What Have We Tonight?

Excitement in your smile—what have we tonight?
Another balloon, perhaps a song;
and yes, darling, you’re doing it right.
Just let the tune play ‘til the tears are all gone.

Another balloon, perhaps a song;
the rising color dances, lost in a breeze.
Just let it float up ‘til the tears are all gone.
Listen to the voice of the sea.

The rising color dances, lost in a breeze.
A symphony of incoming tide—can you hear?
Listen to the voice of the sea.
Follow its waves; I’ll always be near.

A symphony of fireworks—can you hear?
Watch as they explode against dusk’s dripping sunset.
Follow their light; I’ll always be near.
But just wait for dark to come. (Not yet!)

Watch as they explode against dusk’s stumbling sunset;
and yes, darling, you’re seeing this right.
But just wait for dark to come. (Not yet!)
Excitement in your smile—what have we tonight?

Alright, yes I admit it: I kind of cheated with some of the repeated lines and tweaked them a bit.
Opinions are welcomed!

A pantoum! How exciting! Kudos just for that.

As for the poem apart from its form, I'm not sure I quite catch the meaning. I like the sound of things, to be sure, and there's some strong images, but that's as far as I get. Is it about a birthday party, perhaps? And is someone talking to a child?

The only other snarl for me was the phrase "dripping sunset". I like the phrase, though I've heard it used before, but it doesn't work with this image, I feel.

A star-strung symphony of fireworks—can you hear?
Watch as they explode against the dusk’s dripping sunset.

Dusk gives the time of day, and I know sunset matches it in hour, but in physical attributes they differ. Dusk, twilight, sunset, the gloaming... there are multiple ways for a day to end, and the pairing of dusk and sunset--not just any sunset but a dripping sunset--wounded me.

Otherwise, an excellent go at a highly difficult form! I'm impressed!

The repitition of lines was annoying. They didn't work for me. I don't clearly understand what the poem is about but it seems like it could be much better if you wrote a few extra lines being a little more specific.

My favorite lines were-
Follow its waves; I’ll always be near.

Watch as they explode against dusk’s stumbling sunset.

but i dont think 'stumbling sunset' works. change stumbling to something else because stumbling sounds clumsy and messy

I've never tried a pantoum but they're quite difficult and I think this was a great one.

Quote:
A star-strung symphony of incoming tide—can you hear?

This line, and the other 'can you hear' line stood out to me because they're so much longer than the others, and the rhythm's off. I'd cut the 'star-strung' -- it's a nice image, but it makes the line too long and I'm not sure that it adds anything to the line, anyway.

Quote:
dusk’s stumbling sunset.

So er, I read the other reviews and I have to agree that 'stumbling' isn't doing it for me. I actually very much line 'dripping' because I imagine a sunset that's so saturated with color it's, like, dripping paint. I don't know if that's what you meant, but that's why I like it. Plus, stumbling is one of those words that you sort of have to stumble over when you read (if that makes sense. Pretty sure it doesn't) which isn't what you want in a poem.

The dusk/sunset thing bothers me because they're essentially the same thing. But, I dunno, maybe I'm just being too pinickity.

Quote:
Follow their light; I’ll always be near.

But just wait for dark to come. (Not yet!)

It's interesting to me - not sure if this was on purpose - but the second line is interesting because it adds a slightly sinister undertone. Because that previous line suggests that as long as there is light, the speaker will be near, but then the second line seems to contradict the 'always' and say that they'll be gone as soon as it's dark. And the reader knows that dark is inevitable, and that fireworks are momentary (a single firework lasts what, like five seconds?) so...yes. Intriguing. And then it's about the same thing in the last stanza.

I do really really like this, Evi, and I'm sorry I can't deliver a helpful review as promised. It's just one lovely image after another, and everything I get from this sort of suggests a small, sad girl, whom the speaker is talking to, and a seaside carnival or something. It's really colorful and cute; makes me think of carousels and arcade games on a pier or something. That could be totally not what you were going for, but either way it's nice.

