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humorist-workshop
poetry
What do you think of this poem? I tried to format
this better but could not because of the posting system here in this space provided.
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From My Terrace Down
Twilight's saffron haze reduced to memory
as light strengthens its spars over the horizon
silhouetted gossamer,woven upon ash wood and hedge
taut like strings on a violin
from my terrace down,
closely packed houses, roof tops
gnawing at the pith of the air, where starlings
wings stretch for sunshine through westward glints
their fluted voices carrying long phrases
tattooed to the wind, atop hills shaved from
peaks, like those only dreams dare to carve
from my terrace down,
factories and wind mills, fields nosing up
to ploughmen clad in turf bound silence
where moss munches on harvest salts
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Want to answer more questions in the Hobbies category?
Maybe give some free advice about: Theater?
im not really a poet.i read a great deal.the words are lovely and inspirational.good show.jolly good show man
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Can't write poetry for toffee myself, and no authority. Enjoyed reading it over the years though. Yours calls Dylan Thomas to mind. Like the words just fell out of you onto the page. Makes the reader work hard to piece them together. I got a fleeting and fragmented view from your terrace. A verbal 'sketch' more than a precise photograph. Quite like it.
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All right, I am going to assume that you actually do want honest opinions .. So, if you don't want to examine or improve your poetry, you can pretty much just ignore me completely. I'm not going to praise you for sharing your special feelings. I'm going to tell you what works and what doesn't.
The most important question is this one:
What are you trying to communicate?
Your poem is filled with contradictions (which is not always a bad thing) but there are so many contradicting sensations and descriptions that I can’t see what the purpose of them is. You don't cut a clear path for your reader through the world you’ve created. It’s like being whupped over the head with a landscape painting.
I also can't follow what you are speaking about from line to line - is it the light that is silhouetted gossamer, or the memory? Is the gossamer taut, or the ash wood and hedge? Does this terrace overlook houses and yards, or hills and factories and fields? What sort of dreams carve what? Is there also a salt mine or ocean in this? Does it overlook ALL of these things? People don’t normally call them terraces when they are on the 30th floor… You may think I'm being deliberately obtuse, but the truth is that even less serious reader will have these ideas in their mind, and because they can’t find any of the answers at all they'll leave feeling disconnected and confused.
You’ve tried to guide a reader’s eye through such a massive landscape that they only come away with a few disjointed images and no idea of WHY those images were being crafted. Poetry's greatest gift is that it can turn a doorway or a teacup into a monument, and dissect very brief moments in new ways. It’s not meant to elusive or vague – it is meant to be specific in ways prose can’t be.
Throw out the thesaurus. You know how to write poetry. You can clearly craft words. You can create images. You are clearly well-read and have a strong vocabulary. You are ready to play with structure. Don't try to prove any of that. What you need now is to have something to say - it doesn't have to be an epic something, or even an important something - just something you want to communicate to others.
If you DON'T want to communicate to others through poetry. If you simply want to write for your own pleasure that is just fine! Lot of people do that. Hell - I do it, but it's important to recognize the difference between journaling, and writing only for your own pleasure and understanding, and sending something out into the world to connect with others.
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