Higher Still

[JaredEggo]

We come as a babe 
and start this stage.
Our families do we love.
All we know
is we must grow,
and hope for things above.

As a child
our hope runs wild,
we dream of simple things.
Run and play,
and laugh all day,
and even having wings.

Up we grow
and hope is sown
of soaring through the air.
Mountain peaks,
and oceans deep,
the places which we dare.

The last frontier.
It's far from near.
We hope to live on Mars.
Still, we stare
when we get there
and reach up for the stars.

When death calls
and our health falls,
to higher hopes we hold.
A city bright,
our souls made white,
where all is made of gold.

[ellajam]

Hi, Jared, welcome to the Pen. You've done a nice job of sticking to a consistant meter and rhyme scheme. Now you need to look at it and identify where you have sacrificed natural language and plain sense for the sake of it. Take a look at some notes for S1.

We come as a babe 
and start this stage. What stage? If it's a stage of life, which one? If it's a theater stage, we enter, not start.
Our families do we love. "Do" is just unnatural, sticks out as added only for meter's sake. We would normally say We love our families, this is an inversion, twisted for the rhyme.
All we know
is we must grow,
and hope for things above. Above? Above what?

As a child
our hope runs wild,
we dream of simple things.
Run and play,
and laugh all day,
and even having wings. I can't resist , substituting "imagine" for "and even" would have this make more sense.

Up we grow
and hope is sown
of soaring through the air.
Mountain peaks,
and oceans deep,
the places which we dare.

The last frontier.
It's far from near.
We hope to live on Mars.
Still, we stare
when we get there
and reach up for the stars.

When death calls
and our health falls,
to higher hopes we hold.
A city bright,
our souls made white,
where all is made of gold.

Try going through your poem and picking out the spots with similar problems. Good poetry takes practice, I hope you'll work on this one and post an edit.

[JaredEggo]

Hi, Jared, welcome to the Pen. You've done a nice job of sticking to a consistant meter and rhyme scheme. Now you need to look at it and identify where you have sacrificed natural language and plain sense for the sake of it. Take a look at some notes for S1.


Try going through your poem and picking out the spots with similar problems. Good poetry takes practice, I hope you'll work on this one and post an edit.

Thank you for the advice. It's actually a lot less than I expected. Ironically S1 and S2 are the ones I had the most trouble with. I'm working on a rewrite with your advice in mind. 

What do you think about the title? I couldn't think of anything, and that was just the best I could come up with. My other concern, after reading advice on some other poems here, is that I might have overused the word "hope". What so you think?

[kylede87]

I understand where you're trying to go with this poem, but some of your sentence structures, rhyme schemes, and enjambment techniques don't work too well. Thankfully, the first stanza is really the only one that's not that good. The rest of the poem isn't bad. I would fix "All we know, is we must grow". These lines are just awkward, and the rhyme scheme sounds forced. If you could fix that, that would be a huge step.

[Erthona]

The Form: The rhyme is a consistent AABCBC, however there is no consistent meter with which to match it. There is neither the hint of formal meter, accentual or syllabic verse. At times interlinear rhyme is often coupled with free verse, or a beat rhythm, but that is not the case here. Thus it leaves one with no explanation of syntactic oddities such as

"Our families do we love."  

instead of

We love our families. Straight Trimetric Trochee (as families can be read as two feet it could also be dimeter Trochee) + correct syntax

The root cause of this is having read some poetry, but not having studying it, and so one tends to write it by ear as one might say.

Subject matter. Not dissimilar to several thousand more of it's type. When starting writing I wrote many of the same kind, without not quite so much of the religious, but that was simply because my leans did lean that away. My mother had several books of similar material.

On the positive side the writer exhibits the fundamentals of writing, a clearness of thought to get from point a to point a to point and the ability to use an extended metaphor.

Best to you,
and keep it up,


dale

[muteyy]

I really love the idea of this poem, as far as the story. If you nail down the flow of the words, it will sound a lot better mentally and verbally. I love the rhyme pattern, it is just difficult to say in some parts of the poem. (e.g "We come as a babe"(5 syllables) ; compared to "As a child"(3 syllables)) That is the only thing in my mind that made it more difficult to stay consistently reading.

Otherwise, I did really enjoy the coming up, growing old, and eventual death of this poem. It was short, but got the point across. With some touch ups, I would absolutely be in love with this.

