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137,761 Literary Works • 672,064 Reviews
Rainn, I haven't seen you around much. Good to see you here.
I won't lie, I'm not a fan of this. Why? Because there really isn't much here. There is rhyme (some of it better than others), fairly consistent rhythm, and obvious structure, but do you know what? It's dull. Rhyme was originally used in verse and songs and whatnot back in the pre-Baroque era as a memory tool. Most music wasn't written down, so it was an oral tradition. Rhyming ballads and poems with a simple, repetitive rhyme scheme and rhythm were easy to learn by heart and remember. But this is 2012, and poetry is not the same as it used to be. Poetry is no longer simple entertainment, it's art. What you say is far more important than how you say it. I don't care about rhyme, any ten-year-old can rhyme. In your poem I am looking for something unique, a voice I haven't heard before. I want you to tell me something I didn't already know. Better yet, I want you to take something I think I know and turn it on its head, force me to think about it differently. All you have here is a little story and a little moral. You know what's great for that? Prose. Prose is unassuming. You can say what you need to say. In attempting to incorporate rhyme and rhythm you've sacrificed what's really important - content. Allow me to explain a little further.
I'm with you on the first line. Nothing really wrong there. The second line, however, serves no real purpose. It's just a whole bunch of syllables that fit the rhythm and rhyme. They tell me nothing, they don't connect with me, the reader, on an emotional, intellectual, personal level. Any line in a poem that doesn't do that is just taking up space. When I edit my own poetry I read through the poem many times, and every time I omit a line, or sometimes even one word. If the poem still says everything it needs to say without the words that I leave out, those words have been proven to be unnecessary, and are deleted. Never use a single word more than you need to. Let's do the same here. This is your poem, with all the useless bits taken out:
Patience, little child.
Story time's not far away,
Imagination's still alive,
Calling out to you and me,
Stories of our life
Books will come alive
Little child, have no fright.
Everything I've deleted was either purposeless repetition, or lists (the bane of all poetry). There isn't much left, is there? Everything else is just fluff, cleverness for its own sake. Not interesting at all.
So far this has been a bit rough on you. But you asked for it, and you knew what you were signing up for. Here's what to do next;
1. Practice. Write a heap of stuff. Read every line, and delete every non-essential word. Then read every stanza, and delete every non-essential line. Then read the whole poem, and delete every non-essential stanza. Then read everything you've written, and delete anything you're not proud of (I know it's tough, everyone is proud of everything they write. But you have to be honest with yourself - recognise when you're good and when you're not so good). Then post what remains on YWS. Not everything you write is worth sharing. A concert pianist doesn't record an album of himself practicing scales, because no one wants to hear that. But he can't play a beautiful piece to a packed-out concert hall if he can't play his scales. Practice in private. Only show us when you're ready to perform.
2. Know where you're trying to go. There is only one way to do this, but so many young poets miss this step - read good poetry. Develop good taste, learn what makes the good people good. Read all sorts of stuff, all styles and all periods. On YWS, other parts of the internet, books (so old-school). Find a poet you really like and read everything they wrote. For me it's Eliot. My copy of his collected poems sits on my desk, faded and battered. For a year I took that book with me everywhere, until I'd devoured it all. It's the only way to learn.
So, Rainn. Poetry is tough. You're young, it takes courage. Keep going, always be looking to learn. Remember above all, meaning > anything else.
Keep it real,
K.
Thank you, very very much, for being harsh
I really appreciat you taking the time.
You asked for it
My pleasure, any time.
Its very simple, and that's great for your audience. It does however lack originality. I do know that it is well intended but still, takes a lot of the meaning out of it. There is a way to express story book imagination without quoting other stories like:
Twinkle, twinkle like a star.
Also, why do kids think of big oak tree's when they think of stories?
"Dreams of ships a-sailing free,
Thoughts of good ol' big oak trees."
I think that line is added more for the rhyme scheme and not of content, like a lot of this poem. Don't get me wrong it has that Shel Silverstein ish child like eloquence but the content seems a bit flawed. But then again we are talking about children here, they will overlook it anyway. I would suggest tweaking it to make it as most original as possible, while having more sense with every line. Whatever you do don't sacrifice the tone (childish).
Simply when reading this piece I think, its been done before. It feels like backwash of too many poem's. I give it a 4/10. Don't get discouraged as a writer, that eloquence I talked about is very admirable; and in a original way, and a tone slightly different can amount to alot.
Thanks, for choosing me as your reviewer
Hello
Thank you for being harsh!
I was referencing the song "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star", because it is so well known to children.
Also, my mind is a bit different than..normal foke xD?
So, my imagination is different.
I don't read a lot of poetry. Only the stuff on YWS, so I am not quite sure what is original or not.
Once again, thank you sooo much for your review!
~Rainn
I love your imagery! It's so fairytale and dreamy and lovely.
I'm confused, though, about the word "Imagen"-- do you mean "Imagine"? Also, your rhyme scheme is confusing. It starts out aa, bb, cc, dd, ee, ff- then it totally changes until the last stanza. It throws off your work and makes it seem rushed and as though it's unimportant to you. I also think you're using "nay" incorrectly. It can be used to mean "no", as in as an answer to a question or proposal, but I don't think that it can also mean "not".
Yes, sorry. I did mean "Imagine". Oops..
At the end, I did rush, for I had to get it posted quickly due to other activities. I plan on going over it again.
As for the "nay", I'll take a look at it again.
Thanks!
~Rainn