Galaxy [Edit]

E.B. White! *pounces*

So, I’m really trying to understand poetry. I’m doing my best. But this is such a nice change from all those hard to interpret poems I keep hashing through to understand. You give a vivid, beautiful image of this creative, wondrous out of this world adventure.
I actually only had one little nitpick.

till i burst through the

“Till” means “to dig or cultivate.” You actually should use ‘til.
I’m not sure what it is about this little mistake, but it drives me crazy every time I see it, probably because I see it way too often.

This is a lovely poem. I can’t say anything truly negative about this. Good job, Whitie!

This poem came off flat. It is lacking that sense of awe, that boundless wonder that accompanies a visit to something breath-taking.

It helps if you have been to a place like the Grand Canyon or seen the Ocean. At either location, the sheer scale of what is before you overwhelms you. Then you are overwhelmed by the beauty of the location. Space is so much larger in terms of scale (they don't call it space for nothing.) At the end of it is a desire, a hunger, a need, to explore it's expanse. To go boldly where no man has gone before.

I think what makes it weak is how this:

it's really quite marvelous up here
to wander without the burden of gravity
is something i cannot describe
come for yourself
to see how lovely it is up here

It sounds like you are talking about a prospect from the second floor of a mansion. It is way too casual. It should be more urgent. Not "you should see for yourself," but "You must see this! Come now, drop everything, and watch the birth of a star!"

I think the first part lacks that sense of longing, that desire to explore and the second part lacks that urgency that comes with a major discovery, the desire to share it with everyone.

Hey Eli -

The reason why I could not connect with the poem (and, believe me, I did want to) was because it doesn't really cover anything new, or in a new way. There was a lot of telling us about the wonder, the awe, the magnificence of the galaxy, but not nearly enough showing. Consider this: all it takes is for you to say the word 'galaxy' and my mind immediately conjures up a vast dark blue expanse with beautiful stars and planets and a really overwhelming sense of awe. So...what does the poem add to my existing view of the galaxy? Very little. Instead, it appears to churn out the age-old adjectives and descriptions, failing to describe the scene in a new way, and in doing so, actually fails to get across that idea of enchantment and wonder. So...being more inventive is in order, I think, for the poem to truly enchant us.

take me out unto the galaxy
that enchanting milky way
i can scarcely imagine
the wonders that lie beyond
those stars i see each night
catapult me in the space
till i burst through the
exosphere
so that i may see the galaxy
and visit its every wonder

'Unto' is far too old-fashioned a word in this poem, for all its modern-ness with the non-capitalisation and free verse. By the way - lower case is a fantastic medium for this, because it makes the narrator somuch smaller in comparison to the thing they are describing. Common ideas: galaxy, milky way, stars, space - you identify something we can already imagine. Furthermore: enchanting, imagine, wonders, wonder (oh no! a word used twice within the same stanza!!) - I don't want to be told it's enchanting - I want to really feel it. And by slapping it there in front of us, it's actually really hard to do that.

But there was an image that stood out to me: 'till i burst through the / exosphere.' Not sure if there's any such thing as an exosphere, but that image was astounding, simply because it didn't try to be amazing too hard.

it's so beautiful up here
to see the stars as more
then little twinkles
makes my heart spin
i rode across on a blazing comet
unlike any roller coaster our planet could ever offer
it's really quite marvelous up here
to wander without the burden of gravity
is something i cannot describe
come for yourself
to see how lovely it is up here

Beautiful twinkling stars, spinning hearts, marvellous, gravity, lovely...again, the vocabulary is too similar, and, moreover, it's too predictable. Why say 'i cannot describe' and then devote a whole poem to describing it?

I'd expect this poem to be full, overflowing in an effort to describe it, and then failing wonderfully. By that, I mean that you excessively describe, get carried away using your imagination, while the intelligent reader knows that no words will ever do it justice. Sort of a double, a paradoxical effect, if that makes sense.

I hope you found that helpful. PM me if you've got questions.

