Eternally Incomplete

Eternally Incomplete

So many unfinished lines,
Black scrawls that sit
Above blank page
Contrasting so sharply
Against that seemingly
Vast tundra of paper.

It would seem impossible
To fill a space so large
With ideas, so scattered.
And if perhaps,
I managed to catch
The wild horse thoughts
That gallop from the
Foot fall of my mind
Even if, even if I could coral
Such fleeting glimpses of hope,
Trap them in ink
On that desolate prairie.
Would any stranger stop
For a moment to admire
The beauty I fought
So hard to contain?

Although, to me,
It matters not, whether
Anyone at all observes them,
With pleasure or disdain
Because I caught them,
And they are mine.

My comments and suggestions shall be in orange. Corrections will be in red.

So many unfinished lines,
Black scrawls that sit
Above blank pages,
Contrasting so sharply
Against that seemingly vast
Tundra of paper.

It would seem impossible
To fill a space so large
With ideas, so scattered.
And if, perhaps,
I managed to catch
The wild horse thoughts
That gallop from
The footfall of my mind,
Even if[s], even if[/s] I could corral
Such fleeting glimpses of hope,
Trap them in ink
On that desolate prairie,
Would any stranger stop
For a moment to admire
The beauty I fought
So hard to contain?

And yet, to me,
It matters not[s],[/s] whether
Anyone at all observes them[s],[/s]
With pleasure or disdain
Because I caught them,
And they are mine.

Overall, I enjoyed reading this. The last four lines of the second stanza and the entire third stanza were my favorite parts.

Just remember that you punctuate a poem the same way as you would a sentence. :D

Nice to meet you, Jones, and I hope you're enjoying yourself here at YWS? ^^ I'm Evi; nice to meet you! *firm handshake*

...okay, so enough with the pleasantries. Let's get down to business.

My first reason to congratulate you

I can understand what this is about! Although it may seem trivial and, well, sort of obvious, you have no idea how many times I read poems that are so vague and ambiguous that I can't even possibly discern whatever meaning the author's trying to convey. Fortunately, that is not the case here! You're writing about writing, eh? I enjoyed this. I'll point out some typos, and then go a bit more in-depth on you.

Suggestions (and a single typo)

Above blank page

As Kyllorac mentioned, you need an 's' at the of the word 'pages'. Subject-verb agreement, you know. The horrible troublesome thing that is the English language.

Contrasting so sharply
Against that seemingly
Vast tundra of paper.

Alright, so. On YWS, you'll find many of us griping about adverbs. I have underlined the two adverbs you used here, right next to each other, because I think they're a bit too much. This is already a wordy poem, filled with the galloping/wild metaphor and the whole 'vast tundra' thing, so I think adding all of these unnecessary adverbs is overdoing it a bit.

So, see if you like this better:

Contrasting so sharply
against that vast tundra
of empty paper.

I shall explain what I did.

1.) I punctuated. Also as Kyllorac mentioned, you can punctuate a poem just as you punctuate stories (prose) or your everyday speech. It's really the poet's preference that determines how they choose to capitalize and punctuate, but I know that many of the writers on this site write (and enjoy) poems more when they use this type of punctuation in poetry. That means that every line doesn't have to be capitalized at the beginning. You can add commas in the middle of lines, and such.

2.) I took out 'seemingly', because it was a fluff word. Many adverbs = fluff words, and we like to kill fluff words with flamethrowers so that they're not taking over our writing. Don't compromise substance and description for an empty fluff word like 'seemingly'!

3.) I added 'of empty paper'. There's some description of the paper. I loved the part about a 'vast tundra', so I just elaborated. What is a characteristic of paper/tundras? If you haven't written on it, it's empty. You could also use lonely. Or blank. Or forlorn. Personification, baby! Make that paper have emotions. Make it come alive!

[s]Even if, [/s]even if I could coral

Repetition is glorious. Redundancy is evil. This = redundant, so scrap it.

It matters not, whether

Kill this comma. It only stifles your flow, and it is not needed there.

Overall

I really liked the words and the emotion of this poem. Honestly. I thought you worked with an interesting thought (taming words) and you excecuted the analogy well. However, something about the structure bored me.

The writer's worst nightmare is having their reader skim; I found myself in danger of skimming over that humongous middle paragraph. I'm glad I didn't, of course-- it had some good stuff. But still, the desire was there. That desire was fueled by the fact that this poem's structure and style is rather stiff. See how they're all the same length? That works with rhyming poems. In fact, that's necessary in rhyming poems. But here, I think some variation would do you good. Play around with different sizes of stanzas and lines. You can use sentence fragments, you know. Despite whatever your grammar teacher has told you, in poetry fragments are aweosme.

Good luck, and PM me if you need anything!

~Evi

This was pretty good
I usually find it hard to write about writing...but you did a good job. I actually understood this. (i think) =]

I thought the flow was great and it held my attention.

Nice job