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Sunday by the sea
| Critical Analysis #2 |
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Sunday by the sea |
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chopsticks Senior Member
since 2007-10-02
Posts 888The US, |
Sunday by the sea I sit in the grass at the top of a knoll, scoping out the sky as the clouds unroll. Watching the clouds float out to sea, they glide by with such dignity. They dance in and out of a distant storm, then fly real high and lose their form. Then I look for one that's silver lined; but it takes patience for that kind of find. They turn bright red at evening time, and add some color to this dreamer's rhyme. They will always be in a sky somewhere, and seem to exist without a care. But tomorrow morning I will pick up the pace and drag my caboose back into the race. |
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oceanvu2 Senior Member
since 2007-02-24
Posts 1066Santa Monica, California, USA |
Hi Chopsticks! This is a nice piece of observation. For what it might be worth, I'm going to suggest a way that you can clarify the rhythm. It may not be exactly "where the rubber meats the road" stuff, but it's a suggestion about mechanics. Sunday by the sea I sit in the grass at the top of a knoll, And scope out the sky as the clouds unroll. I watch the clouds floating out over the sea, While gliding, their passing reflects dignity. They dance in and out of a far distant storm, then fly really high, while losing their form. Then I look for one that is silvery lined; It takes so much patience for that kind of find. The clouds turn bright red at evening time, And add (colored vistas) to this dreamer's rhyme. The poem breaks down in the last two stanzas. I think it is trying to suggest the neutral nature of normal events. Why then personify, or make anthromorphic, the "clouds" as below" "They will always be in a sky somewhere, and seem to exist without a care." The final stanza corrects readily: Tomorrow morning I'll pick up the pace and drag my caboose back into the race. Ok, I think the poem is saying that the poet has spent some time in contemplation and is ready to go back to the mundane world. That's fine, but since the mundane world has as much "presence" as the ethereal, why does the poem not treat it with the same respect? Best, Jim Aitken |
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TomMark Member Elite
since 2007-07-27
Posts 2133LA,CA |
I like it.But wait to read your answer to Jim.  |
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chopsticks Senior Member
since 2007-10-02
Posts 888The US, |
Ocean, thanks for your comments and I do hope you get better soon. |
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chopsticks Senior Member
since 2007-10-02
Posts 888The US, |
Tom, I am glad you like my poem. I am declaring this a buy one get one thread. You are welcome to my version are you may like Ocean’s new and improved version better, roll your own. |
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hush Senior Member
since 2001-05-27
Posts 1653Ohio, USA |
I like this, I think it just needs to be tweaked a little bit: I sit in the grass at the top of a knoll, (on top of a knoll might flow better) scoping out the sky as the clouds unroll. (get rid of "the" in the second line and it flows better and sounds more mature/refined) Watching the clouds float out to sea, they glide by with such dignity. -Here, the words 'such dignity' jostle the rhythm a little bit, but I don't think I mind- for some reason, to me, it seems to add texture rather than seeming forced. They dance in and out of a distant storm, then fly real high and lose their form. -get rid of the word "real" here to fix the rhythm and smooth it out, as in the first couplet. Then I look for one that's silver lined; but it takes patience for that kind of find. -This tripped me up a little, but you could play with it, something like: I look for one that's silver lined; patience alone delivers that kind. (Just a suggestion- I'm not great with meter at all, I go by my ear, which is fickle at best) They turn bright red at evening time, (bright red seems a bit pedestrian, but it flows great) and add some color to this dreamer's rhyme. (shake this up a little! Like... "adding color to the pallete [sp?] of rhyme") They will always be in a sky somewhere, and seem to exist without a care. (without a care seems really forced) also- try to tie the narrator in here so it flows better into the ending. Like: They will always be in a sky somewhere, [pulling me with them, if I should dare]. But tomorrow morning I will pick up the pace and drag my caboose back into the race. Not a great line, I know, but an idea to link the two thoughts together. If it seems like I've been really nitpicky, it's only because I think this is worth the time and effort, and could be really good with a few adjustments. Hope this helped. |
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oceanvu2 Senior Member
since 2007-02-24
Posts 1066Santa Monica, California, USA |
Hi Chopsticks, and Merry Christmas! The poem meits the in depth attention it is getting. Hope you will play with it some more. Best, Jim Aitken |
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chopsticks Senior Member
since 2007-10-02
Posts 888The US, |
Hi Hush, thanks for the comments . (At ) is a function word to indicate presence or occurrence in, on, or near . I am at a loss to come up with something to take the place of ( the) in the second line. You said it will sound more mature/refined. Which is it, as the two words are not similar in meaning, at least not to me. It can be mature without being refined and vice versa. [This message has been edited by chopsticks (12-25-2007 08:36 PM).] |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Dear Chopsticks, I know you ask for no pain, no gain. I'll try to stay clear of that if I can. It's a good solid ambitious shot at the poem that seems to run aground. In this poem, you've chosen to go with formal strictures without having thought through what those strictures mean for you and the writing process. Tetrameter couplets are a common english meter, and have often been brilliantly used: Earth, receive an honored guest, William Yeats is laid to rest. . . Tyger, Tyger, burning Bright In the forests of the night!... Two examples, hopefully quoted correctly, you're familiar with, among thousands. Outside of Longfellow, however, you're unlikely to find very many anapestic or dactylic tetrameter lines because in English they swerve