reverie Posted June 25, 2006 Report Share Posted June 25, 2006 (edited) Sweet's poem can be found here. A heartfelt thankyou poem. Actually reminds me of a couple things I wrote years ago, but less depressing. I like the rhyming ballad-like stanzas you start out with, but I wish you would have kept them going throughout the rest of the poem. Also, there are several logic and mechanic issues here, so I think it best to tackle them stanza by stanza. 1st stanza: I had a wall around me, built with broken dreams. Now the cracks are healing; Your gentle words close off the seams. Watch your logic. You first two lines imply that the wall that is around you is a flawed bad thing. Yet in your 3rd-5th line you are saying that the love of (Greg?) is in fact fortifying this wall. Is this what you intended? It seems that to have a stronger wall built around you as a consquence of accepting someone's love is not exactly a happy ending. 2nd stanza: Without a warning, without a sign, not taken over, freely given this time. Here I assume you are refering to love. Your title clues the reader in. However, there is some confusion on what was "taken over." Your heart? And who is doing the "giving this time." I first read it as "taking" instead of "taken," which makes a bit more sense. But the who is giving/taking what to whom is still confusing. 3rd stanza: I had no faith inside me, hurt and distrust reigned. Now those fears are fading; Your gentle love frees me from pain. This stanza is the one that led me to conclud that your intial metaphore in the your first stanza is having the opposite effect that you intended. A wall traps and encloses you. "Free me from pain," expresses the opposite feeling. 4th stanza Without a struggle, without a fight, not holding back, warmly embrace your fire. Slight grammatical tangle here in the last line of this stanza. As constructed it reads as sentence fragment, which you can use in poetry. Yet, in your other ballad-like stanzas you use complete thoughts, so this stanza is structually inconsistance with the rest the ballad-like part of your piece. Maybe add an "I" at the beginning of the last line or change "embrace" to "embracing." 5th Stanza I locked my love within me, vowed to nevermore. Now that oath’s forgotten; Your gentle heart makes my heart soar. 2nd line: a touch non-sensical. "Vowed to ...nevermore..." what? It's an easy fix though. Change "vowed" to "vowing" and possibly nix the "to." 5th and last line: Watch out for repetition of common words associated with love like "heart," you veering awfuly close to cliche territory particularying with the word "soar" on top of it. 6th stanza Without the wall, without the fear. No longer blind. 1st line: Again contradicts your opening metaphore. 7th stanza Without the pain, without the hurt. No longer lost. Hmm, maybe connect the 6th and 7th stanza together since their constructions are so similar or considering deleting one of them. concluding lines Feeling loved, Just feeling loved. Don't think you need to spell it out for the reader. Your title has already accomplished this. However, there is nothing wrong with a circular conclusion, but you don't want to over do it. I'd lose the last line and keep "Feeling loved." good job, rev... Edited June 25, 2006 by reverie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sweetcherrie Posted June 25, 2006 Report Share Posted June 25, 2006 (edited) I think the first thing I should say is that to me everything makes perfect sense, and to my love, who I sent the poem it did as well. But yeah, I'll give some more explanation. 1st stanza: I had a wall around me, built with broken dreams. Now the cracks are healing; Your gentle words close off the seams. Watch your logic. You first two lines imply that the wall that is around you is a flawed bad thing. Yet in your 3rd-5th line you are saying that the love of (Greg?) is in fact fortifying this wall. Is this what you intended? It seems that to have a stronger wall built around you as a consquence of accepting someone's love is not exactly a happy ending. The wall was built of broken dreams...so what then is broken that can heal? Right, the dreams. He makes me believe in my dreams again, and being surrounded by your dreams is not a bad idea methinks 2nd stanza: Without a warning, without a sign, not taken over, freely given this time. Here I assume you are refering to love. Your title clues the reader in. However, there is some confusion on what was "taken over." Your heart? And who is doing the "giving this time." I first read it as "taking" instead of "taken," which makes a bit more sense. But the who is giving/taking what to whom is still confusing. I am not refering to love. I'm refering about myself. Freely giving myself, instead of being taken over. I've had some nasty experiences in the past, but with him I want to give myself without holding back. 3rd stanza: I had no faith inside me, hurt and distrust reigned. Now those fears are fading; Your gentle love frees me from pain. This stanza is the one that led me to conclud that your intial metaphore in the your first stanza is having the opposite effect that you intended. A wall traps and encloses you. "Free me from pain," expresses the opposite feeling. I think you did get the general feeling I had with this one 4th stanza Without a struggle, without a fight, not holding back, warmly embrace your fire. Slight grammatical tangle here in the last line of this stanza. As constructed it reads as sentence fragment, which you can use in poetry. Yet, in your other ballad-like stanzas you use complete thoughts, so this stanza is structually inconsistance with the rest the ballad-like part of your piece. Maybe add an "I" at the beginning of the last line or change "embrace" to "embracing." I actually kept the same syllable count here, and said what I wanted to say. I've tried keeping the poem so that it says what I want to say, and I did my best to keep the flow. If this were any other piece I would maybe take your suggestions at heart, but with this one I did things intentionally the way I did them. 5th Stanza I locked my love within me, vowed to nevermore. Now that oath’s forgotten; Your gentle heart makes my heart soar. 2nd line: a touch non-sensical. "Vowed to ...nevermore..." what? It's an easy fix though. Change "vowed" to "vowing" and possibly nix the "to." 5th and last line: Watch out for repetition of common words associated with love like "heart," you veering awfuly close to cliche territory particularying with the word "soar" on top of it. Yes, I vowed to nevermore. I would nevermore fall in love, and be open to get hurt by love. I'm not vowing anymore, so I don't think that vowing would be a good idea because it would change the entire meaning of the sentence. yes, but common words or not, if they reflect what I want to say I use them. And if the main object is to convey the meaning behind things, and not to create a masterwork, then why worry too much about how it looks? 