Dance

The blood of life is in the movement,
The blood of movement is in the dance.
Each shift of an eye tells a story,
Woven together in movement's trance.

The story alive with image and verse,
Freedom's own, a dancer's grace.

Each lie of verse is frozen in picture,
Each truth of song a timeless dance.

The freedom of movement is in the dancer,
The dancer's freedom is the blood of life.

Wonderful poem. You actually described dancing in a way I've never seen it (though I don't see dancing much, especially myself ).

Favorite part:

The story alive with movement and verse,
Freedom's own, a dancer's grace.

Sorry about the shortness of the post. Not so good at reviewing poems.

Rosey Unicorn wrote:The blood of life is in the movement,
The blood of movement is in the dance.

Each flick of a finger tells a story,
Woven together in movement's trance.

Imagery is wayward - I wouldn't picture fingers "flicking" so much as, well, dancing across a keyboard or even when inking on a parchment. These two stanzas are strong and I would recommend keeping in the linkage feel of the poem at all costs; it's unique and works in...microcosm, almost. Is that what you were going for?

The story alive with movement and verse,
Freedom's own, a dancer's grace.

Ideas are starting to become a little hazy, different from the concrete verse you seemed to espouse in the beginning. "Flick of a finger" and "blood of movement" falls prey to such vague thoughts as "alive with movement and verse". One cannot really picture that, so keep the style of the first paragraphs alive here, don't change it so suddenly.

Each lie of verse is frozen in picture,
Each truth of song an infinite dance.

They say puns are the lowest form of humor but in this case, I think you can afford it because of the lyrical mysticism and profundity the rest of your poem expresses. Clever.

Why is the dance infinite? "Infinite" is one of those words that are thrown around by amateur poets in order to sound philosophical; I suspect that it is not the same with you, but I still cannot find any connection to this idea in the entirety of the poem besides this line. Either take out that overwrought word or justify it (yes, you have hinted at it somewhat with the "frozen in picture" part but that seems like a weak link at best).

The freedom of movement is in the dancer,
The dancer's freedom is the blood of life.

Good solid ending. Can't say much more about this stanza other than you managed, to my somewhat surprise, to actually fold all of your ideas back into these two lines quite neatly and thus show us that you really do know what you're talking about.

Only one grammatical mess up:

"Each lie of verse is frozen in picture,
Each truth of song an infinite dance."


Shouldn't "lie" be "line"? If it is right, then you should still change it because it doesn't fit the theme of the poem. Other than, I like it I suppose.

Content wise: what is "blood" actually supposed to be? and what is "movement" and also, you refer to two different types of "movement." The first "movement" is a general term and then the more specific "movement" as more like a dance-step. and dance is the blood of life, so this leads me to re-question "What is "blood"?"

Umm, if I was to totally neglect the content, I will tell you your poem is really aesthetically pleasing. Even though I don't know why you use the word movement in two different ways and what you really mean by blood, and you use dance way too much (to be specific, you don't qualify movement, dance, dancers, and blood which is why I am so confused because you use them in different ways) I still like the EFFECT the words give to ONLY the sound of the poem. If you are plainly just manipulating language then it's fine, but if you want to actually attach MEANING to this poem, you need some intense revisions. But I am worried, because I don't want the revisions to change the flow of the poem so you have a difficult task at hand. I can understand if you don't change it.

Yatta!

Poems aren't something I have worked with much. I write them a little, but most of the time the pacing/imagery isn't exactly the way I want it. This was something that came out of my love of freedom of just moving. I've done several different styles of dance, one that's non-western (From North India, called Kathak) and that's where I'm taking the main insperation from.

Blood is discribed in line 1, as "the blood of life." I couldn't live without dance, like nobody can live without blood.

I liked the play of truth and lie. As in- If a verse is false it's still danced, if a song is true it will be danced forever.

By infinite I meant timeless. Something that's around for a long time. I'll change it to enduring or perhaps simply timeless.

In Kathak, fingers do flick. Although not half as often as wrists. I think I could change that without a lose of pace. *Edit* I changed it to shift of an eye, since that's better imagery.

Hmmm, this was only draft 1, and I wrote this in about ten minutes. I'll look at it a little more and change some words. From what I can see only the non-rhyming lines are trouble.

This is half playing with language, half trying to get imagery.

Thanks for the reviews!

*Edit* I have reworked it slightly, hopefully without loosing the pacing.

I liked this a lot--can't really say anything that hasn't already been said Except, I assume you did this while reworking it, it should be shift of an eye.

Hi, Rosey! I thought I could read this now.

The blood of life is in the movement,

The blood of movement is in the dance.

Each shift of an eye tells a story,

Woven together in movement's trance.

I tried to read this as a dancer, and you really got it right. This is very true. Only thing that bugged me a little was the reappearance of the word "movement" in the last line: it fits well in the first and second line, but I don't think it should be mentioned after those.

The story alive with image and verse,

Freedom's own, a dancer's grace.

