Thoughts of You

[Todd]

Hi purplepixie,

Welcome to the forums! It's nice to see you posting a poem.

Rhyme is a good device in poetry. It makes a poem easier to remember and recite. It falls out of favor from time to time but in general I think we could and should use anything we like when creating a poem.

I think the fun in using rhyme is making people think of unusual connections as you link two words. Lake and fake do this for me. It makes me wonder what does the speaker wish were fake. Has a death occured? Is it the pain of a remembered relationship that failed?

There are tricks to working with rhyme but what I mainly want to discuss is that sometimes we get engrossed in making the rhymes work and the content suffers by staying too on the surface.

So to that point, I like that you developed a setting here: I like the ripples on the lake contrasting with that peaceful place. I love the cranes, the skipping stone, and the possible significance of the setting. I'd like though for the poem to go deeper and surprise me. It might even be valuable to try to write a version without rhyme and than reinsert it later (just a possibility).

I mean as an example just look at putting your first few lines together in a poem and consider the content (just illustrating not suggesting this as a rewrite):

You are my peaceful place
Ripples upon the lake
I jump as the cranes sing their songs
The water lapping against the shore
Blue skies linger... (well you get the idea)

I think you could really develop this.

Again, glad to have you here.

Best,

Todd