04-27-2012, 10:16 PM
Hi PP,
Welcome to the forum! It's nice to read your work. I guess the main comment I have is that I want you to trust your lines more without feeling the need to build on them. What I mean is it's easy to feel locked into a narrative: This happened, and then this happened, and so on. You have more freedom in a poem and I think you can trust your lines and your readers more by condensing some of the good ideas you have into more powerful compact segments.
For example:
You could easily start the poem on L3. Which is a great opener. The setting will quickly become apparent. You have to ask yourself is the old house, or even the woods that important. It's mostly setting and exposition which you could even move to the title if you wanted to: (i.e., "Past the old house through the woods") Not saying you should or shouldn't do that just that you can.
Later in the poem you could condense the songbird lines into something like: The song birds's melodies carry on the winter wind
Again just trying to provide examples not really suggest the rewrite itself.
I'd look for opportunities like that though, and I'd also consider shifting the poem to the present tense.
I hope some of these comments will be helpful to you.
Best,
Todd
Welcome to the forum! It's nice to read your work. I guess the main comment I have is that I want you to trust your lines more without feeling the need to build on them. What I mean is it's easy to feel locked into a narrative: This happened, and then this happened, and so on. You have more freedom in a poem and I think you can trust your lines and your readers more by condensing some of the good ideas you have into more powerful compact segments.
For example:
You could easily start the poem on L3. Which is a great opener. The setting will quickly become apparent. You have to ask yourself is the old house, or even the woods that important. It's mostly setting and exposition which you could even move to the title if you wanted to: (i.e., "Past the old house through the woods") Not saying you should or shouldn't do that just that you can.
Later in the poem you could condense the songbird lines into something like: The song birds's melodies carry on the winter wind
Again just trying to provide examples not really suggest the rewrite itself.
I'd look for opportunities like that though, and I'd also consider shifting the poem to the present tense.
I hope some of these comments will be helpful to you.
Best,
Todd
The secret of poetry is cruelty.--Jon Anderson