Prison Struggle

Fenian

Prison Struggle

Ye all must know what happened then
To the people of that age.
When torture still was used at will
To pain, maim and enrage.

They suffered all the woes of life,
But n'er did they give up.
They fought the wrongs and sang the songs
Of rebellion and revolt.

So listen keen and try to dream
Of maggots, dirt and sh*t.
And think of those who suffered for years
In those festering English pits.

Those brave men and women who
Gave all for freedoms goals.
Who said "No more, we won't give in"
To Britians filthy strangle holds.

What more can I say? If I said it all
It would take my entire life.
But ye must remember what happened then
In those years of war and strife.

Men gave their lives for what they knew.
They wanted justice, peace and freedom.
But what they got were British cells,
Guarded by hatred and vile demons.

Lest we forget in Armagh Gaol,
The women who paid the price.
They fought tooth and nail against British knaves,
They'd n'er give up the fight.

It was near the end for Blanket Men,
They used the weapon of last resort.
For a hunger strike may get the rights,
And strengthin hearts to fight.

So what ensued we'll n'er forget,
Ten of the brazest men did die.
The cause for years they laid down their tears,
And that which they held so live.

A mournful end to a mournful tale.
The sorrow still we feel.
I hope that ye will harken to me
And remember those who fell.

the raven

it's a very bad poem... rhythm and rhyme are terrible. the subject matter is dealt with in an extremely biased and ignorant manner. the archaic diction used is ridiculous and if it's an attempt to capture the essence of the language of the times it fails miserably.

it's just not good. i say give up with this effort and try an entirely different approach.

ctrl-alt-delete

im afraid id have to agree with raven,

at least its something though

Fenian

Well thats fair enough raven, as for being biased and ignorant, I take it your a republican scholar? Of course I'm biased, I'm a republican. Maybe you wish me to to apologize for that? As for ignorant, I would stake my life that I know more that those hunger strikes than your most knowledgable self.

Thanks for the criticism all the same, hopefully my next attempt will please your sensibility.

el_tiddlero

nobody questioned your ideals, just your ability to capture them in a poem... it didn't work, its offputting and distancing, doesn't have a natural feel to it and stretches to make its point at every turn... as a poet you should be trying to encapsulate an idea so that any may understand it and to do so in such a way as to illustrate the beauty of the language you work in and that you express your idea through... you have not done this.. and as that was what you were criticised for i don'k think its approprite to pick a battle of historical knowledge with someone... who cares what who knows, it makes no odds, your goal was to explain the situation from your point of view..... you obviously haven't convinced your audience, that is no reason to criticise them... how dare any artist criticise his audience for that matter, the audience makes the artist...

the raven

el_tiddlero wrote:

how dare any artist criticise his audience for that matter, the audience makes the artist...

hear hear.

I would stake my life that I know more that those hunger strikes than your most knowledgable self.

eh, where did i state my omniscience?? and where do you get off telling people in an anonymous forum, where you have ABSO-FLIPPIN-LUTELY no idea as to the extent of a user's education, that you know more than them on a certain subject. go *******, you ***** miscreant. good luck figuring out what words i used...

Blush_01

Fenian wrote:

Well thats fair enough raven, as for being biased and ignorant, I take it your a republican scholar? Of course I'm biased, I'm a republican. Maybe you wish me to to apologize for that? As for ignorant, I would stake my life that I know more that those hunger strikes than your most knowledgable self.

Thanks for the criticism all the same, hopefully my next attempt will please your sensibility.

You, my friend, appear to be an idiot.

I can't stomach extreme anything. That poem is extreme republicanism, and is as much part of maintaining a problem as it is a pointless exercise in attempting to massage your own ego. Which you did with cooking oil, by the looks of things. So don't get thick when it makes you smell like a fry.

Fenian

I'm biting the bullet here and I'm going to apologize. My reply post I admit was idiotic, wasn't in the best of moods at the time and was just acting pissy.

thh the poem isn't that good and I should of just excepted the criticism with a pinch of salt, but I didn't and the fool I made of myself is punishment enough I suppose.

Sarky

Check those tempers, everyone. Healthy argument is all well and good, but petty abuse won't be tolerated.

ANarcho-Munk

[offtopic]I have a very strange feeling that Fenian is a guy I once knew on a thing called NationSatates....... too strange.[/offtopic]

Too much republicanism can be very dangerous.




yes, i do have nothing better to say :rolleyes:

Fenian

Never heard of anything called nationsatates, wrong fella.

HusseinSarhan

el_tiddlero wrote:

how dare any artist criticise his audience for that matter, the audience makes the artist...

How do you come to that conclusion. I have to saythat I fully disagree. There are so many instances where artists have been held back by their audiences. Its the artist's obligation to question, critisise and encourage the audience into accepting what is, for some reason, unacceptable. However ,t he artist must be fluent and cogent doing so. It would be foolish if the artist were to give no criticism of the audience's view what so ever and it would be similarly unporductive if the artist were to take the audience's view as gospel and never criticise it. Take J.M.Synge for instance. He and most of the then Abbey Theatre group criticised the Irish theatre going public for giving such a hostile reception to his most famous play. Their reaction may have been reasonable, but through his criticism of them he did manage to change the people's perception of what drama itself is and, consequently, he helped drive forward the art in Ireland at least. The same applies to many painters of the twentieth century too. I think you get my point by now though. I think there is an obligation on both sides to criticise one another. Otherwise, progression would not happen.

eyedrenalin

AS much as I'd like to make a point about Fenian's politics, this isn't the right place for those sort of posts... I'll resist and say that I admire Fenian's 'fantasy' view of the hero's of the struggle [and to put this in context, I'm half british] but I think that the writing style he uses stinks of been-there-read-that... I think you need to stop trying soi hard to make your poems 'sound like poems' if you get my meaning. Your not a bard, and don't try and make your self one. It doesn't matter how you identify with old writers, you live in the 21st century. Try writing using your own vocabulary, your own dialect. By all means, craft the words, be lyrical but don't be a copyist! It comes across in the same taste as some trekkie that wears a star trek uniform to work or something... constructing your own fantasies with rhetoric is pretty weak. keep it up though, because at least you've got an intersest, and some talent...

