“Just say no to drugs” (Demons)

[Just say no to drugs]

Come take a walk and talk with me I‘ll tell you all about their dirty little secrets
Step out of denial chill out listen up and maybe then you will be able to see this
Go ahead don’t be stupid you can do this just say no and dispose of Joe’s drugs
So you won't owe money and/or your life to them and end up foes to those thugs
Like when them doped up half dead hungry drug dealers come flying up to you
Like: “I’ve got some good sh** that’ll fu** you up – no really I'm not lying its true"
Then later on when they flip flop they’ll come crying like: “I was so lying to you”
“I've got a really bad drug addiction that’ll never ever be over flying and through”
I wish you would hear me before you and all your good friends will be dying too!
Listen to me unless you want to be stuck fu**ed broke hungry and looking astute
You shouldn’t worry about looking cool so forget them and just say no to weed
A lot of addicts will agree saying “Marijuana is a gateway drug because it’ll lead
To hacking coughing wheezing not to mention the mood swings and other drugs”
If you're a son of an addict you won't want to even give your own mother hugs
Don’t roll on E be smart if you only knew the danger you’d just say no to ecstasy
If you don't you'll be thinking: “Wow damn why am I so horny? I’m perplexed Billy
“There’s just this ugly scrawny corny goofy dorky white boy standing next to me?"
“That’s weird he’s not even handsome he’s an a** and he never even flexed silly”
So stay away from the snort snort the sniff sniff and just say no to that cocaine
If you don't trust me you'll end up snorting and sniffing the whole damn thang
You’ll even leave your childhood friend who would never do coke hanging and
Claiming that you’re “Too damn busy for him” and the whole shebang –and
Why would you even want to try this sh**? Are you crazy? Just say no to crack
Or else you'll have no choice it’ll keep calling - you'll definitely be coming back
Didn’t you see the many warning signs given to you? Just say no to crystal meth
Listen to that advice or else it'll be the biggest pistol you would have ever met
I’m telling you – you better listen to me just say no to that speed oh yes indeed
Or else you will be fiending begging crying and screaming like: “Steve! Steve!
Hey! psst where are you going come back I love that sh** I need some more please!”
Acting like a child with your legs crossed sitting on the floor scratching on your knees
I bet you see now Melanie you so should've listened to our friend Heather than
I wish you did than to have given up our friendship cause you shot up some heroin
Now for the rest of your life you'll be stuck doing that junk or some methadone
Your best bet would have been just to have just said no and to have left it alone
If you don't you'll be fu**ed up and paranoid so just say no to that and angel dust
Or else you’ll be trying to stop that plane from making a flame out of that bus
So just say no to drugs and don't be curious don’t even try it no not even once
That way you won't have to worry about losing your money or dying over bumps
Just say no to the tobacco and don’t smoke on those filthy stinky nasty cigarettes
They don’t care if you all choke they’re just cashing in bigger and bigger checks
Just say no to the hooch the booze the liquor the sauce you know the evil alcohol
You don’t want to lose control stumbling and holding yourself up against the wall
Just say no to drugs I’m telling you don't sniff it snort it smoke it or even inject
If you do you'll be thinking you're cool getting into bisexuality bestiality and incest
Ewwww! Listen to me I’m trying so hard just listen to me when I try to warn ya
Or else you'll be stuck looking stupid and confused living on that very same corner
Stuck looking stupid and confused wishing you were fed and a little bit warmer
Begging passersby like: "Hay buddy please I need some food got a quarter?"
By Just say no to drugs
© 2011 Just say no to drugs (All rights reserved)
emo

[rumirumirumirumi]

trollin?

[LadyTiresias]

This is very difficult to read. It could use shorter lines and/or stanza breaks. I assume you were going for a crazy, rambling feel? But I think you can achieve that as well as readability, simultaneously.

[rumirumirumirumi]

LadyTiresias

This is very difficult to read. It could use shorter lines and/or stanza breaks. I assume you were going for a crazy, rambling feel? But I think you can achieve that as well as readability, simultaneously.

Prose is written without stanza breaks and with justified lines, but it's still readable. How do those things add up to readability?

[LadyTiresias]

rumirumirumirumi

LadyTiresias

This is very difficult to read. It could use shorter lines and/or stanza breaks. I assume you were going for a crazy, rambling feel? But I think you can achieve that as well as readability, simultaneously.

Prose is written without stanza breaks and with justified lines, but it's still readable. How do those things add up to readability?

Paragraph breaks. Large chunks of text are daunting and discouraging to readers. And it's easier to lose track of where you are while you're reading it.

[rumirumirumirumi]

LadyTiresias

Paragraph breaks.

Sentence fragment. Just consider this one paragraph and you'll be fine.

Quote:

Large chunks of text are daunting and discouraging to readers.

People read books that are hundreds or thousands of pages long. "Readers" in general have varying lengths of attention span, so there's little to be said about "readers" as an ambiguous category.

Quote:

And it's easier to lose track of where you are while you're reading it.

While I don't believe this piece in particular is trying to do it, it'd be interesting to find a poem that would try to take advantage of typical levels of dyslexia. Meaning could be made through linear reading as well as by "losing track" of where the reading is supposed to take place. All this to say it might be better to open different avenues than eliminate them.

