I stand on the deck of a rocking boat,
My ears filled with the engine’s cruel growling note.
I stare out over the waters, looking through the hazy smoke,
Brilliant yellow lights dimly glowing behind its ugly brown cloak.
Sighing, I look to the sky, hoping for some distant starlight,
But there is none, just the Brooklyn bridge against the growing night.
~~~
A murmuring wind catches my flowing hair,
Trying to pull me away from the city’s harsh glare.
Whispering of a land of green and gurgling streams,
A place were the air is clean and the sun beams.
~~~
I scan the banks for green, but I can’t see it tonight,
Just towering city buildings and those burning orange lights.
I turn to the wind, who wraps its arms around me,
And I say to the wind, “Take me there. Set me free.”
So wind lifts me up and away from those smouldering lights,
To a place where you can see the stars shining against the night.
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139,786 Literary Works • 672,767 Reviews
This is Yams here for a review on Review Day!
My first problem with this poem as it felt like you kind of forced the rhymes in with every reference or description to some sort of ship part or something to do with the night. The rhymes are awkwardly off a beat and feel strained like someone was forced to write them off the top of their head. Strained rhymes usually mess up the flow of the poem, and it did.
Some of these rhymes aren't even rhymes as the other words are inside of the other word. That may sound confusing, but it's kind of like how "night" is in the word "tonight".
I felt like you used the word "light" too much because you were trying to keep the rhyme going, and it got repetitive. Instead of having a sentence pattern that always goes "comma, period" with it's punctuation it would've been nice if you mixed it up a bit. Added semicolons in, had sentences without commas in them instead of the reader eating a bunch of pretty words that are trying to rhyme in the same structure over and over again.
It just seems like a lot of figurative language and pretty words put together without meaning to me in this poem. There was no clear theme other than I guess the end about being free.
That's all I had to say, have a great day!
Hello!
Pretty nice ekphrasis!
Okay, so you have some really nice things going on here. The imagery is really nice, and it really describes the painting. You have nice tone as well.
However, the rhymes are really holding you back. They're really awkward and forced. I really think if you just ditched trying to rhyme and just let the poetic language that this painting inspired in you flow out, it would be a much more pleasing poem. Not every poem has to rhyme! Take these lines for instance. Don't they just seem a little awkward and out of place? They're not really something you would say just in your every-day speaking or describing.
The talking to the wind at the end is a nice sentiment, but the whole interaction is a little muddied and made awkward by trying to rhyme. Also, you use the night/light rhyme three times, which is way too much for this length and style of poem.
I feel like "star light" should be one word.
Also, if you were going for a rhythm (it was almost there if you weren't!) it just wasn't quite there. I always find that if you insist on rhyming, a solid, pristine, no-mistakes-at-all rhythm can go really far for making me forgive a couple forced rhymes.
You also use a lot of the same (beautiful!) imagery. Like, multiple times. Try mixing it up a bit or make a smaller poem. You mention night and stars and colors a lot, but I'd like to see this expanded a bit. Maybe go a little beyond what is literally there in the painting. You did that a bit with the wind, but go further. Stretch yourself!
This is already a pretty nice poem, but I'd like to see it glow even more!
I hope this review helps!
Let me know if you have any questions, and keep writing!
~fortis
I do sympathize with the sentiment of the poem, and you have a lot of really nice rhymes and rhythms. However, if there's ever been a time to say "show, don't tell" it's now. I feel like there's too much direct describing of things and not enough depicting them. Also, you use some of the same words too often, like "burning orange lights" and then "burning lights". And just saying "I long for nature but I'm in the city which is terrible" is way too direct. You could probably have reduced this poem to one stanza too. And why is the author mentioning their own hair color? That comes across as pretty random in this context, and "obsidian" doesn't match the rest of the nice meter you have.