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JenniferMaxwell
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0 posted 2006-09-22 07:11 AM


Along the path that I have traveled
through misty field and woodland shadow,
all the stars have names I know
while footprints vanished under stone.

Flowers bruised with love's last touch
bloom again in sweeter meadows
where need and longing fold into
trembling dawn and rising moon.

In dappled light the day grows cold;
the grove has lost its heady scent
blossoms fade into the years,
and memory walks where footsteps fear.

The path has narrowed into night,
loss become the guiding light,
but ever like the moth to candle,
my eye keeps on the distant meadow.


© Copyright 2006 JenniferMaxwell - All Rights Reserved
lanaia74
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1 posted 2006-09-22 07:35 AM


Wow! That's all I can say!
powerxxx
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2 posted 2006-09-22 11:34 AM


hey thats pretty good
nice job

moonbeam
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3 posted 2006-09-23 07:56 AM


Gently iambic Jennifer - who said you can't handle meter.  You have the da-DUM thing off to a tee, with for the most part, legitimate substitutions I think.  Though I'm no expert on meter.

You really have a natural talent yanno for creating the "right" tone and atmosphere - something that it's very hard to teach.

There are abstractions here a-plenty it's true, but Mary Oliver has clearly rubbed off on you and the whole is so much greater than the parts that the occasional vagueness not only doesn't matter, but actually adds to the piece.

I'm seriously tempted to do a Marge!  Resist resist ....

just, well done.

M


JenniferMaxwell
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4 posted 2006-09-23 10:15 AM


Thanks all. Iambic? Purely by accident. Actually, Moonbeam, it was written before reading Mary Oliver. Read her "Why I Wake Early" last night. Think I prefer the Owl collection. Wake kind of gave me the feeling you have when your belief system is shattered by tragedy or loss. Hard to explain.

moonbeam
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5 posted 2006-09-23 01:20 PM


This is what I have:

New and Selected Poems (Paperback)
by Mary Oliver

Yes iambic predominantly.

Along the path that I have traveled

a LONG the PATH that I have TRAV eled

through misty field and woodland shadow,

through MIS ty FIELD and WOOD land SHAD dow

all the stars have names I know

ALL the STARS have NAMES I know

while footprints vanished under stone.

while FOOT prints VAN ished UN der STONE

etc etc

you can HEAR that, yes?

da DUM da DUM

Marge Tindal
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6 posted 2006-09-23 02:42 PM


Jennifer~
There was such a lovely cadence to this piece as I read it aloud~

Flowers bruised with love's last touch
bloom again in sweeter meadows
where need and longing fold into
trembling dawn and rising moon.'


Softly done with delicate elegance~

*Huglets*
~*Marge*~


--------------------------------------------
LOL ...

"When you care enough to send the very best" ...
there is only ONE Marge~

~*The sound of a kiss is not as strong as that of a cannon, but it's echo endures much longer*~
Email -         noles1@totcon.com     

JenniferMaxwell
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7 posted 2006-09-23 02:58 PM


""When you care enough to send the very best" ...there is only ONE Marge~"
Now that's REALLY cute, Marge! What a delightful sense of humor you have.

Thanks, Moonbeam, I think I get it, finally! Sort of like horseback riding, don't you think? My punishment, I mean, my assignment for this week, whether I like it or not, will be a short poem in iambic something or other, or at least a few lines.
Does haiku count? *)



moonbeam
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8 posted 2006-09-23 04:33 PM


Jen

quote:
There was such a lovely cadence to this piece as I read it aloud~

Flowers bruised with love's last touch
bloom again in sweeter meadows
where need and longing fold into
trembling dawn and rising moon.'

Softly done with delicate elegance~


Er, I hesitate to say "for once", but YAY I totally and absolutely agree with Marge on this - and you can have that in blood if you want.  Read aloud that is indeed a beautiful passage, perhaps one of the most beautiful I've read on PIP yet.

You have got some enviable internal rhyme and slant rhyme, but "delicate elegance" describes it precisely.

And yes, horseback riding; till you get on to trochees that is, DUM da - horseback riding facing backwards maybe?

Try lots of "blank verse".  Unrhymed iambic pentameter.  Tis good practice:

"In Dark there lurks a woman who can write
with such an aptitude for sound and tone
that even critics cast with hearts of steel
are melted in the furnace of her song."

and so on and so on.  After a while you so get into it that you'll find yourself walking round the mall talking to yourself in iambic pentameter.

That's when you start to worry!

Best.

M

JenniferMaxwell
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9 posted 2006-09-23 05:54 PM


Marge is rubbing off on you, Moonbeam. Thank you for the kind words. I think what I'll do is spend a day reading some of the classics in iambic pentameter or blank verse and then I'll do the writing you suggested. Sort of tune up the ear and get the beat before I give it a try.
moonbeam
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10 posted 2006-09-24 08:16 AM


quote:
Marge is rubbing off on you, Moonbeam.


Er, right, if you say so - the mind boggles!

Remember, blank verse, no rhyme.  Forget rhyme for now, it's a distraction.

M

JenniferMaxwell
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11 posted 2006-09-24 08:52 AM


Did a little of both. Read some of Paradise Lost and poems by British Women Romantic poets last night. I checked all the lines in Paradise that didn't seem clearly iambic, (to me) Milton's got some explaining to do!  
Can't fool me, behind your mask of brutal critic beats the heart of a lovely person.


Juju
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12 posted 2006-09-24 11:13 PM


This is a nice poem.
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