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Aww, I was hoping to make this one but I was asleep pretty much the whole time. Oh well.
Its a good image of a quiet forest, but it's fairly bare bones other than that. There's not much of a story beyond the one image. It reads almost more like a blurb on a picture than a poem.
The actual Image itself is almost visceral. The feeling of standing in a snow covered forest as everything is silent is a potent image, but it is a snapshot. Not a story but a single moment. Not necessarily bad, but not a stand out either.
The actual Image itself is almost visceral. The feeling of standing in a snow covered forest as everything is silent is a potent image, but it is a snapshot. Not a story but a single moment. Not necessarily bad, but not a stand out either.
This conjured up the image of the Grim Reaper shaving off time like you would a slice of cheese. He lays you on a board and, bit by bit, cuts away at you.
The double rhyming scheme was appreciated, but I found that the flow was somewhat jagged on a few lines. The second line of each paragraph trips me up each time I read it, especially the word 'descending'. While I can build up a rhythm for the poem the 'descending' line makes me quick-step on the delivery when I'm reading it aloud.
Otherwise, good job. It isn't quite clear how the title plays into the poem as they don't seem to 'End', but good overall.
The double rhyming scheme was appreciated, but I found that the flow was somewhat jagged on a few lines. The second line of each paragraph trips me up each time I read it, especially the word 'descending'. While I can build up a rhythm for the poem the 'descending' line makes me quick-step on the delivery when I'm reading it aloud.
Otherwise, good job. It isn't quite clear how the title plays into the poem as they don't seem to 'End', but good overall.
I'll admit, as a certified normie, this one kind of went over my head a bit. The old-timy phrases took me a while to digest. On this one the title was required reading to parse through the poem. Words like 'bowr'd' and 'solicitude' are not something I generally run across.
So it seems that the poet is passing by an old picture on the fridge and wondering at how time has changed the individual. How young and vibrant they were, and now are now presumably old and frail. Or they have the wrong person. Makes me think they're an in-law who doesn't know the history of the photo very well. (Or maybe they're the help. The last stanza seems to go against the rest of the poem.)
Visually the two syllable lines break up the blocks rather well. They represent a pause for the poet as they consider various things. I can imagine doing something similar if I found an old picture of my grandmother in a drawer somewhere.
Altogether, good job. It's not the sort of poem I would probably read, but it seems to be well put together.
So it seems that the poet is passing by an old picture on the fridge and wondering at how time has changed the individual. How young and vibrant they were, and now are now presumably old and frail. Or they have the wrong person. Makes me think they're an in-law who doesn't know the history of the photo very well. (Or maybe they're the help. The last stanza seems to go against the rest of the poem.)
Visually the two syllable lines break up the blocks rather well. They represent a pause for the poet as they consider various things. I can imagine doing something similar if I found an old picture of my grandmother in a drawer somewhere.
Altogether, good job. It's not the sort of poem I would probably read, but it seems to be well put together.
Initial Reaction:
This poem gives me a disjointed impression. It feels like a child telling a story, or an old legend/fairly tale, but each line is skipping several parts in between. This lacks the cohesiveness to form a central image in my mind.
Thinking about it:
Now, if I reframe it as someone describing the moon as it goes through it's phases it makes more sense. Ultimately, the personification doesn't really help the understanding of the story. Calling it 'Mooncurl' when the other is called 'Sun' is a bit misleading.
Ultimately it feels more like a riddle (kind of want to add "What am I?" to the end), or an old aboriginal man telling stories over a campfire. It works, but I think it needs a bit more context if the reader is supposed to understand quickly. Maybe a bit less abstraction, unless you want the reader to spend extra time on it. I'm not sure regular people would think on it that long.
This poem gives me a disjointed impression. It feels like a child telling a story, or an old legend/fairly tale, but each line is skipping several parts in between. This lacks the cohesiveness to form a central image in my mind.
Thinking about it:
Now, if I reframe it as someone describing the moon as it goes through it's phases it makes more sense. Ultimately, the personification doesn't really help the understanding of the story. Calling it 'Mooncurl' when the other is called 'Sun' is a bit misleading.
Ultimately it feels more like a riddle (kind of want to add "What am I?" to the end), or an old aboriginal man telling stories over a campfire. It works, but I think it needs a bit more context if the reader is supposed to understand quickly. Maybe a bit less abstraction, unless you want the reader to spend extra time on it. I'm not sure regular people would think on it that long.
This seems... angry, self-righteous, and grieving.
