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Am I going to be a poet

2

Comments

  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,005 ✭✭✭BDI


    He looks at things and words just fly out. Like that bag of spuds, for example.

    I’ve never seen words fly out of a bag of spuds.

    How did you feel for the people in the story with the bag of spuds in it? Was your honest opinion that I should watch what I say?

    What would you rather have under your stairs, a homeless person or a bag of spuds?


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 9,078 ✭✭✭IAMAMORON


    I think you need to write about some new topics. Try to steer away from desperate unsolvable problems, you might relate to them, but if you want people to read your poetry you will have to create an emotion within them, via the vehicle of your words.

    Don't be shy, write about how and what you feel. I don't care to read about some lonely junckie looking up the street on a cold day, I can already imagine how dreadful and sad that is.

    I want to read poems about how you felt whilst losing your virginity or buying your first lump of hash , or scoring your first goal , or beating up that guy that bullied you ... something that excites you and moves you.

    If you are not getting enthralled by what you are writing or trying to portray, no one else will. Poetry is hard work, your poems might go for a lifetime without ever been noticed and enjoyed, be prepared for that also.

    Make sure you get some enjoyment out of it, everything you do should be fun and enjoyable.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,005 ✭✭✭BDI


    What about the guy cycling to work through a working class estate thinking the poor working classes didn’t have light bulbs because their lights weren’t on? Or the one about summer. I feel you havnt read my body of work.


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 9,078 ✭✭✭IAMAMORON


    BDI wrote: »
    What about the guy cycling to work through a working class estate thinking the poor working classes didn’t have light bulbs because their lights weren’t on? Or the one about summer. I feel you havnt read my body of work.

    There is no working class in Ireland, everyone either works or they don't. Or they might be homeless and desperate, or they might still be spending their great granddads fortune. It doesn't matter.

    Stop stereotyping everything. No one cares.

    Write about topics which really invigorate and enthrall you, things that entice you.

    Everyone has access to light bulbs in Ireland, this is not the dark ages. Get with it.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,005 ✭✭✭BDI


    IAMAMORON wrote: »
    There is no working class in Ireland, everyone either works or they don't. Or they might be homeless and desperate, or they might still be spending their great granddads fortune. It doesn't matter.

    Stop stereotyping everything. No one cares.

    Write about topics which really invigorate and enthrall you, things that entice you.

    Everyone has access to light bulbs in Ireland, this is not the dark ages. Get with it.

    I don’t think you understand. The literary piece is from a posh guy commuting to his work in the city centre. On his cycle he must pass through a historical council housing area which is right on the doorstep of the city. He calls them working classes. He is genuinely worried because all their lights are off. He thinks they are getting dressed in the dark and can’t afford lightbulbs.

    I think you struggle to find meaning in my work. Would it help if I typed it in capitals and stuck it in a daily mail headline?


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  • Registered Users Posts: 1,586 ✭✭✭victor8600


    BDI wrote: »
    I don’t think you understand. ...I think you struggle to find meaning in my work. ...

    You are a poet. So what if you are misunderstood, lots of people don't understand James Joyce, yet he is considered a genius.

    I think you should stop treating us to your fine art for free and publish a book.


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 9,078 ✭✭✭IAMAMORON


    BDI wrote: »
    I don’t think you understand. The literary piece is from a posh guy commuting to his work in the city centre. On his cycle he must pass through a historical council housing area which is right on the doorstep of the city. He calls them working classes. He is genuinely worried because all their lights are off. He thinks they are getting dressed in the dark and can’t afford lightbulbs.

    I think you struggle to find meaning in my work. Would it help if I typed it in capitals and stuck it in a daily mail headline?

    Posh guys don't care about poor people
    Posh guys don't commute
    There is no working class
    Posh guys don't cycle through it


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,005 ✭✭✭BDI


    IAMAMORON wrote: »
    Posh guys don't care about poor people
    Posh guys don't commute
    There is no working class
    Posh guys don't cycle through it

    Do you know all the posh people?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,005 ✭✭✭BDI


    victor8600 wrote: »
    You are a poet. So what if you are misunderstood, lots of people don't understand James Joyce, yet he is considered a genius.

