Published January 3, 2009
It needs a revision. And a fitting name. Thanks guys!
Pull the bow smoothly now,
Like a rake in a zen garden.
Curve your chin now,
With the essence of the sugar bowl handle.
Press the strings
Till your fingers bleed,
Like you press the keys of your grandma's typewriter
Just to hear the click-clack of times past.
And play, now! Play!
Concert halls await you now,
With packed houses of bow ties
And fur coats,
Ready to sift you to nothing
With their classically-trained ears.
Oh give up, now! Give up!
Grasp that violin by the neck
And make a fiddle of it.
Climb up onto the roof of your house
And play to the birds!
The birds now! Who are
Squawking and cheeping
As they hurry south
For the winter.
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i find this poem interesting, no in a bad way though.. it's nice to read a poem about something other then love or death or abuse.. most poems i read are about either something to happy to be possible, or to sad or cruel to be readable you know? so it fun to read something like this!
it sounds like you play the violin or the fiddle by the words you use in this poem am i right?
though i find it, not difficult to understand, but difficult to believe. At frist the reader (or at least i) got the feeling of the charecter being in a concert about to play and then suddenly she's climbing on the roof to play there for the birds instead? it's intersting though, it sort of reminds me of a dream. it's beautiful no doubt, though i do agree withyou on the name thing... it could use something more fitting like... well i guess i can't seem to think of something off of the top of my head.. it's hard to come up with a good name for it... if i think of something ill let you know <3
with much hope and potential
~Rachel
This was interesting. I liked it, though it was kind of strange. The things you compared playing a violin to gave us an insight of how your mind works
Like a Fiddler?
, wouldn't that be ironic. I'm sure you know of that old tale.
I would entitle it "Fiddler on the Roof"
In concerns to the poem at large, I liked it. It was solid, but I'm not here to tell you what I like, am I? The first metaphor clashes with the theme of the poem. The reason why "like a rake in a zen garden is bad imagery for this poem is because 1) For the reader, it's too big of a stretch. The average reader doesn't sit at home raking zen gardens. 2) This is on more of a personal note: it seems like too far of a stretch in concerns to the imagery you provided. It's not concrete enough. Sad is too ephemeral compared to the solidity of a violin. 3) Not a personal note: The movement of a bow is not the same as a rake. In fact, raking is a very ungraceful practice especially when compared to the violin.
"sugar bowl handle" metaphor...I don't really don't know what you mean there. It's also weird for me, but in a vague way. How does that metaphor even work?
Everything else is fine, I guess. I don't really have enough energy to do any major critique. As I said, it's a pretty descent poem.
YATTA!
Ooo! I actually really like this poem. Maybe it's just because I'm a music geek, but yeah. I really liked how the critics are abandoned for the birds. Awesome. The meaning I get out of it is that to play music better, to live life fuller (because, really, the two are intertwined, lol) you have to reject humanity's influence and play for nature and for the divine. ^^
But I think it's better? That may just be my opinion though.
In fact, everything is my opinion! You have to figure out whether it's good advice or not.

I do have some suggested edits! For the first stanza, I thought that you were using too many metaphors, so I trimmed it down to what I thought was the strongest one. Your last stanza, I changed around the ordering of the words to make it bounce a little more. UNFORTUNATELY, by doing that, I sort of ruined the ending, so now it's begging for another line to conclude it... a line that you have to supply.
I also made your poem's first word not always capitalized. It looks... weird to me all capitalized, and I realize Word does that automatically, but I only like to capitalize things that I want to emphasize. So that's just a personal preference of mine.
Still, I really liked the idea of the poem and the way you carried it out. Awesome stuff. ^^
*stars poem*
Suggested Edits:
Pull the bow, curve your chin,
and press the strings
till your fingers bleed,
just like you press the keys of your grandma's typewriter
to hear the click-clack of the past.
And play, now! Play!
Concert halls await you now
with packed houses of bow ties
and fur coats,
ready to sift you to nothing
with classically-trained ears.
So give up, now, give up!
Grasp that violin by the neck
And treat it like a fiddle.
Climb up onto the roof of your house
And play, now, play to the
birds who are
Squawking and cheeping
as they hurry south
for winter.
<add one more line here or something>
As far as possible titles? I like "Throw Down Your Violin and Fly." But that may be a bit too exciting. ^^
As always, if you have any questions, feel free to bug me.
For me it was sort of strange, but I liked it very much.
For a title...maybe something like "Playing Heart Strings", "Heart's Song", something like that(?)