COLORLESS, or how to critique yourself

Hi all!

Though I doubt anyone else than the few people who comment is actually reading what I put on here, I'm gonna do it anyway.

Yesterday, I posted a poem I wrote when I was almost 16 years old called COLORLESS. Have a look at it, if you already haven't, and then keep reading this one.

I'll wait.

Source

So, while I was translating this older poem of mine, I decided to read it as if it wasn't one of my own creations.

This means that I tried to approach it in an objective, critical way, as a piece of text, less so as a poem carrying a message.

Here are the questions that I just had to ask myself while reading the bare-bones translation of my poem:

1. Why do you start with such a factual statement that you know this person? Hence, why the poem? Why not just keep it short instead of this litany of whatevers?

2. What strange imagery – nuns studying the bible – and knowing someone. Know someone carnally maybe? Spiritually maybe? Know how to read this person? Manipulate or interpret? I’m gonna need something more concise here. Also, the praying – gee whiz.

3. Why say that you have no ill will against this person? Why immediately in the defensive? Or maybe I’m misinterpreting something. It just reads like my hands are up to show that I carry no armaments, or that I, sort of, give up.

4. Though ‘breaking … in bitterness’ has a nice ring to it (probably because of the alliteration), that ‘nothing’ in the middle seems quite bothersome and unconcise. Why is this important?

5. ‘Make’ is such a weak verb here. ‘Create’ maybe? Same as No.4 above, that ‘everything’ is quite bothersome and unconcise. Why is it important? Where are you taking me with it?

6. I still try to follow a rule from my literature professors at uni, especially the ones who taught poetry and creative writing: remove all adverbs unless they are absolutely warranted, usually by some kind of function that is colloquial. Thus it follows that ‘almost’ must go, as it doesn’t seem to do anything else but somewhat weakly qualify ‘lifeless’.

7. ‘The old harvester in the picture’ is very likely a person, not a machine. Where did this picture pop up from? Why wasn’t it introduced or referred to, or alluded to prior to its sudden appearance? Same with the harvester him-/herself. Where are you taking me?

8. Stanza 3 – who the fuck takes stock of their thoughts? What on earth was I even thinking when I slapped together this phrase? What for?

9. I can see how ‘making rocky deserts out of love’ seems like a nice imagery, and it is, but it’s unpolished and a mere sketch.

10. Why does freedom equal color in the last two lines of the third stanza? How do they equate? Why wasn’t this alluded to if it was so in this poem?

11. The whole ‘bottom of page, burnt candle’ imagery is not bad per se. What really ruins the stanza, in my humbly honest opinion, is the whole I’d add fiasco – twice!!! Ugh! Of course you’d add something, I mean, that’s the whole point of speaking, adding info upon info, with appropriate reactions and questions and answers etc.

12. GENERAL NOTE: If you’re gonna be adding something, I don’t want it narrated, this ain’t prose.

13. The whole paradox of being ‘colorless’ and yet seen (known) ‘in many colors’ may have been a cool thing to say or write at almost 16. It doesn’t age well. Why should I care? Make me care about this!

14. The ending I surprisingly find not to suck. Not that much, at least.

So, this is something to consider while writing / reworking your own poems: how to improve on them?

Many people (myself included) are quick to critique a piece of text that doesn't suit their worldview or concepts/ideas. This is yet another reason why I believe that the reader brings him-/herself into the poem, not the other way around.

Do you think these remarks were on point or too far off?

Let me know, and have an awesome day!