The poet gives me the impression that they are raging against the heavens, accusing God of negligence and apathy. There is a certain amount of leeway left by the phrase 'In my mind' where they know others might see them as wrong or evil, but they banish the moral positions of others and declare their own perspective as the correct one. And damn the others. (Feels like a member of the inquisition)
Overall, I like it. It's a solid image in the mind and seems to insinuate a lot about the character. Even if I don't agree with the position taken it still does a lot with the limited words.
The poet gives me the impression that they are raging against the heavens, accusing God of negligence and apathy. There is a certain amount of leeway left by the phrase 'In my mind' where they know others might see them as wrong or evil, but they banish the moral positions of others and declare their own perspective as the correct one. And damn the others. (Feels like a member of the inquisition)
Overall, I like it. It's a solid image in the mind and seems to insinuate a lot about the character. Even if I don't agree with the position taken it still does a lot with the limited words.
Hm, this feels baselessly accusatory. Maybe it's meant to depict the speaker lashing out because he feels self-conscious about his own feelings? It presumes foreknowledge that the person being spoken to has not been just, even in their own opinion, which locks me out of any context as to how they could know that and how correct they are. It carries some power, I'll give you that, but it puts things in the unpleasant side to read, which can be worth it if it creates an effect, but without that context, it's hard-pressed to.
I can't tell whether there's an intentional structure here. There's no rhyme or meter, but after the first line, the next few regularly have 5 syllables, then the next few regularly have 6, until the final line with 4. I do like the characterization that moonlight is only reflected sunlight. I'm not sure about all the wriggling imagery. Is that just that the moon's orbit gives it a more irregular path than the sun does, like how they used to use epicycles to explain? The likening of the crescent shape to a smile or curl is classic but well used.
This looks visually like it's supposed to be a haiku, but it isn't. In the end, it probably doesn't matter, but you do need to be aware of what first impressions it can make like that and how it can throw a speed bump at a reader. This feels more humorous that anything. The first two lines create atmosphere well, then the third feels tongue-in-cheek more than further atmosphere. I've always liked the way snow muffles things and used that in my own writing. The title is clever after the fact, in that the quiet word "silent" needs to quit being used in order to achieve its purpose.
Structurally, the first stanza is perfect iambic trimeter, which sets up the expectation that the second will be as well, but it isn't. It still has the correct number of syllables for it, but not the rhythm, and scythe/life is a fairly weak rhyme. It also has a pretty stark tonal shift in the middle. The first stanza is peaceful and playful, an enjoyable image of dreaming. Then the second stabs that in the back to say it's also only bringing you closer to death. I have mixed feelings about whether that works. I don't see enough of a thematic connection to it. Rather than saying A causes B, it's just saying there's A and then there's B. It creates a reaction, but I don't think it makes a point.
I like the sound of this, but I'm not close to understanding it. Structurally, it's not a form I'm familiar with. It seems like the lines are supposed to be iambic, but that breaks on several of them, and two run long on syllable count. Like the previous one I read, it pulls a switch in the middle that I don't feel like I have the context to interpret. Someone constantly sees a woman's picture on the fridge, and at first it seems like it's because the person knows the woman and considers her significant. It almost seems to be saying they don't know her as well as they wish they did. But then it gets disarmed by the speaker seemingly being cleaning staff who might have simply seen the picture in one of their clients' houses, and so seems to be brushing off the significance of it. That kind of mood change can be meaningful if I can see enough of the bigger picture to know what difference that makes, but here, I don't.
Blanket of stillness falls.
Nothing can breathe or move
As the edge of space touches Earth.
Nothing can breathe or move
As the edge of space touches Earth.
One cannot keep the rhythm,
We borrow it a while.
If life you cannot fathom,
Then live at least in style.
We borrow it a while.
If life you cannot fathom,
Then live at least in style.
I rewrite verse a thousand times
And pause,
Then tweak the scansion once again
And wring some further hopeful lines
From English prosody.
And pause,
Then tweak the scansion once again
And wring some further hopeful lines
From English prosody.
Sunboom
Pulls them all to dance
Small icy blobs
That spin and slow,
Some even start to think.
Pulls them all to dance
Small icy blobs
That spin and slow,
Some even start to think.
The first and second lines, together, convey a sense of what the words represent. For me, it is the second line that is weak; 'cosmos' is too abstract in an image which otherwise carries the close feeling of frost.
I enjoy lullabies and folklore, and this poem, whose purport is to get the reader to re-picture a familiar image, fits the bill. I have read somewhere that the method of a bedtime story is to expunge the imagination of "dream stuff" by externalizing it, to allow more restful slumber.
In this connection, it seems like the poem is short, since it is really interested in the personification and character of the moon, and not the poetic image of the moon reflecting light, per se.
