Hello. I am new here, and usually show my poems to no-one. However, on this I desire critique. In fact I joined specifically to post this one poem. I don't know why I feel this one should see the light of day, as I don't even view it among my best, but it is what it is. So here goes nothing.
Please be gentle, but honest...
zephyr upon my skin
I a peregrine soul too long
along this road
daily dying little deaths
kavers caress my cheek
as I wander the fallow fields
of my history
mistral sweeps the warmth from me
as I weep embers
upon the frozen ground
the pampero of memory
carries off the ashes
exposing the fecund soil
and finally I see
the possibilities
like the winds
are endless
Welcome to the mule. You'll find us, with the exception of me, rather easy to get along with. And we're always looking for new blood to liven our boring attempts at mastering this specific artform, so get comfortable. As for a critique, we're not really the judging type, we just seem to gain an odd comfort in hanging around and sharing our work. But I'm sure a few people will meet your request. Enjoy yourself while here.
Hi QueenB,
First off I will say that your grasp of the English language is definitely above par. Likewise your alliteration and assonance in this poem has been well crafted. My only critique on it would be that in some spots it seems lacking in connective tissue, making the reader jump and stop, which in turn makes the entire poem seem somewhat halting. Otherwise a fine piece of poetic prose.
Sincerely,
Brucefur (broo suh fer)
ps: I am not around much here anymore, so if I don't reply please don't take it personally. :0)
I'm not sure how I feel about the use of region-specific winds
Peregrines don't get around all that far apart
Mr. P, thank you so much for the welcome.
Boo Cipher, the idea was in fact for the poem to be halting. A desire to communicate the hesitation of continuing the journey. I'm glad I was successful on that front.
JohnnyBoy, My reference to the peregrine is not a reference to the falcon, but to the meaning of the word itself, and the use of region-specific winds was to illustrate how far-flung the travels.
Thanks all. Please continue. I'm listening...
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/13/2008 06:45PM by queenB.
Welcome aboard, Queen..
Les
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/15/2008 03:40AM by les712.
Welcome. A nicely tuned poem.
You said "here goes nothing" but it is definitely something. Sorry couldn't resist picking on that.
The theme is a universal one and has the feeling of the struggle of one's journey in it. And you display skill in both mastery of language and structure here.
What I didn't feel was a personal connection with you in this piece. I prefer the vocabularly of the common street voice of the times, because it is more often the true voice of the author. Not a criticsism, just personal taste I think. This feels a bit like 19th century language with a 21st century style. But well thought out. Not sloppy or careless.
I hope we get to read more of your work because I bet you have some more good stuff to share.
Steve
Thank you, les712 (you know what for).
Steevo, this was really a test-fire for me. I've shown one or two writings to only one person in my life, and that only very recently. I tend to be extremely private about what I write, and my own worst critic (but then, aren't we all?).
I suppose the personal connection would only come with someone who knows me IRL, and understands what I am saying between the lines. As I'm sure is clear, I wasn't attempting to convey my backstory, just my past struggles with feeling utterly unanchored, and how I have recently come to be more firmly rooted, more at peace with life, because said life has become more peaceful.
It is possible I will at some point post something else here, although at the moment I have nothing I feel deserves to see the light of day. It may be tomorrow, it may be years from now, it may be never. All I know for certain is that this experience has been liberating for me. It is also possible this forum would provide a better form of personal catharsis than burning my work once it's on paper, a practice I've maintained for years. Either way, thank you all.
Ha, I used to burn my work. A sense of shame, I suppose. A vague discomfort in the social ether with poetry.. My work suffered, my mind being so taxed. Now if you'll pardon me, I have to rub it in Les' face that one should not go about saying anything they please.
Les,
rub
Ah, so you understand! I have been gently taken to task of late for this habit, which surprises me for a number of reasons. Not the least of which being the source is a much more talented and experienced poet than myself. It's not that I envy greater talent (that would be a poor reason to write, would it not?), but that anyone would see quality and/or potential in what comes out of my head. He seems to see both. So I struggle daily against the nearly overwhelming desire to commit it all to paper and set it aflame. As I stated above, it is my hope that posting here on "the Mule" will provide the catharsis I sought (and often found) in turning my words to ashes.
Perhaps a large part of my hesitation and reticence at showing anything to anyone is that I've found (having lurked on other poetry forums now and again which shall remain nameless) the vast majority out there on those boards are absolute snobs, rude and demeaning to anyone and everyone who isn't a "regular", not sticking to constructive criticism but instead resorting to juvenile personal attacks, etc. I read several threads here before joining and this seemed to me a comfortable, pleasant, new-user-friendly place (as evidenced by the rub!). Thank you all for making this painless for me. I sincerely appreciate it.
Lastly, to Steevo on the subject of lack of personal connection, I'm so very pleased to read that! As with the halting, stop-and-go feel of the poem mentioned by Boo Cipher, that is precisely what I was aiming for. I was attempting to convey the aloofness I've come to feel for the unanchored woman I was. My own personal connection to my past self is tenuous at best. I was also hoping to show mild contempt with
as I wander the fallow fields
of my history
Success? I know how I see it, but then, I wrote it. Does anyone else see in their mind's eye the dark and long-squandered field?