Hi! Sorry this took a while. I'm not a poet, so it takes me a while to figure out what I like and dislike specifically about the poem in an attempt to give a good review. Unfortunately, it takes so long that three reviewers reply before I do. XD

When I read this poem, I found the description beautiful. You've a great grasp on a dreamy, gentle tone which you can easily use to carry the reader through the galaxy as you've somewhat done here. The tone here is also partially indifferent to what it's seeing, like the speaker has seen this all before and it's not as new or interesting as it would to a first-timer (or the reader). I believe Griff touched on that pretty well? So I won't go too far into depth with that. (But tone is a big thing I look at in a poem when analyzing one.)

Now I'm not sure what kind of audience you're writing for! You told me what inspired you to write this, but that doesn't necessarily mean you're writing this for young readers. If you are, then I think the simplicity of this poem is fine. You probably could go a bit further or lengthen this with more galaxy stuff. And also work on that tone: Either make it more exciting and new or thoughtful and wondrous. If we're writing this for higher-up readers such as seniors or college students--even scholars--then this wouldn't really cut-out for that since there's hardly any deeper message here.

When it comes to grammar and structure of the poem, it wounds kind of repetitive to me, I guess? The speaker continually says that it's wondrous and amazing, but my cat is wondrous and amazing too. Wondrously irritating and amazingly vocal, but wondrous and amazing nonetheless. That may just be the critic in me searching for some message in the poem though. You've got some good imagery parts here and such, it just sounds repetitive to me when it comes to how wondrous the galaxy is. Perhaps not just tell the reader outright that it's wondrous, but stick to just the images you give us and have the reader make the assumption that it's wondrous. I guess? XD I'm not sure.

I'm also not a fan of the lack of punctuation. It doesn't have to be perfectly grammatical, of course. Lowercases and stuff is perfectly fine, but no occasional dash to separate the clauses confuses the reader. Then again, I'm not a poet. Navita makes an excellent point with how lack of punctuation relates to your poem, so it could just be a personal taste of mine. xD

Hopefully I didn't confuse you too much. Sorry I wasn't much help! I wish I was more of a poet to give some more tips. xD

Keep writing!

Jabber, the One and Only!

Elinor --

I was scanning the forum for a half-way decent poem. I just can't keep repeating myself anymore to people who have no clue what they're doing. So here I am. Thank you for the opportunity to say something new, something specific. You obviously know your way around a poem, and this wasn't half-bad. I agree with Griffinkeeper in that it came off a tad flat. I also agree with Navita in that the word choice is a little dull. But these are all things that can be fixed.

On first reading this, I thought of The Little Prince. Then I thought of Super Mario Galaxy. But I think that if you turned the sophistication up a notch here, this wouldn't happen. And I think that's what this piece is missing most. Sophistication. A sophistication of the image, of word choice, of ideas. Currently, you're being too straight-forward. You're heading out in space. You're riding a comet. Things are wondrous. Meh. I've got some experience writing poems about space -- it's a topic that I particularly enjoy. And Griffinkeeper hit it right on the head. You've got to find some way to convey the sheerness of space. The immensity. You've got to let the idea of eternity fill you. Overcome you. And then you've got to use words with this in mind. In space, Newtonian physics do not apply. There are no rules. In a poem about space, things should be equally mind-bending. Be wild. Float. "Beautiful", "wonder", "spinning hearts", "blazing". These words do not cut it.

Read this. It's a poem about space that I'm rather proud of: http://www.writerscafe.org/writing/Kylan/503717/

Here, I tried to capture both the epic of space, and also tried to relate it on human level. I compared supernovas to astronomers. This juxtaposition accented the change in size.

Take out the bit about roller coasters. Take out the last bit about not being able to describe the wonder of outer space. Because that's your job. You're supposed to be able to describe it. Ending this the way you did was the biggest cop-out. It's like writing a story where the character wakes up from a dream in the end. There's a gorgeous movie called Contact with Jodie Foster. At one point, traveling through space-time, she looks out the window, completely stricken with awe, by the beauty and eternity of space, and being unable to describe what she's seeing to her com-link, she utters, "they should have sent a poet."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZhvBkrq6rU

The line is around 3:06

Be the poet. You're not Jodie Foster, the astronaut. You're a poet describing the breathing taking qualities of the great beyond. You have a great responsibility. You can't scarcely imagine. You can imagine it just fine. Now write about it. Don't take the easy way out. I guess it boils down to showing instead of telling. Show us the beauty. Don't tell us about it.

