I clicked on it because of the mention of its form, a rather involved one called the Cinquain Garland. I form I have written many times in my younger days here on WDC.
Your form is perfect. The message, while honest and necessary, leaves me out in the cold. The stanzas read as if from a manual on how to improve communication and not a poetic version of the same ideas.
Your title lacks originality. Even something like "The Conversation" would be more engaging. I personally like to take words or ideas from my texts when in search for a workable title. Titles, like first lines, must keep the reader's interest.
Perhaps "To read his mood" would a more poetic choice.
This is your typical excellent poetry. I must be honest and say that I did not know the Kyrielle Sonnet.
I have only one desire for improvement/change and that would be to follow the traditional volta of Shakespearean Sonnets and lighten up the third stanza with a more profound reflection rather than a third re-iteration of the first stanza's information. You use "the failures" but do not use the same formula for the opposing "never wins." This line does not flow as well as the others when reciting your words. "Tasting failures but rarely wins" is smoother in my opinion.
It is always a pleasure to read your poetry. Reviewing it, on the other hand, is quite challenging!
There are many wonderful ideas in this poem. The first, second and fourth stanzas are very strong with highly personal images which grasp the reader and don't let go. I wonder in the second stanza if placing "fake" in italics adds anything. It is the word which for me has the most importance, but you do not develop its implicit idea.
I am not sure, however that the central idea, expressed in the only two-line stanza, is valid here. You have penned the reverse of the cliche "question without an answer" but I'm not sure it works here. The idea is "cute" and none of your others lack in seriousness, even if they need work.
"Words, scream, stretch—
small, defeated
deliberate, slow
Feel so far away"
This does not work well, because of your juxtaposition "scream/stretch" and the fact that you develop only the idea of stretching.
In the last stanza you re-use "fake" and do so in a cliche form. You pass much too quickly from mockery to love. Again, the opposition "mock/pray" warrants an additional stanza for clarity.
Epic. I expected something much more descriptive, like a comparison of paintings found in a museum.
Your words are sweet, but they lack in originality.
I wonder why you open and close the poem with the same stanza. Good poetry should have a beginning, middle and end, with an evolution between the three parts. Thus it is very difficult to compose purely descriptive poetry, as the words and viewpoints expressed must be outstanding, original or very personal to over-balance the static atmosphere of pure description.
In the second line, I wonder about your choice of words using "grieve." Important words like this one need to have a full place in the poem, they need to be developed.
The premise I find between gay and grieve, which are the two adjectives you use here, is that life is either white or black. What about all of the grey in between? Just because I don't feel like smiling in the fresh air does not make me grieve.
I believe most of the lines would be easier on the reader's eyes if you included more punctuation. "I wake too soon - not ready." Or "I wake too soon (not ready)"
The two lines with the open quotes mark seem unfinished.
Your most interesting line, but which has little to do with the rest of the poem, is the run-on line opening the second stanza. Again, it would be easier on the writer if you punctuated it.
Perhaps one word is misspelled: "I fall back down and sleep some more escape to WHERE I fear no more."
I am certain that this poem means something to you as a writer. Our jobs as writers is to make our texts come to life, the same life we had in our heads when taking pen to paper, so that the reader does not leave the text saying to ourselves "Huh?"
I do not understand. Perhaps the poet doesn't understand either. Perhaps understanding is not important, if the poet, like an abstract painter, can point in enough different directions for the interpreter to be able to interpret.
I find this very brief poem tells more than it shows. What kind of horror? What kind of wonder? What kind of splendor, of terror?
This resembles the kind of thoughts I personally put in my writing journal to be transformed more creatively into poetry at a later date. The text reads like an outline, a skeleton of a poem, and desperately needs meat between its words.
I found this poem featured in this week's poetry newsletter.
I like much of the poem. The last stanza is tender and brilliant at the same time. The parenthetical aside in the second stanza, the weakest in my opinion, adds nothing to the poem.
