On The Way From The Beach

The single-decker bus is bumpy, so much so
that my steadier friends switch places with me
so I can cling to the pole like a tight-ropeing cat,
or an agnostic to faith, so I don't fall and take
another skittle with me. Some people deliberately
sit at the front, so that themselves
and the driver can chat; people exit and board,
but that seat remains full.

Outside flies a bright yellow butterfly; no spot,
line, pattern, just pure bright. I wobble
as my steadiness follows it.

I sway and read a Dickinson poem
on Truth, from a poster above my head,
trading my analysis for my friends'
scientific info ("Explain the whole of science"),
and history granules, which will rush from my head
with the sand down the drain.

Hey Jasmine.

I like this poem, the details given and the way the journey is described made me feeling like I was the one clinging to the pole, staring out the window on a hot day.

The issue I have is that overall it seems a little pointless. It's a brilliant description of a journey, but with no beginning, end, or particulr purpose to the journey the whole poem does seem to be lacking.

Hiya!

Let me just say that this poem gives off wonderful imagery. I love the last two lines so much it's crazy. I could see everything you were describing. It's crazy because this poem is so short!

But, there is a bad side to this review. What I can't seem to grasp is the point of this poem. It's not really a story you are telling, it's pretty much a few minutes of a person's life being told in a poem. It has no moral, no lesson, no characters or plot. So what is the story? Why are you writing about this? Your character, is there something wrong with him/her so that they are doing these things?

Other than that, good poem!

Classy

To captain.classy and Tenyo, I'd like to point out that many poems are written for the pure purpose of capturing the moment, the description, the instant, the experience. So...no need to rip apart Jas' pretty writing on account of there being no almighty 'moral' there. Of course, in the LONG RUN, it's nice if there is one - it helps give the poem some intellectual purpose in our minds, but if it's well-enough written as it is, then there's certainly no need to force one out of it and ruin the shortness of the experience.


Anyway, I'd say there's all sorts of little 'moral' things in there, tucked into the corners of the bus ride, if you care to look. Much like life, don't you think?

The single-decker bus is bumpy, so much so
that my steadier friends switch places with me
so I can cling to the pole like a tight-ropeing cat,
or an agnostic to faith, so I don't fall and take
another skittle with me.

Take out 'steadier' and this beginning will be charming! And yes, I do see some suggested themes here - softly tucked in - that of friendship, of faith and agnosticism etc. By the way, the seond one, however lovely it sounds, was a little disjointed with the rest of the poem - maybe expand on it? I liked the humour behind: 'So I don't fall and take / another skittle with me.'

Some people deliberately
sit at the front, so that themselves
and the driver can chat; people exit and board,
but that seat remains full.

Didn't enjoy this bit so much - it was quite a grey set of lines to read for me - too scientifc/clinical/I-don't-know-what. Eg: 'deliberately,' 'exit and board,' 'that themselves...can chat' - seemed a little too formal and pretentious for an intimate poem like this.

Outside flies a bright yellow butterfly;
no spot,line, pattern, just pure bright. I wobble
as my steadiness follows it.

I liked this vivid image. However, I'd have to say here, that the thing about writing pure 'experience' poems like these is that there isn't an overriding image, something to string all the little ones together - so it comes across as disjointed and the reader is left wondering what the point of the little pictures was, when any other could have done the job just fine as well. There is no single sense of 'feeling' I'm getting from reading this...so, up to you, I guess.

I sway and read a Dickinson poem
on Truth, from a poster above my head,
trading my analysis for my friends
'scientific info ("Explain the whole of science"),
and history granules, which will rush from my head
with the sand down the drain.

I liked the image of the narrator reading a Dickinson poem on Truth from a poster above their head. But the analysis trade was just too...clinical/technical for an intimate poem like this, again. The last line was an absolute no-no - you've just written a poem that has a short-term impact since it is disjointed with no overall theme to give it a longer effect; while this is alright in the short-term, you don't really want to spell out the fact that the poem will 'run with the sand down the drain' out of our heads, do you? Because, that was exactly what I got.

By the way, a snuggly poem.

Hey Jasmine!

So! This kind of reminds me of some of the older poems I did... which may or may not be a bad thing!

Anyway! In the first stanza, it sounds like you want to use as many words as possible so you keep the lines going and going until it completely becomes a run on sentence with so many images that it's crazy because you seem to not be happy with one image so you go to the next and then you go to the next and it's just crazy. And yes, I made that a run-on on purpose. While run-on sentences do have value on poetry, when you keep on switching the images so that it turns into an MTV video, it loses an element of poetic feeling to it. Decide for yourself which is the most important image and stick with it. This doesn't mean that you can't have the ADD, crazy feeling in it--you certainly can by describing your favorite image further. But right now, you look insecure as a poet, which is generally bad.

For the second stanza, "steadiness" is a vague noun which doesn't make sense in the context of the poem. Kill it.

The third stanza is rather bleh. You have three rushed images that are passed on too quickly to make any impression. The conclusion also fails to tie anything together, which gives the poem a weak feeling to it.

I don't know. I understand that you're trying to make it sound rushed; after all, this is a scene from a packed bus. Also, I understand that you don't want to make it totally cohesive for the same reason. But the poem doesn't make any impression and is utterly forgettable. And that's bad. Focus on what is important, even if your words rush.