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The Broken Silent; A poem on the Indian attacks in Australia last year, the discrimination is not my belief.
Topic Started: Friday, 17. December 2010, 08:28 (113 Views)
Literacy Maniac
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2 Stars
A silent cry,
A violent night,
A broken scream,
A damned preen.

One thing - one thing or another
He was double trouble
Lived down in the town by the place
Where the crims all went around
Came into school all alone
Peace in class, hell in play
Dodging ‘em all like they were playing tag
Hiding, dodging, running away
All went after him
Uppity girls with their big, fat mouths
Out o’ control boys with their dustbin-esque hands
Nowhere to hide, nowhere to run
Nowhere to find a source of fun
Staff thought they were playing tag

Nothing in his pocket, nowhere to go
So he hit the park and played a little
Big fir tree in a corner o’er there, looked shady
Good cover from the air and the rain
Was comfy too, he slept there
Safer than down in the town where the crims all
Came around, he thought
One had seen him though, his face and tilak
Murder hit his heart - he had to die, he was not white
So, to save from the world from the purge of Indians
The boy was stalked to the park

In the night a cry
People hear, but people think
It’s just a shock
They don’t save the boy

Gruesome fate can be; gruesome was the boy’s
Strangled, stabbed, chopped up, nearly cremated
Drained of blood, hair torn out, throat cut, clothes ripped up
Tilak smeared ‘cross him - and that was all
Same people who ignored his cry screamed, world screamed
Emetic to the many with weak stomachs
When the picture appeared across the globe
Buried days later, thousands of Indians came
Drove other people ‘way, though
Protests sparked, gun and flames all the way
Violent excesses sent him away
Like his own fate was sealed so violently

Indian protests left and right
Racists attacking oh so often
The boy’s Facebook memorial page smeared with racism
His killer convicted, the racism cracked down on
Whiny, up themselves Aussie media accusing Indian media
Of hysteria, the events described as a circus
The ‘oh-we’re-so-perfect-and-you-don’t-exist’ Aussies were accused of denialism
India was thought to have blown it all out of proportion, ignoring their country
But the huge problem was in Aus
Many of us though think we can do no wrong and it’s all everybody else’s fault
Took a while to calm down, but things had changed
Less Indians applying for visas, a drop in students going to study in Aus,
No Bollywood films to be shot in Aus anymore, because of what happened
But some still probably think it doesn’t matter,
And that the Indians deserved it

And on the boy, I’m sad to say
That he saw his parents sitting
Under a different tree, but knew
Them not, he’d have lived otherwise.
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Warrior Poet
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. / . /
A silent cry,
. / . /
A violent night,
. / . /
A broken scream,
. / .
A damned preen.

I was liking the rhythm here, though every one of those lines is pretty overused. The last line threw me off for two reasons though - what the heck is a preen? Preening is what a bird does with its beak to clean its feathers. Someone who's grooming himself very carefully could be said to be preening. But what's a preen? I looked it up, but all I got was the verb.

Also notice I've written your rhythm above the words. The last lines is on syllable short (unless you want me to pronounce it dam-ed). So between having no idea what "preen" is supposed to mean and the meter, that last line was just completely AWK. But it's an easy fix. Just get a word with one more syllable in there.

You break the rhythm again with the "Out o' control boys." Since this whole passage is just dripping with ridicule, you can't break the rhythm. Since this is an angry poem so far, the anger has to be consistent.

If you're going to make poetic contractions like "o'er" that's fine, but then don't add word like "shady," which has extra syllables, to the end. And this seems to be an Indian-style poem, not European, it's unlikely to have o'er. Have you read any old Indian poetry from back in the day? Some of it's pretty good.

What happened in the second big stanza was extremely unclear. So someone killed our kid - huh? "he hit the park...murder hit his heart..." the (unintended?) repetition of "hit" made me want to draw a strong parallel where there was none. I sense this one's first-time through, and it's good but needs some chiseling.

Why would he be suicidal for not being white? And if he was so suicidal, why was he murdered? Actually, I have no idea what happened. At all. But don't worry, I'm not being mean. Cow! said the same thing about the ending of Anodyne Sea, which I put more work into than anything I'd ever done before.

cremated? Heh? You can only be cremated once you're dead. Since you're describing how he was killed, it doesn't make much sense. And what's nearly cremated? You've either been burned to ashes or you haven't...

