05-26-2014, 11:57 PM
Raging winds took ship and lives,
prompts the poet's rhymes.
Singing to lost sailor's wives;
Songs proclaiming; "hope survives".
Warm winds blow and spring arrives,
life and better times.
This feels rather too speedy for the solemn message of the "raging winds" taking "ship and lives". I may, however, only be reading it wrong.
No wait, the speediness does seem to work, if the focus be on the wind instead of the loss. Still, I think a better focus upon the wind may be achieved here, but I'm not sure how.
Cooling brow, sweet summer breeze,
comfort for us all.
Unseen fingers through the trees;
"Sways tree branches, rustles leaves" sounds somewhat better to me here.
Morning frost upon the sheaves,
early feel of fall.
The focus upon the wind is much clearer on this stanza. The imagery is very clear, too.
Through the canyon rock it screams,
forcing snow to fly.
Gale winds paint the winter's theme;
Waving aspen's golden sheen,
valley down below agleam,
up above, blue sky.
The final four lines of this stanza gets rather carried away with its imagery. Whereas the earlier to stanzas were speedy yet clear with their ideas of the wind's flow, taking at most two lines to convey one complete idea (ie one sentence), these final four lines take, well, four lines to convey their idea, and not even in a way that unifies the whole poem, or at least fits as the poem's conclusion. The focus shifts; it is stolen by the canyon's gleam.
Overall, it's a good poem, clear in its briskness, yet still conveying enough body to tickle the mind's eye. And the form does seem consistent, although I'm not really sure if this really is what the thread's title says this is (as in, I'm not sure if this is Trochaic Tetrameter alternating with Trochaic Trimeter). It doesn't sound like it.
prompts the poet's rhymes.
Singing to lost sailor's wives;
Songs proclaiming; "hope survives".
Warm winds blow and spring arrives,
life and better times.
This feels rather too speedy for the solemn message of the "raging winds" taking "ship and lives". I may, however, only be reading it wrong.
No wait, the speediness does seem to work, if the focus be on the wind instead of the loss. Still, I think a better focus upon the wind may be achieved here, but I'm not sure how.
Cooling brow, sweet summer breeze,
comfort for us all.
Unseen fingers through the trees;
"Sways tree branches, rustles leaves" sounds somewhat better to me here.
Morning frost upon the sheaves,
early feel of fall.
The focus upon the wind is much clearer on this stanza. The imagery is very clear, too.
Through the canyon rock it screams,
forcing snow to fly.
Gale winds paint the winter's theme;
Waving aspen's golden sheen,
valley down below agleam,
up above, blue sky.
The final four lines of this stanza gets rather carried away with its imagery. Whereas the earlier to stanzas were speedy yet clear with their ideas of the wind's flow, taking at most two lines to convey one complete idea (ie one sentence), these final four lines take, well, four lines to convey their idea, and not even in a way that unifies the whole poem, or at least fits as the poem's conclusion. The focus shifts; it is stolen by the canyon's gleam.
Overall, it's a good poem, clear in its briskness, yet still conveying enough body to tickle the mind's eye. And the form does seem consistent, although I'm not really sure if this really is what the thread's title says this is (as in, I'm not sure if this is Trochaic Tetrameter alternating with Trochaic Trimeter). It doesn't sound like it.