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Reflections of You
| Critical Analysis #1 |
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Reflections of You |
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Darin Junior Member
since 2000-04-02
Posts 17 |
Reflections of You By Darin Maner My life I thought I once knew But that was before the time I met you You arrived in my world as a visionary of hope Fading in and out like a ship secured by a thin rope Are friendship grows stronger everyday You are so close yet so far away Timeless lines of communication Are set in place by sheer admiration Always around in my time of need With an open ear to hear my pleas Words cant express my humble gratitude To the one I cherish the most amongst the multitude |
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| © Copyright 2000 Darin Maner - All Rights Reserved | |||
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jbouder Member Elite
since 1999-09-18
Posts 2534Whole Sort Of Genl Mish Mash |
Darin: I think your feelings came through loud and clear and I liked your word choice but I think you've let the rhyme control the poem. The easy way to fix this is to scrap the rhymed verse idea and go with a free-verse or blank-verse format. Once I thought I knew my life But that was before I met you You appeared to me as a visionary of hope Fading in and out like a ship on a stormy night Our friendship grows stronger everyday You you remain so far away (Timeless lines of communication Are set in place by sheer admiration) I left the last two lines in parentheses because I am not sure what you are trying to say. Perhaps some rewording or additional lines to make your point clearer ... or maybe I am having another one of my "Jim-is-denser-than-a-rare-earth-element" attacks.  Always around in my time of need With an open ear to hear my pleas Words can't express my gratitude To the one I cherish the most. These lines were pretty tight. I wasn't crazy about the wording of the last two lines so take or leave the above suggestions. Thanks for posting, Darin. Jim [This message has been edited by jbouder (edited 04-27-2000).] |
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tom Member
since 2000-01-26
Posts 90s/w penna u.s.a. |
Darin Have to agree with jbouder on all except the last two lines. If I may Words can't express my humble gratitude To the one I hold above the multitude just my opinion tom I dreamed I was a dreamer in a dream |
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Darin Junior Member
since 2000-04-02
Posts 17 |
A agree with you both of you. Im going to reword the poem useing your advise. Thanks |
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Craig Member
since 1999-06-10
Posts 444 |
Darin I have to agree with Jim, the sentiment is there, this piece just seems to get knocked off course by what looks like the need to make each second line rhyme. Although Jim has given you one possible option, that of foregoing the rhyme altogether, it is possible to keep the feeling and the meaning you want to convey and do it in rhyme. All you need to do is a bit of pruning and editing. First I’d suggest changing the aabb rhyme scheme to abab, it’s easier to get right without sounding forced, one of the main reasons is that there are more words between the rhymes. Those extra words give you more chance to bend the plot to the shape of the rhyme scheme. If you rearrange the lines to fit the new scheme you end up with this: My life I thought I once knew You arrived in my world as a visionary of hope But that was before the time I met you Fading in and out like a ship secured by a thin rope Are friendship grows stronger everyday Timeless lines of communication You are so close yet so far away Are set in place by sheer admiration Always around in my time of need Words cant express my humble gratitude With an open ear to hear my pleas To the one I cherish the most amongst the multitude I know it doesn’t make much sense but if you read it you’ll find the rhyme scheme has suddenly become less ‘in your face’. What you need to do next is edit the lines so they do make sense, but one word of warning, if you find yourself forced to use a word that doesn’t fit the subject but does rhyme, change the line that’s forcing you to use that word. I’ll give you an example, your line ‘Fading in and out like a ship secured by a thin rope’, seems to me to be out of place, it sounds looks and feels that you were forced into using it because of the ‘You arrived in my world as a visionary of hope’ line. This is a 100% guaranteed way to get dragged off the subject. You could use other words to rhyme with hope of course, mope, cope, lope, dope etc. But none of them are that easy to build a line from that matches your subject. If you changed the ‘hope’ line you lose that problem and give yourself an easier job in the process. My last bit of advice is, try and find a ‘tune’ that your lines fit and then keep that ‘tune’ going throughout the poem. If you have a problem finding a tune try to keep the paired rhyming lines roughly equal in syllabic length you’ll find they build a ‘tune’ of their own. I feel another example coming on.  In the spring a young man’s fancy Lightly turns to poetry, Writing odes to Rose or Nancy Corseted in symmetry. This was written by Margaret Rogers in ballad stanza or common measure. It is rhymed abab and the syllable count is 8 in the first line then 7,8,7. I hope you look on all this as just well meaning advice, none of it is guaranteed to be right but I hope it helps and as always you are free to take it or leave it as you see fit. Craig < !signature--> Yes, I admit your general rule. That every poet is a fool: But I myself may serve to show it. That every fool is not a poet. [This message has been edited by Craig (edited 04-28-2000).] |
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