    I think you should stop treating us to your fine art for free and publish a book.

    Thanks you victor but if I charged for it the people who need it most couldn’t afford it.


  • Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators Posts: 4,627 Mod ✭✭✭✭tedpan


    You're a poet and you don't even know it..


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,005 ✭✭✭BDI


    tedpan wrote: »
    You're a poet and you don't even know it..

    Thank you ted pan. Today my boss was pushing schedules on me that I found unrealistic and I thought to myself, why not jack it in and go full time with my poetry, but. I realised I can’t have control of my work if I charge for it. I was thinking of writing a poem about that and the state of the health service.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,005 ✭✭✭BDI


    The bad reviewers review

    Far away from self aware,
    Well passed disappointment,
    Stinking from what he sniffed last night,
    Crying for some ointment,
    He creaked and cried and cracked and burned,
    He tossed and raised an arm and turned,
    Expressing themselves with art they’d lurned?
    They need to feel just like him.


  • Registered Users Posts: 146 ✭✭km85264


    He sat at 2:30 staring into a blank screen
    He knew that his boss's boss's boss was earning the millions
    he said
    What is this?
    Why am I doing this?
    Where can I go?
    What glue is there for me to sniff?
    No glue, said God. Just staples.
    And blue tac.
    Don't forget the blue tac.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,005 ✭✭✭BDI


    Did he sniff staples and blue tac or does that signify something else?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,005 ✭✭✭BDI


    Lets burn that rice cooker
    You could have boiled it
    Could have fried it
    Could have campfire stoved it.

    You had to have the shiny thing in the shiny magazine.
    You had to feel bad until they told you to feel good.
    You had to post a picture
    You had to order pitcher
    You had to advertise to your faux friends
    A product you only want to show people you have it,

    Social media loves ye
    Marketing loves ye
    Consumerism loves ye
    The one per cent loves ye
    But all your friends hate ye
    They don’t have a rice cooker.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,005 ✭✭✭BDI


    Hobbling but exceeding
    Pushing against a limited body
    His body
    Pushed
    Mind pushed
    Mine exhausted
    Too exhausted to think
    Earns
    Too exhausted to regret


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,005 ✭✭✭BDI


    Soaked. Our hero arrived in work baggy eyed, bleary eyed, his hair gel from the night before had ran down his face in little tree branch streams straight into his half shut eyes.

    The morning had started well he left the house on his bicycle, dry sky, no need for raingear, cycled right into an event. One of them storms they name, close the country down for and yet people can cycle through them. Well our hero can anyway.

    He also has the power to work all day soaked to the bone now that he has to work all day soaked to the bone. He had a change of clothes he used to leave in the drying room, a shipping container with a fan heater in it, but they were stolen. A couple of scaffolders were very vocal about things going missing and how it was the foreigners but our man of the hour, coffee in hand had seen it all before and was very sure the scaffolders were the ones breaking locks and stealing clothes and tools hoping to go through the pockets later.

    Old bleary eyes had drank way more than he should of last night but hangovers don’t affect him anymore, they take the boredom out of the morning when he is still half cut and help him arrive at lunchtime without struggling with hunger or boredom. There is so much protective stuff to put on these days it is like a morning ritual he hates. Into the bag, dig through lunch, raingear, the odd tool, bottles of water, flask, socks he doesn’t remember putting in, eventually finding a glove or glasses then digging again. The glasses really demotivate him everytime he puts them on, they fog up as soon as he starts working, he takes them off whenever he is sure the safety officer isn’t around.