Your opening stanza has two vivid, but diametrically opposing, images about the moon. The opening image is not quite true; I am uncertain if poetic license allows us to write that the moon is dashing from cloud to cloud. To get around this "as it seems to dash..." tells us you set up a metaphor.
In the central stanza, I do not think your line cut in "the very same seconds, swept across each and // every // clock face..." adds anything important to the text. I have the same comment for the last line of this same stanza. Your parentheses are in the incorrect place in order to link this last line with the indented text. "...lived in each of our separate theaters // but I know (as certainly as // this fingernail, chewed off my index finger) // that many times..."
All in all this is a different and personal text and that adds a lot to my appreciation.
I found this featured in this week's Poetry Newsletter.
Your title intrigued me. I found no link to it and the body of the poem until the very last line. I am not sure that it is the best title for this particular catalog poem nor the proper way to conclude it.
This is a very long poem. With the only exception of the title and its link to the poem, I like the text, and the trials and errors of attempting to find love suggested within.
What absolutely does not work for me is the overly long, single stanza. This kind of poem, which lends itself very easily to stanza breaks as you speak about different boys, is hard to refer to when searching for this or that element because the reader must glance over everything in order to find a specific line.
As a fellow poet, I am unsure of many line breaks. They do not seem to be well thought out.
A word to the wise. I read this poem only because northernwrites selected it for her newsletter. Your introduction -- and its lack of modesty -- would have kept me from reading your poem had I come across it on a Random Read.
I found this piece showcased in today's Spiritual Newsletter. Congratulations on being chosen.
The poet I am was immediately intrigued by your wonderful title. It conjured up many images in my mind, but yours was just vague enough to keep me intrigued throughout the piece.
Your premise of a conversation between a man (you?) and God, Life or Death is a good one to build on. Sometimes the lines are not as clear as they need to be. Anyone writing conversation is aware of this difficulty. In an ideal world, readers should not have to backtrack to see who's speaking.
That being said, this reads green to me. I don't know if you are a philosopher at heart, but I do believe that with a bit of elbow grease you can iron out the rough/unclear spots and turn this into a true gem.
However I don't particularly like poems with lines ending in conjunctions and prepositions. Thus I would write "Far away // in another land completely [no period]. And then "Yellow flowers danced lightly // and tall golden grass shimmered in the sun." Perhaps here you could enrich the variety of color by using another tone completely for the flowers and leave the gold for the sunlight which cannot be of another hue. And the last group of lines I would line-end differently is "Many think // when evening comes // a hush falls over the meadow. // But when daylight falls away,..."
You also need to double-check your capitalization at the beginning of each line. Since you tend to write in complete sentences, either capitalize the first word of the sentence or capitalize the first word of each line; both are correct.
I always pay special attention to my titles. "Fairytale meadow" is nice but you use is two times in the text. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but the last stanza you write "out the fairies come to play // in fairytale meadow. This is perhaps one "fairy" too many. And in that particular line, it would be better to write as you speak: "the fairies come out to play." Inverting words was fine in other centuries; generally poets do not do this any longer.
I like the text for the most part. There are many spots which are too sketchy, forcing the reader to fill in the blanks. That can be OK, in a certain type of poetry. But with that small "handicap" a stronger presentation is necessary. Your super-short lines slow the reader and break up phrases which belong together.
Consider this idea for line breaks:
slow burn
little bits
only one at a time
who knew love would feel
empty not real
more than one soul
splits
is this me? am i you?
look in your eyes
passion
love, perhaps
but i feel, i don't feel
not anymore
unfair
how could i? did you know?
i'm unsure
trust myself
The poem itself is lovely. I write this many times in reviews, but it is difficult to compose an original love poem. Yours is excellent.
However, I differ with your interpretation of the Rondeau form. I am not sure whether the rules of the contest allow for variations on the rhyming scheme, but the aabba abbR aabbaR scheme is an inherent part of the poem. You break this pattern.
