05-10-2014, 08:42 PM
Tinnitus
The car rubbing rubber against
The wet asphalt,
A relentless activity
Until finally – fire. (how do car tyres on wet asphalt make fire?)
A billion babies
Screeching for their mothers,
Their minute legs kicking (minute implies almost microscopic in size – babies are fairly big doesn’t seem to fit here)
For the milk from their bosoms.
The whistle of a man,
A sharp knife slicing the silence,
Calling out in the distance for
The dog he never had. (why the dog he never had? This isn’t clear and doesn’t seem necessary )
The wind laughs at the joke
until it runs out of breathe, (breath)
Stops to inhale,
Then laughs again.
Hello, I read your poem to my partner, who has tinnitus, and he thought the sound sufferers hear was well described by your choices of tyres on asphalt, crying babies, whistling, although he couldn’t relate to wind laughing as well. It would seem you know your subject well enough, which is a shame for someone still in highschool, assuming it’s personal knowledge.
In my opinion, the last two lines from each of the first three stanzas could go, as none of those lines describe the sound, which is the subject, and serve only to distract from it. We do not need to picture babies kicking legs, never-had dogs, or fire, these are only distracting from the point of the poem, which is to describe the sound. Also, the last stanza could be shortened to two matching lines something like this –
The wind laughs at the joke until breathless,
Stops to inhale, then laughs again.
It may seem a shame to lose a good chunk of your poor baby, but slicing and dicing will tighten up your poem, and there’s nothing wrong with a short poem anyhow.
Don’t start each new line with a capital – you’ll look like you’re still living in the forties and fifties, and it makes it harder for a reader to know where a pause is needed, or when a line should run on to the next without a pause.
This definitely has potential, just chop it up a bit.
Welcome to the forum
Marianne
The car rubbing rubber against
The wet asphalt,
A relentless activity
Until finally – fire. (how do car tyres on wet asphalt make fire?)
A billion babies
Screeching for their mothers,
Their minute legs kicking (minute implies almost microscopic in size – babies are fairly big doesn’t seem to fit here)
For the milk from their bosoms.
The whistle of a man,
A sharp knife slicing the silence,
Calling out in the distance for
The dog he never had. (why the dog he never had? This isn’t clear and doesn’t seem necessary )
The wind laughs at the joke
until it runs out of breathe, (breath)
Stops to inhale,
Then laughs again.
Hello, I read your poem to my partner, who has tinnitus, and he thought the sound sufferers hear was well described by your choices of tyres on asphalt, crying babies, whistling, although he couldn’t relate to wind laughing as well. It would seem you know your subject well enough, which is a shame for someone still in highschool, assuming it’s personal knowledge.
In my opinion, the last two lines from each of the first three stanzas could go, as none of those lines describe the sound, which is the subject, and serve only to distract from it. We do not need to picture babies kicking legs, never-had dogs, or fire, these are only distracting from the point of the poem, which is to describe the sound. Also, the last stanza could be shortened to two matching lines something like this –
The wind laughs at the joke until breathless,
Stops to inhale, then laughs again.
It may seem a shame to lose a good chunk of your poor baby, but slicing and dicing will tighten up your poem, and there’s nothing wrong with a short poem anyhow.
Don’t start each new line with a capital – you’ll look like you’re still living in the forties and fifties, and it makes it harder for a reader to know where a pause is needed, or when a line should run on to the next without a pause.
This definitely has potential, just chop it up a bit.
Welcome to the forum
Marianne