h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: ....and Goodbye - A17191361
Author: Br. Evadne Cake The Badger can save Matt's 'sole. - U226093

..and this is the second of the two couplets.

Same comments apply, please

Do you mean you'd like to tell the "you" in question all those things, if only it were true? But in reality it's been pretty awful?

A sad little poem. Yes ?

I didn't make myself very clear on that, did I?

When I said "same comments apply" I sort of meant the screed I wrote in the intro for "Hello?"

Basically- is it any good, if not why not, and suggestions on how to make it better.

I'm sure I could say the same thing in half as many words myself, so a bit of constructive editing/better vocab might be handy!

Yep. I felt the same way myself.
Are you still here?

Well - technically.

Altho I feel morally obligated to go to bed soon.

Talking of both together - sad back story, but I hear a bite in the tone and they've got character. I think the long list adds to the edge I'm hearing - so I guess whether the second needs to be shorter or not depends on what tone you want in it.

I like them, there's a lot of back story implied in just a few lines.

Hello ... and Goodbye make a nice pairing of titles too, but I don't think they are a pair because they seem similar moods to a similar situation. Otherwise I'd suggest putting the two into one entry.

Making them better - their spareness is a strength but perhaps some small detail, something concrete, to make them specific to this narrator in some way.


Waz

I see what you mean, Waz, but the very fact that neither are *specific, either to the narrator or a particular circumstance is the bit I like the most.

Its one of those "One size fits everything" type poems

- it could be the bleatings of a relationship gone wrong, a single situation, or a bad day that's hacked the narrator off,

It could even be a rather elegant suicide note addressed to the world in general and no one in particular.


Its the readers interuptation on what isn't said that's important

And I must admit, it always tickled me pink when I listened in to The Experts telling writing groups that *this is *obviously what the author meant when they reviewed my work. Nine times out of ten they gave an intereptation even I, as author had't considered!

If I gave 'em a clue then their imaginations couldn't soar, could they?

There is a definite edge to this. And the sparseness is a defining quality.

So would I change any of it? I see what Llwaz means by asking for specific details. As it stands, it has a relevance to a range of situations, but the conciseness is, at the same time, a limitation.

You could use it as the closing poem of a group, I suppose.

I could at that mvp, I could at that!

But the sky's so big though .

I definitely like being left with room for imagination.

So I've been trying to work out better what it was I wanted after reading these. I think what it is is I need something, any small concrete specific thing would probably do, to ignite imagination.

The page is too clear at the moment - too many options to feel a connection with writer or speaker of the poem. I want that connection because the character in it is the main thing in the poem.

The phrasing's good,there's some line breaks (first verse of Hallo and middle one of Goodbye - like those a lot) but the poem really consists of the person in it.


There isn't a person or an image I'm going to remember like I still remember a small waif of a child walking through puddles from a poem of yours I read ages ago. I looked it up yesterday. What brought her to life were her jellybean sandals and plastic mac.

This is personal preference, btw. I'm no poetry critic - I can only give reaction, for what it's worth.


Thinking about conciseness again, the six phrases in quotes in Goodbye all say the same thing really and although the list adds bite, maybe six isn't needed and the middle verse would stand out more with less.

Try the new, revised edition Waz - and look for the "note"

-any better?


I'd forgotten all about that one about the first day at school. What I remember most about that lass was how pinched and adult a face she had even at the tender age of 5. She'd had it very tough, poor kid. In retrospect, I know exactly how she'd appear "now"

You know what? I prefer the original after all that...

Interpreting it that the reason he/she can't say these things is that they're not true, the pause before Wonderfully is wonderfully caustic in
"It's all been so
Wonderfully fulfilling" in the lines now missing.

I feel I'm meddling in your poem really. It's interesting to do, but ... I don't know how helpful it all is.

I'm glad one of us was paying enough attention to remember the line I edited Waz

- I cut it, read the poem back and then thought "Oooh... I wonder what it was I've just cut? Whatever it is can't have had much bite or I'd remember it"

I'll put it back in that case - before I forget it again! It was helpful to try it out, anyway; I certainly don't feel you're interfering, so don't worry about that

Its interesting to me that your interpretation hinged on that particular line. Like Hallo - the narrator is playing to an audience of one - themselves. There is no-one else around for them to talk to, or meet, or to interact with. Or at least, no-one who wishes to interact with the solitary narrator.

They obviously wish it were not the case. In Goodbye they leave a note, addressed to the still invisible audience expressing their feeling of utter isolation from the rest of the human race

How, and whether they'll return is up to the reader to decide.

I've been thinking about what you said about detail stopping the reader's imagination. Because it's true, everything the writer dictates reduces the reader's space. But I reckon there's a personal preference here. I usually want to see through someone else's eyes - to see what they see, because it's different to what I can see for myself. I like triggers that send me down a different path to the one I'd take myself down. It's not a wrong or a right, just different likes, yes?

And when I'm writing, I want readers to see what I see. Is that control freakery?

Mind you, likes aren't consistent, or fixed. Usually a blank canvas painting wouldn't work for me, but occasionally, at the right time, it could.

>>It's not a wrong or a right, just different likes, yes? << Most certainly!

>And when I'm writing, I want readers to see what I see. Is that control freakery?<< No, not atall - but all you - or anyone for that matter - can do is describe the way you see "it" and then stand back and allow the reader to draw their own conclusions.

if you see what I mean.

I think that's what I love about the English language as a whole - it's so rich, varied, diverse, one would think that with this huge variety one could "capture" a moment in words, and it would the same experience for each reader

But it's not! And that's why I love words generally, even if my spelling and grammer is pretty pants a lot of the time



Words can mean whatever you want 'em to mean.....and sometimes they can hold another meaning to readers - something not even the author's spotted.

For example:

I've read back on poems I've written as private diary entries for myself, usually when I'm not quite "sure" of a situation. Sorting out my thoughts, for my own benefit, if you like.

In retrospect I can see what my sub conscious was trying to tell my every day brain. I "knew" without knowing I knew.

One day I'll actually read what I write properly, *at- the-time*

One day.

It might always be too close when you've just written it. Sometimes you have to have that distance to see in perspective

Oh, for sure; it always *is* too close to see clearly.

Which is a bit of a bugger, really

I could save myself a whole heap of time, confusion, self doubt and ultimately hassle if I could learn to be detatched!