Oh no, more poetry! And now with whitespace bugs (features?)

Look, poetry and prose are different things. Judging them in the same contest doesn't work. I respect it as an artform, but as I've said many times before, anything more cerebral than a limerick typically feels pretentious to me. This feels like that times ten. The "e.e. cummings" lowercase, the deliberately obtuse words like "unsex," and the obnoxious whitespace.

I'm sorry, I typically hate to be so negative toward something, but I also don't want to just say "not my thing" and not give real feedback. This is how poetry can look to a non-fan. Bottom line, I said this on the previous poem I read, and I'll say it again here: "art should take effort to make, not to enjoy."

A... lown? Huh. Google suggests this is a real word, meaning calm. But I'd never heard it before. And 'a calm' still sounds awkward to me. /shrug.

This seems rather disjointed in parts. In the first section there's a 'he', but in the second section 'dresses drop in tandem', and in the third, the viewpoint character seems to be coveting the body of their female lover. There's a reading that can be made of that, but honestly, it just feels mostly confused to me. There's enough description about kissing and what, surely if this is supposed to be signal and not noise it could have merited a bit more emphasis?

I guess this is alright, as far as poetry goes. Unfortunately, poetry has to be better than 'alright' to grab my attention. Sorry, but I didn't really find anything particularly thrilling or enthralling here.

Yeah, I'm with >>Not_A_Hat here, "lown" threw me off.
Anyways, I don't have much to say. I'll just abstain on this one, as I don't feel competent to assess or give any feedback on poetry.

Sorry, author, I think the WriteOff is really not the place to lodge poetry entries unless, as someone suggested, we went for full poetry rounds (but what would the audience be?).

It's a nice little piece, although I feel the title is way too obvious.

The rhyming and syllable-count in the first two parts are easy enough to follow, but I could not find a scheme in the third part as it is all over the place but maybe that's the point?

The word choice and imagery here are really nice, and the poem completely fits inside the word count without being noticeably lacking in any part.

If it were on my slate of reviews, it would be around mid-high ranking. I'm not a poetry connoisseur so take all of this with a giant grain of salt. Perhaps a more seasoned poet will be better able to spot issues with this piece.

But it's a nice read with a decent punch of emotion and I quite like the style.

Unfortunately, poetry didn't win the prompt vote, so by my standards, this is not an appropriate entry for the competition. It cannot be fairly compared against prose minifics. I applaud the sentiment, and hope we'll have room for some dedicated poetry rounds in the future. But for now, this isn't the right venue.

I do think this is a fairly good effort at a poem, though. While it is free verse, it puts effort into being verse. It's very accessible, we can easily see what the poem is about (yoooooo dawg check this 10/10 I'mmaboutta bang), we can see a lot of devices at work in the presentation, and most importantly we can see the thought behind them.

Maybe a little too easily? The worst I can say about it is that it could use a bit more in the way of metaphor or theme. "Sex is great" is cool, but also very obvious. You can, shall we say, do better. Go deeper. Stronger, faster, harder, more fun, even if it looks messy.

So... thanks for writing! Keep at it, hopefully you have or can find a place to show off your poems and discuss them with others. Still bottom slating on principle, but this is far better developed than the efforts at poetry I've seen in previous Writeoff rounds, without a doubt.

>>Ranmilia
Not to be rude, Ran, but—what the hell kind of comment is this? How in the world does something being poetry make it "not an appropriate entry"? There's nothing in the rules against it. We've had verse/poems in past rounds that have done extraordinarily well, even winning past rounds, not in spite of their form, but because of it. You even admit yourself that you enjoyed it. How is it fair to anyone, especially the author, to bottom slate it because of some bizarre idea you have for what constitutes an "appropriate" entry? "It can't be compared fairly to prose pieces"... why not? We compare prose pieces from wildly different genres with wildly different expectations and standards and even formats all the time. Start Recursion, to use my favorite example, was most certainly a differently formatted and written story than any other prose piece in the round it competed in, but we still treated it with the same amount of respect. Would some extra lineation have changed that?

I'm not usually one to suggest abstaining, but if you really have such a reaction to an entry that you can't judge it on its merits and simply by its existence, I think that abstaining would be a much better option than penalizing the author for writing something you admit is good.

