Once upon a December night,
A town wrapped in a blanket of snow.
a single light glows,
from a lamp post above.
Shining on a little shop below.
A shop owned by a little old man,
whose snowy white beard cascades down his front.
His fingers rough from use,
and eyes that crinkle from years of laughter.
As the man rocks in his chair,
the clock strikes twelve.
A soft knocking can be heard from the door.
He stands and opens it,
welcoming in the stranger with open arms.
A friendly air about him.
The man lit a fire and made some tea.
All in an attempt to share what little he had with the visiter.
They sat enjoying each others company for hours,
until at last it was time to retire.
The man slept soundly that night,
with a smile upon his lips.
His body and mind finally having reached peace.
As time went on,
his tale was told time and time again,
to anyone who would hear.
The tale of the little old man,
in his shop at the corner.
With the long white beard,
and his joyful eyes,
and the callused hands.
Who left nothing but kindness in his wake.
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125,018 Literary Works • 672,861 Reviews
Hello there, magiccharm2002 !!
This is Eros here with a review for this beautiful piece of poetry of yours, on this special occasion of The Review Day !!
Happy Review Day !!
I loved the piece of poetry. Let's beginning the review with the title, "Once upon A December Night".
The title is very interesting. It catches my attention from the green room and I wanted to know more about the poem. As far as as a good Title is concerned, it should be short, sweet, attractive and catchy, apt and appropriate and most importantly, of course, related with the content.
"Once Upon A December Night" has fulfilled all the above criterias and I am glad for it. I loved it.
Then ...the grammar and punctuations.
I don't see any flaws over here in the entire poem.
Then comes the presentation of the poem. The poem is a tale ...a tale of a little old man, who is the owner of a shop. The tale is narrated in such a poetic way, that it won my heart. Deserves a like.
I loved the smooth flow of the poem. The ideas are linked to each and weaves a short, little tale.
The poem is successful is keeping the readers engaged in the stor.y y behind the poem.
You have developed hthe character of your poem very well. Developed ...or built..whatever.
The way you have described the beard and the crinkle in his eyes, and the kindness that you have revealed at the end, makes the character loved by me. I loved the poetry vert much.
I like the season you have choosed. Seasons have a lot things to describe. Like in summe, summer you can describe the sun and the sweat. But it's good as you have chosen winter. Because in winter you have got a greater and wider scope to describe the snow, the town and the shop.
Overall a great piece of poetry. It was a great and awesome piece. It was indeed, unique in itelself.. for we generally never hear of such stories described in a poetic way.
Happy review day once again !
Have a great day / night !
Keep writing such beautiful poetries and other stuff and we would love to keep reading them and reviewing them !!
With love
From Eros.
thank you again! As always your reviews are always welcome! Thankfully, you got the idea of what I had intended for this poem. To be a short tale that was somewhat simple but also whimsical.
Hello. I'll make this short.
I think the idea behind this poem is captivating and charming, but the sticks-and-stones style it is written in does not do it justice. There's a lot of potential in this--I find the idea of a poem centred around an old man having a fireside chat with death fascinating and I would like to see you do more with it. You could keep the frosty omniscient air of the narrator and continue writing this as a narrative poem while delving into the more intricate fractions of scene and imagery. Poetry is largely about emotion, but it's also about learning to steer the vessel in the right direction, in the right places.
You don't need an overdose of metaphor and sensory imagery to illustrate the scene; you can keep it succinct, choose a couple of good images to pack a punch where you need them. But if a narrative poem is going to be all narrative, it might function better in prose. Even then--you need to show, not tell. Telling is vague. Showing is specific, and how you fiddle with the reader's emotions sometimes relies very heavily on these specifications because they give us something to actively cling to. Fiddle with flow and sentence structure. Experiment.
Vague:
'He opened the door and welcomed the son he thought he had lost to war.'
Specific:
'The door cracks open and through it glides
a cold, frosty tongue, and--
smothered in snow--the framed face
from atop his mantel:
war-carved, knees-a-jitter,
and suddenly grown old.'
Not a very good example, but you get the gist!
Make me care about the old man. Make me care about him dying. Show me what Death looks like. Don't tell me who he is; that is clear through implication. Show me.
Let me know if you ever edit/re-write this! I'd love to see what you could do with this.
Keep writing!
~Pomp x
Hello, shaniac here to review your poem!
The title really caught my attention -- it kind of reminded me of a song title that I used to listen a lot to. You start off with a lot of great descriptions, including setting the scene of where this poem is taking place which is in a small town surrounded by snow. This poem also seems to be like one of those you'd read to a child; a nursery rhyme kind of ordeal because there is a faint rhyming that is happening between some of the lines, but it isn't 'in your face' rhyming, but rather a sort of there rhyming. And I kind of dig that since it also sets the mood.
I want to focus on this chunk right here because it doesn't maintain the consistency as the lines previous. What I'm basically getting at is that you start the lines "a single light glows, / from a lamp post above (note: lamppost is one word)" with lowercase. I do know that sometimes a poem can be written in lowercase but since you start off with an uppercase at the beginning, I think it would be safe to assume the lines following would be the same.
In the same stanza, I was kind of expecting more imagery in the first lines? Like, I want more than just 'a blanket of snow', what does the snow look like? How does it feel? Similes can be your friend when showing more in-depth descriptions about places. And the lines 'a single light glows/from a lamp post above', I do think you could switch those lines around to make the beginning sound a bit better.
You don't need to repeat the shop but instead, you could say 'shining below on a little shop/owned by an old, frail man (this can be an opportunity to describe what the old man looks like)'. The same thing could go for the third line as it could also be reworded to 'with a long, luscious white beard'.
Remove the 'it' in the first line and in the second stanza, you can switch around 'arms' and 'open'.
You don't give much attention to who the stranger is. As I continue reading, I'm kind of left to assume that maybe it was Death? Though, I think if you were going to go with that, you could go into some more description about what the stranger looked like and why does he go to this old man's house. I do like that you kind of expanded onto the point of the old man's welcoming vibe and that he was willing to share what he had -- it shows how nice this man really is.
In the second line, put 'from' before the first 'time'. Also, I was kind of expecting some sort of reference to how the people of the town thought about the old man. You do hint that he was loved by everyone, but is kind of a vague hint. I think if you hinted at his presence in the community, then the ending would make more sense.
To cap, I think you have a nice start to a poem. There is a sort of nursery rhyme feel to this because in some points, I can tell there is a rhyme scheme happening. The few things you should work on are descriptions of the man/setting/stranger, wording (which takes practice), and hinting more at how loved the old man was to the community. Have a good day/night and if you have any questions, let me know!