This Winter

[Uncle Vertical]

This winter is a moving cloud
On the gray palette before me.
The leaning fog reaches upward
To meet a lowering shroud.
The days, hidden and diffuse.
The nights, curtained and lifeless.
Nothing distinct, nothing of detail,
Not a break, a star, or an edge to see, I am
Here in the cleft of this rock.
Alone on my watch, in my hour.
Waiting for something eternal.

This has been edited 2 times while in the Novice section. Please feel free to say what you feel about the poem. Thanks.

[Pete Ak]

I enjoyed the feel of this poem. A few comments to make:
L1&2 - Is "this" Winter significant? Could you say, 'Winter, a moving cloud on a grey pallette"? all other words could be deemed superfluous.
L3&4 - you refer to 'fog' (an actuality) and a 'shroud' (a symbol) meeting - does this work in the poem or might it be more consistent to regularise the forms? We also have to deal with an image of fog 'leaning' (difficult enough) while reaching upward!
L5&6 - The days you tell us are 'hidden and diffuse'. This is also a difficult pair of images, something is hidden it can't be seen, if it can't be seen how do we know it's diffuse? (by which I presume to mean widely spread out) I find this description of days to be weak compared to that of the night which is poetically convincing if a little disappointing. (The 'lifeless' and 'nothing' bits). The last 4 lines I guess are meant to leave us questioning but I think the reader should be given more to wonder about. If the cleft of rock is real and not metaphorical we need to be guided to that understanding, similarly 'my watch' could do with some clarification so that the denouement leaves us with more meat to chew on.
Notwithstanding the above I did enjoy the read.

[tectak]

This winter is a moving cloudnot a neat avoidance of a metaphor. Conceptually, you have immediately closed off your options.
On the gray palette before me.again, you limit yourself to shades of grey and whilst this may be your view, it makes for dull imagery. You will now have to justify the analogy in degrees if greyness....diffucuult to pull off
The leaning fog reaches upwarda nice thought, the leaning fog.....and you have just got away with it I believe.
To meet a lowering shroud.from this point in your pallette paints no new layers. All is just a wash. I think you should insert a little light relief in here.....literally
The days, hidden and diffuse.
The nights, curtained and lifeless.
Nothing distinct, nothing of detail,
Not a break, a star, or an edge to see, I am purposeless enjambment. Combined with random capitalisation you loose a flow which this piece desperately needs
Here in the cleft of this rock.
Alone on my watch, in my hour.
Waiting for something eternal.I hope you have a flask of coco and a pork pie

This has been edited 2 times while in the Novice section. Please feel free to say what you feel about the poem. Thanks.

I feel that you are trying to capture a mood which you have not fully developed in your mind. The ending is a relief to you and the reader. Perhaps if you were to list out your key points then attempt to integrate them in to a whole you would make a better job of it. The difficulty in avoiding cliches is always made worse if you start with a cliched subject. Please don't think that there is malice in my posting of my 2009 "This Winter". It happens with cliches!
Best,
tectak[/b]

[Uncle Vertical]

This winter is a moving cloudnot a neat avoidance of a metaphor. Conceptually, you have immediately closed off your options.
On the gray palette before me.again, you limit yourself to shades of grey and whilst this may be your view, it makes for dull imagery. You will now have to justify the analogy in degrees if greyness....diffucuult to pull off
The leaning fog reaches upwarda nice thought, the leaning fog.....and you have just got away with it I believe.
To meet a lowering shroud.from this point in your pallette paints no new layers. All is just a wash. I think you should insert a little light relief in here.....literally
The days, hidden and diffuse.
The nights, curtained and lifeless.
Nothing distinct, nothing of detail,
Not a break, a star, or an edge to see, I am purposeless enjambment. Combined with random capitalisation you loose a flow which this piece desperately needs
Here in the cleft of this rock.
Alone on my watch, in my hour.
Waiting for something eternal.I hope you have a flask of coco and a pork pie

This has been edited 2 times while in the Novice section. Please feel free to say what you feel about the poem. Thanks.

I feel that you are trying to capture a mood which you have not fully developed in your mind. The ending is a relief to you and the reader. Perhaps if you were to list out your key points then attempt to integrate them in to a whole you would make a better job of it. The difficulty in avoiding cliches is always made worse if you start with a cliched subject. Please don't think that there is malice in my posting of my 2009 "This Winter". It happens with cliches!
Best,
tectak[/b]

I can see by moving this thing to Serious Critique I opened myself up to some harsh reality. Your poem from 2009 is a pleasure to read and shows me that I have a long way to travel if I want to become the poet that I thought I might be. Thanks for taking the time to knock me off my perch. I'll stop now before I lapse into a string of cliches. I'm sure you will be relieved.

