Today,

[Ciri]

I'm a college student and english major, so writing for school takes priority over writing for fun, sadly enough So while I'm not much good at poetry except for the angsty kind, I figure I'd tack this up so y'all know I didn't forget about this place I also suck at thinking of titles, so feel free to suggest a better one!

 

 

Today

I read a book written on the walls of

A dusty room filled with broken memories

There were toys of a forgotten time

And pictures of people like

They wish they could have been

 

Today

I saw a dream in a line of music

Snatched from a window I passed on the street

The words were lost, too garbled to understand

But a stranger and I

Felt our hearts in the melody

 

Today

I smelled sweet sadness in a dying rose

Sacrificed for love one anniversary

A dozen tears and a pink teddy bear

Selfishly given on the Saint's death day

 

Today

I saw cruelty born in the eyes of a little girl

As her mother took her hand and led her away

Scolding her for dropping her toy money

In the hands of a past person

In the New York Subway

 

Today

I felt the burden of a desperate man

Settle on me as I read the line he wrote

HELP SOMEONE TO- was all I read

Before the words were covered with paint

By the janitor

 

 

EDIT: I mispelled a word or two *blush*

Edited March 16, 2008 by Ciri

[reverie]

Welcome, Ciri. English major huh? The major you can do anything with or nothing at all. Eh, I can't talk. I'm American Studies, so I'm in the same boat. I'm also a creative writing minor in poetry, so let me know if the feedback I've given you on this poem is too much or not enough.

 

 

I think "Today" is a good title, although that is quite a lot of images to pack into a single day's mediation. I would say your 2nd stanza starts out the strongest. Watch out for cliches though. You can't get more cliche than a phrases like "filled with broken memories" and "in a dying rose."

 

I would suggest lingering in each image longer and developing them with an eye towards clarity. Developed images speak louder than thoughts. That's not to say you can't have a poem crafted solely around ideas, but even there your language has to be precise.

 

3rd Stanza, line three: Sacrificed for love one anniversary -- Syntax seems a little off as it relates to the dying rose. Phrasing needs to be tweaked. Or maybe you just need a pause between "love" and "one."

 

Hmm, well you're an English major so you'll probably learn this if you haven't already, but you don't need to capitalize the beginning of each line. It's a nice nod towards tradition, but you'll have more flexibility if you don't follow the old convention. I mean it gives you another tool grammatically.

 

Nice work. Has potential. Keep working on it.

Edited March 16, 2008 by reverie

[Ciri]

Thanks; the level of criticism is fine Like I said, poetry isn't really my thing - although I do enjoy critical analysis of poetry in my classes, writing it is a whole other story. (I'm trying for secondary school english teacher, by the way; yes, I realize I'm insane)

 

Well then, I have a question or two, if you don't mind...

 

I think "Today" is a good title, although that is quite a lot of images to pack into a single day's mediation.

Does the juxtaposition of the images seem too random? I intended for a subtle continuity, but my mind tends to hopscotch all over the place, and sometimes I make mental jumps that make perfect sense to me and no one else until I explain it all step-by-step. That, along with cliches, are two things I've already been told I need to work on, but I keep slipping up.

 

I would suggest lingering in each image longer and developing them with an eye towards clarity. Developed images speak louder than thoughts. That's not to say you can't have a poem crafted solely around ideas, but even there your language has to be precise.

I realize that the first sentence refers to clarity of each scene with more sensory detail and description, but the second and third sort of lose me, because I'm not quite sure what you mean by 'images speak louder than thoughts.' Mainly, I have no trouble with the concept of imagery, but what do you mean by "thoughts" and "ideas" in the context of poetry? (I have a vague idea, but tend to overthink things so figured I'd ask)

 

Thanks again for your comments!

[reverie]

Hmm, have reconsidered this stanza some:

 

Today

I smelled sweet sadness in a dying rose

Sacrificed for love one anniversary

 

You know I think I finally get what you meant by this. I don't always get things on the first, second or even third read. I'm old, brain has to warm up. Yeah, I'm thinking a pause is definitely called for. I was thinking of "one" as a person and not as an occurrence. Normally, I'd suggest breaking it at the line between "love" and "one" since you don't want to use punctuation, but that enjamment plays a little havoc with the rest of the stanza, which could be fixed with punctuation, but that defeats the purpose of not using it in the first place. Oh well, it's not really a big deal. People can parse it out.

