11-07-2015, 01:30 PM
A walk among the tombstones
01 A walk among the tombstones,
02 I look upon a star.
03 The night of moon is on us,
04 you wander off too far.
05 Your breathing starts to quicken,
06 my heart begins to race.
07 The trees once sparse now thicken
08 I long for your embrace.
09 The clouds, they start to cover,
10 the moonlight we once shared.
11 From sight, I now have lost you,
12 that thought renders me scared.
13 A love I thought was rising,
14 like the moon, that glowing ball.
15 The star I once was eyeing,
16 now begins to fall.
Broken rhythm:
12, 14, and 16 should go: di DAH di DAH di DAH
but 12 goes: di DAH DAH di di DAH because "render" 's accent is on its first syllable
14 goes di di DAH di DAH di DAH because that "like" (or the "the") adds an extra syllable
16 goes DAH di DAH di DAH , it's missing a syllable at the start
This poem is like the stuff I used to write when I first started.
Simplistic story:
Your love gets lost in the woods. You get scared you won't find her.
Artificial language:
I thought poems were written in some language that wasn't like the one I used every day.
They aren't.
Imagery:
Your trees don't have roots to trip over, or rough bark, or smell, or make sounds in the wind.
Cliché:
"look upon a star", "breathing starts to quicken", "my heart begins to race",
"I long for your embrace", "I now have lost you", "the moon, that glowing ball"
Awkward phrases:
"The night of moon is on us", "From sight, I now have lost you", "renders me scared",
"The star I once was eyeing"
Illogical connections:
What does loosing someone in the woods have to do with loosing that someone's love?
Yes, there's a possible metaphor there; but the poem is too literal to support it.
The first thing you might do is make your story more interesting: Why are you walking
through tombstones? How did you get into the woods? Maybe you're getting away from
her/his parents to have sex? (Tawdry, but interesting.)
Anyway... You should write a more interesting story down in everyday English prose.
You could make the setting more detailed, provide good reasons for the character's actions,
include details about the relationship.
While you are doing this it might help to forget you're thinking of making it into a poem.
This would help you suppress the urge to use that fake poem language.
When you do get to making it into a poem, you might consider writing it in free verse.
This would help you concentrate on the story, the natural language, the imagery without
having to subconsciously worry about fitting it into metric feet and rhyming.
Once you came up with a free verse one you liked, you could then decide to translate it into
a more structured form.
Sounds like a lot of work. It is. But remember this isn't about re-writing a single poem,
it's about learning to write all the rest that are to follow.
But cheer up. Your rhythm, your attention to meter, was pretty good. 13 of your lines are perfect,
and the other three had only minor defects.
We all begin like this. And (dare I admit it?) this is actually much better than the poems
I used to write.
ray
01 A walk among the tombstones,
02 I look upon a star.
03 The night of moon is on us,
04 you wander off too far.
05 Your breathing starts to quicken,
06 my heart begins to race.
07 The trees once sparse now thicken
08 I long for your embrace.
09 The clouds, they start to cover,
10 the moonlight we once shared.
11 From sight, I now have lost you,
12 that thought renders me scared.
13 A love I thought was rising,
14 like the moon, that glowing ball.
15 The star I once was eyeing,
16 now begins to fall.
Broken rhythm:
12, 14, and 16 should go: di DAH di DAH di DAH
but 12 goes: di DAH DAH di di DAH because "render" 's accent is on its first syllable
14 goes di di DAH di DAH di DAH because that "like" (or the "the") adds an extra syllable
16 goes DAH di DAH di DAH , it's missing a syllable at the start
This poem is like the stuff I used to write when I first started.
Simplistic story:
Your love gets lost in the woods. You get scared you won't find her.
Artificial language:
I thought poems were written in some language that wasn't like the one I used every day.
They aren't.
Imagery:
Your trees don't have roots to trip over, or rough bark, or smell, or make sounds in the wind.
Cliché:
"look upon a star", "breathing starts to quicken", "my heart begins to race",
"I long for your embrace", "I now have lost you", "the moon, that glowing ball"
Awkward phrases:
"The night of moon is on us", "From sight, I now have lost you", "renders me scared",
"The star I once was eyeing"
Illogical connections:
What does loosing someone in the woods have to do with loosing that someone's love?
Yes, there's a possible metaphor there; but the poem is too literal to support it.
The first thing you might do is make your story more interesting: Why are you walking
through tombstones? How did you get into the woods? Maybe you're getting away from
her/his parents to have sex? (Tawdry, but interesting.)
Anyway... You should write a more interesting story down in everyday English prose.
You could make the setting more detailed, provide good reasons for the character's actions,
include details about the relationship.
While you are doing this it might help to forget you're thinking of making it into a poem.
This would help you suppress the urge to use that fake poem language.
When you do get to making it into a poem, you might consider writing it in free verse.
This would help you concentrate on the story, the natural language, the imagery without
having to subconsciously worry about fitting it into metric feet and rhyming.
Once you came up with a free verse one you liked, you could then decide to translate it into
a more structured form.
Sounds like a lot of work. It is. But remember this isn't about re-writing a single poem,
it's about learning to write all the rest that are to follow.
But cheer up. Your rhythm, your attention to meter, was pretty good. 13 of your lines are perfect,
and the other three had only minor defects.
We all begin like this. And (dare I admit it?) this is actually much better than the poems
I used to write.
ray
a brightly colored fungus that grows in bark inclusions