deride myself for being overly sentimental, but I'm glad I'm not alone).
Thanks for sharing with us whats most immediate in your mind at this point.
Technically, my opinion is that the use of the line-breaks to the point of breaking words into two or more pieces, together with "..." should be thought about carefully first.
Visually, perhaps the implied hesitation (e.g I...t..[]..s and frie...d) might work (even then it might be a stretch; I certainly didn't think of 'friend' when I saw 'frie', my first thought was 'fry' or 'friar'..!).
However, from an aural perspective (if this poem is to be read aloud, as is often intended, maybe less so today) how could that be pulled off? Phonetically, 'I' and 'It', 'fried' and 'friend' are as similar as birds and mailboxes, so personally it was a stretch for me.
Its a brave stab at something different (and I've seen weirder stuff), but its raw.
The theme is actually very exciting for writing: the awkwardness of a brief friendship grown too close too soon, and its tension with the reality and mundane groundedness of normal life (how do we react to such friends usually when we bump into them later? Whats there to talk about after the first flush of recognition and nostalgia?). Some worthwhile statements could be made about human relationships (some relationships we give too much weight, others we over-trivialise [was that the word you wanted?])
I'd write about it again if I were you. hmm perhaps I will write about it when the occasion arises
p/s: pardon my irritating penchant for parenthesis (bad habit)....
and i do agree that it is very raw. perhaps i will write about it again, with a style more familiar to me. again, thank you so much for your critique. (and yes, that is the word i wanted!) -
I WOULD SAY IT'S A BOLD AND DARING ATTEMPT
-
Somehow I just can't help but to think...
If your poem wasn't on 'unremembering' but a title more related to something BOLD or DARING..? Wouldn't the STYLE itself already speaks much for its title...? -
Actually I quite like this poem too.Originally posted by Devil1976:I WOULD SAY IT'S A BOLD AND DARING ATTEMPT