The Love Poem

Simple letters,
Giggles, spring flowers,
Burning sun – share an umbrella,
After church a picnic,

Holding hands,
Whispers, spotlight dance,
Perfect atmosphere – share a first kiss,
And afterward an awkward chuckle,

Simple texts,
lols and Mr Greens,
Private chat room – share a joke,
Procrastinating a thousand essays,

Winter chills,
Look to each other for warmth,
Laugh, whisper, kiss, smile,
They stammer simultaneously,

He strums the strings,
She tinkles the ivories,
He hits the notes,
She hits the notes,
And they swing, they sing, their ears ring,
To the rhythm of love,
Their hearts beat,
To the rhythm of love,
Like the Plain White T's song they play,

She died on Wednesday,
He followed her on Tuesday,
And they danced the Friday night away,
In the gentle air to the rhythm of love,


---

I actually rather fancy love poems. I love the very innocent and 'cute' ones. I hope I've done well. And don't think of it as a tragedy. Here are my questions:

Do you think that the last stanza was a good hooker?
Do you think I could draw more emotion from first person?
Are my description solid enough?
Did you like any alliteration or metaphors or other tricks of the trade you found in there, specifically? Should I use more. I figure in a poem like this, that adds to the charm. Do you agree or disagree?
Could you grasp the 'growing up' and age concept. Or rather, how did you grasp it.
Should I name the characters or describe them less abstractively (e.g eye colour or hair colour?)
Was it something, for lack of an awesomer word, nice? Nice is hated for its simplicity. That's why I love it.

Basically I'm just wondering about how simply (simple) awesome (yet awesome) this poem was or could be. What did you think?

Inspired by The Rhythm of Love by The Plain White T's.

I think the last stanza was indeed a "good hooker," it was a surprise ending - which I personally am very bad at writing. (Curses!) But I didn't really grasp that they were aging until I read your questions. I guess the "winter chill" line could be interpreted as such, because of the whole thing with spring being associated with the prime of life and winter being associated with much later in life...but if your intent is to have them aging through the poem, growing old together, then I think that needs to be stronger.

However, I personally feel no need to have you describe or name the characters. Like you said, this is a simple (yet awesome) poem. I think describing the characters would take away from it. I also think the reader gets a good amount of emotion, from personal experiences - as you read the poem, you think, "Haha, we've done that..." (especially the "procrastinating a thousand essays" line, which, by the way, was my favorite), and it kind of makes you feel (to use an old cliche) "warm and fuzzy inside." Then the last stanza comes, and you're like, ".....!!!!!!.......?... :,( ......." if you understand what I mean....

I really like this line, "And they swing, they sing, their ears ring," although it almost feels at odds with the rest of the poem because it's the only one that rhymes. Maybe if you added one rhyming line to each stanza, or even every other stanza, it might fit in better, but it still didn't make the flow bad, so you really don't have to unless you'd like to.

Okay, think that's all I've got for now. Nice work, although - I know it's simple, but I think it needs a better title than "The Love Poem." Could you possibly name it after that Plain White T's song? That would also show where you got the inspiration, especially once the reader comes to the line "Like the Plain White T's song they play." Your choice, however. It's your poem, and dammit, I hate when people tell me I have to do something with the part of my poem that I like!!! =D

~Blue

I loved the simplicity of this poem. The simple references to the couple as 'him' and 'her' gave it character and aided in the simplicity. I was unsure of the longer stanza, maybe if you broke it up into a couple of shorter ones it would fit better with the rest of the poem.

The lines

She died on Wednesday,
He followed her on Tuesday,

slightly confused me. Wouldn't he follow her on a day after she died? if you prefer to leave it as Tuesday, you could try 'He followed her the next Tuesday". I think personally replacing Tuesday with Thursday, that way the whole stanza is in order, Wednesday-Thursday-Friday. That would add to the poetic rhythm, too.

Your descriptions are beautiful, and thrive in simplicity, yet give a great story. It takes great skill to be able to say a lot with a little, and you mastered that in this poem. The details suggest that it's modeled on a true story, or on bits and pieces of real stories. It gives character to their relationship, either way. It's hard to make up details like that.

all in all, great poem, and I loved it. with the few simple tweaks it would be perfect!

hey there!

i love your poem. actually, there are some lines that confused me, and some lines that are out of rhythm (but i think you have good parallelism) but in general, this is a good piece.

about your questions:
*the last stanza was nice, but i don't get the "he followed her on tuesday" thing. maybe an error?
*anyway, yes, you can always draw more emotion from first person point of view. when i write in first person POV, i always have lots of details. that would be nice.
*when you write from a third person POV, you focus on descriptions, and so i think you did a good job here.
*figures of speech like metaphors and similes also adds color to poems, but it is better not to overflow your work with these.
*actually, i didn't grasp the "growing up" concept, because i thought they were already grown up here. oh well.
*sometimes it's better to add a few descriptions and let the readers use their imagination in reading. it would be nice to imagine, though.
*simplicity is beauty, remember that. but too much simplicity can result in a bland poem. watch for that.

let me know if i've helped enough.
keep writing.

~telle.

Do you think that the last stanza was a good hooker? O.K the last stanza was a hooker, but I was picturing high school sweet hearts. They did get older right though. They didn't die young or anything right? I think you should add somewhere about time passing, because I didn't catch anything.

Do you think I could draw more emotion from first person? I think you could and you should. This poem is almost too innocent. What did the characters actually think about each other? They must have gotten through problems. This poem isn't super realistic in that area.

Are my description solid enough? Yep

Did you like any alliteration or metaphors or other tricks of the trade you found in there, specifically? I pretty much like all the ones I caught.

Could you grasp the 'growing up' and age concept. Or rather, how did you grasp it. Like I said before I didn't assume they were growing older until the last stanza.

Should I name the characters or describe them less abstractly? I don't think so

Was it something, for lack of an awesomer word, nice? It was nice yes that is actually a good word to describe it, but it was only nice. There was not bang of emotion. I actually didn't feel that much. You were telling us their life story, not showing us. People usually feel more when you show instead of tell. This was nice, but because it leaves me with nothing to think about mull over and over in my brain about the concepts of life I can't say it was awesome.

O.K. those are my answers to your questions after reading it once.

A. S.

This is actually really beautiful, but I think I see what everyone else means with the last stanza.

Unless that was how you wanted it to appear, but it was also a surprise read for me. I'm used to grasping things, but I was like "OH!" The whole time that I read this, but then again that's what I like in poems and any piece of writing really.

Holding hands,
Whispers, spotlight dance,
Perfect atmosphere – share a first kiss,
And afterward an awkward chuckle,

This is one of my favourite stanza's because it actually made me smile. It's wonderful.

He strums the strings,
She tinkles the ivories,
He hits the notes,
She hits the notes,
And they swing, they sing, their ears ring,

This was the most amazing though, really. I mean, you can see the imagery that you have used, and when you imagine it, it's wonderful. It truly is.