 

 

Anyway on to your question about images. Tangents are good, but you do have to connect the dots for us. And it's not so much that you jump around in this poem as your descriptions are too abstract for me at least to fully grasp your meaning.

 

 

Stanzas basically are mostly sensory driven

 

Stanza 1: sight used to put together a scene either literal or metaphorical???

Stanza 2: sight and sound blending into feelings/memories? and or wishful thinking?

Stanza 3: smell to an emotion

Stanza 4: sight used to read other people

Stanza 5: emotionally driven feeling although playing on the sense of touch, but it's a stretch.

 

Okay you are covering a lot mental ground here, so you need to keep your readers with you as you hopscotch around. This leads into answering your second question:

 

what do you mean by "thoughts" and "ideas" in the context of poetry

 

Basically, I mean "thoughts" and "ideas" are blunt abstractions that stand in for (or take the place) of the tricky emotions you are trying to describe. It's the old "show don't tell adage," I just hate saying it. Anyway, when I say images speak louder than abstractions, I mean that it is better to try to show the reader what you feel then to tell them the abstract short hand for it. Why? Because abstractions are relative. What's "fun" for me may not be "fun" for you. What's "sad" for me, may not be "sad" for you.

 

Example: I read a book written on the walls of /

A dusty room filled with broken memories

 

"Book" kind of bland, but I'm with you.

 

"written on the walls" okay lots images come to mind and none of them probably are what you had in mind.

 

"of a dusty room" alright, a little better the scene is forming, but I'm still kind of digesting how a book would look written on the walls -- you could develop this by saying how they are writing e.g. (all over the walls, hastily scrawled, up and down, finely printed) and that's just how the letter might have looked, not what they might have said.

 

"filled with broken memories" and while I'm still trying to wrap my head the whole book vs. wall thing, it turns out that the room itself is filled with broken memories. Now, at this point "broken memories" is a new idea. Maybe you mean to refer to the written text of the book, but I read it as something else is in the room in additional to the wall-book.

 

And so phrase/sentence ends and Line 2 of the 1st Stanza, and a description of the "toys" and "pictures" is starts in line 3 and four which maybe alluding to the "broken memories" in the room, but frankly I'm still stuck on the trying to visualize the whole wall-book thing.

 

Take heart anyone can get stuck on phrase in poem, no matter how well written the line. Some people just have a bad day interpreting things, other times lines are so garbled that the person has to have an extremely good day in order to discern any meaning out of a single line. It's all relative.

 

 

Well that was long. It's really hard to do this online. Marking up poems on paper is so much faster. Well for me at least. Hope you got some meaning out of all that.

 

rev...

Edited March 19, 2008 by reverie

[Wyvern]

Very nice poem, Ciri. :-) I like most of the imagery in it as well as the way that you incorporate line breaks, with the transition to 'They wish they could have been" in the first stanza standing out to me for some reason. As far as imagery goes, the urban images of the last two stanzas were probably my favorites, as both of them offered original depictions of the bleakness that cities can offer. I doubt I'll be able to rival reverie as far as suggestions and analysis go, but my minor complaints would pretty much echo what others have suggested you work on. The third stanza was not quite as effective as the others to me due to the image of the "dying rose," which I found somewhat conventional and less genuine than the other images of the piece. I also felt that the second and third stanzas were like a different kind of poem than the others, as those two stanzas dealt with things personal to the narrator and the narrator's life whereas the other stanzas all seemed to be more focussed on the lives of other people in an urban landscape. One way to tie the stanzas together might be to offer a way that one of the narrator's personal events effected the lives of others, or maybe saving the personal events for the end of the poem to go from the more general setting to the personal.

 

Anyway, this is definitely a good poem with some striking imagery Ciri. :-) Thank you for sharing it here, I'm looking forward to reading more from you once your school work dies down.