A Day Less Than A Century

[Brenkin]

A Day Less Than a Century

It feels like a day less than a century
When I last called your name
I blew the dust off my memories,
To see they hadn't changed

I could close my eyes this very minute
And visualize your visage
Although it’s been a lifetime
The image looks so vivid

And in the back of my mind
Your touch it still remains
Along with the sound of your voice
The thoughts will not decay

Your absence seems endless
All I have left are memories of senses

It’s senseless

[Brownlie]

A Day Less Than a Century  

It feels like a day less than a century
When I last called your name
I blew the dust off my memories,
To see they hadn't changed  

I could close my eyes this very minute
And visualize your visage  
Although it’s been a lifetime
The image looks so vivid

And in the back of my mind
Your touch it still remains
Along with the sound of your voice
The thoughts will not decay

Your absence seems endless
All I have left are memories of senses  

It’s senseless

I would fix the punctuation, but the idea is a good one. The phrase "A day less than a century" has no sense that it refers to.

[Brenkin]

I would fix the punctuation, but the idea is a good one. The phrase "A day less than a century" has no sense that it refers to.

How would you go about fixing the punctuation? I've been writing poetry for a couple of years but only really for my own enjoyment.

The phrase "A Day Less Than A Century" was intended to refer to the sense of Time, a sense that humans may or may not have. Perhaps it didn't evoke the message well enough.

[ChristopherSea]

Brenkin, First and foremost, do not capitalize every line if you are not going to punctuate. You will end up with one long run-on sentence. Here's some quick punctuation suggestions:

A Day Less Than a Century  

It feels like a day less than a century
when I last called your name<.>
I blew the dust off my memories
to see they hadn't changed<.>  

I could close my eyes this very minute
and visualize your visage<.>  
Although it’s been a lifetime<,>
the image looks so vivid

and in the back of my mind<.>
Your touch<,> it still remains
along with the sound of your voice<.>
The thoughts will not decay<.>

Your absence seems endless<.>
All I have left are memories of senses<.>  

It’s senseless<.>

Start with something like this and edit accordingly. You could forego all punctuation and use line breaks or white space to achieve caesura as well. Good luck./Chris

[Erthona]

Brenkin,

Let's get technical errors out of the way. We quit capping the start of every line in the 1950's because we learned that doing so is confusing to the reader and besides that it is purely affectation, as there is no sensible reason to do so. I suspect it had to do with printing, and so how capping the start of every line made it easier on the type setter. Regardless, there is no reason to do so today.

"How would you go about fixing the punctuation?" As there is none to fix, because there is none, I would suggest using punctuation. You know periods, commas, colons, semi-colons, and so forth, that is when the situation calls for such according to the general usage rules of punctuation.

Punctuation is always a valuable thing as it makes what you are saying more clear. It was stupid enough when Cummings didn't use it, but at the beginning I suppose there was some rationale (breaking conventions, swallowing the ego, etc.). I suspect that he reached a certain point that continuing to not use punctuation was not appropriate for what he was writing, but he continued to do so because it is what he was known for and he knew a good deal when he saw it. However in today's world and not the former new Bohemian one, unless someone has an exceptional rationale for abandoning punctuation, then it is probably best to use it along with all the other standard writing conventions. Making it look like poetry is not a sufficient rationale, although it is true that many people do not understand this distinction.      

OK, on the the poem. The form seems a mixture of accentual verse and iambic that is trying approximate the metrical distinction found in ballad meter or common meter, without the rhyme. The accentual lines seem to be trying to mimic a 4 foot line (even though there are generally not four distinct feet), with the iambic line there are only 3 feet per line, or iambic trimeter. I suspect the writer wrote this more or less by ear and without knowledge of the one line of iambic tetrameter followed by one line of iambic trimeter as is in ballad meter or common meter. It is quite reasonable that a person with a decent awareness to recognize metrical patterns would be able to imitate these simple metrical forms and although not be completely correct in their imitation because they lack the necessary knowledge of metrical patterns. 