The Writeoff, especially minific rounds, have always been praised as and used as a place for experimentation. The thought that a format—poetry, no less—can be an "inappropriate" entry is both insulting and detrimental to the whole contest.

>>Dubs_Rewatcher
Well, we've been over this a few times in the past. The short answer is "you apply your standards, and I'll apply mine; my standards represent only my own views with a specific and narrow set of uses." Apologies to the author for this thread derail.

With regards to the rules:

This event's genre is Original. Submitted works to this event should fall under the following description:
Fiction not dependent on work under U.S. copyright.

My reading of this implies prose fiction, and excludes poetry, as poetry is not fiction as the term is commonly understood in literary pursuits. The Dewey Decimal System classifications provide a supporting example:

810 American literature in English
811 American poetry in English
812 American drama in English
813 American fiction in English
814 American essays in English
815 American speeches in English

I would not consider script-format drama or essays appropriate entries, either (and said so when the latter came up, not too long ago.)
The BISAC/BISG classification system also separates fiction and poetry at its topmost level of categorization. In every literary magazine or similar publication venue that I've checked the submission guidelines for, poetry uses a completely different set of guidelines and standards than prose pieces, if poetry is accepted at all. (And so do scripts and essays, where appropriate.) In every literary competition I'm familiar with, poetry and prose fiction are treated separately. I googled some just to make sure I'm not crazy here:
Phi Theta Kappa, separates into different formats
William Faulkner Competition, separates by format
Futurescapes, specifies prose only
Dorset Fiction Award, the only one I found on page 1 that doesn't explicitly disallow it, but read the second paragraph with regards to what they look for.

That last link is closest to my interpretations for this competition. I would say that there is clear consensus in the literary world that prose and poetry cannot be judged together in the same category of competition. Personally, all of my writing circles would simply hold it to be self-evident; this site is the only venue I've ever encountered where people consider it debatable.

But the letter of the rules, here, does not seem to be all that important. The rules also say that entries "must be based on the prompt to a reasonable and discernible degree," but when that's come up in the past, a number of people (including yourself, Dubs) have indicated that they completely disregard that rule and see no problem with doing so.

There are no hard or enforceable criteria on votes. "Enforcement at the fringes is done by voters," the rules say. So my vote is no more or less valid than anyone else's in that regard, no? In particular, I find the call to "abstain if you don't like it" unproductive and possibly disingenuous, since that is call to prevent my voice from being heard at all. But I do not have "no opinion." I have an opinion: that submissions that are not prose fiction are not appropriate for Writeoff. I want to actively discourage the submission of such pieces when they are not appropriate, and, recognizing that I have only one voice in that matter, I would still prefer them not to place anywhere over pieces that do follow the rules in the voting results. The abstain function is not an "opt out if you don't like it" button, and I frown on the suggestion it should be used that way.

With regards to fairness: therein lies exactly the reason why I believe and act as I do. I'm not doing this out of pedantry, you know, it's not like I enjoy bottom slating things. It is not fair to judge prose entries alongside poetry, or any other non-prose format! To do so, in my opinion, conveys disrespect to both/all relevant forms and authors. It is not fair to enter poetry in a prose competition. Different forms have extremely different writing processes and requirements.

To use the current round as an example, I think it's widely agreed that minific is a difficult format to practice in, and many if not most authors here struggle with telling a full story that fits into only 400-750 words. A glance at the gallery is telling: 19 out of 37 entries are 740+ words, a 20th is 739. Meanwhile, two entries are 400 words exactly, and three more are under 450, including this piece; all five of these are nonstandard entries that do not tell a "normal" prose story.

So how is it fair to the people struggling to get under 750, cutting sentences and paragraphs, having a hard time of that task but learning from it -- how is it fair to those people that someone submits poetry or a gimmick entry that completely sidesteps the requirements and does something not even in the same ballpark, and then people go "WHOA, MIND BLOWN, HOW CREATIVE"? How can you give feedback to the person whose prose places below this poem, how can you tell them "this is what you did wrong, this is how you can improve, here's how this piece that I ranked above yours did X and Y better"? It's not fair, and it's not fruitful. You can't learn how to write a better minific that way. The same goes in reverse: you can't learn how to write better poetry by comparing a poem to prose minifics. (And for other formats as well; I wasn't around for Start Recursion but going and reading it, I'd put it around an unimpressive midtier, that high only on strength of prose and general writing level.)

