judyanne

Aug 27, 2012

This poem is part of the workshop:

Critique workshop - positive critiques

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positive critique workshop ........ exercise 1 imagery ..... (metaphor, alliteration)

serpents
slide from slippery tongues
sway and shuffle
drip poison
waft hurt
.

About This Poem

Last Few Words: purposely left untitled......... A metaphor is a literary figure of speech that describes a subject by asserting that it is, on some point of comparison, the same as another otherwise unrelated object......... Alliteration, to put it broadly, is the repetition of a particular sound in a series of words or phrases .........

Review Request Intensity: I want the raw truth, feel free to knock me on my back

Editing Stage: Editing - rough draft

About the Author

Region, Country: Western Australia, AUS

Favorite Poets: Favourite poets? So many

Comments

A Metaphor & Alliteration

serpents
slide from slippery tongues
sway and shuffle
drip poison
waft hurt

The general theme is good but I feel we have to be very careful what words we use in such simple things..
Judy I get the first two lines but then you bring in Sway and Shuffle, not words that I would use for describing a serpent, then your last line is:- "Waft hurt" these words waft appears to be non serpent, though hurt could be with coiled or sliding.
Waft is a term meaning to carry along gently as through the air.
The term is commonly used to describe scents or perfumes that have diffused in to other parts of a room.

As you say purposely left untitled.........

A metaphor is a literary figure of speech that describes a subject by asserting that it is, on some point of comparison, the same as another otherwise unrelated object.........

Alliteration, alliteration is the repetition of a particular sound in the first syllables of a series of words or phrases. Alliteration has developed largely through poetry, in which it more narrowly refers to the repetition of a consonant in any syllables that, according to the poem's meter, are stressed.
Using this theme to be a description of someone that speaks with forked tongue then the changes needed are few, though there needs to be a sign that it is a double meaning, Yours as always Ian.T

thanks ian

'sway and shuffle' – attempting to give the effect of a swaying snake and how meanings are shuffled and changed in gossip

'waft hurt' – an attempt to give air - words waft – verbal sound to the snake’s presence – thus again - gossip... and gossip tends to waft around innocuously, don't you think?

does the explanation make any difference, or do you still think i didn't quite make it? what other words might you have used instead?

love judy
xxx

courageous enough to be the first

to comment.
I think this is brilliant. No exception than all your other stuff.

I would lable it as " Words that Hurt" or "When words hurt" I bet you have a much better title but this is all I have for now.
A great use of both metaphore , were 'the words' are like drips of poison
and allinteration in 'slide' and slippery .. am I right ?

you are never wrong rula

as a reader, what you get is what you get

this is a good review in telling me what you liked and picking up the metaphor of the snake's poison

but you haven't said how they affected you, why they did

one of the purposes of the shop is to, hopefully, make us look at the reasons why a write works for us and why it may not, try to look at the poems you are reviewing with this in mind

as a btw, the title i would use if i had to would be 'gossip' ... but i think using any title makes the subtext (theme) too 'in your face'

thanks rula
love judy
xxx

Of course!

using the figures of speech in general is very effective.

*In your piece here , metaphore ,affects me well as it keeps the image printed in my mind. I can restore it any time and I shall give it a double thought before telling gossips.

*As for the alliteration as the repition of the 's' sound reminds me well of the snake's hissing which is really great..Few words but really impressive.

Hi

I interpret it as lies not gossip. That being so one could say :
Serpents
slide from slickened tongues
they sway and slither
pumping poison
hurling hurts

Might be a bit more accurate with added alliteration..........................stan

thanks stan

your crit shows how important the words are to the metaphor, i think.

gossip drips, lies pump

as the subtext i had in mind was gossip, i think i'll leave it as is
but i appreciate the 'take' on a different theme

as a critique that may be a little more positive, perhaps you could say why you felt the subtext is more talking about lies than gossip - what words / images swayed you to that conclusion?

(i purposely didn't name the poem so as to not give away my subtext in case, perhaps someone would read it differently... here lies the chance of giving a really positive review, stan, in explaining to me your thoughts here)

love judy
xxx

Hi

I think when one thinks of serpent tongues the idea of lies is more predominant than gossip. Especially when one considers that the serpent lied to Eve, he didn't pass on gossip................stan

hi

Of course they're not but the story of Adam and Eve is in enough other religions that to take it into account is probably a fairly safe assumption to a large percentage of people imho.................stan

just wanted to add

i think it doesn't matter , sometimes words hurt -just like the poison of the snake - so whether 'gossips' or 'lies' they are KILLERS like Gerema refered to in one of her poems

Subtle??

I assume you've never been struck at by a copperhead or rattle snake . Not much subtle about that! ...........stan PS I still think slither is better than shuffle lol

Hi

Never been actually bitten,just struck at and in both cases the shock was anything but subtle . To me subtle means being intrusive in an unnoticed manner . It obviously means something else to you. Perhaps sneaky? PS wouldn't the world be a dull place if everybody agreed on everything lol. So we can at least keep each other from getting bored lmao.................stan

thanks beau

yes, i suppose shuffling is not the greatest choice... but i still want to imply that words are moved around and put out of context... so i'll have to do some thinking maybe. but lol -since the write was just quickly pulled off for the shop, i'm not sure that i care about it enough at the moment to worry too much yet

love judy
xxx

this is an excellent discourse

showing us how words are not really a 'universal language' for we all have our own image of whatever a word is describing

that is why it is difficult for a writer to let the reader see exactly what is wanted - even with the best use of imagery. one says 'dog', and greyhounds to dalmations to little pip squeak ones are visualised by each person, dependent on what dogs the hearers of the word are familiar with

oh - and rotfpmsl beau - it is not hard to disagree with scribbler xx
love judy
xxx

What!?!?

With my impeccable logic and winning ways it should be near impossible to disagree with me.......riiiiight.....lol PS note I said winning not whining lol

Nup

you are using craft, excellently, to make a point and the poem suffers.

What's it mean? The interpretations are so endless as to be meaningless. Which is very different from the meaningful ambiguity of better poetry. Remember my comment about the endless, excellent ambiguity of one of your sonnets?

so then

what if i named it as its theme - gossip? would that make a difference to your critique?

and i really only whipped it up quickly as an example - not really attached to it lol

xxx

I know that

or I would have been much more hard on you,

mWhen we do these workshops it is to experiment and learn. Good poetry would be an accidental aspect.

Only one constructive crit

the word 'waft' is too weak.
It sounds like a fart.
Either as the literal venom of a snake or the metaphorical meaning of gossip the hurt is much more direct.