Love Is A Teenage Invention.

I thought that this was very effective although I would make a few changes.
Spelling could do with a quick once-over - "restbite" = "respite", "aroama" = "aroma" etc.
I would lose "petite digits". It sticks out like a sore thumb ;) and detracts from "fingers linger on the buttons" which is a much better line.
"Rubbish became more noticeable" - very recognisable party phenomenon. Could make more of this as it contrasts nicely with the appearance of the beloved.
"Waterfall hair" is a little bit of a cliche. But I like the implied contrast between the smooth/slick/softness of it vs the gritty hands. You could keep that contrast by using a different phrase.
I LOVE the man peeking from next-doors bedroom. Works really well. In fact I think you should end the poem there. Sense of invulnerability / untouchability = very teenage, very lovely!

Thanks for the feedback Whiskers. Spellings have been changed, I should've proof-read it better.

You're right about the petite digits, I knew putting two sentences about fingers one after the other wasn't the best, hope you like the new line.

Funnily enough I was deciding on how to describe the hair for ages and went for waterfall because I thought it wasn't cliche!

Cheers.

Changing this poem goes against all I believe in (well, mostly) concerning poetry but I guess this is what this site is for.

But it killed me to do so!:)

I was at this party, i knew i should'nt have left early! Seriously though, nice work man. i could really feel the excitement of the protagonist. just trying to work out who the girl is :)

It may have killed you, but your change made it beautiful and flowing as opposed to great with the odd line that stuck out. I would suggest 'Debris more noticeable' rather than 'Rubbish was...' but I think that's too picky as it's a fantastic poem as it is now. I liked waterfall hair too for reasons stated above and loved the line 'Light is beginning to grab at the dark.

I liked the "waterfall hair" a lot, a metaphore is always so much stronger than a simile. I once read of a "Cobweb sun" which described perfectly a childs picture of it, keep up the work.

Thanks keleph. There was excitement in the protagonist probably because I genuinely felt excited as I wrote it.

Thanks for the comment doeslittle. I see now how some poems can be changed for the better (but never ever stream of conscience stuff!:)

Thanks too Jonscone. Interesting view on metaphors/similes. I'm glad the poem provoked debate.

AND thanks for the cherry!

Good! This is about the eighth time I've tried to comment on this so I'm sorry if they all suddenly appear or something. I know what you mean about the self-editing v the stream of conciousness, and I find it v hard too, but I think that, ultimately, it's the difference between a good and a great writer. I agree with Whiskers that it would be good to finish with the man peeking out. The last stanza is very personal to you, which is obviously a good thing, but I think with the man peeking it links really nicely with the title - that teenagers are always being watched by parents etc and the whole suburban nosy thing and that maybe he's seen it all before or maybe he hasn't seen it for ages - I like the ambiguity and, as Whiskers says, the fact that they don't care.

I'm sure you've discussed this all before but I don't think editing is a 'betrayal' of the feelings you had when you are writing the poem. I think it is necessary because feelings = complicated and language = imperfect. Sometimes you have to faff around with something in order to express it properly (unless you are a GENIUS who speaks in grammatically perfect sentences, spells everything right first time and figured out the meaning of life ages ago!)

littletablet got my point about the peeking man better than I made it - I think that what appealed to me about this as an ending for the poem is the fact that teenage sexuality is both something incredibly personal to the individual as it evolves, but also something that is monitored, sold, promoted, discouraged, etc by the world around them. I think the fact that they completely disregard the 'peeping tom' indicates how precious & loving this moment is -- better, perhaps, than saying so.

I love the idea of a 'cobweb sun' jonscone! Nothing against metaphors per se, just that this one (especially in the context of love poetry) has been used a little too much. But maybe it contrasts well with the more prosaic details of ashtrays, skins, deckchairs etc.

Right, enough of reading, time to get down to writing... a thrilling article on parking schemes awaits.

As some guy said somewhere sometime about something: "Great books aren't written, they're re-written."

Just think of this version of the poem as "The Director's Cut, now with 5 never before seen lines!"

You could say you's are like the man in the window; you want to stop looking and end it but you have to go on, because there is more.

Thanks for all the discussion:)

Yo whiskers, if you write a stream-of-conscience piece and then edit it; taking lines out and adding in words and commas here and there then its no longer a stream-of-conscience piece.

George Bush's foreign policy is stream-of-conscience stuff, and things are going just dandy!

Wow! I don't think I've seen one poem trigger so much discussion and comment - it's fascinating. I'm not sure I agree with you LawOfTheOne in what you say above about a stream-of-consciousness piece, in that, say, Virginia Woolf is seen as a s-o-c writer and, as I recall, that's all quite carefully edited - but maybe I should go back and check. Does one want necessarily to be s-o-c as I think you are using the word? - By contrast a lot of poetry could be seen as more like, say, what Wordsworth calls, I think, 'emotion recollected in tranquility' (though again I should go back and check that). In some ways we are conditioned towards expecting that now I suppose. Sorry, I'm not sure I entirely know what I'm saying, but that overall I think I agree with Whiskers in what he's saying. Great poem, by the way!

Thanks for the comment animan, sorry I havn't seen it sooner, I didn't think it would get comments 2 months after I put it up. I'm glad you like it.

(and now to argue with another person over SOC poetry). I mean SOC in a "pure" way. Woolf maybe initially wrote soc but when she edited it and changed things it changed, to what exactly I ...eh .. don't know. The same goes for, say, Kerouac. He wrote "On The Road" on one huge piece of paper, metre after metre stuck together. He'd write for up to 9 or 10 hours straight fuelled by coffee and, probably some madness aswell. He didn't want to change his narrative thought(read SOC ). Of course, his editor went mental and made him cut, chop, paste and change it, thus not a SOC piece anymore(in my opinion). ABCTales doesn't edit people's work so SOC is possible to be seen.

There's the original On The Road out now by the way. It's "unadultered" and exactly the first draft he wrote. Published SOC I call it. Anyway, this comment's turning out longer than the bloody poem, so I shall go.

Thanks again. :)