Daily Commute - Hendecasyllabics challenge

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Poetry Workshop

Daily Commute - Hendecasyllabics challenge

Child of the Stars

Senior Member

since 2000-09-07

Posts 1658
Ann Arbor, MI

0 posted 2006-09-06 09:35 AM

That wild field, in its shadowed heart of mourning
moans, breaks, cries to the pair long since belonging
to its grasp; but entirely has not lost us
for, though I have abandoned it, it holds you
with wet cheeks. Cold and hardened to the crashing
steel blue rain, with a sighing breast I tell you
do not stay--for in seeking warmer pleasures
that dark field is the only place I love you.

Endlessecho
Member

since 2003-09-05

Posts 398
I live within myself

1 posted 2006-09-11 02:36 PM

I can't say much about the meter because I'd be out of my league, but I really enjoyed this poem. I liked the descriptions and the feelings in it.

Brian James
Member

since 2005-06-26

Posts 147
Winnipeg

2 posted 2006-10-09 06:26 AM

Hi Carly.  I thought I'd revisit this poem and give you a more permanent response than I did earlier.

From a formal point of view, I think you've really shown what you're made of in this poem---you've gone pretty much every way that you could have gone in this poem, bending the rules at just the right times ("pair long since belonging").  Unlike the other responses to this challenge, your poem appears to flow with a much slower, almost spoken rhythm.  It might be that your syllable stress is a little vague in places, mostly with a very heavy step (I'm thinking of "cold and hardened to the crashing steel blue rain").

The line "for, though I have abandoned it, it holds you" is interesting---the second stress in the line is grammatical and anticipates "it holds you," but you choose not to put emphasis on "you," rather "holds."  This is another example of the way you're taking it slow in this poem---I was personally tempted to read "you" with a stress leading straight into the next line.

Anyways, I think that's enough technical commentary.  The sentiment of the poem, the use of the pathetic fallacy, the sudden "I love you," all make this poem uniquely Carly.  It's nice to read poetry from you again.

Brian

"To me, the thing that art does for life is to clean it, to strip it to form."
~Robert Frost

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