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The Write Stories
The Write Poetry
Critique of the Month
Learn From the Masters
The Write "Stuff"
The Tale of Lil' Nappy
[Animegrrl143]
Once upon a time there lived a boy named Napoleon. He came from a normal home. He had a mother, a father and seven brothers and sisters. His father was a lawyer and his mother would stay home and take of him and his brothers and sisters like a good mother should. Yes, he was an average little boy in an average family with an average life.
When he grew older he decided to join the army. "Papa," he would say, "I will join the army and become great."
Papa would just laugh and say, "Oh Napoleon, you and your ideas. No one in our family has ever been in the army, but you want to join. You must have gotten that from your mother's side. They're all crazies on her side of the family. Maybe you're crazy too," and he would look Napoleon straight in the eyes and laugh some more.
Maybe it was the fact that his mother's side of the family was crazy, or maybe it was that his father was a psycho, as you can clearly tell, but what ever the reasons, Napoleon joined the army. He was good at being a soldier. He quickly became the best soldier there. People loved him and he liked that a lot. He started to want the people's attention more and more.
One day he decided that he didn't want to be a soldier anymore. He wanted to be a ruler now. He and a few friends decided to get together and help him to do just that. They went to the palace and knocked on the king's door.
"Mister king, sir, I want to be the new king," Napoleon said.
"But I really like being king. Why should I give up my thrown to you?"
"Well, if you give it up I'll give you some candy!"
"Candy?" the king asked. "What would I do with candy? I don't need candy; I can get my own!"
"Oh, well this candy is different! It has magical powers!"
The king, being not too bright, decided to take the "magical candy" and turned over the thrown to Napoleon. This made Napoleon really happy. It didn't last, though. He saw that the kingdom he had gotten wasn't very big. This made Napoleon very self-conscious since he himself wasn't very big either. To compensate for this he decided to go and get more land.
He went from place to place asking the kings for land. They all said no in the end. This got him very mad. He wanted that land very badly! How could they do this to poor little Napoleon? Well, that wouldn't do. He finally came up with an idea! If he couldn't get the land that he wanted he would take all of it!
"Yes," he would say. " Now I can do it!"
"Do what Napoleon?" his aide would ask.
"Take over the world!"
Yes, you heard right! He was going to take over the world! He went from kingdom to kingdom conquering every place he went to. Many feared him now. No longer was he "Lil' Nappy" the lovable little scamp his parents had raised. He was now Emperor Napoleon, "Conqueror of Nations." Not a very happy title, is it?
While he was taking over places he saw a great big hunk of land that he really wanted. It was called Russia. Well, now that Napoleon always got what he wanted he went right into Russia and told them to give it to him.
"Listen Russians, I want this land, so give it up and no one will get hurt!"
"Noski, ve cannot give it up! Dis is our landski! We keepski!"
"What did they say?" Napoleon asked his aide.
"Well, sir, they said 'Noski, ve cannot give it up! Dis is our landski! We keepski!'"
"I know what they said! I just didn't understand it! Never mind"
Well not only was poor little Napoleon very mad at the Russians for confusing him, they also wouldn't give him their land! He decided that he would have to take that too. He sent a lot of his soldiers to the Russians to help him take the land. It was a shame that it was the middle of winter and all of his soldiers had forgotten their mittens! They had to hurry away because it was too cold for them. This was bad news for Napoleon. He didn't get the land he wanted and a lot of his soldiers had gotten so cold that they didn't want to get the land anymore.
People started to see that Napoleon didn't have as many soldiers. This was good news for them because they didn't like him having so many places. They wanted some too! The British were especially upset by Napoleon. They never liked him getting too many places.
"Poppycot! How could that bloody little man get so much land?"
"I dunno gov'na, but we got to stop 'im!"
"Yes, we do!"
So the British went after Napoleon. The fought with him and fought with him. It was a tough and long battle, but Napoleon finally lost. Poor little Napoleon was sent away. He wasn't very happy with this. They couldn't do this to him! He was Napoleon, Conqueror of Nations! He decided to break out. He got a couple of his friends together and decided to get back what he had lost. They fought again, but he lost again.
"Sacre blue! I cannot lose! I am Napoleon!"
"Vell, vell, vellski! You lose againski! HAHAHAHAH!" the Russians said.
