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Teen Poetry #9
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Embrace
| Teen Poetry #9 |
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Embrace |
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Falling rain
since 2008-01-31
Posts 2178Small town, Illinois 
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I'm mesmerized by the breaths withdrawn from the wind around. The tender scrape against my bones. Lovely and comforting all in one. Time seems still yet moving fast. Only moments until this is over. I give one final squeeze to press him closer to me. To feel his heart beat. And let him feel mine fluttering ... escaping for ... embracing for.. Strength, warmth, and safety.. Neither of us move. Let this moment stay. I'll be suspended in time. Forever here.. I'll never get tired of his hugs... |
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| © Copyright 2010 Zach Booker-Scott - All Rights Reserved | |||
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Dear Zach, I like this one. It's much more personal, and there's a lot of actual Zach involved instead of abstraction and recycled and romanticized stuff. I can hear you talking, and it sounds different than other people talking. That's the way it should be, in my opinion. quote: You've got "mesmerized" in italics. Italics go a very long way. I overuse them myself. I'm not certain that you do, but it won't hurt if you ask yourself what the purpose is you've got for them here. Look through some of John Berryman's stuff, since he uses them a fair amount. As does Robert Lowell, on occasion, and see how they do it. Do you think it works for them or not? Don't stop using them. It a simply to be thought about point. The usage of "breaths withdrawn from the wind around" is interesting to me, because I enjoy the playfulness of the preposition at the end of the line. Frost liked to do that, and I think it has a lovely sound to it, but I feel that the phrase itself is a bit on the awkward side. I like that it turns a new eye on breathing and the language used to describe it. That's a new sort of making, and the poet's job description. But it sacrifices clarity, and I think that your readers need to be able to follow you. Poetry needs to be at least as well written as prose — Ezra Pound's thought. "'The' breaths" is an interesting usage as well. Why not something more specific, such as, "my" or "his" or "these?" When you get a chance to be more specific and more visual or more sensory, why not take it? quote: Same comments about italics for the above, but I have no real criticism otherwise. I am generally cautious about use of sentence fragments, but you seem to have gotten away with them here. When you say, "Let this moment stay[.]", I believe you've really reached the end of the poem. This is one of those lines that are not only part of the poem, but part of the frame for the poem, and continuing afterwards is the equivalent of coloring outside the lines. quote: Once you keep going after the ending, there's no sense of rhetorical support, so what you have here feels like three new first lines or three alternative ending lines that are nowhere near as fine as the one you already have, which is very fine. What you're doing here is called "Writing away from the ending," and lots of poets do it. The same thing seems to happen at the beginning of poems, by the way. Many's the time I've done a first draft that's 50 lines long only to realize that I've spent the first twenty lines writing up to the beginning, and the last ten writing away from the ending. I hope there's something useful in this for you. If not, simply ignore it. All my best, Bob Kaven |
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Falling rain
since 2008-01-31
Posts 2178Small town, Illinois |
Thanks for the comment! I found it really helpful. I do agree on the final lines. It is unnecessary. To answer your question about the italics. I think when I use italics I tried to emphasis on the actual word. To kind of put more emotion into it the what you would normally read. Maybe I chose the wrong to be italic. I don't know. What are your thoughts on that? But I do appreciate your thoughts. |
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