I am just starting to write poetry. What do you guys think?
The Beach Man Blues
On an off tilt stroll, through the cumbersome court,
Lay the sand of an unwanted shore.
While the settler sits, in a withering fort.
Winces the strength of melancholy bore .
The cello forces with dignity;
While the normal plays nice to the sax.
And the man just sits with lucidity,
With humanity slipping through cracks.
The rifleman glare, at the settlers tomb,
An umbrella just standing tall.
But he just sits alone, awaiting for boom
As the snipers continue to stall
His one man army, enjoying the sun
On a gleeful winter brought day
Awaiting the marksman, carrying shun
Of an ill struck overdue stay
Now settler’s tears, crowning full face
With the tundra of wave behind
The preachers along, trying to save grace
While the misfortune begins to resign
When he sits within, the fragile chair
The bricks break down to dust
A Corona in hand, not a single care
Just a handful of sand to thrust
Darkens the craze, of societies grief
Towards the settler just sitting on sand
Because he relaxes, with no sign of leaf
And snow capping the surface of land
The winter will soon bring new life
But will end the settler’s stay
He flees in the face of conformity
Until a snow struck, winter blown day
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
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Hey there!
What I loved about this poem was your use of imagery and rhythm. It painted vivid pictures in my head, and you kept a wonderful beat throughout. However, in this you use descriptions and word choices that don't mean to make much sense (for example, 'carrying shun'). I don't know whether you did this because you wanted to fit to the rhyme scheme, or because it sounded good, but it was a little awkward.
~Amy
Hey Hoopster! So as said before, you don't want to sacrifice the meaning of the poem just to make it rhyme. I don't really think onomatopoeia works here though, like in this part, I really disliked the "Waiting for boom"
But I loved the rhythm you had, and your imagery is great. Keep writing!!~Hope
Hooper!
I like this. You have a beautiful narrative style that brings great images to mind -- wonderful tone of blues set forth in here. I genuinely enjoy this.
I'd recommend relaxing the rhyme just a little bit; while it's good, it's more a cruthc than a driving force, dearie, and instead of propelling your poem forward it's holding you back a little bit. In rhyming so often, you're reinforcing previous images-- and that's okay! But you should give yourself all the room in the world to bring about something new whether it be a new idea, image, or just a twist.
I like the rhythm you carried -- not only did it carry in the structure of your words, it carried excellently in what you were saying, and I that's pretty impressive. Thumbs up on that.
I immensely enjoyed this,
Goodwork,
June
Hi, I'm Grin.
I liked this. Of course there's still work to do, if you're a new-found poet you won't be perfect first time, but this is very good indeed. You have some great work here, it just needs a little more emphasis.
When I read this, I saw a paradise-style beach, soft white sand, gentle waves, palm trees, the full works. It's a sort of quiet scene, so onomatapoeia might not be so effective here, but there are things you can do with this.
While I'm seeing that first scene, I'm not seeing all of it. I'm just reading about the preachers and the music. A little more imagery could really help this.
But all the same, well done. This is good. Thanks for posting this.
Hope that helped
~Grin
Not a bad beginning.
Still, as with all first steps, there's improvements to be made.
While it is impressive that you kept up with the rhyme, in places, it felt forced to me, especially where you use a word improperly. For instance:
How can/do you carry a shun? Shun is a verb meaning "to avoid". It is not an object or an attitude that can be carried.
Another example of misused words is in this line:
How can strength wince? What is melancholy bearing? If you meant the strength is the result of the melancholy, then it should be "borne" rather than "bore".
Now, there are a number of not quite misused words, but they are quite unusually arranged. In cases like these, a hyphen is usually a good idea to show that the two words are connected and are not necessarily being used in their most common way.
Another thing I noticed is that your punctuation was a bit inconsistent and/or unnecessary in places. The purpose of punctuation is to make ideas clear; in some places, your punctuation made things more difficult to understand. For example:
The last two lines are sentence fragments, meaning there is no clear subject and verb. Also, because they are sentence fragments, it's difficult to tell what they are talking about and what they are referring to. What is happening while the settler is sitting? What is wincing? How does this relate to the first two lines?
There was also an unnecessary comma in the third line. If you put it there because you wanted the reader to pause, it is unneeded; the reader will naturally pause there anyway. The thing about punctuation in poetry is that you should follow the rules at first. Once you understand how to use punctuation properly, then you can experiment and play around with it in your poetry.
Other things that caught my attention:
What is the cello forcing? What is a normal?
Is there one rifleman or more than one? If just one, "glare" should be "glares". If more than one, "rifleman" should be "riflemen".
What does an umbrella have to do with anything? And "awaiting for boom" sounds very childish; "awaiting his doom" is much less so and still rhymes.
A tundra is basically an Arctic desert. Deserts are by definition dry. It makes no sense to compare an ocean of water to a desert of ice.
At what?
Why is a sign of leaf significant? What is a sign of leaf?
Hey Hoopster!
Considering you're only trying your wings with poetry, this was great. Lightyears better than my first poems. Rhyming poetry fascinates me, if it's done well, and I think it's difficult to write. Your rhymes didn't seem forced, but then again, they weren't very unexpected either. Even though the rhymes mostly work, it seems you have taken the easy path when coming up with them. It's okay to take risks – it keeps things more interesting for the reader as well.
Another thing I noticed is that in a lot of places, the flow dies. You have either too long or short lines (mainly too long) compared to the rest of the stanza, and it makes the poem sound uncomfortable and rushed. An example of a bit like that would be:
The bolded line is too long and breaks the rhythm, and it takes also the last line with it. To avoid places like these, you just need to reword and rephrase until you just want to quit, but in the end it's worth it.
So! A very nice attempt for a newborn poet, and it's impressive how you managed to rhyme throughout a poem of this length. Just keep writing!
Demeter
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