Myosotis

[Charlesjoseph]

Myosotis (revision 1)

Child, when I saw you
I was afraid to touch you.
My hands unworthy of your innocence.

Fragile...Infant... Buddha!
Your atomic smile enough to silence the world.

Now, after all the flowers I remain.
The wreaths and sprays all discarded
In my thoughts one glorious forget-me-not.


Ok guys,
This is what i came up with. I'm having a little trouble with punctuation though. Thanks for the feedback.
Chazz

[milo]

I am curious what criteria you are using for line breaks here.

[Charlesjoseph]

I am curious what criteria you are using for line breaks here.

Hey Milo,
I am not an educated poet. I don't know why i broke the lines the way i did. But, i do read quite a bit and i'm sure most of the poetry that i write is in a form that i've seen somewhere before. I don't know, it feels right to me this way, because when i read it aloud it slows down the pace of the poem. Call it artistic license.
Cheers,
Chazz

[Nick]

Child,
When I saw you
I was afraid
To touch you
My hands
Unworthy
Of your innocence
Fragile...Infant...Buddha!!
Your atomic smile The atomic smile could be used to light up the world not silence it- hey, how about enlighten the world as long as we got Buddha here- the silence the world aspect brings an atomic explosion into the interpretation and I don't think that is your intent with the piece.
Enough to silence the world
Now,
After all the flowers
I remain
Years will pass
The wreaths and sprays
All discarded
In my thoughts
Always
One
Glorious
Forget-me-not_

[milo]

I am curious what criteria you are using for line breaks here.

Hey Milo,
I am not an educated poet. I don't know why i broke the lines the way i did. But, i do read quite a bit and i'm sure most of the poetry that i write is in a form that i've seen somewhere before. I don't know, it feels right to me this way, because when i read it aloud it slows down the pace of the poem. Call it artistic license.
Cheers,
Chazz

the line break is one of the most important aspects in free verse poetry. i have seen people agonize for days over a single break. These seemed to occur by you dropping a pile of words on the floor and where they landed they landed.

For example:

One word lines should be /very/ rare in poetry. Only used when a word is so important to your central metaphor and so musical it must stand alone. You did that six times. your first line is "Child"

How am I, as a reader with no knowledge of the poem at all yet revealed, supposed to stop and consider this word?

It is like you are telling me (the reader) to just go shit in my hat for a bit.

Here is a discussion on it that may help you some:

http://www.pigpenpoetry.com/showthread.php?tid=4281

[Charlesjoseph]

Child,
When I saw you
I was afraid
To touch you
My hands
Unworthy
Of your innocence
Fragile...Infant...Buddha!!
Your atomic smile The atomic smile could be used to light up the world not silence it- hey, how about enlighten the world as long as we got Buddha here- the silence the world aspect brings an atomic explosion into the interpretation and I don't think that is your intent with the piece.
Enough to silence the world
Now,
After all the flowers
I remain
Years will pass
The wreaths and sprays
All discarded
In my thoughts
Always
One
Glorious
Forget-me-not_

Nah keith, an atomic explosion was intended but thanks for the input
chazz

---

Hey milo,
It seems that my response to your original question has offended you in some way or at least that's how it comes across. I appreciate what you have to say and your opinion is duly noted. Perhaps in hindsight, I shouldn't have posted this one because of the subject matter that you obviously overlooked. That said, how would you format this....
Chazz

[Todd]

Hey briefly on the subject of lines, let me give me thoughts on just a few of them.

Child,--I think a one word line as an opener is an extremely bad idea to pull someone in. What's more with the infant, buddha, line below I think it's fully unnecessary. I think you could cut it and start with line 2 and lose nothing.
When I saw you
I was afraid
To touch you
My hands
Unworthy--There's no reason this couldn't be pulled up one line.
Of your innocence
Fragile...Infant...Buddha!!
Your atomic smile
Enough to silence the world
Now,--This is probably your worst one word line. You could cut it and lose nothing at all. If you're going for one word lines and they are not a verb or a noun, they will likely fail. Again just opinion, but figured I'd give it.
After all the flowers
I remain
Years will pass--for something that your keeping minimal maybe cut the "will"
The wreaths and sprays
All discarded
In my thoughts
Always
One
Glorious--These one word lines don't add emphasis or tension, they just feel choppy. One is probably the strongest of the three, but they should all probably be just one line
Forget-me-not_

Just wanted to comment mostly on the line breaks here.

I don't know if it helped. Hope it does some.

Best,

Todd

[milo]

Child,
When I saw you
I was afraid
To touch you
My hands
Unworthy
Of your innocence
Fragile...Infant...Buddha!!
Your atomic smile The atomic smile could be used to light up the world not silence it- hey, how about enlighten the world as long as we got Buddha here- the silence the world aspect brings an atomic explosion into the interpretation and I don't think that is your intent with the piece.
Enough to silence the world
Now,
After all the flowers
I remain
Years will pass
The wreaths and sprays
All discarded
In my thoughts
Always
One
Glorious
Forget-me-not_

Nah keith, an atomic explosion was intended but thanks for the input
chazz

---

Hey milo,
It seems that my response to your original question has offended you in some way or at least that's how it comes across. I appreciate what you have to say and your opinion is duly noted. Perhaps in hindsight, I shouldn't have posted this one because of the subject matter that you obviously overlooked. That said, how would you format this....
Chazz

I wasn't offended at all but, I assume you posted this here to get a reader's reaction so I wanted to be as honest with you as possible. If you want to figure out the best place to break, first try removing all of your breaks, then read through your piece and try to break on important words (almost always nouns and verbs) that add to your central metaphor or add music to your piece. Let's take a look:

Child, When I saw you I was afraid To touch you My hands Unworthy Of your innocence Fragile...Infant...Buddha!! Your atomic smile Enough to silence the world Now, After all the flowers I remain Years will pass The wreaths and sprays All discarded In my thoughts Always One Glorious Forget-me-not_

Ut oh, when you read it like this, it becomes obvious you have some other things to fix as well, doesn't it?

[Charlesjoseph]

ok here's the revision

[Todd]

Hi Chazz, much better. Here are some comments on the edit:

Myosotis (revision 1)

Child, when I saw you
I was afraid to touch you.--Optionally you could cut you, my hands, and the period
My hands unworthy of your innocence.

Fragile...Infant... Buddha!--Not a fan of the punctuation
Your atomic smile enough to silence the world.--Probably the most interesting line

Now, after all the flowers I remain.--still don't think you need now
The wreaths and sprays all discarded
In my thoughts one glorious forget-me-not.--in my thoughts could be replaced by to

I think there are still a lot of directions you could go with this. Those are simply my initial thoughts.

Best,

Todd