[Uncle Vertical]

I enjoyed the feel of this poem. A few comments to make:
L1&2 - Is "this" Winter significant? Could you say, 'Winter, a moving cloud on a grey pallette"? all other words could be deemed superfluous.
L3&4 - you refer to 'fog' (an actuality) and a 'shroud' (a symbol) meeting - does this work in the poem or might it be more consistent to regularise the forms? We also have to deal with an image of fog 'leaning' (difficult enough) while reaching upward!
L5&6 - The days you tell us are 'hidden and diffuse'. This is also a difficult pair of images, something is hidden it can't be seen, if it can't be seen how do we know it's diffuse? (by which I presume to mean widely spread out) I find this description of days to be weak compared to that of the night which is poetically convincing if a little disappointing. (The 'lifeless' and 'nothing' bits). The last 4 lines I guess are meant to leave us questioning but I think the reader should be given more to wonder about. If the cleft of rock is real and not metaphorical we need to be guided to that understanding, similarly 'my watch' could do with some clarification so that the denouement leaves us with more meat to chew on.
Notwithstanding the above I did enjoy the read.

Thanks Pete. After the bludgeoning I’ve taken from you and Tectak I will be crawling back to the novice section to do my penance. In response to your comments:
L1&2 - Is "this" Winter significant? Could you say, 'Winter, a moving cloud on a grey pallette"? all other words could be deemed superfluous. I thought about just leaving “Winter” as the title and in the 1st line but this is not about winter, it is about the bleakness of my soul in a sense. The descriptions are only a metaphor for what I was feeling inside so I think the term winter would be too generic.
L3&4 - you refer to 'fog' (an actuality) and a 'shroud' (a symbol) meeting - does this work in the poem or might it be more consistent to regularise the forms? We also have to deal with an image of fog 'leaning' (difficult enough) while reaching upward! Even though this poem is really not about winter it is using descriptions of what I see winter to be here in my part of the country. The “leaning fog” is quite literally what the fog looks like where I live. I have a view of a foot hill (a mountain for east coasters) from my front window and the fog very frequently leans upward toward the clouds that cover the top portion of the mountain. The fog actually moves as if it is reaching for the upper shroud of clouds. This natural scene truly describes what I was feeling.
L5&6 - The days you tell us are 'hidden and diffuse'. This is also a difficult pair of images, something is hidden it can't be seen, if it can't be seen how do we know it's diffuse? (by which I presume to mean widely spread out) I find this description of days to be weak compared to that of the night which is poetically convincing if a little disappointing. (The 'lifeless' and 'nothing' bits). By describing the days as hidden I am saying there is no discernable break or difference that distinguishes one day from another or from the night for that matter. Diffuse I think accomplishes the same thing by implying that all the features have been spread out to where there is nothing left to focus upon.
The last 4 lines I guess are meant to leave us questioning but I think the reader should be given more to wonder about. If the cleft of rock is real and not metaphorical we need to be guided to that understanding, similarly 'my watch' could do with some clarification so that the denouement leaves us with more meat to chew on. I would have hoped the reader would know I wasn't really in the cleft of a rock and did not need to be guided to that realization. Although I am sure you have a valid point and since I am surely not an expert I will give this some thought. These lines are not intended to leave the reader questioning but rather build on the metaphorical nature of the entire poem. The state of mind of the author is one of utter hopelessness that parallels the observed seemingly unchanging and bleak weather. The “cleft of the rock” is an allusion to the biblical account of Moses viewing God’s backside. I was stating by using that reference that this is all I can seem to grab onto in the situation and that is the hope that God would reveal himself to me and deliver me from the terrible desperate state I was in.
Thanks again for your input Pete. It is obvious I have a lot to learn.

[Pete Ak]

Uncle, please don't take my review as evidence of the standard of your poetry, I'm a novice hobbyist myself, certainly not accomplished in this most difficult of fields. I generally feel a twit when the poet's meaning is made clear to me cuz I didn't 'get' something obvious. I really am just saying how the piece impacted on me, giving you food for thought, nothing more! As I said I enjoyed the overall feel.