dangerously close to doggerel. The meter Longfellow took he lifted from the Finnish national epic, in which the trisyllabic feet sound just fine in groups of four. With some skillful variation, apparently they do in greek as well, I'm told. In both latin and greek the trisyllabic feet, especially the dactyl, do well in six foot lines. They sound good because they keep a pretty strict rhythm and they DON'T PAD THEIR LINES to fill them out. Their meters are not in conflict with the most economical use of words. In your second line, for example, "scoping out" fills out the rhythm but doesn't fit the chosen level of diction for the poem. "Watching," has one less syllable. You use "the" clouds when simply "clouds" would have done fine, in both cases the excess serves to pad the meter without adding to the sense. In fact, you might find that use of the initial "watching" might serve to build a bit of parallelism with the following line's "watching the clouds..." A matter of taste, of course, but worth considering long enough to exclude. It's a nice piece of work, by the way, in the third line to introduce the ocean as a setting in this way. I think. Perhaps you might consider things clouds might do other than "float;" if you can answer that question you can replace the next line, which presently serves as a place-holder. Sea and Dignity do rhyme, but telling us that the clouds have such dignity doesn't really generate much to justify the sense of closure generated by a rhyme. There should be a piece of insight or thought that's completed by each couplet with the slamming home of that second rhyme, not merely a sense of the poet saying, Whew! I got that out of the way; now I've got another difficult rhyme to complete. Done well, the rhyme feels effortless and incidental to the closing of a smoothly machined thought/and feeling. If there's a sense of difficulty to it, the meter and the rhyme are wrong. In the next couplet, "dance real high" and phrases like it has gotten poets punched out in poetry bar fights. I remember one particularly difficult evening in Iowa City back of '47 when Emily Dickinson sucker punched May Sarton... But enough of that. And what the hell are you thinking about, even making a bad joke, throwing in a line about a cloud with a silver lining. A sense of humor will only get you so far in this life, by gum, and then you have to turn the silver lined cloud red and speak of yourself as a dreamer and make a cute self referential comment about "this dreamer's rhyme." Gag me with a Valley Girl! Come ON Chopsticks. Being a poet is not supposed to substitute for doing some thinking about yourself. Calling yourself a dreamer is not enough. You're writing a poem, and trying pretty damn hard to make it a good one, near as I can tell. Calling yourself a dreamer is like calling a fine Cabarnet "old spoiled fruit juice." Use your creativity. If you didn't have the formal strictures of the couplet to push against, I suspect the outcomes would be different. I hate the darn things myself. When I was still in college, I did one of the Ezra Pound things and tried to write a sonnet a day for a year. First of all, I didn't succeed, second when I did, they were horrible, and third, when I was done I was smart enough to burn the whole bunch of them, along with the first two drafts of the world's worst novel. I learned the wastebasket is my friend. It's a tough lesson I have to keep relearning. I learned later that any work you do on one poem is never wasted. It'll always come back to help you later on, even if you destroyed the poem you learned it on. I learned that from Dick Hugo, who is worth reading, and who's book of essays on writing poetry was first printed one essay at a time in The APR, and then published as The Triggering Town by Norton. It's still in print 25 years after his death and still worth owning. I hope I've been more than a pain in the labanza, Chopsticks; I like your style. Affectionately, BobK. |
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chopsticks Senior Member
since 2007-10-02
Posts 888The US, |
Dear Bob, thank you for your thoughts and I do hope you get better soon. I am withering in pain , my labanza will never be the same. When you get your discharge, go back to that bar In Iowa City and kick butt. Love Chops, |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Dear Chopsticks, Yeow, Buddy! You put me in the hospital while I wasn't looking, then told me to Go to Iowa and loose a barfight to a couple of corpses. Told you I liked your style! Now, after having cleared your throat, was there anything useful about what I was saying, do you want me to back off my comments in the future or what? It was constructive criticism and it did take me time and effort to put together. Classic example of negative criticism offered by Marvin Bell. Hope I get this right. A student had been trying to get Nelson Algren to read and critique his novel all semester. For one reason or another, Algren could never find the time until cornered one day in his office and handed the physical manuscript in person by the novelist. Algren promised to meet the student in the Student Union. Was it later in the day? Was it the next day? The student shows up and Algren is sitting there with the manuscript in front of him. Hopefully the student sits down and Algren offers his verdict. He says, "If I wrote like this, I'd cut my throat." That, Chopsticks, is not constructive. Any issues you've got can be worked with And I wouldn't cut my throat. I identify with lots of the things you're doing, to my eye both write and not so write. Affectionately, BobK |
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chopsticks Senior Member
since 2007-10-02
Posts 888The US, |
Dear Bob, to thy own self be true. “ You put me in the hospital while I wasn't looking, “ I thought it was a voluntary commitment, with writer’s cramp. “Do you want me to back off my comments?” No, that is your style.. Lincoln wrote one of his generals a very long letter and after he signed the letter he said, when I get more time I’ll write you a short letter. Bob, take it on the slow bell, |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Dear Chopsticks, Shorter. I don't know if I've said anything useful to you. If yes, I'm happy to put my two cents in occasionally. If not, my imput is silly. It makes me feel foolish to put in unwanted effort. Worse, it might slow you down. At this point, I don't see that I've helped. If I can, let me know and I'll be happy to. Best, BobK. |
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