There are two usages that seem to stand out in a negative way, and are disruptive to the poem. The first is in the line:

"And visualize your visage"  

Although "visage" is a synonym for "face", it is connotatively different to the extent that it is often associated with a stern, chiseled, noble or masculine face, and seems rarely applied to a woman unless she is nobility and being describe with masculine characteristics.

The second usage is in the following passage:

"Your touch it still remains"

The use of "it" is an archaic usage and does not fit well with the rest of the poem as there are no other occurrences of the same type of figure of speech, nor is the poem set in the age where talking this way might make sense. It is like using a "thee" or a "thou" one time in a poem that is talking about rappers. There is nothing technically wrong with it, it is simply out of place and thus disruptive to the poem.  

Over all this poem is a little less trite than most love poems, but it still remains in that category.  

As this is "Novice Poet and Critic" I shall stop here.

Dale


 

[Brenkin]

Brenkin,

Let's get technical errors out of the way. We quit capping the start of every line in the 1950's because we learned that doing so is confusing to the reader and besides that it is purely affectation, as there is no sensible reason to do so. I suspect it had to do with printing, and so how capping the start of every line made it easier on the type setter. Regardless, there is no reason to do so today.

"How would you go about fixing the punctuation?" As there is none to fix, because there is none, I would suggest using punctuation. You know periods, commas, colons, semi-colons, and so forth, that is when the situation calls for such according to the general usage rules of punctuation.

Punctuation is always a valuable thing as it makes what you are saying more clear. It was stupid enough when Cummings didn't use it, but at the beginning I suppose there was some rationale (breaking conventions, swallowing the ego, etc.). I suspect that he reached a certain point that continuing to not use punctuation was not appropriate for what he was writing, but he continued to do so because it is what he was known for and he knew a good deal when he saw it. However in today's world and not the former new Bohemian one, unless someone has an exceptional rationale for abandoning punctuation, then it is probably best to use it along with all the other standard writing conventions. Making it look like poetry is not a sufficient rationale, although it is true that many people do not understand this distinction.      

OK, on the the poem. The form seems a mixture of accentual verse and iambic that is trying approximate the metrical distinction found in ballad meter or common meter, without the rhyme. The accentual lines seem to be trying to mimic a 4 foot line (even though there are generally not four distinct feet), with the iambic line there are only 3 feet per line, or iambic trimeter. I suspect the writer wrote this more or less by ear and without knowledge of the one line of iambic tetrameter followed by one line of iambic trimeter as is in ballad meter or common meter. It is quite reasonable that a person with a decent awareness to recognize metrical patterns would be able to imitate these simple metrical forms and although not be completely correct in their imitation because they lack the necessary knowledge of metrical patterns. 

There are two usages that seem to stand out in a negative way, and are disruptive to the poem. The first is in the line:

"And visualize your visage"  

Although "visage" is a synonym for "face", it is connotatively different to the extent that it is often associated with a stern, chiseled, noble or masculine face, and seems rarely applied to a woman unless she is nobility and being describe with masculine characteristics.

The second usage is in the following passage:

"Your touch it still remains"

The use of "it" is an archaic usage and does not fit well with the rest of the poem as there are no other occurrences of the same type of figure of speech, nor is the poem set in the age where talking this way might make sense. It is like using a "thee" or a "thou" one time in a poem that is talking about rappers. There is nothing technically wrong with it, it is simply out of place and thus disruptive to the poem.  

Over all this poem is a little less trite than most love poems, but it still remains in that category.  

As this is "Novice Poet and Critic" I shall stop here.

Dale


 

Thank you for your advice, I admit I didn't know much about metres and forms of poetry before you mentioned them. I'll continue to look in to those to help make my poetry stronger. However, are they necessary all of the time? I feel I might restrict my flow of words if I focus too strictly on form. Maybe I'm just stubborn and am used to not being aware of form, I suppose I'll have to try a little harder. As for the lack of rhyme, I do believe I have a rhyme scheme found in my poem, though it might not be strong enough. For now however, hows this?