So only use poetic contractions (o'er, 'cross etc) when you need to enhance the meter. This one actually took away from it - the natural pattern of the English language is unstressed-stressed or stressed-unstressed, depending on where you start, but usually not stressed-stressed or anything like that. You never have to think about it when you're just speaking because it happens on its own. But with poetry, even if you have no strict meter, you have to keep track of the pattern.

Indian protests? Since I've never heard of a large group of people congregating to oppress Indians, I assume they Indians were protesting for their own rights. But that was a little unclear too. The last stanza's rhythm was probably the most problematic but it won't be too hard to fix - just cut out some articles and add some extra syllables to other words. It might help to mark them (././)

The Facebook reference just seemed strange. Racism is also a hard word to use in a poem, since it's got an irregular stress pattern.
Quote:
 

/ // .
Racism

So you have a stressed, an even-more-stressed, and then an unstressed. It can be effective, but placement is tough with these types of words.

Eh, what? Why would be delusional to think that they don't exist? That actually doesn't make much sense for either side.

Basically you have a great idea, but a while to go. Mostly easy stuff - it's mostly clarifying. Since this is a poem of contempt, you can use some really sarcastic figurative language here. Take that opportunity :)
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Harket
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Sweet. The rhythm was off in some parts, but i think it was fine overall. I quite liked the idea of it, and the only part that i found a major problem was the preen thing. WP already said it all, anyway. The facebook thing was kind of weird, too. Anyway, I really liked this and i think it was kind of sad, but true. Poem aside, i think racism is stupid and i am def against it. My cousins parents are super racist, though. Even to the point that she notices it and she told me that she "(didnt) understand why (her) parents are like that." Yea.

One more thing. What did the last stanza mean? I didnt really get it.
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Literacy Maniac
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Preen in my book: to clean, to wipe (I said that because of this product called Vanish Preen OxiAction, a cleaning product). Like... wiping a life away. I only used the word because of the rhyme.

The pattern was supposed to be three words each line for the first stanza. That's why the syllables aren't even.

Let's just say I pay no attention to rhythm.

It's not particularly Indian in my view, even if there are Indians... It's a mix.

He's not suicidal. He was noticed by a racist on the way back from school.

Horror story: Man once beat woman, shot her, threw her in a dump and set her on fire. Not sure if she was dead or alive, but he did that. When they stopped the fire, all she was was a charred lump. I used that because I found it extremely gruesome.

Yeah.

There are Australians who act as if they're the only people on the face of the planet, you know...

Last stanza? That was bemoaning the whole irony of the situation, if you could call it that. The boy thinks he's an orphan, but at the park, he sees his parents under a different tree, but because he's been away from them for so long, he doesn't recognise them. If he had, he'd have gone back to them, and he would have lived. It's complicated.
Edited by Literacy Maniac, Saturday, 18. December 2010, 04:52.
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Harket
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asian
Literacy Maniac
Saturday, 18. December 2010, 04:02
Last stanza? That was bemoaning the whole irony of the situationm, if you could call it that. The boy thinks he's an orphan, but at the park, he sees his parents under a different tree, but because he's been away from them for so long, he doesn't recognise them. If he had, he'd have gone back to them, and he would have lived. It's complicated.
Aww, thats so sad! I thought it was like, under a different tree as in family tree or something. That would kind of make sense, too, i guess. :$


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There are Australians who act as if they're the only people on the face of the planet, you know...
Uh-uh. Thats not fair. It isnt just Aussies. There are people from EVERYWHERE who act as if they are the only people on teh face of this planet. I know they were at wrong, but in this case you cant just say that as if they are the only ones.
Birds don't like to fly, they have to fly.
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Literacy Maniac
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It's between two nations, and it's bemoaning the Australian arrogant ones, not the Indian. That's why I referred to only the former.
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Harket
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Fine,fine. But remember that there are Indians who act like that too, and chinese, and eurasians, but in this case, teh aussies ARE the ones at wrong.
Birds don't like to fly, they have to fly.
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Literacy Maniac
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That was what I was saying...
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Harket
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asian
O I C. Nevermind, then. :)
Birds don't like to fly, they have to fly.
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