6th stanza Without the wall, without the fear. No longer blind. 1st line: Again contradicts your opening metaphore. Hmm..possibly true, but hey, he understood, that's what was most important 7th stanza Without the pain, without the hurt. No longer lost. Hmm, maybe connect the 6th and 7th stanza together since their constructions are so similar or considering deleting one of them. concluding lines Feeling loved, Just feeling loved. Don't think you need to spell it out for the reader. Your title has already accomplished this. However, there is nothing wrong with a circular conclusion, but you don't want to over do it. I'd lose the last line and keep "Feeling loved." The words were singing in my head when I wrote them. I feel the last stanza closes it off, and the last line strenghtens my message. I wanted to spell it out for the reader, and I wanted to let him know that there are no fears left that used to be there. I posted this to share, not for it to be ripped apart. Had that been the case I would've posted it in the workshop, since I know you critically review about everything there. I appreciate that you took the time to do this, but I won't do anything with your comments. This one came from the heart, and even though I've tweaked it to have more rhythm, they need to be my words mainly, not yours...it's how it works with feelings... Edited June 25, 2006 by Sweetcherrie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
reverie Posted June 25, 2006 Author Report Share Posted June 25, 2006 (edited) Sigh, I just trying to help. The fact that I care enough to comment at all, implies that I think your work has merit. Just because you wrote this for a personal reason, doesn't mean that no else can't take something benifitial from it. Especially when you post it for public enjoyment. If you had posted this Under the Oak Tree, I would not have touched it. Maybe I should start qualifying my posts with this statement: What I offer you is simply my impressions of your work. I am not saying that I am right and that you are wrong, merely what I took from it and what I think could help. I do this only for the sake of perspective. You can either acccept or disregard my suggestions as you please for I am no sage and am prone to error just like any other mortal. You don't have to tell me that your going to do nothing with my suggestions Sweet. I only offer them inorder to get people thinking. And since you did ponder what I said if only the briefest of moments, then I consider that: Mission Accomplished. take care, rev... Edited June 25, 2006 by reverie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
reverie Posted June 26, 2006 Author Report Share Posted June 26, 2006 (edited) Okay, I'm just going to hit one point. You do not have to respond to this as I am not so much critiqing your poem at this point, but am instead highlighting an particular quality inherant in english grammer. regarding the fifth stanza: I locked my love within me, vowed to nevermore. Now that oath’s forgotten; Your gentle heart makes my heart soar. I said: 2nd line: a touch non-sensical. "Vowed to ...nevermore..." what? It's an easy fix though. Change "vowed" to "vowing" and possibly nix the "to." You said: Yes, I vowed to nevermore. I would nevermore fall in love, and be open to get hurt by love. I'm not vowing anymore, so I don't think that vowing would be a good idea because it would change the entire meaning of the sentence. * Actually my suggestion does not change the meaning of the sentence or stanza. In the first line, with the use of the word, "locked," You have placed the scene in the past tense. And since the clause containing "vow" of the next line is technically the same sentence, it's perfectly alright to say "vowing." The reader will understand that you are speaking about an action that has taken place in the past, but you are just remembering it like it's happening again. This does not make the reader assume that you are still "vowing" up to the present day because use of the word "Now" at the beginning of the next line and sentence places the reader back into the present. Now that I think about your orginal "vow" phrase again, I no longer consider it not Non-sensical. However, my previous suggestions while not changing the meaning of the stanza as a whole, changes the emphasis of the first sentence. My suggestion throws more weight behind the actual act of "vowing" instead of the absent act of "love". Is this better? I don't know. Maybe it is, maybe it is not, you're the ultimate judge of that not me. However, I'm only pointing this out inorder to illustrate just how versatile the english language is. Word endings such as "ed, "s", "ing" are very important. Yet with english being an uninfected language as well as a non-tonal language. Word-order in relation to other words within the same sentence and within the context of other sentences in close promity to the orginal senctence is what takes the highest precidence for decerning meaning. I'm do not want to come off as condesending here, but I feel it's important to express that in english writing (particularly in poetry where the normal guide posts of punctation are often absent) these things matter... rev... Edited June 26, 2006 by reverie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quincunx Posted June 26, 2006 Report Share Posted June 26, 2006 You could sneak around changing the syntax of that line by dropping "nevermore" into single quotation marks. Why singles? I'm not certain that I can explain it, except that double quotation marks are spoken words, and this was not spoken aloud. I will, however, agree that "vowing 'nevermore'" will still flow better. The second line is a subordinate clause of the first, and without a verb of its own, does not also need to have its verb form* in past tense. The rephrasing does soften the impact of "vow", but half of that impact came from the broken grammar behind it. *gerundive, if we're getting technical Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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