Originally Posted by JuicyFruit

Yes, it is 100% true.


Listen, I'm a smoker and for every single reason anyone tells me to quit, I have at least two reasons not to do so. Furthermore, I smoke three different substances: Tobacco, marijuana, and hashish (not the illegal drug, the stuff tobacco / honey mix you put into a hookah). I can also run a 7 minute mile, swim underwater the length of a football field, and headbutt my way out of any bar-fight.

Nobody's gunna tell me that smoking is bad for you... At least not without being completely wrong!

Originally Posted by JuicyFruit

Let me first begin by saying that what I am about to write does not come from malice. Sincerely, I do not wish you any ill-will! I simply feel - how does Shakespeare put it? - that you have inspired "dumb mouths [to] ope their ruby lips and beg the voice and utterance of my tongue." I am writing to you as a fellow linguist and artist, as someone who understands from personal experience, and as someone who is extremely blunt:

Your poems are not good. I believe it was T.S. Eliot who said that any poem should be judged by all the previous works that came before it, right? Well by that standard, your poems leave me rolling my eyes. You emulate real feelings (ennui and angst more than anything else)... And I grant that you do so masterfully in the typical preteen format: Clumsily and awkward.


Let me elaborate: I understand what it is like to feel alone or to feel unhappy for no distinct reason. Your poems speak to me of loneliness and a lack of understanding about yourself and how the world works. Little boys and little girls typically deal with these feelings in one way -- They make up fantasies. The similarity ends there, of course, in that little boys dream of be empowered through natural abilities or powers while little girls dream of secretly belonging somewhere else.

Your poems are rough, with forced rhymes and oft-broken meter. Poets paint pictures with their words and all that you show is a scared, sad little girl. I know that there is more to you in the same way that I know that there is more in everyone! Neil Gaiman, in Dream Country of Sandman, said:

"Everybody has a secret worl inside of them. All of the people in the whole world. I mean anybody! No matter how dull and boring they are on the outside, inside them they've got unimaginable, magnificent, wonderful, stupid, amazing worls. Not just one worl, hundreds of them. Thousands, maybe."

So please, find your world. Find your muse, your focus, your story, and write down what is ACTUALLY IMPORTANT about it / them. Do you understand what I am saying?


I will congratulate you on your attempt. I hope that my words are not too rough for you because I do not want you to feel discouraged. Rather I hope that you feel CHALLENGED. Go and read some real poetry. Learn the classic soliloquy from Shakespeare, study the works of e.e. cummings, memorize the prose of Langston Hughes, listen to the emotions of Taylor Mali, and do your best to appreciate all that have come before you.

You stand in the shadow of giants, they have long laid down the paths for you to follow them. Learn from them. It is not enough to simply express yourself, you have to learn to channel it as well.

Originally Posted by DarkAztek

I'll play along as well. I'm excited to read and critique their crappy poetry. +50 points to the one who figures out my name on there.

Originally Posted by orvell0072006

coz your my idol as you can see Im came here to gather some manly data,& that's the manly post ive ever read

Originally Posted by manta

im glad to have found this forum of uber manliness