Song of Wind and Sea

Listen,
Shell is singing
A song of wind and sea:

Breakers crash
And raucous birds
Dive and skim the waves.
A harsh salty breeze
Whips white across the water
And sand ripples across the beach.
Cliffs fall free into the deep,
Land is swallowed
Rock and stone dissolves;
Everything succumbs
To the patience of the waves:
Rhythmic, pulsing, never-ending.
The breath of the ocean,
An eternal melody
It is all remembered
By the spiraling iridescence,
A shell lying forgotten
Half buried in the sand,

The shining trinket
You picked up
Somewhere along your way
And took with you
Far away from the sea.

-------------

I got the idea for this poem while trying to make a sentence with one of those annoying magnetic poetry sets. There were hardly any words to use, but I was able to put together the first three lines and then I had to write a whole poem to go with it. So maybe all those tiny hard-to-find-the-right-word magnets aren't so useless after all.

It was um....yes. um. Some parts are good, others are -really- bad...like, the first 3/4 of the second massive stanza thing. That's the main part I didn't like, ironically, the main body of your poem.

The first stanza

Listen,
Shell is singing
A song of wind and sea:

I liked that part, the next lot until....

The breath of the ocean,
An eternal melody
It is all remembered
By the spiraling iridescence,
A shell lying forgotten
Half buried in the sand,

Are a bit...superfluous, badly worded I feel, not much of a rhythem, more just a list of what's happening, rather than creating the images in my head of what is happening, makes it a bit...boring. Bland. Lifeless.

The rest of the poem after that is brilliant, I liked the message that all that (the previous parts of your poem) could be held within that one shell,

The shining trinket
You picked up
Somewhere along your way
And took with you
Far away from the sea.

Well done on that part, just fix up your imagery. This poem has potential, a great amount of it.

Tata mwa!

SS

It was okay.

You had some good imagery, but when I think beach, I think salty fish smells. I smelt nothing...

I've read so many poems about beaches, I can't count them on one hand, but maybe I could on two. So far, I believe there were only two I enjoyed and thought stood out. So how does your beach poem stand out? So far, it doesn't. Appeal to the senses, a beach is an amazing place. The touch of hot sand, grainy, on your feet. The smells. The cool air. The sounds of the birds and the waves crashing. The way it's like you could almost see the earth curving at the horizon. (Maybe I should write a poem about a beach? hmm...)

Give the reader something they can hold on to, and like. Make me connect with the poem. Perhaps if you wrote about someone being at the beach (though towards the end you did have a character, so to speak.) and connect us with this moment. Why is the beach important to her?

I felt like I rambled too much...


Best of luck.

You can't just describe what is there. I mean, I love the beach and everything, but you gave us nothing human to connect it to until the last stanza. That's why the last stanza is indeed the best.

Remember: in whatever you write, you must put a teaspoon of humanity, otherwise, it will not cause the effect you want.

During the middle stanza, at one point, it just seemed like a long list of things that happened in sequence, and that's... alright, but not too interesting. Make people want to know why this is significant.

It might be interesting if you mentioned the trinket at the beginning so that it connected back at the end, giving something to follow along with? I don't know. Random suggestion.

Snoink wrote:Remember: in whatever you write, you must put a teaspoon of humanity, otherwise, it will not cause the effect you want.

*nods vigorously* I most definitely agree with Clau and Snoink here. It's a decent exercise in imagery, but this poem doesn't have much depth. It works as a simple piece; it's pleasant and evoked some lovely (albeit generic) beachy images, and I liked them, but I likely won't remember them.

Meaning. Give it some! What is significant about this beach scene? Does it make the speaker realize something?

Metaphor. I certainly feel like something should be going on with the shell. I like that you described a shell both in the beginning and the end...is it the same shell? I'd like to see you make this shell represent something. It's significant to the speaker, but why? Go into detail. Creating a metaphor around the shell might give the poem some depth.

Tone. It's rather bland. It's distant and disconnected; that's not going to get a reader interested. Going into structure here, especially in the middle stanza, you don't really have sentences, just phrases all strung together. Contrary to popular belief, that's not really poetic. This is not to say that all poems should have entirely correct sentence structure, punctuation, etc., but many do--or at least can be read without confusion. Try reading your poem aloud or sounding it out in your head.
A sense of the tone would really help it out. What are the speaker's feelings about the beach? Is he/she nostalgic? Happy? Bitter? Try to incorporate that into the piece.

On the subject of magnetic poetry: I have "politician" magnetic poetry. I highly recommend it. After all..."I did not have sexual relations in the kitchen with Mr. Gorbachev." Write a poem about THAT.

-Colleen

Altogether, it's alright. I don't really get the point of it all though. There were too many focuses and not enough detail on each I think. And the title didn't fit either. I really didn't see any focus on any sound I just saw description. Try to ease it down a bit, not to try so hard and just focus on your favorite bit and really describe it. Not just in look but in smell, touch, sound,...taste even. Make it interesting but don't overdo it.

Keep it up!
~Rieda