Among the Everlasting Hills

In my Lang/Lit class, we had to pick a paragraph from a book we were currently reading and use the words found there to rearrange into a poem. So here's my stab.

Among the Everlasting Hills

Invigorating air;
wholesome changes in mind
and clearer views of life.

Among the everlasting hills,
fresh winds blow away
despondent mists
while the lake washes away
troubles of the past.

Hey there! I noticed you hadn't had any reviews so I thought I'd be first to post!

The poem is full of delicious images and reminds of the old Romantic poets like Keats or Yeats. I preferred the second stanza to the first:

"Among the everlasting hills,
fresh winds blow away
despondent mists
while the lake washes away
troubles of the past."

The images are artful here, particularly in "everlasting hills" and "despondent mists," but this contrasts with the vague clumsiness of "wholesome changes in mind / and clearer views of life," and not in a good way. Try something like:

"Invigorating air;
minds burst into newness
and radiate with a sharp singularity of vision."

Do you see how this is more precise than what there currently is? Try sticking in a couple of elegant verbs if you're having trouble ("burst", "radiate") and even maybe find an unusual noun or adjective ("singularity") to really pinpoint that sense of freshness.

I think the subject is a little cliched, but this is promising though. Keep redrafting and revising and it will be even better!



7.5/10

Hi Holly! So ha, I got here, I did.

Oooh, this was such a sweet poem and I really enjoyed reading. It reminded me a lot of Wordsworth's 'I wandered lonely as a cloud.' You know, the daffodil poem. No? Heh, anyway. It was very refreshing to read something so full of life. The imagery, when you used it, was executed really nicely and just gave such a fresh effect to the poem. For instance:

fresh winds blow away
despondent mists

It made me feel like I was standing there in the cool breeze of the hills with the morning dew in the air and everything. xD How corny do I sound?

However, in the first verse, the abstractions detract from the description you were using in the second verse. This is what bugged me slightly:

wholesome changes in mind
and clearer views of life.

I think you need to try and mix your concrete, so to speak, so it sounds less diluted. Wholesome changes and clearer views just sounded a bit too abstract, if you know what I mean. Many, maybe all, poems are, deep down, about emotions and other abstractions - and they are great, if used originally and not in big chunks. I know from personal experience it's really difficult to make your poem's meaning strong if abstractions are clogging it down, however, because it simply makes it less interesting. Thus, the key! Replace or enhance these abstractions with concrete images. Things that you can appreciate with your senses. The concept of the objective correlative may be useful. An objective correlative is an object, several objects, or a series of events (all concrete things) that evoke the emotion or idea of the poem.

Really powerful poetry not only uses concrete images; it also describes them vividly. Show your readers and listeners what you're talking about--help them to experience the imagery of the poem. Put in some "sensory" handles.

When writing poetry, you're meant to save your most powerful message or insight for the end of your poem. The last line is to a poem what a punch line is to a joke--something that evokes an emotional response. I think you had a beautiful idea to your punch line, you just need to resist the urge to explain it less and make it less obvious. Let the reader become engaged with the poem in developing an understanding of your experience or message.

Anyway, that's my two-cents worth. Thanks for the read, Holly dearest!

-Sarah
xxx