"Dat's royt gov'na! You lost again," the British said.
"Oh poor, poor little me! Sacre blue! What will become of 'Lil' Nappy'?"
Well, poor Lil' Nappy was sent to jail. All the lands that he had lost were divided amongst the places that had helped to stop him, and poor Napoleon was never really heard from again. He just stayed in jail.
The moral of this story is: If your parents are crazy, chances are you'll turn out even crazier, so don't get too many sane people mad at you or scare them too much because they'll lock you up in a smelly old dungeon were you smell the eternal stench of death and you never see the harsh light of day ever again.
The End
THE WRITE POETRY
Blinded
[punkrockerkc333@comcast.net]
You see a girl who doesnt know
Beyond her every dream
A girl whos naive and willing
Innocence packed to the seam
You see a girl whos barely there
For shes lost in her own place
A young one who doesnt know better
For there are no scars upon her face
You see a girl who cant hold her own
Who struggles everyday
So quick to judge in her mind
Doesnt think of what to say
You see a girl with her smile on
And happiness sketched on loud
You see a girl whos gone no where
But still manages to be proud
You dont see the girl who cries at night
And thinks more than she should
You dont see the girl whos dead inside
Who isnt any good
You cant see the thoughts inside her head
The ones of cruelty minded
For your eyes upon this girl
Have been completely blinded
Drunken Resolution
[sphinxmagic@yahoo.com]
Sure.
I've made mistakes
have laughed at
been laughed at
have dismissed
been dismissed
loved deeply
was loved deeply
killed
was killed
but I'm turning over a new leaf
I'm a bird with a new song
Sure.
Invisible
[punkrockerkc333@comcast.net]
Withdrawing from the world
For Im now far away,
Invisible actions are all I do
Silent words are all I say.
Hiding in the shadows
In the loud and of the seen,
Unstable in my stance
Unsure which way I lean.
My head held low
But my open eyes still see,
The shallow thats possessed
Ungratefulness of free.
New people all around
Changes coming fast,
Fate controlling future
Regrets controlling past.
Sitting in the background
Of a world I could despise,
Holding back from life
Invisible to human eyes.
CRITIQUE OF THE MONTH
Christopher The Red, 23
Therissa
Allison, high school senior
Pasty Blue Pride
Written by Allison
Lips part over teeth in a diabolical scowl,
Rows upon rows of teeth.
Smack.
Suction over slippery blood-stained knives that [glint of sterling] ((I'm not sure what that means. I get the gist, but the language is awkward.)),
Stationed to gut you where you sit.
Virtue and valor vanish in the face of vanity- (maybe one "v" too many-- this sounds kind of like rap lyrics. As rap lyrics, I like it-- as poetry, if you're going for campy, you're doing well)
How can one hold onto sanity?
Groping
Futilely for a foothold on the slimy wall of transparent reality,
My feet slip. What is true?
Hot cotton of a pasty blue;
Spots under the arms prove it far from new
Itch
The threadbare shroud that is my tabernacle (too archaic a word), far from the throes
Of treacherous teachings threatening ((I'm not sure what is occurring up to this point. The language seems to bounce from the literal to the metaphorical without a sense of logic. Even surrealism should have a sense of cohesion.))
Tender conceptions of self-serving selves.
Can society's supposed solutions possibly help? (the rhetorical question loses punch if you answer the question [no])
Stare
At empty space, stifling as trains speed by in clouds of smoke
Enacting the universe's eternal joke. (You've lost me. 'Enacting the universe's eternal joke'?)
The blood-stained shards of memory bite through
Hot cotton of pasty blue and they chew through
Flesh
Soaking in rancid puddles of sweat that are far from new, (the "far from new" thing seems strained if you use it more than once-- and is this a shirt? What is this pasty blue cotton thing you keep biting on?)
But what can I possibly do
To get away from you
Who seeks to rip my pasty blue pride in two? ((What is the significance of 'blue'? And blue can come to be closely linked with thin material. Why? There is not enough going on to offer the reader a 'way in'.))(why is blue important? Is there another meaning for blue?)
Cruel.
I should cower from your callous deceit in a corner but I cannot.
You were never genuine, never meant well
I will not run for the train to leave my personal hell.
All that surrounds us is a hideous farce.
Teeth
Are all that are real as they dig into the skin to draw pasty blue blood.