And, here may be the rub, learning how to write better is what I come to this site and use it for. I certainly have not praised the Writeoff as a place for experimentation, or used it for such, nor do I want to, nor do I think that's a good idea. I come here for the competition and workshop aspects, to compare pieces and by comparing them learn how to improve. I don't write and critique here to show off, or just for enjoyment (my own or anyone else's!) I'm here to learn what I can learn, and give back by teaching what I can teach as a peer. Please keep that in mind when reading any of my feedback: I am not giving any feedback on simple enjoyment, I am writing from the perspective of competitive and workshop style critique. I wonder if I should make a standard disclaimer at the start of every round, something like that?

Of course, not everyone does this, nor am I saying they should. Most people don't, and that's completely fine! Like I said, you and I have the same vote, and you're free to apply whatever standards you like. You may find it rude to say poetry is inappropriate; I find it somewhat rude when people say poetry and other gimmicks are appropriate, and keep encouraging their submissions. I find it somewhat insulting and definitely detrimental to the contest when people say "anything goes, nothing is inappropriate" and gimmicky or nonstandard entries get voted up and uncritically praised over pieces that did strain to follow the rules. That exact thing is the biggest reason why I can't take any "X placed well" talk remotely seriously; placement in Writeoff is ultimately for entertainment purposes only, as long as these attitudes continue. People could have voted the infamous Froggy to a medal position for the lulz, but that wouldn't make it any better as a piece of writing or say anything about the relative quality of other pieces in its round.

And so we shall continue, with all respect and much <3 to Dubs, the author of this piece, and everyone else in the Writeoff.

P.S. "bottom slate" isn't even strictly correct here, it's looking like there are at least four or five pieces that will eventually be going under this one for me. Original Mini unfortunately seems to attract the most gimmicks of any round by far, perhaps because it has the lowest barrier of entry.

I'm not fit to judge meter and rhyme and all that poetry stuff. However, I can recognize a narrative of hesitant lust with a side dish of body anxiety, and in those regards I can appreciate everything going on here. Granted, the bodily anxiety I deal with isn't the kind discussed here, but the more sensitive nature makes the full dive into carnal action all the more raw and emotive, I'd say.

Retrospective

So for some reason that I can no longer remember, I thought it would be a fun idea to do a retrospective on Epithalamia that discussed how I wrote it, in the style of a blog I saw recently by HBAO. Unfortunately, 7,500 words of me rambling is probably not an appropriate writeoff forum comment, so I've posted those thoughts over on my blog.

One thing I haven't actually done there is addressed any of the comments that I got, because I felt that I should probably do that here where people can reply to me and stuff:

>>Not_A_Hat
Do you think there's a better way that I might be able to signal that this is three poems on a theme, and not one story? I had thought that using a plural title that was obscure enough to invite readers to google it would work, but (as I said in the blog) I am obviously not very good at judging this kind of thing >.>

>>Ranmilia
Ignoring the drama for a moment, I do want to thank you for your feedback on the piece itself. I think there might be something I can do to make it clear that this is more than just a piece about "check this 10/10 I'mmaboutta bang", but I'm gonna have to think hard on how to achieve that.

>>Monokeras
I think it's well known at this point that anyone entering the writeoff with poems should expect a comment or two of this nature. I just wanted to make it clear that I have no problem with people abstaining on poetry if they find it particularly more challenging to read, and to thank you for taking the time to let me know—I appreciate the honesty. I'm (obviously) not sure I agree on the prospect of needing to keep poetry and prose separate, but it is clearly a discussion that the community needs to have!

>>Xepher
Again, thank you for your honesty. I appreciate the feedback, regardless, and agree that it's important to keep in mind what poetry might look like to someone not in its intended audience.

>>Whitbane
>>Rao
Thank you both for your kind words <3

>>QuillScratch Using separate titles for each, and then having the overall title be something plural might help. Maybe put them in separate chapters, if you publish somewhere that allows that. Part of the problem for me, I think, was that writeoff stories are usually just one piece; Something with three separate non-connected pieces is pretty unexpected.

Of course, you could just straight-up saying it somewhere. Throw in an author's note to clear it up. Or just ignore it, and cut 'people who can't tell these are separate' out of your audience.