E

jimmidy_cricket

I liked it, I found it simple, ye wrote on something ye feel strongly about and yeh its old and the language it old but not everyone is a poetry mastermind. I'm funny like that though, its like with art, if something looks nice I like it, it doesn't nessesarily have to be to a specific genre. It didn't blow me away but it made an impression enough for me to register so I could post I reply, so keep it up Finian simplicity is often overlooked in favour of a more glamourous or complex Dali equivilant. I'm not great with poetry so thats why I used the art analogy..K?!

eyedrenalin

jimmidy_cricket wrote:

I liked it, I found it simple, ye wrote on something ye feel strongly about and yeh its old and the language it old but not everyone is a poetry mastermind. I'm funny like that though, its like with art, if something looks nice I like it, it doesn't nessesarily have to be to a specific genre. It didn't blow me away but it made an impression enough for me to register so I could post I reply, so keep it up Finian simplicity is often overlooked in favour of a more glamourous or complex Dali equivilant. I'm not great with poetry so thats why I used the art analogy..K?!

My comments about his writing style have nothing to do with my taste in, or expectation of, how good a poem should be. My point is if Fenian wants to actually be a good writer that might actually be successful in making a beautiful statement in writing, that he should get away from this bollox notion that a poem should read like you remember from your leaving certificate. Who talks like he does in the poem - nobody! I think that he might actually have some semblence of talent underneath this silly idea he has that he has to be overtly "wordy", and I'm just trying to advise him simply as a person who enjoys reading and is reasonably well read - no more.

You've actully proved my statement here, but presented it as argument. I very much doubt that Fenian is a poetry mastermind as you so astutely pointed out [no offence fenian!] but he is a human with a mind and this is all he needs. he's trying to write as if he is a "mastermind" yet he doesn't have even the basic grasp of the rhyming couplet / quatrain structures. I'm not necessarily saying that this is a bad thing. I just feel he should write in the mode and language with which he speaks normally, not just turning on the "I'm a poet and I know it" school of writing when he writes. The first great lesson in writing? "Write what you know"

And actually (While I'm having a rant!), I think your own opinion about Art is very lazy. That whole "I don't know much about Art but... " is so cliche I could weep. Nobody should need to know anything about art to be able to appreciate it, you just have to consider it. Is that so hard? Is it so tasking to ask oneself "What do I like about this?" and "Why?" That's the least any piece of art deserves, at a minimum. It's not so hard, takes about thirty seconds of brain processing power and can enrich your life exponentially. I'm not having a dig at you Jimmy, I just get very frustrated by people who think that they don't have the capacity to appreciate art. It's only **** (like me) who propagate the idea that art is only for the uber-intelectual. It's supposed to be for everybody and any art that's inpenetrable is just bad art.

E

Vangelis

Hi Fenian, I have an understanding of the history of Ireland. To me this poem is good! It has a good rhythm, is aggressive. I like it!

jimmidy_cricket

Oooooh, someones in a strop eyedrenalin! Actually I said I don't know much about poetry, infact I have a great grasp on art which is why I used it as an analogy, sorry for being so cliched you "could weep" (couldn't that phrase be regarded as cliche itself?) but I really think that everyone was having a go at Fenian's work because of its context and I think he used that language to sort of emphasise that its old, maybe he should've written it as gailge. And anyway my post was for him, I don't think peoples replys to posts are up for debate only the work itself, am I right? I don't know I'm only new to this so forgive me for my ignorance! Oh and by the way Jimmidy_cricket is just a user name my names not actually Jimmy

TerrorFirmer

Of course its going to be extremely biased, its written from a mind thinking back in the era the poetry is set in. There is plenty of this type of writing available for those who seek it, perhaps not so much written nowadays, but this is an admirable attempt.

Agreed, its not the great example of a poem in itself, but it's not as bad as people would make it out on the other hand.

I personnally thought it was good in the sense that it did get the bias across very successfully, not just for the sake of modern "I hate the english" type of immaturity, but a genuine effort to portray from the knowledge of past times and examples.

So in summary while I don't think its a masterpiece by any means, it's very readable and more so good then bad.

Fenian

Thanks for comments lads.

I've just a few comments of my own, I know well enough that this poem nor any other of my poems are masterpieces. My views in the poem may be considered biased, as a republican I am biased towards republican martyrs. If anyone has read "one day in my life" by Bobby Sands then ye will know what those men (and women) had to go through. In my poem I tried to convey my feelings about what happened.

To Jimmidy, I would love to be able to write in gaelige but I've only recently began to learn the language. When in school I never got past the basics, I didn't appreciate what our language means to us as a nation. I do now, so I'm trying my best to learn it.

jimmidy_cricket

Fenian wrote:

Thanks for comments lads.
To Jimmidy, I would love to be able to write in gaelige but I've only recently began to learn the language. When in school I never got past the basics, I didn't appreciate what our language means to us as a nation. I do now, so I'm trying my best to learn it.

Absolute best of luck with that, I know exactly what your talking about. When I was in school I hated every subject, especially Irish, I never respected it as a language I should be proud to speak...such a shame.