hush, now, here come the inklings!
lightening bugs on soft green branches
bloom again when springtime brinkings
touch our futures, ask our answers--
watch them gently toss and beckon,
see if you can catch reflections.
rummage down the waterways,
(under bridges, tipping-overs)
where beetles light the riverweeds
and tides collide in splash endeavors,
come and wash your musing muscles
updownstream in knotted parcels.
now we sift the precious theories,
mine them, shine them, notion marbles
cast their shadows down the quarries,
sun-encrusted ocean fossils,
words of trying, flying, thinking--
but hush again; here come the inklings!
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138,476 Literary Works • 672,141 Reviews
Hello my dear! Some line-by-line comments first...
hush, now, here come the inklings! [This could be more dramatic just by changing your word choice up a little. Hush is a very soft, vague sounding word so it doesn't often work well in poetry. You want the first word to be solid and something a reader can really get their mouth around. Quiet would be better but still quite weak. Hmmm. Maybe softly? That's a quiet word but has the strong, resonant sound of the s. And now could become dear which is very solid. Also, I'd suggest changing your syntax a bit. The line would be much stronger as: Softly, dear. The inklings come;]
lightening bugs on soft green branches
bloom again when springtime brinkings [I don't like this line at all. It doesn't flow from the previous one, it jerks against the flow and could just use a lot of revision.]
touch our futures, ask our answers-- [This one is better but you're jumping around a lot. Try to linger long enough for your reader to build images and ideas in their mind.]
watch them gently toss and beckon,
see if you can catch reflections. [The last two lines sound pretty forced, though I do like the idea of trying to catch a reflection and the pun there, that something reflected is thrown back. That could be worked into something.]
No specific comments for the rest as pretty much everything I said for the first stanza applied throughout. You've got some nice sounds in places but currently they're all working against each other, trying to make their own individual voices heard instead of flowing together. And you don't really explain anything. You don't reveal what these inklings are. Oh yes, we do but that's not the point. We want to find a deeper meaning, we want to be astounded and delighted but your poem just spins a little circle and then expects applause.
Overall, love the idea and there's some lines that could be re-worked but mostly this is just words strung together. Feel free to pm me if you have any questions!
Heather xxx
WOW the last review is quite mean. I actually liked this poem. It's funky, it's imaginative, it's fantasy. I don't know what an inkling is here, but I love the soft idea, how it's not revealed. I think this is very poetic indeed.
I don't really know what's going on very often in your poem, but I actually like that idea. It's a mystery, it's a fantasy.
quote]sun-encrusted ocean fossils,
words of trying, flying, thinking--
but hush again; here come the inklings![/quote]
I love "sun-encrusted ocean fossils". Fantastic line- I love the idea. You've crafted something nice here- keep on writing.
Hi.
I like how it has very little form, almost like an E.E.Cummings poem (just with a little more form)
One thing I would not change is capital letters. Make sure they're are none as I think it really makes the poem shine.
Could you add another stanza in the middle where it's more emotion based as I think it's the only thing I think is lacking from the piece, which is a shame as it is just full of beautiful imagery.
Overall I really liked this piece and would like to see more like it
Pm for anything
~ReDro
This poem was great as far as your diction and details and imagery. You had a very enchanted, fairytale feel to the whole poem. I just don't get the plot. You had a lot of fragments stuck together, and although most of the fragments were beautiful alone, when you put them together it was too much. You didn't give your reader enough time to grasp it all and understand what you were trying to say. Anyway, hope I was helpful and not too harsh. It was good, just work on it some more. And, of course, write, write, write!
Hey Azila,
This is wonderful if your attempt was to thread together pretty words into an incomprehensible stack.Your attempt at being 'poetic' is lost in the fact that simply what you are doing is putting two words together in a manner that's aesthetically appealing, but if you do anything more then skim it you quickly realize that it's simply that.
What am I supposed to make of this? Please, let me know. Inklings, alright sure. But what in the world does this have to do with waterways and bugs and muscular (that are musing, if I may add). You're trying to sound pretty, cute, "omglookatmeicanwriterpoams". It's got no meaning, it's not painting any pictures for me, it's not reaching into my imagination to pull out a certain story or tone.
Just because you're capable of grasping the absolutely minute and optional parts of poetry, does not give you free reign to write down your words like you're drunk off alliteration and assonance. It has to be constructed, it has to mean something to you and to the reader. It has to create itself a pair of legs to walk on and shout what it's saying to the rooftops. You have to have an idea and a theme to sow along with it, interweaving said idea with said theme so that you can communicate to the reader exactly what it is without describing what it was exactly, save it for prose. And not only do you have to weave those together seamlessly, you also have to have appeal - have to capture your reader from beginning to end with what you're saying. Things like metaphors and similes are the most important in poetry, more so then "musing muscles" or any other form of unsubtle alliteration. The metaphors/similes have to bridge the gap between two distinct ideas and bring them together.
Whether you compare something like heartbreak with the cutting of a fruit, or comparing ideas to the way a firefly lights up; it has to mean something and not be words written down for the sake of having them written down.
Yup, it's tough.
Kamas
The detail and feel of this poem is really impressive and I love it! I agree with tgirly about the third verse. Other than that I really have nothing to say except for great job! You're really talented and I hope to read more of your work!
I don't think: Bloom again when springtime brinkings makes complete sense, I think Bloom again WITH springtime brinkings makes more sense. I really do like the poem, though. I like your word choices and imagery, because they make the poem feel ancient (in a good way) and classic. I think you should have capitalized the title, though.