    Off he goes on his one man war against the lack of hotel rooms, office spaces or housing. A one man mission to earn enough to fill his house with distractions so that his family will be too busy to bang on the bathroom door when he sits down for ten minutes of quiet when he gets home. Still soaked, nostrils full of dust, hair full of tiny bits of concrete, feet stinking. He doesn’t know if it’s good or bad that his hearing is going from constantly being in the company of drills, grinders and diggers.

    There is a new method of pest control brought in by the builders, it involves putting a canteen 15 minutes from the site ensuring nobody has time to get to the canteen and back, so all eating happens on the road, under shop awnings, hard hats, other people, a plastic bag anything really.

    He earns more than most salaried or paye workers. He hasn’t got a degree so degree people think he is stupid. He charges for his work so his customers think he is a robber. He lost interest when the kids were rambling on about some YouTube something so he’s in the doghouse there now.

    Half thinking of getting a new car on hp just to do something but doesn’t want to commitment. Got a dog 7 years ago and still doesn’t know why. Always in the door when it’s closing, always under the feet when they are moving, always making horrible noises with her mouth and snots when it’s quiet and he is on edge, trying to fix some modern problem like tvs or internet or lego.

    Half thinking of building a home gym out of steel brackets he uses in work. A squat rack and pull up cage like they have in modern gyms, nowhere to put it though. Probably wouldn’t use it anyway. Probably try convince his friend to build one so he can use it in his house.

    Anyway he thinks , time for action. He heads up four flights of stairs down through the gap between the flights he can see the scaffolders starting the ascent. He heads straight to a pallet of scaffolding poles he had seen them load last night. Wheels them right to the edge of the loading bay and pushes them straight off. Four flights crashing down to the street steel banging off steel a pallet truck scraping, then bashing off the wooden planks, people heard roaring all while he slowly, calmly but most importantly quietly and ecstatically heads to a second staircase where he heads to the sixth floor, climbs his ladder and starts drawing marks on the ceiling to drill later. Oblivious to what happened. Can’t believe he missed it and didn’t hear anything. Inside he is dancing, playing the royal Albert hall, there is classical music coming from his drill, whenever the grinder starts up it sounds like the opening dialogue from the war of the worlds musical. The ambulance sirens reminded him of an N.W.A. song. That brought him back to his youth. A time when he was heading to college. A young accountancy student. A white van pulled up. It was his friend from school being driven by an older man. He didn’t understand why our superstar was going to school when he was getting paid to learn his job. Come join us he said like a witch or cult member, they all laughed. Our hero jumped in the van, his new coworker told him to make a joint and easy E roared from the speakers.


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 9,078 ✭✭✭IAMAMORON


    Has he worked out where to hide the dead bodies yet?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,005 ✭✭✭BDI


    IAMAMORON wrote: »
    Has he worked out where to hide the dead bodies yet?

    Maybe, who knows, I didn’t even know he planned on hiding any.


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 9,078 ✭✭✭IAMAMORON


    BDI wrote: »
    Maybe, who knows, I didn’t even know he planned on hiding any.

    Is his wife dead? There is no mention of her in your opening?


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,005 ✭✭✭BDI


    IAMAMORON wrote: »
    Is his wife dead? There is no mention of her in your opening?

    Maybe she is, maybe she isn’t, maybe he never married.

    Maybe they live together but havnt registered each other’s existence in years.


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 9,078 ✭✭✭IAMAMORON


    Is there a significant poignancy on his pet dog now being 7 years old? Is it because he broke a mirror in the past? Very interesting the way you slipped in the canteen issue at his workplace. Are you laying the arc for possible animal welfare issues here?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,005 ✭✭✭BDI


    IAMAMORON wrote: »
    Is there a significant poignancy on his pet dog now being 7 years old? Is it because he broke a mirror in the past? Very interesting the way you slipped in the canteen issue at his workplace. Are you laying the arc for possible animal welfare issues here?

    I just think his dog pees him off, maybe he treats the dog like the bosses treat him, like a cost, time he could have to himself, like something that attracts vermin. Who knows? I suppose it’s what you feel when you read it.


