Kipling
#1
Kipling

The pen pauses
Pervasive memories
Intrude
India calls to favoured ears
Voices in an Edwardian summer
Come, come home
~
Cloud shadows
Wander the foothills
Hawk Eagles
Circle the late afternoon
Round a ruby sun
Resting cool on the snow peaks.
~
Market smells
Bael fruit, pomegranate
Cinnamon and urine
Cries of the barrow pushers
Waltzing pythons
Dance for your pleasure
~
Self mutilated
For the price of life
A legless beggar
Offers the proffered bowl
For coin or spit
To your fancy
~
Simla, quietened by moonlight
Echo strings fade as
Victorian maidens, silk and organza
Escape to the gardens
Searching for a lover
Among the camellias, under the stars
~
Retrospective morals
Trample your values
Under heels of lesser men
But listen
Still the dawn comes up like thunder
out of China ‘cros the Bay!

The last two lines are from Kipling’s Mandalay
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#2
hi carousel and welcome to the site.
first off, not sure the centre align adds anything to the poem specially without punctuation...which is the 2nd thing; it great when you can get away with it but caps on all lines can knacker the flow of the read up as every line is seen as a new line. (it's how the brain works.) while i did say you used no punctuation you did use a period after peaks and a comma after come, and camellias which sort of defeats the no punctuation object.
thirdly; thanks for the accreditation.
a couple of lines were a little preachy for me but the poem read well enough


(03-21-2014, 10:47 PM)Carousal Wrote:  Kipling

The pen pauses
Pervasive memories the opening lines though short work well because we (the reader already have pause for thought)
Intrude, pervasive and intrude are very similar in that pervasive intrudes everywhere. is [intrude] needed?
India calls to favoured ears
Voices in an Edwardian summer
Come, come home i'm reading this as kippers being homesick for india
~
Cloud shadows
Wander the foothills
Hawk Eagles
Circle the late afternoon i get the feel you want to be as frugal as possible...is [the] needed?
Round a ruby sun
Resting cool on the snow peaks.i like the R's and S.s in these two lines
~
Market smells
Bael fruit, pomegranate
Cinnamon and urine
Cries of the barrow pushers
Waltzing pythons here's where a lack of punctuation slows me down too much.
Dance for your pleasure
~
Self mutilated
For the price of life this feels a bit too cheesy
A legless beggar
Offers the proffered bowl
For coin or spit
To your fancy
~
Simla, quietened by moonlight not heard of the place so it was a worthwhile google
Echo strings fade as what is an echo strings?
Victorian maidens, silk and organza
Escape to the gardens
Searching for a lover
Among the camellias, under the stars
~
Retrospective morals
Trample your values
Under heels of lesser men
But listen
Still the dawn comes up like thunder
out of China ‘cros the Bay! kipling is one of my faves, not that i know that many writers or poets Sad

The last two lines are from Kipling’s Mandalay
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#3
Thank you for reading, yes Kipling is a favourite of mine, sure, he wrote some jingoistic pieces to engage the punters after all he had a family to support by his writing alone but he wrote some real gems too. The Barrack room Ballads for example, which gave a voice to the ordinary soldier which had never been done before and still have a lot of truth today.

The poem is of Kipling as an old man musing on nostalgic images of India in a series of flashbacks.
Simla or Shimla (it can be spelt either way) was a popular hill station for the British to escape the heat of the Indian summer. Echo of strings; the dying notes of the orchestra.

On the whole I prefer a straightforward style of writing with the emphasis on the content because I feel that it engages with the reader i.e. I am not trying to impress the academics, I leave that to others. I am a bit slapdash with punctuation as you pointed out, something to work on.
Thank you for reading and the advice.

Regard Cari.
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#4
It is the fashion now to avoid the old tradition of beginning each line with a capital; but there is no reason why you should follow fashion -it is a very fickle thing.

I did like the content -I think that at long last, people are coming to take an interest in the days of the Raj, and a number of books have been written recently. I think, however, that you would make your poem more attractive, if you set out to attract, not just by the content, but by all means at your disposal. I dislike comparisons between poetry and music, but you would think a song-writer pretty rubbish, if they just turned up with an essay, no music, nothing. In that way, there is a similarity.

I also like Kipling. He was a Poet Laureate, I think.

Welcome! Smile
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#5
Thanks for reading but I just don’t get your comparison with music, the poem is in free verse not rhyme and the only musical reference is a very small one and has little to do with the content.

Perhaps you can be a touch clearer.
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#6
(03-24-2014, 07:08 AM)Carousal Wrote:  Thanks for reading but I just don’t get your comparison with music, the poem is in free verse not rhyme and the only musical reference is a very small one and has little to do with the content.

Perhaps you can be a touch clearer.

Lucidity is not my forte, unfortunately. Poetry, of whatever sort, has available to it a number of useful helps in its tool-box. Your talk of being straight-forward rather suggested to me that you were reluctant to open the lid. If you pursue this, you end up with prose, written out in a funny way. I don't know where academics come in: some are very good poets with teaching jobs. Some, in my experience, seem to be either insane or frauds. But why worry about such a tiny group?

Free verse, of course, is not without rules. I hope that muddies things for you...Wink
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