I will remove my hot cotton prison and maybe I can forget.
(I like it. I don't get it, but I like it. You're straddling the border between campy rap-stuff, which I like [playing with alliteration, syncopating single words-- teeth, cruel, etc.] and Plath-like visceral poetry [bit my pretty red heart in two]. You might want to pick one or the other. There isn't really any right way to do it, but I think the former works better. Another thing you might want to do is remove some of the "oo" rhymes-- you don't have enough words to use it as often as you do. [the series goes true, blue, new, through, through, new, do, you, blue, two. Too many.] And "futilely", "sanity", and "reality" don't rhyme. And what the heck is the pasty blue cotton thing with the armpit sweat that's "far from new"?)
I liked the language used in the poem. I was a little confused at some points as to what was going on. I liked the use of metaphors. I am just curious as to what is the significance of blue is.
((I have long been accused of being too harsh in my critiques, so I'll try to be more supportive. I like the alliteration. That sense of poetic playfulness is strong in this poem. But the lines it is fortifying are not strong enough to begin with. It's like using steel braces on wet reeds, it's too heavy to stand. Taking the lines individually, there are a lot of great images, and strong statements, but they do not come together in any common place. There are metaphors that are either created then abandoned, or woven throughout the poem with no real grounding. Basically, through no fault of my own, I have only the most peripheral ideas as to what is going on. And unless you are writing this in code, only for your eyes, that's a problem. You want to bring people into your vision with your art. I'm not getting there. If you decide to re-write this, and I think it's worth revising, I think you should ask yourself if what you're trying to say is clear enough to bog down with this very figurative language. Ask yourself if your core is strong enough to support the extras you have in this poem. Essentially, can the spine of your poem hold together the Mardi Gras-style approach you took in writing this poem? Sure, the language is great, but the same effect could have been achieved with a quartet. If your words can't insight a clear message, you might as well put this poem into a painting))
Thank you for your comments; I appreciate them. Since I wrote this but I'm also an editor, it's a unique experience to be able to answer some of your questions. From the beginning: by "glint of sterling" I was attempting to compare teeth to knives. Upon looking back at this poem, I agree with you that it can be rather abstruse. It sounds awful, but I originally began it as an experiment to see if anyone would even notice if I threw together seemingly random images. I was trying to prove a point in English class, but as the poem progressed I got more into it and started to imbue it with at least a little more meaning. The prompt had been to write on the topic of some sort of loss and to include mention of some sort of a garment. What I was visualizing as I wrote it was loss of pride, and I saw some almost pathetic figure sitting in a pool of his own sweat in a threadbare T-shirt at a train station (either physical or metaphorical) realizing that he can't run away from himself. As far as why I chose blue, it seemed to my mind that it was in a way somewhat more pathetic as far as choices of colors go. Threadbare light blue. Someone's been cruel to this person, and he does not know how to deal.
LEARN FROM THE MASTERS
"When one reads the nonfiction work of Robert Louis Stevenson [author of Treasure Island (1883), Kidnapped (1886), Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886), and The Black Arrow (1888)] along with the novels and short stories, a more complete portrait emerges of the author than that of the romantic vagabond one usually associates with his best-known fiction. The Stevenson of the nonfiction prose is a writer involved in the issues of his craft, his milieu, and his soul. Moreover, one can see the record of his maturation in critical essays, political tracts, biographies, and letters to family and friends. What Stevenson lacks, especially for the tastes of this age, is specificity and expertise: he has not the depth of such writers as John Ruskin, Walter Pater, or William Morris. But he was a shrewd observer of humankind, and his essays reveal his lively and perspicacious mind. Though he lacked originality, he created a rapport with the reader, who senses his enthusiastic embrace of life and art. If Stevenson at first wrote like one who only skimmed the surface of experience, by the end of his life he was passionately committed to his adopted land of Samoa, to his own history, and to the creation of his fiction. "
~http://people.brandeis.edu/~teuber/stevensonbio.html#MainEssaySection
http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/rlsteven.htm
http://www.bartleby.com/people/StvnsnR.html
http://www.poetryloverspage.com/poets/stevenson/stevenson_ind.html
http://people.brandeis.edu/~teuber/stevensonbio.html#MainEssaySection
THE WRITE "STUFF"
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