A/N: I spent too long listening to Cat's in the Cradle by Harry Chapin, and decided I wanted to try write my own extremely personal sad poem/lyrics using similar techniques. This is what I wrought.
The King's Gambit
You and I are seven and eight
and the chessboard lies on the floor
I'm getting ready to settle the score
as I hear myself saying to you
"You are my best friend."
When my queen advances to the edge of the board
I say checkmate and my heart strikes a chord
because I have a friend like you
Oh, I've never had a friend like you.
Now I am ten and you are nine
and the chessboard lies on the floor
I'm getting ready to settle the score
as I hear myself saying to you,
"You are my best friend."
You advance your bishop and take my queen
but still I'm as happy as I've ever been
because I have a friend like you
Oh, I've never had a friend like you.
When I'm fifteen and you're fourteen
we still play chess on the floor
I'm getting ready to settle the score
as I think without speaking aloud,
"You are my best friend."
This time you are facing away from me,
and you say with a smile: "I play F3."
And though this is the first game we've played in a while
I look at you and return the smile,
because I have a friend like you
Oh, I've never had a friend like you.
Another year goes by too fast,
and we haven't played chess in a while
but whenever I see you my heart grows warm
because I think without speaking aloud,
"You were my best friend."
Oh, you were my best friend.
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Canary word: Present
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125,006 Literary Works • 672,809 Reviews
Wow, this one hit deep. But then again, don't all poems with this theme hit deep like that? This one in particular hit deeper, though. Onto my review!
My name is Gummy, and I'm here to review your work! Huh? I said it wrong? Maybe I'm just tired. At the time I'm writing this sentence, I'd have spent at least 18 hours tied to this keyboard doing the exact same thing I'm doing now.
I really like how the poem takes an emotional nosedive in the last stanza. It's like an emotional blow to the chest. The only thing I'd note is that the change feels a bit abrupt. I like it this way, though, since the emotional impact is greater! I was entertained from start to finish, and that's really good, given my attention span!
I'll leave it there, since I have other works to review. Keep writing, take care, and remember, practice is key!
hello
the poem you wrote was super great and defferent , i liked how you combined two ideas , frienship and chess , that's genius and so unique .
1-
"You and I are seven and eight
and the chessboard lies on the floor
I'm getting ready to settle the score
as I hear myself saying to you
"You are my best friend."
this part is good from all sides , the rhythm , the punctuation ....ect
2-
" When my queen advances to the edge of the board
I say checkmate and my heart strikes a chord
because I have a friend like you
Oh, I've never had a friend like you.
this is my favourite part , it's catchy
3-
"Another year goes by too fast,
and we haven't played chess in a while
but whenever I see you my heart grows warm
because I think without speaking aloud,
"You were my best friend."
Oh, you were my best friend.
this part , which is the end i think it need something , maybe you should change the way of writing , cause the end should be defferent and special
but generaly your poem is great , catchy , and very unique .
keep up the good work
smile
Hey Yehuda!
The Cat's in the Cradle is an incredibly haunting song -- it uses an upbeat melody driven by a clever use of rhyme and meter to mask what is really a very sad tale. But more than just the sadness that underpins it, there's a sense of tragedy as well. Although the dad clearly loves his son, he is never around, and this gets flipped when the son turns out exactly like his dad for both better and for worse. This is haunting because it draws upon so many of the fears that a lot of people have: growing distant from your parents, raising your children to be as flawed as you are, and dying alone with your children far away. It doesn't help that it has a catchy tune.
In your poem, you touch upon many of the same themes through the relationship between friends. Such relationships tend to be less emotionally resonant than between children and their parents, but can still be no less powerful. After all, we all fear losing our friends as distances grow and time passes.
And like Chapin, you place the veneer of an upbeat melody over top of it. It's not as effective because while you do use rhyme in various places, the meter ends up being uneven in areas. For example:
The first two lines work well, but the third line comes off as sounding unnatural, and I think it's because there's no pause between the second and the third line. However, I think if you just rewrite the fourth line as "I hear myself saying," and then switch the third and fourth line around, it'll work out well.
And while the rhyme does normally work, this really stuck out to me:
The way it's written, I found myself pronouncing "been" as "bean." That could just be an idiosyncratic thing though!
Also, another reason why Chapin's song works so well is that while it's clear that the father and son do love one another, this is never expressly stated. Instead, it's implied through their desire to spend time with one another (even if that desire comes at different times for both). Here, you repeat, "You are my best friend," which struck me as too direct. It's also not necessary as you already imply the close relationship by demonstrating that the friendship has lasted for years.
Anyways, while this piece lacks the ironic tragedy of Cat's in the Cradle, it does have a soft, painful tragedy of its own that I think will strongly resonate with anyone who is graduating from high-school or college as they know that many of their friendships will simply wither away. I think you also did a good job with mimicking the upbeat melody, giving this poem a haunting feel of its own. I especially like the recurrent theme of the chess game over the years as it really drives home the friendship.
Overall, what Cat's in the Cradle is to the father-son relationship, this is to the friend relationship. Its upbeat melody juxtaposed against the tragedy of losing a friend is haunting, and the theme you chose sets it apart from the inspiration. Well done.
Thanks Nate. Best review I've received in a long time.
On the first quote, I agree with the problem. I'll need to go fix up that line with something a little. On your second, a South African accent like mine does not distinguish between the pronunciation of been and bean.
On the point about being direct, I was direct intentionally. I realized that the fear of losing a friend doesn't inherently have the tragic irony of Chapin's song which shocks me so. Instead, as you noted, I was relying on a different mechanism to haunt the reader. I wanted to stress just how "You are my best friend" perpetuates until suddenly the narrator realizes that it's no longer true. To do this, I wanted to use a subtle change of tense on the final and inevitable "You were my best friend". I thought that the focus of my subtlety should be on the tense, not the love.
Oh, and how does "I'm getting ready to settle the score" sound instead of "I'm happier than I've been before"?
That change does sound much better! It seems to flow more naturally, and it further establishes the upbeat melody.
This is literally amazing. Your write with such beautiful elegance and I just can't get over much I love this. I actually really can't get over it, your set up is amazing and as is your formation. This poem actually makes me think of someone I used to be friends with.
Thank you
Hi. Honestly, I did not understand the age time line, though I get that they are going from super young, to young, to teenage over the years.
Other than that, it was nice, and sweet. You know that one feeling that you get when you connect to something and you dont really know how to react to that something, other than just to sit back and smile?! The poem/lyrics brought that up.
Your writing is smooth, and has a flavor of it's own.
"crisp" and "fine" are the words I'd use.
It was a really nice read.
Thanks Erin