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Marge's Poem - discussion
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Marge's Poem - discussion |
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Severn Member Rara Avis
since 1999-07-17
Posts 7704
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Just the mention of your name ignites the embers once again Leaping into raging flame at just the mention of your name Cold the smolder of the past Passion's fire that did not last Ashen now the burned remains at just the mention of your name From within there comes a doubt that this fire has not burned out You return and I'm not the same with just the mention of your name Hotter still the passion grows Burning me with ecstasy's glow I've no one but myself to blame for falling in love all over again at just the mention of your name [This message has been edited by Severn (edited 08-15-2000).] |
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Dark Angel Member Patricius
since 1999-08-04
Posts 10095 |
Margey.. oh this is lovley  It flowed nicely with great imagery enjoyed |
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Sudhir Iyer Member Ascendant
since 2000-04-26
Posts 6943Mumbai, India : now in Belgium |
Marge, as I said before too perhaps, this is amazingly beautiful... absolutely lovely... what could perhaps make this even better... hardly anything comes to mind... ... ... except maybe punctuation, unless you wanted the reader to pause wherever he/she wanted to (of course, I do not believe that you wanted the reader to run along this without a pause... )... ... If I have this my way I could perhaps have the poem as follows (of course I have no knowledge of meter, so forgive me in advance) Just the mention of your name ignites the embers once again, Leaping into a raging flame at just the mention of your name. Cold, the smolder of the past, Passion's fire that did not last, Ashen now, the burned remains at just the mention of your name. From within, there comes a doubt that this fire has not burned out, You return and I'm not the same with just the mention of your name. Hotter still the passion grows, Burning me with ecstasy's glow, I've no one but myself to blame for falling in love all over again, at just the mention of your name ~ For falling in love all over again! ~ but then thats me and between you and me there is a huge difference in writing style ...  My regards, Sudhir |
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Poertree Senior Member
since 1999-11-05
Posts 1359UK |
marge certainly a poem, and certainly uses repetition. for me though it didn't "work". to begin with the metaphor you picked has been just too well worn ...... "passionate love as fire or heat" has been done a million time. Maybe you could have got away with it as just a small part of a larger poem, but you chose to base your whole piece around that metaphor. To compound that problem still further you chose as your repeat line another very well know phrase "just the mention of your name". To be honest, hearing that 5 times in a 4 stanza poem kind of prejudiced me against the piece from the start. I couldn't see that the repetition actually contributed anything to the poem, in fact somewhat the reverse. Also i think the message you are trying to get across here is basically along the lines of: "the speaker was in love, then the speaker thought she/he wasn't in love, then the lover returned and the speaker fell in love again" .........no? Well WOW ..you sure picked just about the most difficult theme to write about that i can think of .. even the greats might have a tough time making that sequence of events sound novel new interesting and exciting for the reader! As it is i find it quite hard to follow the progress of the poem even as a simple little cameo. Lets look at the progression stanza by stanza: "Just the mention of your name ignites the embers once again Leaping into raging flame at just the mention of your name" ok..simple enough opening metaphoric use of fire to portray an arousal of feeling at the occurrence of a certain event...... somewhat light on detail i think in that it would be interesting to know what feelings are being aroused here ...is this a sensual uncontrollable sexual lust (the word "raging" would imply so perhaps), maybe this should be clearer? What is clear though is that the subject is probably not present in the speakers life right now but her/his name rouses the speaker in some way .....(btw "raging flame" is perhaps just a mite cliche ..no?) "Cold the smolder of the past Passion's fire that did not last Ashen now the burned remains at just the mention of your name" now i get confused ..... i think you start the stanza by suggesting that in fact the passion or lust or whatever is dead ... "cold"..... again using the fire metaphor. this doesn't sit too well with the idea that we've been presented with immediately before to the effect that ignition has taken place .. however let that pass on the basis that presumably you are referring back to a previous time before the speaker heard the "name" again.....? Still whichever way i look at it the last line of the second stanza just doesn't stand up to scrutiny, it surely sticks out as having been placed there simply in order to maintain the repetition. The stanza tells how the feelings are cold and dead apparently at the mention of the subject's name, having heard only a few lines before that the very same name (presumably) elicits feelings of heat and passion ..... can the same name do both? was that the intention? "From within there comes a doubt that this fire has not burned out You return and I'm not the same with just the mention of your name" this stanza seems to suggest that in fact the interpretation in the first stanza was correct the fire is alight! Though it seems hard to see how there could be any "doubt" about that given the fiery language of the first stanza. Maybe I'm missing something here - perhaps there are two fires? One a kinda superficial one which has quick flares or cold ashes depending on the speaker's mood when he/she happens to hear the subject's name ... and then another deep seated fire "lets call it the fire of true love" ...lol ..... this is the fire referred to in the third stanza, which would explain why there is some doubt as to whether its burned out or not? "You return" seems to bear out the original supposition that the subject was not around, but "I'm not the same" is really very flat Marge ...surely you can do better than that...lol... tell us HOW the speaker is not the same? what does he or she feel? etc etc.... "Hotter still the passion grows Burning me with ecstasy's glow I've no one but myself to blame for falling in love all over again at just the mention of your name" hotter than what? only a few lines back "the fire of true love" was still doubtful ... "hotter still" strongly implies it was very hot only a few moments back but now its even hotter ..are we back with the original superficial fire again? if so ..it must be getting pretty furnace like by now because it was "raging" in the first stanza ...lol.....  ..... seriously though marge, this is a bit vague and cliche isn't it? "hot passion", "ecstasy's glow" !!! also its not at all clear why the speaker would want to "blame" himself/herself? Does he or she not WANT to fall in love (for i see it is love .. presumably love encompassing lust etc) again? I want to know a whole lot more about the speaker and the subject, before this relationship becomes in anyway interesting. turning to the rhyme form and meter .. again i could help but feel that the poem was somewhat hostage to these. in the first stanza especially there seemed to be an excess of "A" sounds: name again raging flame name this i felt reduced the interest ..... mostly the meter was smooth and the stress pattern pretty good trochees throughout. In a couple of places things got a little rough though, you might like to look at: "You return and I'm not the same" "Burning me with ecstasy's glow" "for falling in love all over again" all of those lines break the prevalent meter. sorry to be a little negative about this piece Marge .. I've seen some great poems of yours in Open ..i guess this repetition thingy is trickier than it looks maybe bye for now philip [This message has been edited by Poertree (edited 08-19-2000).] |
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Christopher
Moderator
Member Rara Avis
since 1999-08-02
Posts 8296Purgatorial Incarceration |
Wow. Umm... I'll just sneak in and say I liked it...? LOL Teach me to get to class late! Philip takes all the good lines! |
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