Sympathetic Sybil is Write Out Loud's own Agony Aunt...

Dearest, dearest – hope you're going to be sympathetic – Sybil,

Please, please, for the love of God! - you have to help me! I just can't seem to keep the angst out of my poems, and I am told that I use far too many clichés!!! Please tell me how to make my work less depressing, before I fall into a pit of despair. Lead me to the path of poetic righteousness so that I may wend my way through this vale of tears once more, with my head held high. I'm hoping! Hoping against all hope, that – with your help Sybil, tomorrow may just be the first day of the rest of my life!

Yours despairingly

He who wishes not to be named

Dear Reader,

Ah yes “Angst” can be the curse of us poets. It’s not a genre I’ve written much in myself but the poetry some of my best chum’s have produced has tormented me greatly.

It seems only yesterday I was encouraging poor Sylvia to change her dour offerings as they were having such a troubling effect on me. “Pull yourself together girl and don’t be so maudlin.” I told her, “Honestly, if you can’t write something more uplifting you might as well stick your head in the oven.” 

So, young man, don’t go down that path and find some other way to ring the changes.

A bracing walk in the countryside is always a good idea – it will help to blow away those troubles! Follow up with a night in a public house where, I’ve been told, one can drink to forget – what better way to liberate yourself from your ennui?

Then again, I’ve always thought that a few good rounds of rumpy-pumpy is a excellent antidote to the poetry blues. Few people know about my affair with DH (I've used his initials to preserve his anonymity! Mum's the word, eh?), but believe me after some right royal “rogering” he was a different person and produced some tolerably good poetry thereafter. Though, I have to say didn’t much care for his novels, despite the fact that I was obviously the model for Lady Cha..(whoops nearly gave the game away there, shall we just say) a character who didn’t really do me justice and caused the ultimate rift between us.

As an aside, Dylan would insist on saying “gently” when he read the poem aloud and refused to change it no matter how much I cajoled him and pointed out the error of his ways. Needless to say, I got my way in the end when I altered it to “gentle” in the final “edit” of the published work. He was furious, of course, but to my mind it took the poem from very good to true greatness.

Clichés on the other hand are a completely different kettle of fish.

Remember that what is now considered cliché was once brand spanking new and, possibly, innovative. Take darling Allen’s “Howl”, he wanted to call it “Bark” before wiser advice (mine) prevailed, in it’s time considered a ground breaking masterpiece but now simply a hackneyed banality.

So dear, avoid clichés like the plague, pull your socks up, and, Bob’s your uncle, you’ll be feeling right as rain and producing ground-breaking, uplifting poetry in no time at all.

Yours truly,

Sympathetic Sybil

Send your problem to sybil@writeoutloud.net      Picture by Hana: http://hrneale.wordpress.com/