01-19-2023, 08:05 PM
This piece is basically in iambic tetrameter. The way you try and emphasize each word here by breaking the lines somewhat unconventionally is just frustrating, as it makes a slog of something so simple. Less demanding to either your readers or the printer, I think, would be to pull a Dickinson:
Some flowers -- don't smell -- so pretty,
but bees -- don't seem to mind.
Some days -- don't smell -- so pretty,
but we've left those -- behind.
The road -- ahead -- is cloudy,
what else is left -- to find?
More -- flowers? Yours, -- or mine?
I also think this change improves the ending, as the em dashes are more visually appealing than a cascade of one word lines, but regardless of how you decide to revise this, I'm not sure what purpose most of the breaks serve. The breaks in this prospective line 7 are, indeed, visually appealing in and of themselves, while the breaks in lines 5 and 6 suggest a distance appropriate to the imagery of those lines, but the breaks in lines 1 to 4 seem to be there only to make the pace more deliberate, which is too one dimensional of a use.
As for the sense of the words, again, Dickinson: mortality, pastoral images, a deceptive sort of simplicity....Lines 1 to 2 establish the central metaphor, and to comment negatively or positively there is likely to reveal more about this particular reader than about the piece. Lines 3 to 4 indicate that the piece is an intimation of mortality, although I think it's rather clumsy, especially with how the metaphor is integrated in line 3. Lines 5 to 6 are better at the same job, but they still need lines 3 to 4 to work, otherwise they'd be too opaque, so I suggest rethinking lines 3 to 4 rather than plain removing them. And line 7....it's an interesting line, I think. Punctuate it differently, and I wonder: would it still be "Yours", or would it just be "yours"?
Some flowers -- don't smell -- so pretty,
but bees -- don't seem to mind.
Some days -- don't smell -- so pretty,
but we've left those -- behind.
The road -- ahead -- is cloudy,
what else is left -- to find?
More -- flowers? Yours, -- or mine?
I also think this change improves the ending, as the em dashes are more visually appealing than a cascade of one word lines, but regardless of how you decide to revise this, I'm not sure what purpose most of the breaks serve. The breaks in this prospective line 7 are, indeed, visually appealing in and of themselves, while the breaks in lines 5 and 6 suggest a distance appropriate to the imagery of those lines, but the breaks in lines 1 to 4 seem to be there only to make the pace more deliberate, which is too one dimensional of a use.
As for the sense of the words, again, Dickinson: mortality, pastoral images, a deceptive sort of simplicity....Lines 1 to 2 establish the central metaphor, and to comment negatively or positively there is likely to reveal more about this particular reader than about the piece. Lines 3 to 4 indicate that the piece is an intimation of mortality, although I think it's rather clumsy, especially with how the metaphor is integrated in line 3. Lines 5 to 6 are better at the same job, but they still need lines 3 to 4 to work, otherwise they'd be too opaque, so I suggest rethinking lines 3 to 4 rather than plain removing them. And line 7....it's an interesting line, I think. Punctuate it differently, and I wonder: would it still be "Yours", or would it just be "yours"?