Criticism
Criticism it is a difficult thing to take.
When people do, do, it…?
With such honest bitter irony
I often think to myself, it's.
It's because they've none
Of the artistry, yet have all the tools.
poem by Mark Heathcote
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Prisoner
A misfit who is old before his time
Poverty has turned him to crime
Boredom gives him too much time to think
He pours another drink.
(chorus)
A burning, bitter taste of irony
A prisoner in the land of the free.
He wonders why his landscape looks so strange
Burger bars are home on the range
An empty bottle falling from his hand
He does'nt understand.
(chorus)
A burning, bitter taste of irony
A prisoner in the land of the free.
A cork unlocks the door to other lands
Of battles won and destinies in hand
A half-remembered state of liquid dreams
Where things aren't what they seem.
(chorus)
A burning, bitter taste of irony
A prisoner in the land of the free.
A naked savage dressed in shirt and jeans
A burning, bitter taste of irony
A prisoner in the land of the free.
(chorus)
A burning, bitter taste of irony
A prisoner in the land of the free.
song performed by by Ub40
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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I Want You To Hurt Like I Do
I ran out on my children
And I ran out on my wife
Gonna run out on you too, baby
I done it all my life
Everybody cried the night I left
Well, almost everybody did
My little boy just hung his head
And I put my arm, put my arm around his little shoulder
And this is what I said:
Sonny I just want you to hurt like I do
I just want you to hurt like I do
I just want you to hurt like I do
Honest I do, honest I do, honest I do
If I had one wish
One dream I knew would come true
Id want to speak to all the people of the world
Id get up there, Id get up there on that platform
First Id sing a song or two you know I would
Then Ill tell you what Id do
Id talk to the people and Id say
Its a rough rough world, its a tough tough world
Well, you know
And things dont always, things dont always go the way we plan
But theres one thing, one thing we all have in common
And its something everyone can understand
All over the world sing along
I just want you to hurt like I do
I just want you to hurt like I do
I just want you to hurt like I do
Honest I do, honest I do, honest I do
song performed by by Randy Newman
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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If government, or those in positions of power and authority, can silence criticism by the argument that such criticism might be misunderstood somewhere, there is an end to all criticism, and perhaps an end to our kind of political system. For men in authority will always think that criticism of their policies is dangerous. They will always equate their policies with patriotism, and find criticism subversive.
quote by Henry Steele Commager
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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The Irony of Love
Irony is a literary or rhetorical device.
The essayist Henry Watson Fowler wrote:
“any definition of irony
—though hundreds might be given,
and very few of them would be accepted—
must include this,
that the surface meaning
and the underlying meaning of
what is said are not the same.'
He left out that any definition of
Irony must include that it is cruel.
I never understood
The meaning of irony
Or how cruel it can be,
Until you told me,
That though you may love me,
You find it difficult to
Hear the words
“I love you” from me.
You see, some three years ago
You jokingly said
'I love you' to me,
And I begged you
Never to utter those words again.
Not because I did not want to hear them,
But because they were difficult for me.
They carried heart-felt consequences
That I did not want to face.
So, I shut out my heart and followed my head.
And in life filled with so many regrets,
It was the biggest mistake I ever made.
The irony,
After some thousand days have past,
You uttered the same
Imprudent sentiment to me.
This sentiment is the definition of irony –
The surface meaning
And underlying meaning are not the same.
Because although I asked you not to say
“I love you”,
It is all I wanted to hear.
The cruelty,
That now that heaven has at last
Blessed, cursed me with
Clarity of the heart,
And I want to say what I mean
With no different underlying sentiment,
You tell me you do not
Want to hear these words from me.
But the most ironic and cruelest part,
Will be,
If you make the same mistake I made
And keep from me what is within your heart.
poem by Hal Caufield
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Real art is without irony. Irony distances the author from his material. Irony is a product of something. It's not the reason for doing something. Irony is a cheap shot.
quote by Robert Altman
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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People say you should read your criticism because it will make you a better person but it doesn't. It just makes you a sad bitter old showbiz nightmare.
Prologue
The crucified planet Earth,
should it find a voice
and a sense of irony,
might now well say
of our abuse of it.
"Forgive them, Father,
They Know not what they do."
The irony would be
that we know what
we are doing.
When the last living thing
has died on account of us,
how poetical it would be
if Earth could say, in a voice floating up
perhaps
from the floor
of the Grand Canion
"It is done."
People did not like it here.
poem by Kurt Vonnegut from A Man without a Country (2007)
Submitted by Bogdan
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Ironic Disposition
Irony’s subtle lessons…
What a joke.
Irony doesn’t know subtlety.
It blatantly beats you senseless…
Mockingly
It revels in your sorrow.
It’s got me on speed dial.
I’ve been playing a song that doesn’t even want to be
Heard.
And it’s given me the music.
The one’s we’re closest to
Are its favorite tools.
It lets your fucking heart bleed all it’s got…
On the wrong altar.
It smirks when you take up that knife,
It knows you can’t.
It shows you a door you’re too smart to open.