Also, the beginning of the R line is traditionally taken from the opening of the poem's first line. Once again, I do not know how the judging will allow such liberties with the form.
Perhaps if I wander through your port I will find ten other rondeau poems, beginning chronologically with a total respect of the form and ending with this latest poem showing the way you have decided to personalize this form. But that is not the way poetry contests are judged. They are judged on the poem itself and not the former capacity of the poet.
And if you are very familiar with the form and are aware that you have taken liberties with it, I would foot-note your poem so that is clear to other discerning readers like myself.
Your form is not quite perfect. In the fifth stanza there is a nine-syllable line.
I personally would not double the "claim/pain" rhyme in the third stanza with "pain/rain" in the fourth. Aside from re-using a rhyming word in very close proximity, the form does not allow for repeated rhymes other than the A rhyme beginning every stanza.
And while it is very tempting to reuse the word "moonlight" as a rhyme word, I would stay away from obvious rhymes, especially when they double up instead of being more original. With the two "moonlight" rhymes, plus the first line's "light" you have three rhymes ending with the same word. When I choose to write a form that has many repetitions of the same sound, I use a rhyme dictionary to catalog all of my eventual choices so as to avoid this problem.
Your most creative stanza is the fourth. It is by far the best use of the word "pain."
The fifth stanza bothers me for another technical reason: you begin each line with the article "the." Replace at least one of them with an adjective which will always make a text more interesting. None of the three articles are needed to understand the stanza. "Raging anguish pushes my fight." "Bruising clouds sweep my angry fears." "Bold lightning strikes [from] all my fears." I think you get the idea.
There is one pair of lines that isn't finished:
You will find me in the moonlight,
where the storm clouds gather to claim.
What are the clouds going to claim? This answer becomes more important because your poem's structure uses complete sentences. There are no phrases left hanging for the reader to "interpret" as he will.
And because of the excellence of the fourth stanza, perhaps your third stanza can be eliminated. With its lack of precise understanding and the repeated rhymes, it has two major strikes against it in my opinion.
I wait for my paycheck. I have a good job, a roof over my head, and enough to eat. Even so, I wait for the sales to spend my money as wisely as I can. I wait in line at the cinema. At the local coffee shop.
I do not wait to die. It will happen in its own time.
For "someone who has been there" (I quote your introduction) your poem is extremely simplistic, trying to trivialize homelessness by reminding us of a certain part of being human, the idea of waiting. It happens to all of us, except perhaps the famous "One Percent." And even they, in their sheltered limousines, get stuck waiting in traffic.
Tell us how the homeless have been objects of modern society, real estate's over-evaluated market, the job situation where the rich CEOs insist on paying people less than a decent salary, being laid off, having your mortgage "reassessed" so that it's impossible to pay, and how elements like this create a homeless situation.
Then you'll have a poem about "waiting people." Waiting for justice. Waiting for luck to turn. Waiting for all the things that those of us lucky enough to take for granted (a job, food, shelter, health insurance, you name it).
As it is, all I read here is an outline filled with ideas that might one day make a better poem.
The poetic form is perfectly respected, but your text does not read like a poem. Many poets have taken an article from a newspaper and cut it up into "meaningful" lines, trying to make poetry of it. The exercise is useful for learning about line cuts.
In this excellent, more philosophical text, you have composed a group of complete sentences which I do not call poetry. This is a more prose-like text arranged using a poetic form.
You write citing the existence of poets' "lyrical tropes", but I hoped to read more lyricism in your poetry.
A good poem. The story is well paced and the poetic voice is interesting. The ending is a complete surprise and well worth the wait!
Two things, however, I question, from poet to poet.
Your use of couplets and single lines gives the poem visual balance. Your use of indentation in two couplets at the beginning stands out and should, in my opinion, offer something special for the reader. One normally uses indentation in larger stanzas as a means of grouping ideas together so that the reader is not confused. I do not find this necessity in this particular poem made up of essentially two- and one-line stanzas.
