from the Writing Hurts Review Forum
Before offering my critique (and criticisms) of this poem, let me talk about what strikes me as encouraging; while you have some habits that I believe you will need to undo, if you with to write something memorable, you have some instincts that suggest a poetic sensibility that would make the effort to develop your craft worth your while.
First, and foremost, you're not overly concerned with telling me something, as in, shoving a message down my throat. Essays are good for that sort of thing, but a poem should be concerned more with its language than about whatever subject that language is conveying. In truth, your subject here is somewhat slight; there is no narrative flow, and while a few things could be said to happen, they are presented in a kind of timeless perception of the the moment, one that you hover around, coming at it from one direction, then another. So if I say you're more concerned with your language than with your subject, it is intended as a compliment, and it already places you a good deal farther along the developmental path than many who write (and, indeed, who publish) poetry.
You didn't rhyme. At least, not outright, with lots of moon/June cliches ending your lines for no reason other than some vaguely formed sense that poems need to rhyme. Rhyme is fine, if it serves the poem, but, like all artificial constructions (and poetry is the most artificial of all written forms), it needs to sound like it simply belongs there, that the words would have been spoken this way anyway and just happened to form into lines that rhyme.
The rhymes you've embedded in your poem are not so obvious; they are internal, and rhymes of assonance and consonance and so, while not calling attention to themselves, provide an internal consistency that operates totally apart from the surface content, giving much more force to that content. dreams/trees, darkness/caress, ears/eyes--none of these are literal rhyming pairs, but they sound right, they allow the words to rolls easily off the tongue.
Your meter is uneven. Don't get me wrong: I'm not offended by poems that adhere to a strict 4-beat line, as in da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM-de-de DUM, and some powerful verses have been written using that type of line, but it's nice to see variation, and you have provided that. I'm not certain that you were specifically thinking scansion when you wrote this, but it's strong nonetheless. If you're not sure what I mean about scansion, in the broadest sense, it's simply the way English arranges itself into a sequence of weak and strong beats. Well structured English will naturally contain a much higher ratio of strong to weak beats, and, will gather into metrical feet, small rhythmic units that create another underlying structure not directly concerned with content, but which enables it with a steady, relentless flow.
For the record, your first line scans into two trochees and a final strong beat, the second a trochee, an iamb and an anapest, and the third the same as the second with a trailing weak beat at the end. All three beat lines, but with enough variation that we don't feel like your stuck in a formula. In the second stanza you mix it up even more, your opening line an iamb, a trochee and an anapest, but the second line cut short at the second beat, giving to a four-beat third line.
The third stanza opens with the same three feet you've used previously, but again with a different sequence, leading with an anapest, then a trochee and a final iamb. The second line is the most complex, rhythmically, another four beat line with a spondee/pyrrhic combination that works perfectly with the content: this is the only line that actually contains an event that can be located in time and space, rather than internally perception, and the meter supports it nicely. And the final two beat line wraps things up with a fine, asymetrical balance, one that feels complete without feeling repetitious.
Whether the product of careful consideration, or simply a result of an instinctive sense of language, these are elements conspicuous by their absence in much poetry that is written here and elsewhere and they are why I believe you have good poems in your future.
Now for the elements that keep this from being one of them.
If there is one structural element that distinguishes poetry from prose, it is the line, and its attendant break. There is nothing like it in prose and it's effective use can create nuances of meaning and suggest alternative, even contradictory interpretations of the content. What never works is to simply take a block of prose and chop it up arbitrarily so that, on the page, it looks like a poem, but which, is still just prose. For all the reasons I've already mentioned, you are not writing prose, but neither are you taking advantage of the line break. Each of your lines is a complete element, self-contained, and while one flows to the next and they build on each other, they each convey a single element of perception and so, the repetition (and boredom) that you've so effortless avoided with your sound and rhythm now makes an unwanted appearance in the way your lines give us This... now this... and now this... and here's another... and now this one...