Thanks,

-Kylan

*Edited*

Hey Eli! I take it I'm looking at an edited version? Okay, well I've only skim read the other reviews so forgive me if anything is repeated.

take me out into the galaxy
that enchanting milky way
i can scarcely imagine
the wonders that lie beyond

the moon i see each night [<<<<This is the first line I like. The others are bland, a little rudimentary for my liking but there's more to this. I'd like you to consider it further: the moon you see each night. Is it the same moon or does it light a different sky with new discoveries and adventures each time? Can you describe the moon, how does it look to you? For me, this should be your starting point. Even if it's just something simple like:

The moon I see each night
with its rays like lantern string
to hold the stars in place
and the comets flying by
like tadpoles with their tails all burning bright.

That's just a two second example but what I'm trying to show you is that telling doesn't work. Rhetoric questions have their place but what you want here is to really delve into the secrets out there and give us your spin on them. Stay awake tonight and look out your window and ask yourself what you really see. A thousand snowflakes in the sky? A hoard of distant dragons? Add a little personality to these lines.]

planets and comets and stars;
what could they be like up close?
when i learned about it in school
i knew it would be much better
better then my life down here
so catapult me in the space [The next line/ image I quite like. The idea of being catapulted into space sprung a few qurstions in my head and I love the image it paints. Maybe you could do more with that?]
till i burst through the
exosphere
so that i may see the galaxy
and visit its every wonder

Second stanza

Okay so you zip through everything and there's a lovely build of speed in that second stanza which works well with the words but in all this rush, the reader doesn't get even glimpses of this wonder. They're getting images they already understand and just following you through words they're familiar with. Clouds, rocket etc. This poem feels too inward to me. There's not enough space in a persona's mind for the entirety of space. You need to think outward and instead of trying to tie space down with words like 'lovely' and 'marvellous' you should open our minds to the different interpretations of it and let everything spin out from there. The universe is infinite and in every tiny particle there's something new and unfamiliar. And it's so alien and yet so alike. The patterns of the universe are repeated everywhere. You see the swirls of galaxies in the ripples in a pond or the congregation of curves on each fingerprint. The scope of a planet lives in a marble but how can something made by man even hope to measure up to these spheres of mass and light and colour? But there is a certain similarity for just a moment, that split second of surprise when you first see how a marble catches the light and all the colours trapped inside like layers of secret mists.

it's so beautiful up here
so large and magnificent
i wont get to it all
if our earth was stretched on its side
the galaxy would still be larger [Of course it would. What's the Earth to a galaxy? You're thinking too small! And yet also too big. You need to build up to this more. What could the Earth almost equal, a star? A constellation? Find out and then make that comparrison instead or maybe consider how many Earths could be fit between venus and pluto? Or even between Venus and Mars.]
it's peaceful yet overwhelming [Is it though? Can it really be peaceful? I think that's the wrong word but maybe that's just how I feel about it. Personally the universe unnerves me. It's so big and fascinating and beautiful but it also makes me feel so anxious because I'm tiny and my life has as little impact as a raindrop.]
so i'll try to see what i can
to see our planet from afar
is like something out of a dream
to see the stars stretch on for miles
as more then little twinkles
makes my heart spin
i rode across a blazing comet
dodging other asteroids
it's really quite marvelous up here [I really don't like this line, it's so blase. You've just ridden on a comet and you sum it up as marvelous? O.o]
i walked across the moon
to wander without the burden of gravity
is something i cannot describe
come for yourself
to see how lovely it is up here

Hmmm. I'm not sure I like the invitation to come see space? I'd rather see a smug and selfish persona who wants to keep it all to themselves and boast of what there is that we can't have. I don't want a mild invitation to have tea on mars. It isn't enough. I think that's my general feeling about this poem. You have a good grasp of how to construct poetry but you need a stronger understanding of the subject. This is space. It's not somewhere you go for a day trip like disney land, it's a world or worlds, the very heart of everything we are. I struggle to explain it in free writing. It's just... everything. We think ourselves the centre of the universe but you look out and there's this tiny, insignificant star around which our planet revolves. And there's a million more stars and so many are bigger and better than ours.

Thanks for the read. I hope I've given you a few ideas to think about,

Heather xx