The content is pretty weak, and it rarely extends past the regular cliches of just say no propaganda &c. but as someone who obviously read this poem very closely, I'd like to know what you thought of the long metrical line. this line in particular

Quote:

So stay away from the snort snort the sniff sniff and just say no to that cocaine

intrigues me. It holds a rhythm in a very loose way. It's basically iambic, but drawn out well past 9 feet. This probably belongs more to the prose than the verse because as the lines stretch the solidity of the patterns in the lines weaken.

That this probably falls more into prose than verse, what I wonder is where do we draw the line between verse and prose intuitively?

[whoops041209p8]

There's too much attention to rhyme for it to be prose.

[Onion]

A+

[rumirumirumirumi]

organum

There's too much attention to rhyme for it to be prose.

But the line length is so looooooong that it defies being verse. What's the deal, I wonder.

[LadyTiresias]

I don't mind sentence fragments.

By "readers", I mean readers I have heard from, and my own opinion as a reader. I hope that is just understood, because it's not practical to preface everything I say with "in my experience". Also, most large books have paragraph breaks. I'm sure there are exceptions, and that people do read those books. But every piece of advice you give someone could have exceptions. If I refrained from saying all of them, I wouldn't be very helpful at all.

And, of course, the author is free to take or leave my suggestion. His poem could be an exception if he wanted it to be.

I do think it would be interesting to manipulate the confusion to enhance the meaning. But, I didn't think that's what he was going for. However, I see what you mean about "opening different avenues". I didn't intend for my comment to be particularly negative, but I see that it wasn't exactly encouraging or inspiring either. I'll try to keep that in mind.

Also, I don't really pretend to be an expert on rhythm. It's something I'm trying working on, actually. But, I will say that I think there is a gray area between verse and prose. I just figured the he classified the piece as poetry rather than prose, because it's in the poetry forum. I suppose he could have been aiming for something in between, but I'm not sure. :

[rumirumirumirumi]

LadyTiresias

Also, most large books have paragraph breaks.

By this do you mean an empty line of space between paragraphs (like a stanza break), or indented first lines? This is instrumental. A "block of text" is still readable, though it might not conform with your expectations on what a poem looks like.

While it is more expedient to speak matter-of-factly about something that is tenuous or a matter of your opinion, it can be detrimental when you're talking about something as fluid and uncertain as a reader's practice.

Besides all that, there are some great poems that are daunting to readers. A book length poem is almost prohibitively daunting because many readers have an expectation of poems that they take up no more space that a page or two (without filling those pages). It might be more helpful to talk about how this poem works with or undermines a specific reader rather than how an abstract quality of poetry interacts with a hypothetical reader.

You say you're working on rhythm? Then this is a perfect time to examine an unfamiliar rhythm in its natural habitat.

Quote:

You don’t want to lose control stumbling and holding yourself up against the wall
Just say no to drugs I’m telling you don't sniff it snort it smoke it or even inject
If you do you'll be thinking you're cool getting into bisexuality bestiality and incest
Ewwww!

The stumbling rhythm here I like. If the lines were shorter and broken up into stanzas, it would move slower and in a more controlled fashion. I would insert breath or block out rhetorical sections that this poem refuses because it rambles past those expectations. The lack of ending punctuation and the capitalization of the first letter of each line (while perhaps not a conscious choice) further distorts the force of the grammatic phrases on the sound. You had said that the rambling feel could be achieved in some other way, but I think it's being achieved very well in this poem.

The line length is dictated by the length of the text rather than the length of the sound (like regular verse is) which breaks whatever rhythm would be created by verse lines. I would call it free verse, even with the rhyme, because there is no regular pattern to the meter. It might be stretch, but I'd suggest it could be prose because the line length makes it difficult to say there's any real pattern in the rhythm. The lines stretched out that far keep the conflict of rhythm so wispy that there is almost no conflict in it at all (no "versus" wink .

Also, there are such things as prose poems, so it can be prose and still be a poem.

[LadyTiresias]

I meant indentation. And if I implied that the poem was completely inscrutable, I didn't mean to. Just that it's somewhat difficult to read.

And I see your point about the rhythm. How shortening the lines or introducing stanzas would alter it. But I think think a decent readability is still valuable. The lines could even be double-spaced, if only for the Gaia forums (which not the best formatting tool around). I know that this, too, has effects on how the poem is read. It is completely up the author to determine if the alteration is worth it or not.

Also, I've read some prose poetry. It's really interesting, and I enjoyed it. I'm still not sure about this particular piece though.

[Just say no to drugs]

Thanks people. This is Modern poetry no rules no nothing just words that rhyme and I am not educated all that well in poetry or English as in punctuation and grammar. I just rhyme my thoughts with no guidelines. Hope I cleared up any confusion.

[whoops041209p8]

Dostoevsky has consecutive walls of text in several of his novels. eek I quite like it, actually. It's more fluent.

[Just say no to drugs]

organum

Dostoevsky has consecutive walls of text in several of his novels. eek I quite like it, actually. It's more fluent.

Yes you liked Dostoevsky's but what about my writing?