Enjoyed the poem queenB. Your poetry is certainly worthy of being read. Stay and post more.
Mary
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/01/2022 05:03PM by UPMarty.
queenB
First off, welcome to emule and thank you for posting here.
I like the positive note on which your poem ends, although I'm not sure how many people truly recognize the "fecund soil" that lies beneath the "fallow fields" of their pasts. Indeed, some seem actually to relish wallowing in their past failures, afraid, perhaps, of the responsibility that comes with assuming control of their own lives. Kudos to your poem's speaker and to others who do finally "see the possibilities."
As to the stylistic merits of the poem, I find it to be too esoteric, even abstruse, at times. (I'm not quite sure what kavers are, for instance). I, like Johnny, was distracted by the region-specific wind references and missed the point entirely about your "far-flung travels" until you explained it in your response. Maybe that's what Steevo meant about missing the personal connection.
Stylistic characteristics truly are a matter of taste, so I hope nothing I've said here serves to discourage you in any way. On the contrary, I think you have more talent than you apparently are willing to admit. PLease continue sifting through that fecund soil and grace us soon with another posting.
Joe
Ya, I haven't figured out why the other sites are filled with so many cocks, always found that odd... Emm, maybe not. Now that I think of it, the internet is, for most people, a place to act like a complete asshole. I supposed I assumed any place populated by poets would be equally understanding. So, ya, we just got lucky to have a bunch of reasonable people, I suppose.
Either case, are you referring to feeling uhhh, defined by your work? So you get rid of it to be untied to it? I used to do that, but I just learned to relax, my poetry is just my poetry, it's not who I am. Course poetry isn't hugely important in my life anyway. shrug
Anyway, stick around.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/02/2022 06:17AM by queenB.
You may yet call me an elitist jackass, it seems to be a popular opinion. But I suppose that was also part of why I destroyed my own work, as if it would some how burn the problems away with the poems. Of course it did no such thing. I've learned to keep my problems close to my heart, in doing so I can better address them. And don't bother thanking us, this is just how we do things.
In answer to Les edited post...
Yes, yes she was/is. Sneaky little devil that she is.
*wink
Yes indeed, a sneaky little devil I am. However, I am a devil who is now in possession of an unbiased critique from the poet who's opinion I trust most. Completely worth a momentary deception, I should think.
Am I forgiven?
*grins and bats lashes
Nothing fixes a thing so intensely in memory as the wish to forget it ~ Michel de Montaigne
lol always, although I still think I would have said the same thing regardless. *sticks out tongue
Well, we'll never know now, will we?
(wow, that's a lot of double-ewes!)
Hey, somebody give me someone to flirt with.
Urine, try Ted Bundy, he had fairly low standards. Jeese double negatives, now double ewes..
I’m late in welcoming you to Emule and responding to your poem, QueenB.
You asked for some critique. It's chancy to take that request literally from a new poster whose sensitivities are unknown. Be assured that I don't claim any authority in these matters. My opinions are nothing more than that. You are the only one who can decide what your poem needs.
Your wind references, presaged by the title "Windswept", are interesting. I’m not sure that their regionalities succeed in implying far-flung travels though, because the combination of ‘this road’ in line 3 and your use of the present tense throughout does rather present the poetic persona as speaking from one location.
You surprise me with your comment that the winds referred to decrease in ferocity as the poem progresses. A zephyr is surely the gentlest of breezes anywhere. According to Wikipedia, a kaver (more often spelled ‘caver’ according to a Glossary of Meterology) is a gentle breeze in the Hebrides to the west of Scotland. A mistral is no gentle wind, and a pampero (another new word I’m happy to have learned, thanks to your poem) is – according to the SOED - a piercing cold wind rolling off the Andes across the South American pampas. Like the katabatic pitteraq in Greenland, it must be forcefully and freezingly unpleasant.
None of that matters for the poem.
I like the way you have left this poem unpunctuated. That lack of clutter suits the meditative subject matter. It gives free play to the overtones. An unpunctuated poem needs to flow well from beginning to end. On the whole yours does.
There are two words you might reconsider.
“finally” (line 14) is (in my personal opinion) an unbeautiful word which rarely deserves to be in a poem. I’m not sure that what it says is appropriate or necessary or enriching for your poem. Can you find a word that pulls more weight?
The other is “soul” in line 2. As a rule of thumb, I would recommend that poets who write about their own thoughts and feelings should avoid throwaway references to their souls. It almost always comes across as too self absorbed and faintly ridiculous. While that's hardly the case here, I suggest you don't need "soul" in line 2. Its natural meaning doesn't really fit with the adjectival meaning of "peregrine". The line would be just as good if "soul" were deleted; which on the principle of economy usually means it should go. No one would mistake the poetic persona, the peregrine (then taking meaning as a noun), for a peregrine falcon!
Please don't let these suggestions discourage you from further posts. I enjoyed your poem.
Ian
Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 03/04/2022 05:56AM by IanAKB.