Your "hey" as a single indented line is understandable, but it too stands out like an error. I would have paralleled it with at least the line "what a jerk."
The other thing are the two stanzas of three lines which don't impart crucial information in the poem. In the first stanza, ending it with an enjambment which forces the reader quickly to the next stanza, exactly as if the next line was in the same stanza, serves little other purpose than to be decorative.
Many places I agree with your use of single lines for emphasis. It is my opinion that the logic should be apparent throughout the entire poem.
A complicated layout like this usually serves a purpose for the writer at least, and with great poetry (for this is good in my opinion) helps the reader follow as closely as is possible the writer's adventure through a particular text.
But I think the presentation can become more contemporary if you remove all of the "I am made of" and similar repeated phrases that add little to your text.
List poems are wonderful, and once the writer has established the relationship between the items on the list, the repeated elements are no longer necessary. The repetition "hits the reader over the head" with the obvious.
One line is too much: "For what you are...." It is possibly an important line for you as the poet but it is unclear for the reader what its relationship is to the rest of the poem. It would be much stronger to end the poem with "....and yet some still see me as broken. // I am simply blood and bones...."
Of course, that upsets your rhyming. But I think that is a lesser evil than a line that is unclear for the reader.
I would reduce all the lines except the first and last. Open the poem with "I am made of..." and then close it with the summation "I am simply blood and bones."
One typo: an improper possessive in the sixth line.
It is a dark, bleak poem, filled with pain that is tangible for the reader.
It is hard to comment on the context. I personally would have disguised the ordinary phrases ( like ears falling with the pain or "Standing still, numb and drained" ) in more poetic terms. But I cannot fault a young writer for using a sincere vocabulary to paint this kind of painful picture.
In your second stanza, write "rapidly HER heart pounds."
I wonder, however, at the notion of "daring to care." This seems to be more the reasoning of people hurt by the indifference of others than a description of that indifference. I do not believe the reason bullying happens is because the bullies don't "dare" to care. They are simply not able to understand anything outside of their own circle of life. They simply don't CARE.
Thus in your very last line, I would rather read "No one CARES to know."
Of course there are exceptions to this situation. When a family refuses to acknowledge a battered wife, the children fearing for their own skins. There, you may speak of "daring" to care. But those same children will become extremely caring of their mothers, a way to comfort her for not knowing how to be brave enough to stand up to their father.
But these details are absent from your text here, which is why I interpret the idea of "daring to care" in a more general way and question its reality in a poem that does not specifically point to abuse but the reaction of one who has been abused.
You have written a very troubling poem. Thank you for having the courage to do so.
alfred
I cannot speak of the content nor the fact that the last line seems to indicate a threat/danger between you.
What does not work for me is the lack of timeline. You switch tenses regularly, and your poem indicates that somehow you will have a greater influence on your nephew in spite of "your mother's heart and your father's love."
For the reader unacquainted with you and your family, there is not enough information on the page for me to fully appreciate your lines nor try to read between them to guess at what you know but have not included in this poem.
There is an incorrectly written possessive in the third line.
This text resembles an exercise in class where the teacher asks you to observe your breath and describe what you feel.
The idea of describing the multiple sensations one might experience while breathing in fresh air outdoors is a great departure point for a poem.
This never gets off the ground to go beyond the obvious words and phrases anyone could use writing about the same experience.
Even in a poem using a conversational tone as you do here, there has to be a direction of the poem. Your text is like treading water.
1) You repeat yourself too much without varying the words you use to convey the same ideas but differently.
2) You say the same things over and over without using synonyms to give the reader a different take on the same ideas.
Here I have tried to paraphrase the same idea twice. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with repetition in poetry, IF the poet uses different words each time so that the reader doesn't become bored reading the same words over and over. Reading the creativity of an author who remains on the same subject for 50 lines but describes it differently, is quite another matter. You do not yet do this.