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 9,078 ✭✭✭IAMAMORON


    BDI wrote: »
    I just think his dog pees him off, maybe he treats the dog like the bosses treat him, like a cost, time he could have to himself, like something that attracts vermin. Who knows? I suppose it’s what you feel when you read it.

    Will he exterminate his dog do you think? Or will he quit his job?

    I didn't really feel anything when I read it to be honest. How bad is the scaffolding accident? Are there any casualties?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,005 ✭✭✭BDI


    IAMAMORON wrote: »
    Will he exterminate his dog do you think? Or will he quit his job?

    I didn't really feel anything when I read it to be honest. How bad is the scaffolding accident? Are there any casualties?

    I don’t think he cares. All I’d say he cares about is that when everybody looks up to see where it came from, two scaffolders will be looking down wondering what happened.

    Maybe he planned that, maybe he got lucky, maybe there will be cctv showing him to be the pusher. I suppose if it’s not written it’s open to interpretation.


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 9,078 ✭✭✭IAMAMORON


    BDI wrote: »
    I don’t think he cares. All I’d say he cares about is that when everybody looks up to see where it came from, two scaffolders will be looking down wondering what happened.

    It sounds riveting. What ethnicity are the scaffolders , do you think they were involved in his wife's kidnapping?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,005 ✭✭✭BDI


    IAMAMORON wrote: »
    It sounds riveting. What ethnicity are the scaffolders , do you think they were involved in his wife's kidnapping?

    For all you know the wife and the kids arnt with us anymore. Maybe they left him years ago and he was talking to them on the phone. Maybe the wife ran a reception in a 6 star hotel in Dubai and was one check in away from retirement.
    It’s possible she bores him and wasn’t worth a mention or died of a cancer linked to cocaine use in her early thirties.
    I’d say the scaffolders are from the country where the story is based. I’m not entirely sure but it looks like the protagonist thinks they are stealing but trying to get people to blame foreigners.


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 9,078 ✭✭✭IAMAMORON


    BDI wrote: »
    For all you know the wife and the kids arnt with us anymore. Maybe they left him years ago and he was talking to them on the phone. Maybe the wife ran a reception in a 6 star hotel in Dubai and was one check in away from retirement.

    I’d say the scaffolders are from the country where the story is based. I’m not entirely sure but it looks like the protagonist thinks they are stealing but trying to get people to blame foreigners.

    Yeh… I never really thought about the wife being in Dubai...

    Do you think she likes it down there?

    Is she moonlighting as a hooker for rich Arabs in the evening, after she clocks off at reception?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,005 ✭✭✭BDI


    IAMAMORON wrote: »
    Yeh… I never really thought about the wife being in Dubai...

    Do you think she likes it down there?

    Is she moonlighting as a hooker for rich Arabs in the evening, after she clocks off at reception?

    It’d make sense I suppose. Unless it is specifically stated in the text I’d imagine it’s open for interpretation. I find people put their own lives into interpretations of stories.

    Say for example if the wife’s job is not mentioned a husband of a shop worker might read the story and think the wife worked in a shop where the husband of a doctor might read the story and think the wife worked as a doctor.


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  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 9,078 ✭✭✭IAMAMORON


    BDI wrote: »
    It’d make sense I suppose. Unless it is specifically stated in the text I’d imagine it’s open for interpretation. I find people put their own lives into interpretations of stories.

    Say for example if the wife’s job is not mentioned a husband of a shop worker might read the story and think the wife worked in a shop where the husband of a doctor might read the story and think the wife worked as a doctor.

    I think you should go for the wife moonlighting as a hooker in Dubai. It will give you scope to add in some detailed chapters with depraved sexual activity. I think I would prefer to read about the perverted sexual habits of wealthy Arabians as opposed to the health scares of some scaffolders after they are involved in a workplace accident.

    Did his wife show any signs of sexual indiscretion before she moved to Dubai? Had she any commitment issues? Will the scaffolders be fired?


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