In this connection, it seems like the poem is short, since it is really interested in the personification and character of the moon, and not the poetic image of the moon reflecting light, per se.
I voted for this as my favorite submission. I think some readers may find it disjointed, but for me the image of stars and the throw of reflection blend together in a way which brings out the 'action-like' quality of the latter, something which is ordinarily regarded as "just thinking".
>>MrExtra
>>Pascoite
For this poem, I used a short line to give the flow an odd count, to keep it from being too "old-timey". It's something that happened to me. My step-aunt recently had brain surgery, and I stayed with her the first night she arrived back from the hospital, and helped clean her moldering kitchen.
The photo is of her sister. But it seemed to me, in that situation, the image of one vibrant young woman was as good as another.
>>Pascoite
For this poem, I used a short line to give the flow an odd count, to keep it from being too "old-timey". It's something that happened to me. My step-aunt recently had brain surgery, and I stayed with her the first night she arrived back from the hospital, and helped clean her moldering kitchen.
The photo is of her sister. But it seemed to me, in that situation, the image of one vibrant young woman was as good as another.
>>MrExtra, >>Pascoite, >>Heavy_Mole
Bend
Yeah, I mucked this one up. In the first draft the last lines were slices one more day / from your busy life. I tried to get the meter in the second stanza to match the first at three in the morning, then I gave up and left it in the current state. Thanks for the perceptive comments!
Bend
Yeah, I mucked this one up. In the first draft the last lines were slices one more day / from your busy life. I tried to get the meter in the second stanza to match the first at three in the morning, then I gave up and left it in the current state. Thanks for the perceptive comments!
>>MrExtra, >>Pascoite, >>Heavy_Mole
Revealing Blight
As my previous comment states, I tried to get another entry in at 3 AM, and this is it. I intended no ill feelings to anyone, but I appear to have been in an odd state of mind. I reconstruct it envisioning people looking up to the stars as they shine down on everyone, constantly producing heavenly light, all imperfections hidden, in steep contrast to the state of confusion that pervades most human affairs. We all have to come to terms with how far we are willing to let ourselves fall short of the ideals we impose.
Revealing Blight
As my previous comment states, I tried to get another entry in at 3 AM, and this is it. I intended no ill feelings to anyone, but I appear to have been in an odd state of mind. I reconstruct it envisioning people looking up to the stars as they shine down on everyone, constantly producing heavenly light, all imperfections hidden, in steep contrast to the state of confusion that pervades most human affairs. We all have to come to terms with how far we are willing to let ourselves fall short of the ideals we impose.
>>MrExtra, >>Pascoite, >>Heavy_Mole
Moonchurl
I was just trying to describe some celestial mechanics in a playful way. The bow of the crescent Moon always faces the sun. The Moon's orbit is linked to Earth's but passes sometimes closer to the Sun, sometimes further away, with the occasional eclipse as the ring of fire.
I may have passed along a misconception; some think of the Moon's orbit as being looped or concave in spots due to its interaction with the Earth, but in reality it's convex at all parts of its orbit around the sun.
Thanks for the comments, they are much appreciated!
Moonchurl
I was just trying to describe some celestial mechanics in a playful way. The bow of the crescent Moon always faces the sun. The Moon's orbit is linked to Earth's but passes sometimes closer to the Sun, sometimes further away, with the occasional eclipse as the ring of fire.
I may have passed along a misconception; some think of the Moon's orbit as being looped or concave in spots due to its interaction with the Earth, but in reality it's convex at all parts of its orbit around the sun.
Thanks for the comments, they are much appreciated!
>>Pascoite, >>GroaningGreyAgony, >>Heavy_Mole
Thanks everyone for the feedback! I wasn't up quite as late a Gray, but I definitely had the same attitude of 'falling asleep, good enough' when I sent this one in. Glad it worked out.
My goal with this was to see what could be done with the absolute minimum number of words. This was inspired by a recent camping trip where we hiked in to an off grid cabin in winter. I don't know how well this is able to convey the awe I felt standing in the perfectly dark forest as the sky opened up above me. Especially after living in the city for so long I wanted to convey the serenity of the experience, how much there is to see and feel when the light and bustle of society are absent.
Thanks everyone for the feedback! I wasn't up quite as late a Gray, but I definitely had the same attitude of 'falling asleep, good enough' when I sent this one in. Glad it worked out.
My goal with this was to see what could be done with the absolute minimum number of words. This was inspired by a recent camping trip where we hiked in to an off grid cabin in winter. I don't know how well this is able to convey the awe I felt standing in the perfectly dark forest as the sky opened up above me. Especially after living in the city for so long I wanted to convey the serenity of the experience, how much there is to see and feel when the light and bustle of society are absent.