With pantoums, the line repetition is tricky because each line has to tie in with the rest of the poem, but also be able to be independent enough to blend into more than one stanza, and I think you did well there.

I've always wanted to try pantoum. Even though changing some of the wording in the repeated lines doesn't technically follow the rules, poetry rules are made to be broken, right? Well, if it's done for a reason. And I thought it worked perfectly in this piece (which was lovely).

the rising color dances, lost in a breeze. I'm not sure about the word "color". The underlying imagery you have in this piece is all to do with music. If you just glance over this, the word "color" doesn't stick out at first. But I just don't see how it fits in with the metaphor, what it's supposed to describe, or refer to. It sounds good, but what does it mean?
I would also make a little change in it, the second time you use it. I wouldn't say you have to be consistent and change every line when you repeat it, but I think it would go well with this line.

Watch as they explode against dusk’s stumbling sunset For this line, I wanted to suggest a word change. I don't find anything wrong with your word choices here, but for whatever reason the word "tripping" sprung into my mind when I read "stumbling" and I realized it also rhymes with "dripping", the word you used the first time you say this line. It's entirely up to you; the wording you have here works wonderfully. This just came to mind and I thought I'd mention it.

Follow its waves; I’ll always be near. That second half of this line doesn't really fit in with the rest of the poem. It's not a continuing idea in this poem; it doesn't seem to flow out of the other ideas, but instead inserts itself where it doesn't seem to have any business. It only appears once in the poem (well, twice, but only because you repeat the line), and like I said, it doesn't seem to connect with the rest of the poem. You don't even mention any kind of loneliness, fear, discouragement, or insecurity that would need that encouragement of I'm here for you.

Another balloon, perhaps a song "Another balloon." The first time you use this line, the word "another" doesn't work for me. You're just introducing balloons; we've not seen them before, so "another" feels incomplete. It's missing the first idea. I think it would work if you only used "another" when you repeat this line. That way you do have the first introduction, and then a little on we have another.

But just wait for dark to come. (Not yet!) "Not yet!" didn't feel quite right. That exclamation point gives it too jumpy a feel for the rest of this smooth, graceful piece. And it doesn't seem to fit the character of those two words either. Maybe instead of an exclamation point, use an ellipses? Kind of like "wait for it... wait for it..." See what I mean? And even though there aren't a lot of times that an ellipses works appropriately in poetry, I would say that this is one of those few times.

Excitement in your smile—what have we tonight? I don't really like ending this poem with a question. It makes it seem incomplete; it gives the impression that you didn't answer the question you started with in the rest of the piece. And maybe you didn't. But it leaves us with uncertainty, with that lingering question that now we can't be sure about, and wondering about it isn't going to get us anywhere, because it's the end of the poem. At the beginning we had the hope of an answer; not so at the end. I would tweak it about so that it's no longer a question, but a statement, somehow.


I had to look closely at this to find those suggestions, but I know from experience that there's always something more you can do to make it come closer to perfect. Your imagery in this piece is beautiful. You really pulled off this pantoum. =) Repetition can be difficult to work with, but there was nothing forced about it here. Great job.

-Adna

Evi! Oh I love reading your stuff. I had no idea you even did poetry.

First off, when I started this, I had no idea what a pantoum was but as I read the poem I had one of those head/desk moments and I have to admit that this is really awesome.

Even with a few problems that you had with rhythm and such, I really liked the imagery. It almost makes up for those little tweaks in formality. Word choice throughout is brilliant and this is the first poem I’ve read where there is actual punctuation. I’ve been dying to see a semi-colon around this joint. I mean really, how hard could it be.

Anyways, I wish I could find something bad to say but I’m not particularly familiar with the pantoum structure so I’ll leave the intense criticism to the more knowledgeable.

Much love!

~lilymoore