It feels like a day less than a century
when I last called your name.
I blew the dust off my memories
to see they hadn't changed.

I could close my eyes this very minute
and visualize your visage.
Although it's been a lifetime,
the image looks so vivid

and in the back of my mind.
Your touch still remains
Along with the sound of your voice.
The thoughts will not decay.

Your absence seems endless.
All I have left are memories of senses.

It's senseless.

[ellajam]

Hi, Brenkin, welcome to the site. If you take a look around you'll see that the preferred way to post an edit is to hit edit on your opening post and place it above the original, labeling both. That way readers new to the thread will critique the correct version.

A note on form: No, you don't need strict meter and rhyme in every poem but when it gives the appearance of a sonnet the reader starts with a certain expectation.

If you're interested the Poetry Practice forum has great explanations and examples.

[Erthona]

Brenkin,

If you are serious about becoming a poet awareness of meter is indispensable when writing things like free verse. Good free verse poetry has a connection to meter in terms of cadence, rhythm, or beat. It is improbable that a person without this knowledge will write good free verse. Until one develops that sense of sonic movement it is extremely difficult to move forward (I only say "extremely difficult" simply because I cannot say impossible. Although I have never seen anyone with a tone deaf ear write good free verse). I think before one can consider himself a poet, he must be competent in the basic meters, and also the well known forms: sonnet, common meter, quatrains in iambic tetrameter, blank verse, and so on. Anyone has to learn the tools of their trade as well as the nomenclature to be counted seriously, regardless of the field. Can you imagine a professional piano player that cannot play by ear, or cannot read a chart? How about one that does not know the scales and cannot transpose. No he would have to know all these things and more to not be laughed out of the building by other music professional. Uh, sorry guys can you tell me what key you are in? Not gonna happen. Neither can a person legitimately call themselves a poet without learning the tools of the trade. Besides the practice that one must do to become competent creates the foundation upon which he will walk. I have been both a professional musician and an artist (that is I did it well enough to make money at it. Not that my knowledge in the field of art was that great as I could not progress beyond a certain point; angles and perspective were always difficult for me), and I can tell you poetry is the most difficult of the three. All this goes back to meters and forms, just as much as music goes back to time and notes. The only thing easy about poetry is that you already know, more or less, how to write. Alan Ginsberg was a formal poet for the first part of his life, that is he wrote formal poetry which requires a very good knowledge of meter. To write free verse without an innate understanding of meter is like writing a song without an awareness of time signature. Your friends who know nothing about music like it, of course the only time they can find the beat is if the music that is playing is disco.
BOOM - BOOM - BOOM - BOOM   I still contend that disco was written so white people could find the beat 

Dale   

[Rustymetal]

I like "I blew the dust off my memories to see they hadn't changed. " That line stood out to me. I thought the first and third stanza sounded pretty smooth, not sure about the last line in the third.
I have been wondering some of the same things you mentioned as a novice. How much of the technical stuff do you really need to know if you are only writing for yourself. (Dale you make it sound so very serious.)I have also checked out the practice threads and it all looks really intense.

[ellajam]

I  like "I blew the dust off my memories to see they hadn't changed. " That line stood out to me. I thought the first and third stanza sounded pretty smooth, not sure about the last line in the third.  
I have been wondering some of the same things you mentioned as a novice. How much of the technical stuff do you really need to know if you are only writing for yourself. (Dale you make it sound so very serious.)I have also checked out the practice threads and it all looks really intense.

I don't know why anyone writing only for themself would join a poetry workshop where people read read your poems and suggest changes, and also expect you to carefully read and comment on other people's work. Anyone just wanting to post a poem on the internet will find many sites to do just that.

I have been attempting to learn some forms this past year. It is not easy to write a good poem, but it is certainly something anyone who enjoys reading and writing can attempt. Nobody expects perfection on a first try, as can be seen by the many imperfect attempts on the practice threads. Anyone who has nothing to learn here probably won't enjoy the site.