[Flos Campi]

I love how heartfelt and earnest this reflection comes across, so cleaning it up a bit stanza by stanza is the next step I think. Some of the rhymes seemed a little forced (S4, lines 1-2 stood out the most to me). Additionally, the meter is a tad inconsistent. Musically speaking, it's like there are rests built into the verse when there should be notes and this definitely threw me off at a few points (S5, L1 for example). Additionally, there were a few lines where the meaning wasn't quite clear to me (S4, L4-6). I think the poem definitely is off to a good start, though. Although the subject is not particularly unique in itself, I think the earnest yet hopeful voice that shines through it is definitely worth keeping.

[Richard]

Hey JaredEggo,
This poem deals with a topic we can all relate to, life. The problem with trying to write a poem about the cycle of life is that it has been done many times throughout history. This can make it difficult to say what you want, while trying to sound original. My suggestion would be to take each part of life and write a poem about it. For example, write an entire poem about being born and how important hope plays a role in a newborn's existence.

I did thoroughly enjoyed some of your language use though. One such example would be:

A city bright,
our souls made white,
where all is made of gold.

I would love to see you start a poem about death and dying with this image, and just see where you end up with it.

The other posts covered rhyming well, but I will make one suggestion: You should use longer lines if you are determined to keep rhyming. The reason for this is that short rhyming lines are often associated with nursery rhymes and  humorous poems. Overall, I would love to see you stretch this poem into more than one work, and I look forward to reading more of your poems.

Keep writing,
Richard

[hesawacko]

Hi JaredEgo,
The first time I read this, i wasn't so sure... the second time I liked it more. I realize where you're going here, and i think it gets better the farther you go along. In other words, the beginning doesn't feel as strong as the end. I do think the idea of using longer lines, and possibly using some longer (not mono-syllabic) words might help it.

One other thing, for me, the jump to "the last frontier" and "Mars" in S4 kinda threw me off. I'm not sure it completely fits with the rest of the "life" poem.

But then your last stanza is the best... however I do wonder if there's a better word than "health" - something that might have a little deeper meaning.

Great work!

[rylstjames]

Running and playing in the second stanza may help convey a more visceral picture. 

O! Our family we do love instead of our family do we love? Not sure about this one though ..


Overall great poem!!

[headybeach]

I have to go agree with ellajam, I love the flow and rhyme of this poem, but I think that you've limited yourself too much by it and your poem has become kind of swallowed by it. When reading it, my mind is focusing more on the rhythm and rhyme rather than on the meaning of the words because the words feel like they were placed *for* the rhyme rather than *with* the rhyme sometimes. I do really like the message that's behind this poem and I think that it does a nice job, at some parts, of giving off that feeling of childhood wonder. I think this poem is definitely worth your effort to play around with a little bit more and I'd love to see a future version, if you decide to edit it! Thank you for sharing!

[B.nicole]

We come as a babe 
and start this stage.
Our families do we love. "Do" should not be there. Either replace it with whom or erase it all together. 
All we know
is we must grow,
and hope for things above. I'm unsure of what "above" means here. It doesn't seem to fit. 

As a child
our hope runs wild,
we dream of simple things.
Run and play,
and laugh all day,
and even having wings. This  should be revised, it does not flow nicely. 

Up we grow
and hope is sown
of soaring through the air.
Mountain peaks,
and oceans deep,
the places which we dare. Love this section. 

The last frontier.
It's far from near.
We hope to live on Mars.
Still, we stare
when we get there
and reach up for the stars.

When death calls
and our health falls,
to higher hopes we hold.
A city bright,
our souls made white,
where all is made of gold.

Overall a pleasing and promising piece of work!

[Ecesis]

We come as a babe 
and start this stage.
Our families do we love.  
All we know
is we must grow,
and hope for things above. i love this, very broad and encompassing. adds the feeling of hope as a coming wave we go to meet.    

As a child
our hope runs wild,
we dream of simple things.
Run and play,
and laugh all day,
and even having wings. I enjoyed this section, it added a mythic/unnatural element to the poem e.g wings.  

Up we grow
and hope is sown
of soaring through the air.
Mountain peaks,
and oceans deep,
the places which we dare.  

The last frontier.
It's far from near.
We hope to live on Mars.
Still, we stare
when we get there
and reach up for the stars. "we stare when we get there" this is pleasant as staring is a rich part of the writers day.  

When death calls
and our health falls,
to higher hopes we hold. may i ask is this reference to a afterlife of some sort, a higher interpretation? or something else?
A city bright,
our souls made white,
where all is made of gold. it finishes with a lingering beauty, except the word "soul" has always been a vague definition in poems. imo. 

overall i think its wonderful, the format is flowing and enabling the reader many avenues to wander through.