1st Edit

Out of the sound of the weaving shed
workers vexed from thoughts of debt and lay-offs,
end their shift and surge onto the cotton-bailed yard.
Her bloom came to me like a crisp breeze blown,
A sprite-elfin swagger and head held high.
Her eyes hid what her mouth would never utter.
By the thousands, Men die in god’s name.
Yet in her he dares to create such beauty.

---

Original
Out of the sound of the weaving shed, workers
vexed from thoughts of debt and lay-offs;
end shift and surge onto their cotton-bailed yard
Her bloom came to me like a crisp breeze blown,
sprite-elfin swagger and head held high.
Her eyes hid pain her mouth would never utter
By the thousands, Men die in god’s name
Yet he dares to create such beauty

I was inspired by a sarah teasdale poem

Just read through it, and I like it!
Althoufgh I'm drunk and cannot help you now "crisp breeze and head held high" seemed weak. More to come.

EDIT

I cannot add too much. Sprite-elf swagger and crisp breeze is just too much for me. Other than that, solid work.

The poem is in the first person--you're describing what you perceive as opposed to being an all knowing narrator describing what a character perceives.

"Her eyes hid pain her mouth would never utter"

You wouldn't be able to perceive that her eyes were hiding pain unless...they weren't hiding the pain.

So...her eyes reveal the pain her mouth would never utter...[Or something like that. Its late and I'm not sure of the tenses.]

Lovely piece. Not much I can say, but maybe in the first line "out of the sound" doesn't suit the scenario perfectly since you talk about suddenly noticing the girl's scent (or perhaps this is on purpose?)... nevertheless it's nice. My favorites are the last two lines, which elevated the poem beautifully for me.

(01-04-2011, 12:51 AM)Touchstone Wrote:  The poem is in the first person--you're describing what you perceive as opposed to being an all knowing narrator describing what a character perceives.

"Her eyes hid pain her mouth would never utter"

You wouldn't be able to perceive that her eyes were hiding pain unless...they weren't hiding the pain.

So...her eyes reveal the pain her mouth would never utter...[Or something like that. Its late and I'm not sure of the tenses.]

thanks for the feedback TS.
the pain was percieved by me though not by others. i could be her dad or mom though i'm not. i just see her and know that the pain is there. others probably don't see what i do. to me it's obvious that she'd not talk of them because of the demeanor she shows. i can see what you say has meaning and sense though so i'll ponder it in the edit

(01-04-2011, 08:32 AM)addy Wrote:  Lovely piece. Not much I can say, but maybe in the first line "out of the sound" doesn't suit the scenario perfectly since you talk about suddenly noticing the girl's scent (or perhaps this is on purpose?)... nevertheless it's nice. My favorites are the last two lines, which elevated the poem beautifully for me.

you spotted todays special mistake addy hehe.
it should have has "walked" befiore vexed. thanks for the feedback, i'll change that one right away.

thanks for the feedback lawrence

(01-03-2011, 11:21 AM)billy Wrote:  Out of the sound of the weaving shed, workers
vexed from thoughts of debt and lay-offs; What sound is this? What sounds do people make when they're vexed? Strong opening line, but I think it should be more specific, mention moaning or mumbling etc. Also, the semi-colon tripped me up. Shouldn't there be a comma there, as the succeeding line isn't really a separate conjunction.
end shift and surge onto their cotton-bailed yard
Her bloom came to me like a crisp breeze blown, Again the syntax trips me up here. Would it help if you put a full stop after "yard"?
sprite-elfin swagger and head held high.
Her eyes hid pain her mouth would never utter Shouldn't there be a full stop here?
By the thousands, Men die in god’s name Why is "men" capitalised? Again, shouldn't there be a full stop after "name"?
Yet he dares to create such beauty

---

I was inspired by a sarah teasdale poem

Individually the lines are fine, excellent even, but they don't have much of a natural flow. They don't gel together easily. I think a lot of the problem may lie in how you use punctuation. I was going to complain that the capitalisation was sporadic; sometimes the first letters of lines are upper case, other times they're not, but I see now what's missing: full stops. I'm not sure if that will cure the poem, but it will definitely help a lot. As I said, the individual lines are great - some nice crisp expression and economy of words - but they don't flow into one another. It feels a bit like a patchwork quilt sewn together from all different colour squares, which are nice on their own, but don't really work as a whole.

you're right about the grammar jack thanks. i should know better. not making excuses but i was rushing
will do an edit tomorrow

Hi Billy,

Echoing Jack's comments on full stops. The last two lines are brilliant. I really dislike pain being used. It could just be me but I hate the abstraction of it. I would almost rather see some mystery and substitute it with "what".

That said, I do really like this though.

Best,

Todd

(01-06-2011, 12:28 AM)Todd Wrote:  Hi Billy,

Echoing Jack's comments on full stops. The last two lines are brilliant. I really dislike pain being used. It could just be me but I hate the abstraction of it. I would almost rather see some mystery and substitute it with "what".

That said, I do really like this though.

Best,

Todd

thanks for the feedback todd. i'll do an edit of the poem in a short while and take the pain point into consideration.

here's the edit, nothing drastic. just done with a few of the points of jack and todd.

1st Edit

Out of the sound of the weaving shed
workers vexed from thoughts of debt and lay-offs,
end their shift and surge onto the cotton-bailed yard.
Her bloom came to me like a crisp breeze blown,
sprite-elfin swagger and head held high.
Her eyes hid what her mouth would never utter.
By the thousands, Men die in god’s name.
Yet he dares to create such beauty.

---

Original
Out of the sound of the weaving shed, workers
vexed from thoughts of debt and lay-offs;
end shift and surge onto their cotton-bailed yard
Her bloom came to me like a crisp breeze blown,
sprite-elfin swagger and head held high.
Her eyes hid pain her mouth would never utter
By the thousands, Men die in god’s name
Yet he dares to create such beauty

In my opinion Billy, those few slight changes elevated this and made it come together really well. Great revision!

I agree with Todd, excellent edit. I know I recommended it, but reading the revised version, I think I'd remove the comma after "lay-offs" and just have no punctuation there at all. Also I'd remove the capital from "Men" in the penultimate line, unless you're referencing something that's gone over my head.