Again, a beautiful stanza. Do you mean that the story is "freedom's own"? That's how I thought it.

Each lie of verse is frozen in picture,

Each truth of song a timeless dance.

Lie=line, maybe? I also wondered whether you can say "frozen in picture", because I associate frozen with unmoving things, and dance isn't really an unmoving thing. It disturbed me a little. Also, we already know this is about dancing, so there's no need to say "dance" or "dancing" in every stanza.

The freedom of movement is in the dancer,

The dancer's freedom is the blood of life.

There are "dancer"s again, but I guess it's okay, because this is the ending.


Overall:
I think you succeeded well in describing dancing, and it really shows how important dancing is to you. I would've liked to read more, actually! Maybe you could expand this poem, or then write a new one from a different point of view?


Demeter xxx

Hi Rosey! Wonderful poem, but a few tiny issues:

Rosey Unicorn wrote:The blood of life is in the movement,
The blood of movement is in the dance.
Each shift of an eye tells a story,
Woven together in movement's trance. This stanza rhymes, but none of the others do. It's not bad, but a little iffy. I wonder if it's intentional or not.

The story alive with image and verse,
Freedom's own; a dancer's grace. I changed the comma to a semicolon. It works better.

Each lie of verse is frozen in picture, "Picture" should be changed to "frame". It adds alliteration and flows better.
Each truth of song a timeless dance.

The freedom of movement is in the dancer,
The dancer's freedom is the blood of life.

Other than that, great job.

Rosey Unicorn wrote:The blood of life is in the movement,
The blood of movement is in the dance.
Each shift of an eye tells a story,
Woven together in movement's trance.

I like this part very much. Especially "each shift of an eye tells a story, woven together in a movement's trance" .

So is this poem is about dance? What dance really is? I think maybe you should focus on one topic rather than reaching for more than one thing at the same time. This is only my opinion, but I think it could be better if you focused one reason and one meaning rather than having various. It was really good though ^^

Rosey Unicorn wrote:The blood of life is in the movement,
The blood of movement is in the dance.
Each shift of an eye tells a story,
Woven together in movement's trance.

I love your beginning. It caught my attention instantly and the rest of your poem was brilliant as well.
It's so VIVID. That's why I love it. You use words in a lovely way. It makes the poem have this distinctive feel. haha. Sorry, I'm not sure I'm making sense. But it was really great.

Whoa, haven't checked this poem in a while.

Thanks for the reviews!

This is based on my two years as a Kathak dancer, so it's not exactly ballet's movement.

An interesting thing about this poem: I came up with that beginning and just had to write it. So, you could say I had the same feeling about the beginning as everybody else.

Wow...I can't really say this cleverly, but, you captured dance perfectly. I dance myself and I can understand what you are trying to say, how each and every movement makes something of a story, woven together. I adore:

Each lie of verse is frozen in picture,
Each truth of song a timeless dance.

Sorry. I don't know how to quote.

Keep at it. It's beautiful.

Hello! This is the poem you mentioned to me, and I thought it was written very well. As you'll notice, I have no idea about the technical aspects of poetry, so my comments will mainly be on the impressions it left on me.

The blood of life is in the movement,
The blood of movement is in the dance.
Each shift of an eye tells a story,
Woven together in movement's trance.

Don't really quite understand that 'shift of an eye' thing, but I love the last line. Dance really does weave things together, but that's a comparison few people would think to make.

The story alive with image and verse,
Freedom's own, a dancer's grace.

Each lie of verse is frozen in picture,
Each truth of song a timeless dance.

The freedom of movement is in the dancer,
The dancer's freedom is the blood of life.

*Frowns* It...stopped rhyming. Why? I know a lot of more experienced poets and reviewers say that rhyming is blah, and forced, or whatever, but I for one loved how you rhymed the first paragraph. And then it just splits up, and you've lost it.

Oh, well. I'll get over it. As for the actual words, I've noticed how much you repeat; you repeat verse, and freedom, and movement, and blood of life. There may be some deep meaning to this, which I am just not skilled enough to notice, but I was just wondering. It doesn't really bother me, but...

Moving on.

I love this:

Each truth of song a timeless dance.

Anyway, I hope this was of some help. I think the poem, the words, all of it was very true, but I may be a little biased !

I <3 dancing. I never rly though about dancing, in the words you put it. Rly unique, which is the main reason why I like it, you don't see something like this everyday. Could use a bit more work though, description and imagery possibly? How bout a bit longer? Overall I like it. =]

Amazing poem here. The rhythm was nearly perfect which isn't something you see very often. I loved the repetition in this too.
The way you compared the dance to blood was excellent. I enjoyed the play of words on the true/false stanza as well.
But, why does it stop rhyming in the middle? It is kind of an awkward transition from rhyming to not.
I would make it a little longer just to expand your ideas a little bit more
Overall, excellent poem. I think it would sound better if all or none of it rhymed. But, I think all the other nitpicks have been covered by the other reviews.