Peg-board Butterfly

What a silly thing, a scientist,
One such as I,
A human being who truly does
Peg-board a butterfly.

I watch them glide, like colored wind,
Embodying the sky.
Oh why are we so stubborn that
We peg-board a butterfly?

It’s much like grabbing clouds, pulling,
And really I must ask why.
I truly cannot understand
Why we peg-board a butterfly.

So I open the thin glass jar
And watch it with a sigh,
For I know it’s colors say so much more
Than a peg-board butterfly’s.

Good evening, StoryWeaver!

So this won’t take too long, I hope! I really, really adore the premise of this poem. I can imagine reading it to my kids one day and having them want to go outside and watch butterflies. It’s got that really earthy texture that rare environmentalist poetry brings to the table, and I love it. Now, there are some technical mishaps throughout the piece, but those can be easily remedied. First off, though, I want you to learn one very huge lesson.

Not every line of a poem must begin with a capital letter.

That confuses a lot of folks, but it’s true. See, the deal with writing poetry is that you’d write it however you’d write a piece of prose—with correct punctuation and capitalization, just like I’m doing right now. And the only thing you change about that writing is that you add line breaks where you see fit. Does that make sense? I hope it does because consistently capitalized lines are all bunched up into one of my pet peeves!

Anyway, while I do appreciate the premise you’ve set up, I’m really unsure whether you need to end every stanza with a reference to the title. Now, that’s great in children’s poetry—in fact, I mentioned it reminding me of children in the beginning—but it irks me a little as a mature reader. And a lot of your reviewers would probably say the same. But if you wrote this with the idea of children in mind, then you’ve gotten that fairly well.

In stanza three, while I love the image of grabbing clouds, it doesn’t really mesh with the rest of it. You go way out into left field to get this cloud imagery, and then you don’t do anything with it—and I really wish you would. It could serve as a fantastic comparison if you execute it well. I think the answer could be with changing the rest of stanza three to match the change in image.

“It’s” should be “its” since it’s a possessive instead of a contraction. Your ending doesn’t really match up with anything, either, though it has good sentimental value. I just want it to connect somewhere.

Let me know if you have any questions or comments, and keep writing!

-Lumi

Hey there!

I like the concept of this poem. I've never liked the way butterflies are captured and displayed because of many of the same emotions you conveyed through your poem, so I identify with you there. I never would've thought of putting into a poem, though. You get points for originality!

If there were one thing that I don't like about this poem, it would probably have to be the way you repeated the words "peg-board butterfly" at the end of each stanza. I mean, it works, but it doesn't, in a way. It got a little redundant after the second paragraph, at least for me. I have that problem with my poems; I've been really trying to work through it, though. Still, if you like it, you should stick with it.

I watch them glide, like colored wind,
Embodying the sky.
Oh why are we so stubborn that
We peg-board a butterfly?

My favorite part of this stanza was the first line. I would've never thought of saying that butterflies were 'colored wind'. Genius! More originality points, haha.

Anyways, awesome work!

Keep writing!!!