Nothing Like the Sun

I love your poetry, Lim! I find so amazing how you can find just the right metaphors to describe certain things, it makes your poems feel so alive :] Your thread is like an endless source of inspiration for me. I look forward to reading more poetry form you!! <33

Very much enjoying reading the little insights into your writing process Lim! These are all excellent and though they are playing with some different images and a variety of subjects and formats, I am still definitely sensing your voice coming through here. My favorite so far has been "On Stretching Truths" from the title I was not expecting the description of trees and fabric, but those images brought a whole new light to that subject and leave a lot of room for interpretation / contemplation.

Some unexpected physical descriptors I've liked too...
"fearful grey"

&

"awkward stones"

not a combination of descriptions I would expect; but makes you think about what's happening and what's being described in a new way.

Lovely, rich, deep poetry that is very re-readable. Good luck this month, I will certainly be reading along with this one! <3

Your poems are soooo good, Lim!! Great job so far!!

Thanks so much @Rose! I'm glad you're getting some inspiration too - to write some of your own amazing poems

Thanks so much for reading @alliyah! Good to know that my poetic voice is still there - the way I've structured this thread is pretty different from previous years, and I was worried it might be a little *too* out there haha

Thanks so much @RavenAkuma!!

Written in response to Shakespeare's use of 'night' in a pejorative way, at least in the sonnets I've read so far. The specific lines that inspired this one are:

“like a jewel hung in ghastly night
Makes black night beauteous and her old face new.”

Which isn't a total takedown of night, but I could see a comeback for this and so I wrote it down.

Inspo from Sonnet 26 - instead of 'deferential' this turned out to be something like 'admiring' or 'reverential'. Again, wishing English had a plural 'you' but hopefully I got the fact that there are multiple addressees here across in the first line. I also incorporated the wordplay I spotted in Sonnet 26 by coming up with my own thing with the different meanings of 'hold'. Not as fun as wit/witness, but I think it fits the vibe.

My initial notes for brainstorming this poem:

Random image/phrase/word list: blue, dark blue, not like sky or sea, but like that one colour in a Buncho painting set called 'Cobalt blue' - flannel - little polka dots - laundry detergent - bright eyes - windows open and shut - a high chair, surveying - watcher - street lights - autumn weather - forest green - steepled fingers - huddle

hold (still, fast, (noun - a keep or hold), hands, together, in mind)

An exercise in extended metaphor, plus reference to how Shakespeare likes to use finance or money in figurative expressions.

Theme: Communication failure

Mist
Fog
River

Ooh, this one was very nice! (I mean they all are but still lol). Love the imagery described in it, and the details like the cherry petal. Very cool ^^

Thanks and glad you like that one @RavenAkuma!

Inspired by the 'past love, present love' theme in Sonnet 31 and combined with the sky/celestial imagery in Sonnet 33, particularly the line "Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy".

I find it somewhat easier to pick specific poems as inspiration rather than to abstract a 'characteristic Shakespeare technique' and practice using that. This one still has iambic pentameter, and I did write a longer version but decided to make a poem of the two parts I liked best. Here are stanzas I cut out, if you're interested:

The azure past is trickling through the trees
or was it gold? Or maybe close to green?
The colours spread like marbling on the stream,
which flows to me from times I left behind.

With fingers pressed I try to stem the flow
but cannot know how much I want to let
enrich the soil, and what I know must go
for this new place to grow its budding lives.

As fuzziness of memory drifts by
the azure past is trickling through the trees –
with fingers pressed I try to stem the flow
but drops of you like dew still bubble through.

They felt kind of awkward and forced, particularly the last line of each? I did like the image of gold, green and azure "marbling on the stream" though.

Limmmmmm i was gonna comment earlier but i forgot XD so i shall comment on all the poems since my last comment!!

"In Response to Sonnet 17"
oooooo i get the image of a family in hard times, knowing that imagination won't put food on the table but still finding comfort in it. the second and fourth stanzas are my favs!

"On Stretching Truths"
very interesting combination of nature and textiles! makes me think of how even really great art can't perfectly capture the physical scene

"Buck"
i loveeee wordplay, and bonus points if there's humor too =P love the way you used three distinct meanings of "buck" and then "Reindeer are shy." is such a perfect, humorous ending line xD

"For the Night is Good Enough"
ahhhh this one is so beautiful. i want to print it and frame it and hang it on my wall xD words like "jewel," "relic," "swoop," "shimmering," "feather," "ancient," and "veil" just feel so magical. this is a poem i would read over and over, perhaps right before going to bed!

"The Act of Holding"
mmm a few different meanings of "hold" in this poem as well :] my fav lines: "The act of holding isn't held in hands, / but loosely loved between our steepled fingers." (the alliteration !!)

"The Debt"
ah, a very neat image leading to the reveal that it's referring to a concept of a debt owed! each stanza builds on the severity of the debt and by the end, i feel like this is a debt that is nearly impossible to pay off...

"The Fog Over the River"
ooo communication failure, a familiar Lim poetry theme :3 the last stanza is captivating. i especially enjoyed the lines "Why do we startle at / the things that still make sense?" ^-^ along with the repeated sounds like "w", "st", and "th", it's such a seemingly-oxymoronic phrase that my brain just wants to puzzle it out xD

"Colour Mixing"
any poem that mentions clouds gets an automatic like from me =P the iambic pentameter is lovely in this one, and the first stanza is another one that i'd like to read and re-read whenever i want to transport myself to a tranquil place! i also loved the gold/green/azure marbling image :3

you have been doing absolutely stellar this NaPo, Lim!! halfway through the month >:DD

Loving this so far!! Awesome poems, they are so beautiful!

Thanks so much @EllieMae!

Thanks for your lovely comments, @Spearmint!

Your interp of 'In Response to Sonnet 17' makes it so much better - when I looked at it on my own it seemed more like a poem about 'the use/ non-use of poetry', but I'm glad the 'family' reading is possible, because that's more in line with the feelings I tried to capture while writing it.

Thanks for sharing all your thoughts and favourite lines - it's really encouraging

Notes:

- Based on an erasure poem I did of Sonnet 23: "I fear trust/ and mine own strength/ burden of mine,/ love's might."