Breathe in, breathe out. Exhale, inhale.
In poetry I always salute writers who go a step beyond what they think is needed to share their words. Write me a poem about breathing that surprises me.
It would be more poetic to "taste" the dampness in the air. This is more creative than your verb "feel". It's too bad you didn't go one step further to describe the wetness on your tongue, how it made your taste buds tingle.
Haiku has become a very popular form, much too often deflected from its origins.
Your autumn haiku is filled with obvious statements. "Autumn is color." Fiery blaze to describe the trees is OK, but the verb is weak.
In haiku, as well as all the poems which must say a lot with few words, each word must be as well chosen as possible. Thus your first two verbs add very little to your text. Verbs need to act, not describe.
The trees shake in fiery blaze. The trees lose their fiery blaze.
The possibilities to go further than the obvious are immense.
Your third line plays its role as a break in the obvious description you begin with your haiku's opening lines. But the line is not true. We all know that winter's slumber is only temporary. Because of this, I would suggest a complete rethinking of this line. A simple "life begins to sleep" conveys your intent with more truth and poetry.
I think what does not work in this poem is the great number of words you repeat: three times the word "lifetime" and a fourth with "time" alone, two repetitions of "meet" as well as "gaze" and "only." That's a lot of words which could be expressed differently, using synonyms and paraphrasing ideas.
Lifetime can be expressed in any number of words: forever, infinity, unending. Thus for your last line alone, I might suggest "This infinite gaze" or "A gaze for eternity." Do you understand the point I'm trying to make? And in both of my suggestions, I have eliminated your second use of the word "gaze."
Poetry is all about the way a writer uses words. It is very easy to get stuck with a set of words that we feel obliged to repeat and repeat. I do not honestly think that doing so constitutes good, or even interesting writing.
My only objection - and this coming from a poet who loves to invent long, compound adjectives -- is that your qualifiers of "the- sun" would be better written thus:
soaking up the
mad-as-a-raging-bull-
charging-on-red-rag-target
sun.
Your text is original, personal and surprising.
Great elements denoting personality.
My first impression of it is that you have tried to include too much in this text. And that does not inspire me to give this poem a third read or to try and figure out the links between all the lines you have written.
It would be better to create stanzas, to differentiate the elements you describe. This is always easier on the reader. Stanzas, like paragraphs in a book, separate ideas that belong together.
Please separate the title from the body of the text, as well as your name at the end.
I do not know the work of Mishima, but it appears to me that you have been inspired by many events in his life and that they are all placed here in a single poem in a random order.
Seppuku is a Japanese means of committing suicide. I find it very curious -- and borderline offensive -- that you use elements of the Muslim religion in a poem titled by the word describing suicide after one's honor has been compromised.
That being said, there are a few noteworthy poetic phrases in this long text. "Like a fading butterfly in the gloom." "Strapped in a luminous chair of lies." "The clear well is the water we hold."
As in many "train of thought" poems, free written with a specific inspiration in mind, there is a lot of editing that needs to be done. Perhaps all of your lines link up perfectly for you as the author, remembering how the various parts of this inspiration touched you, but your words to not convey this to me as a reader today.
I like the originality of this poem. You speak of Pluto as if everyone knows about life there, and I like that audacity. I especially appreciate the rower and the closing of your poem.
However, when writing poetry, you must use proper punctuation if you use it at all. Thus after each line, your periods (full stops if you're English) are not always welcome.
I am not certain of the poetic effect in your lines with multiple periods.
And if a poet uses a string of words which are similar, i.e. your group of -less words, it is always important to have a very good reason to break that chain. And I am not sure that the fifth adjective in your list belongs there.
I personally would have written the last word, "numb" on its own line. Doing so gives more impact to certain words, especially since it does not truly belong with the group that precedes it.
All in all I found this a very interesting poem.
Write on!
alfred
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