This is a much trickier thing to deconstruct, since it is so entwined with the content of the images themselves, and, for reasons that follow, it is not the kind of thing you can tweak. I wouldn't offer you alternative line breaks to consider here, because, due to the nature of your images, there really aren't any.
And so, finally, we come to the heart of the matter, which is your imagery. Here is where you let us down, and where lies your challenge if you want to produce something lasting. Before I start to gripe, let me offer one final compliment: you start with an image of moonlight as a welcoming presence, and end on a nice ambiguous note; a voice calling from the shadows, calling me home, could be interpreted a few different ways. The offered sanctuary could be simple, a respite from cares and tribulations, it could be something colder and more permanent, death and a release from this world. That you don't take your reader by the hand and force them into one or another interpretation, but rather let them all float around in the mist at once is a nice touch.
But I have to tell you that moonlight is a dangerous image in the best of times. It's been used, for centuries. I'm not saying that there is nothing new in the image to surprise us, only that you haven't located or exploited it. The entire first stanza is simply a cliche use of moonlight. Sure, moonlight can do the obvious like gently embracing my dreams but isn't there another, darker, side to moonlight? The whole "dark night of the soul" thing which could offer a sharp contrast to the expected (and cliche) usage, and also buttress the ambiguity at the end.
But to manage that, you're going to have to come up with something for moonlight to do besides gently embracing anything. Something sharper, unexpected, a suggestion that moonlight might not just be a silvery web of protection and solace. But this is where a reviewer has to recognize the limits of a review. It's a simple thing to note elements that don't work, that fail to maximize the potential of a poem, but quite another to start offering alternatives, for those can only come from the poet whose vision this is, and they cannot be induced or grafted on. I won't undertake a line by line analysis because in general, all the lines have the same problem: they use indistinct images in predictable ways that neither surprise nor satisfy.
If you're going to get serious about this stuff, you're going to have to read poets who have, for whatever reason, produced work that has endured, that has transcended their own eras to become part of the broad body of English poetry. There are myriad examples, none of them necessarily the same. But unless you dive into this vast pool of poetry, and uncover for yourself the reason why those poets would probably not have used words like moonlight, gently embracing, wind whispers, breathy caress, or endearments, literally, with no irony or ulterior motive, then you will continue to rely on the same easy images that are too easy, that really serve as place holders in a poem that hasn't actually been written yet.
I would suggest that you study a random selection of works from a poet like William Carlos Williams. He pioneered the kind of flexible, almost conversational rhythm at which you seem so adept. But note, in these two short poems, how his images are utterly surprising, and how they actually create meanings that are skewed in different direction from the surface content. That is what poetry can do, and do it more effectively than prose, give us a multidimensional experience, rather than simply convey a message.
Dawn
Ecstatic bird songs pound
the hollow vastness of the sky
with metallic clinkings--
beating color up into it
at a far edge,--beating it, beating it
with rising, triumphant ardor,--
stirring it into warmth,
quickening in it a spreading change,--
bursting wildly against it as
dividing the horizon, a heavy sun
lifts himself--is lifted--
bit by bit above the edge
of things,--runs free at last
out into the open--!lumbering
glorified in full release upward--
songs cease.
The Cold Night
It is cold. The white moon
is up among her scattered stars--
like the bare thighs of
the Police Sergeant's wife--among
her five children . . .
No answer. Pale shadows lie upon
the frosted grass. One answer:
It is midnight, it is still
and it is cold . . . !
White thights of the sky! a
new answer out of the depths of
my male belly: In April . . .
In April I shall see again--In April!
the round and perfects thighs
of the Police Sergeant's wife
perfect still after many babies.
Oya!
Am I suggesting that you should write like Williams? Of course not. Aside from the fact that he's already done a pretty good job of it himself, I'd much prefer that you write like you. But I'd like to see you challenge yourself to come up with something original, something that captures my attention, something that makes me think, "Wow, language can do that." |
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