Sta.sh
Aren't You Ashamed Yet?:
A Mask
Truly an object of mystique and mystery
A simple device, with a painted layer
That conceals a face of rotting worms
Oh, I'm sorry, was I supposed to overlook it?
Let me rephrase it in a more appropriate manner
You are a cowardly, pathetic, miserable, filthy
Unintelligent, soul-sucking, perfidious, bag of rotting worms
You who once held my respect, you who were once my friend
you shared in my secrets and you shared in my dreams
But in the end, it was the lies
The horrible, filthy lies that spew forth from your tainted lips...
I guess it was a simple decision
I had no need to keep up this facade
and so I decided that I too should enjoy this game
and I began to taint my lips with lies
Oh how I enjoyed your anguish and misery...
That wonderous feeling of having you squirm
and before I knew it, I found myself wearing
a mask to hide those rotting worms...
-Chen Yuan Wen, 9th September 2012
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just my interpretation
Firstly, is the 1st line, "Aren't You Ashamed Yet?:", part of the poem?
Another thing is that although the bolding of words related to worms is quite effective in portraying the filth associated, I feel that the bolding of "lies" and "tainted lips" had unnessary attention drawn towards them.
The first stanza captures the idea of the poem quite well. I have no problems here.
In the second stanza, I felt the direct address towards your subject was a little melodramatic and awkward at times. For example, you establish a conversational tone at the start of that stanza but then use words such as "perfidious" that not many people would actually say, making the tone of this stanza inconsistent.
In the third stanza, the use of anaphora ("You... you...you") was quite effective but perhaps the removal of the word 'and' might enhance the effect. Not sure, but you could try it.
In the fourth stanza, I thought the first line was a bit simplistic and redundant when combined with the last three. Otherwise, it seems fine.
The last stanza seemed a little disjointed from the rest of the poem which had a smoother progression. The narrator's direct object is suffering to suddenly and there appears to be nothing in between. The cyclical nature of this poem is effective because it implies that pretence, lies etc... are contagious. However, it may have been more effective if it the ending had been less jagged.
However, I am not an experienced writer myself and the above suggestions are just my opinion so I may be wrong.
Overall, I think this was a fittingly confronting, expressive and impressive poem.
Well done
Thank you
^_*
God, that sounds strange, but you do. You can go from high-minded and musingly intellectual to downright cold in a second. That's a talent, and it's something that's really, really hard for me.
I like how you loop the structure of the poem. Really show it as a cycle of lying and backstabbing. That's also very good.
But I feel like this repeats maybe a little too much. Like we hear the bolded words once too often. I think it's just the originality in general that's getting me, as a matter of fact. You do what you do well, there's no disputing that. I just feel like a lot of the time, you use what I'm going to term 'recycled material'. Masks, death, cutting...there's something I like to call a Rose Poem, because the metaphor of the rose has been so overused. It's a poem that may be really technically good, but whose appeal is lost in the fact that what it's describing has been described so many times before. And I feel like this is a Rose Poem.
I know you can do original stuff. Hell, your take on cutting a while back was very original, even if it wasn't my favorite poem ever. I feel like you could do a much better metaphor than this.
You're probably wondering why I'm being so harsh on you. I am being harsh - normally, with a poem like this, I'd pick one thing and then gently suggest, instead of doing what I'm taking now, which is taking your poem apart by the stanzas.
I'm being harsh because I feel like you can take it. Because after a certain level of popularity on here I feel like people on here stop telling you how you can get better and you deserve to know how you can get better. Because I see a LOT of potential in everything that you do.
You obviously don't have to listen to anything I say. Heck, for all I know you could've stopped reading eight paragraphs ago. You can reject the critique, you can ignore the advice. It's your choice. You're the author.
But I feel like, although you are obviously very good right now, you could get even better.
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