Super halps, old OP/L friends! {CE}

[Fizzlesticks]

Hey guys. I've been commissioned to write a poem for Bukowski to perform at a reading. I don't know much about Bukowski, and I ended up writing from Bluebird. It's not a style I'm used to. Rip it to shreds.

[Did the reading and got through it, so took down the thread for now. Thank you.]

[MajGyver]

Grit. You need a s**t ton more of it.

In terms of language and content both.


If you really want to make Buk happen here you're going to have to slash and burn it and then take what's left and rewrite it so that it tears a little piece out of you. Or out of the speaker so that it feels like it came out of you, anyway. Whenever anyone rips him off and doesn't quite make it, it comes out either like your piece, where it's tried to dress down but still has too much glossy lipstick on, or so over-the-top raw you know the writer bleached his face on purpose to try to prove how brutal he is. Go back that direction, but stop before you get there. But good luck. English-speaking non-Americans never seem to "get" it.



Also, your font is small and difficult to read.

[Fizzlesticks]

MajGyver

Grit. You need a s**t ton more of it.

In terms of language and content both.


If you really want to make Buk happen here you're going to have to slash and burn it and then take what's left and rewrite it so that it tears a little piece out of you. Or out of the speaker so that it feels like it came out of you, anyway. Whenever anyone rips him off and doesn't quite make it, it comes out either like your piece, where it's tried to dress down but still has too much glossy lipstick on, or so over-the-top raw you know the writer bleached his face on purpose to try to prove how brutal he is. Go back that direction, but stop before you get there. But good luck. English-speaking non-Americans never seem to "get" it.



Also, your font is small and difficult to read.

Ah, sorry—made it too small by accident. Oh, Gaia formatting.

Thanks for the advice. It's certainly not a style I'm used to. I don't know how much it needs to mimic Buk, but it does need to speak back to him.

[Two Dead Doorknobs]

While I'm also not super familiar with Bukowski, I think his style is just a lot more direct than what you've got going here.
I think you're a little too distant from the reader.

Quote:

when the blues spew out
no one listens.
it’s a train going by:
a distant,
dopplered wail
in a town
overrun with fire trucks.

In this, for example, you push the reader away when you start mentioning the train.
You started off sort of close, and then panned out with your wide angle lens.
If that makes sense. |':


And something like

Quote:

if you choose
to embrace it,

sounds too elegant.


And you're too nice.

In the last stanza when you say 'a tired trainspotter', you could've totally
called him a saggy old deflated windbag or something, even if he's your BFF Jill.

[Fizzlesticks]

Two Dead Doorknobs

You're too nice.

Again, not sure how much I needed to mimic Bukowski, but getting closer to his directness would be good--so thanks for the advice. I was thinking about 'embrace' especially. Danke schoen. x

The reading was last night, so now I can collapse this thread. razz