But there are no other doors.
poem by Thom Isaacson
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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My most difficult thing so far, to be brutally honest, has been to waltz as if I knew what I was doing.
quote by Richard Roxburgh
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Spanking and verbal criticism have become, to many parents, more important tools of child rearing than approval.
quote by Phil Donahue
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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I've had trouble with criticism, I guess. It's hard to know what role criticism plays in either encouraging poets or in getting other people to read them.
quote by Kenneth Koch
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The important thing to me is that I'm not driven by people's praise and I'm not slowed down by people's criticism. I'm just trying to work at the highest level I can.
quote by Russell Crowe
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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A Natural Reaction
A reprobate? Who, me?
What's up with that?
Don't ask me to cozy up
and be your pal, please!
If I wanted, I could wreak
havoc on the whole crew!
By the way, can you define
irony for me?
Yes, I said irony!
I don't think you understand
the uses of irony, do you?
poem by Michael Pruchnicki
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Honest
(l. stansfield/i. devaney/r. darbyshire)
(honest)
(honest)
I just want to be honest with you
Honestly baby youve got me down on my knees
And honey Im sorry as sorry can be
You see it got me, my defenses were down
All Im praying is youll still want me around
Ooh baby
Chorus:
I wanna be honest with you
Youve seen it through
But Ive gotta tell you babe
Ive done something wrong
I wanna be honest with you
bout putting you through this pain
It was only a sexual thing
So help me baby
cos I wanna be honest
I wanna be honest with you
Babe weve gotta stop now and take a look at ourselves
cos we took a good thing and ran it down to the ground
Found myself lonely and in need of some love
But if it aint the real thing
Well it just aint enough
Ooh baby
Chorus
How much can I say Im sorry?
What more can I do?
I wanna be with you
Wont you say well stay together
Dont you say its gone
I wanna be with you
So baby please understand
I love you
Chorus
Fade
song performed by by Lisa Stansfield
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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There is no such thing, at this date of the world's history, in America, as an independent press. You know it and I know it. There is not one of you who dares to write your honest opinions, and if you did, you know beforehand that it would never appear in print. I am paid weekly for keeping my honest opinion out of the paper I am connected with. Others of you are paid similar salaries for similar things, and any of you who would be so foolish as to write honest opinions would be out on the streets looking for another job. If I allowed my honest opinions to appear in one issue of my paper, before twenty-four hours my occupation would be gone. The business of the journalists is to destroy the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the feet of mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread. You know it and I know it, and what folly is this toasting an independent press We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes.
quote by John Swinton
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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On the Critical Attitude
The critical attitude
Strikes many people as unfruitful
That is because they find the state
Impervious to their criticism
But what in this case is an unfruitful attitude
Is merely a feeble attitude. Give criticism arms
And states can be demolished by it.
Canalising a river
Grafting a fruit tree
Educating a person
Transforming a state
These are instances of fruitful criticism
And at the same time instances of art.
poem by Bertolt Brecht
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Life Is Difficult
Life is difficult-
Surprises are not always what we hoped they would be-
People misunderstand us-
We imagine we are kind
And they understand us differently-
Some problems never get solved
Some remain lingering for years-
There are cruel people in the world
Stupid ones also-
The fair do not always get the prize
The pushers push push push the good guys aside-
We see the Evil grinning and we cannot touch them-
All kinds of Hopes we have are disappointed-
Rejection is the Fate of everyone at one time or another
One has to try and try and try
And often that is not enough-
Life is difficult
And after a certain age is more difficult
And when young is also difficult-
Life is difficult in some time or some way for all of us
It just is-
Life is difficult
And even when it seems not to be
There is another time coming-
Life is difficult
And so long as we live
It will be.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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Sonnet: The Love of God Goads Me Onwards
I know the world much better than before;
My life has taught me bitter, lessons, wise;
Nevertheless, I’ve closed my heart’s/ mind’s door
To evil things and mortal sins and vice.
Remaining good is difficult, no doubt;
To do bad things is easier, joyful!
Our earthly life is like a ‘wrestling bout’;
The tempter tries tricks to floor us awful!
But, I’m half-way through my journey on earth!
I’ve tried to be as honest as I could;
For good men in this world, there is a dearth;
But still this way to breathe my last, I would.
The thing that goads me all along is love;
That love mysterious from my God above!
7-31-2002
poem by John Celes
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Final Exit
Don't weep for me
please don't cry
I was never here
no need for goodbye
This realm was never meant for me
its better to fade away
don't you see
this bitter irony, empty existance
to perish by my own hand
is the only thing that makes sense.
Do not weep for me, please dont cry
This is my final exit,
no need for goodbye.
poem by Samael Wolf
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Bitter Man
Bitter man
Feels very angry inside
That he wants to scream
Bitter man
Feels hurt
Bitter man
Hates to be put down
Bitter man
Doesn't know how to stop
The jealousy that other people feel about him
Bitter man
Doesn't have a peace of mind
Because the other people doesn't have respect for him
And he does have respect for other people
poem by Aldo Kraas
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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