I wander lightly as feather in the air
Dancing over the lushy way
Tossing from time to time with my hair
Enjoying the musky minutes of this mellow day
Then I sit down near a noch of a tree
I felt the caresses of the breeze
Igniting the crudeness of memories
Then on the fiery char
I put the samovar
Waiting for the dulcet tea to be done
I weave from the tree’s leaves a peignoir
Suddenly I heard a lilting sound
Coming from the babies, I had sown
“Be rebel like a dune in a windy day
Be lavish in love and take the perilous way
Life doesn’t bestow the art of squealing and running away
Don’t exhale, just fly with the flock over the Bay
Don’t lose your hue
Just smile and be gay
Be like us survivors despite the treacherous days!
Then I took the hot cup of tea
I drank it hastily
I gazed to the sky with a hopeful plea
In the rear
I saw feline stealing gulps from the lips of a shady lake
Little kids throwing pebbles away
I stared on the ripples of my ache
There were kites of dreams screaming “yay”
Pale blue boat beneath the geese and the moorhen
Lily pads were adorning the way
They were all in harmony
The sun over there
Sitting jealously
She could not steal a kiss from the lake’s cheek
Therefore, she sent her rays to bathe in it
I sent my scattered soul too wading on
Playing some blues melodies
Then, I catch the sleeper train
To the sky I flew on the tapestry of vain
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Canary word: Present
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125,027 Literary Works • 672,773 Reviews
This poem was so cool and interesting to read. I'm definitely not a poetry expert, but hopefully these tips will be helpful.
First of all, the imagery is perfect. I love the descriptive words that you use, as they make everything easy to imagine. I would recommend however, that you add in a little more punctuation, because at certain points the poem lost a little bit of flow. I would also suggest not capitalizing the beginning of each line, because that also affects the flow.
Lastly, I would suggest shortening or splitting up some of the longer lines, as some seemed to drag a little.
Overall great job, I look forward to reading more of your work in the future!!
Hey marwa!
I just read this lovely poem, and thought I'd leave a quick review.
Form / Formatting
Let's get the formatting stuff out of the way, because it's the least exciting!
Boldness - I think putting the whole piece in bold font, didn't really help the piece, because it was a bit distracting and didn't seem to contribute to the meaning. If the piece was about yelling or falling, I could see where an all-bold font might work. But because the piece was so peaceful it felt a bit paradoxical.
Punctuation - For punctuation in poetry, I'm mainly looking at two things 1) Was the author consistent? 2) Did the punctuation choices help or hinder meaning. And you had consistency down, with leaving out all end-punctuation. So the piece looked very clean. And since the lines broke up the sentences for the most part anyways I didn't take any issue in comprehending the piece because of punctuation. You had a random "quote" mark in line 14 though " “Be rebel like a dune in a windy day" (I'm guessing just a typo. And I thought the quote ""yay"" was just sort of awkward, especially because it was the only spot of dialogue in the whole piece, and "yay" is such casual language compared to the rest of the piece. I'd see if maybe you can replace that or even use italics to indicate speech rather than the distracting quote marks.
Capitalization - I look for the same here as I do in punctuation, and it was all good! Consistent, clean, clear. (Although at one point you capitalize "Bay" without grammatical reason I believe.) So moving on!
Word Choice & Phrasing
One area where this poem really excelled was in word choice. You have some really intriguing turns of phrases in here that gave great texture to the poem and gave it a unique and sophisticated feel (without feeling like I was being hit over the head with an encyclopedia). For instance "musky minutes of this mellow day" -- love that alliteration and the feel of that, especially "musky minutes" - because it's an odd way to describe time, but I get what you're describing!
One thing that bothered me is you used a ton of rhyme in here, but there was no discernible pattern? You've already got so many great end-rhymes I think if you could arrange them in some sort of loose pattern it'd add a lot to the flow and cadence of the piece.
Here's two lines that didn't work for me:
They're about half as long as every other line, so the flow gets jolted, and you lose the context clues to figure out what a "samovar" is when you break up the line like that. Also the phrasing is just a bit stilted - if you can make that section a bit more natural sounding, I think it'd be worth the interesting words, but if not, it makes "samovar" sound a bit like it was thrown in to sound neat.
This section also was a bit awkward:
given the connotation of the word "rear" which can be a synonym for "hind-quarters" or a person's "butt". This section came across as much more humorous than I think was intended, and again there's the whole issue of having a couple really short lines interspersed within the longer ones. Watch out for words with these awkward connotations, as they can really pull a reader out of the narrative. And also I'd double check some of those really short lines to see if they could be lengthened to improve flow.
Your strongest form of word choice was probably in the way you used alliteration though. I enjoyed the light rhyming, but the alliteration you used was my favorite.
Here's another good line; "I sent my scattered soul too wading on" -- while I think this may be the wrong "too" - I so appreciate that "sent my scattered soul _ wading on" - that's lovely.
I also love this little proverb you add in there: "Be lavish in love and take the perilous way" - it sounds wise and beautiful!
Imagery
Another strong skill for this piece, is it's consistent whimsical but peaceful imagery. Some images were woven with metaphors, and you just pain such a unique picture throughout the piece - it made it really fun to read as I was just brought from image to image.
Meaning
The narrative part was not nearly as intriguing as the images you painted through verses, but that's fine! Not all poems need to be narrative driven, and the imagery and wordchoice kept me interested in the piece until the very end. I took the meaning of this poem to be that the speaker is going back through their memories - their children (which might be metaphorical) what they've sown in the world, the advice they've given and the life they've lived. And in midst of these memories, they're taken with the beautiful memories of nature and especially the lake/water - which might be a metaphor for love or death or heaven. I'm honestly not sure how to interpret the ending, because I lose track of who the speaker is and we've got some words with some heavy connotations - "jealously and vain" - I interpreted the "sleeper train" to be that the speaker? or some character in the poem? ultimately does give up their quest/ their memory search/ and decides to move on - maybe again another metaphor for death.
Not sure how close I was to your intended meaning! But there's a lot of depth to explore here! I think you could have a bit more clarity in the narrative over all, and maybe do some editting on a couple of these sections to give better flow to the whole piece.
Well done though - this is a deep poem, that didn't seem rushed together or ill-thought out! I look forward to reading more of your work in the future.
~alliyah