17
votes
Winter poem
A little pretext. I wrote this poem in november 2017, and I slightly improved it today. I enjoy creating stories and poems are a way that I did not try much before. I don't know much about it, except the few things I learned in school and i can't remember most of it. Also english is my second language and there might be some words that don't fit in.
The changes in lines and rythm are intended to match the story.
If this does not meet the high-quality content and discussion and therefore doesn't fit in with ~, let me know and I will remove it.
To stop my rambling: Feel free to leave criticism. I plan to make poetry my hobby so any tips, comments, feedback and thoughts are appreciated.
Somewhere,
deep in the wild
Layed there,
Cold a little child.
It wasn't very long ago,
The rotten did not show,
All consuming deafening silence,
Pierced only by crows crying violent.
What happened here?
She ran from fear.
To escape the grasp,
Of the ones she hold dear.
One soul has passed before her,
Taking with his life,
The only thing she ever strived
Her mother, father and her brother
Two of these caused the disaster.
It began with a fight,
In a cold winter night,
Snow falling lightly,
And the ice growing wildly.
Suddenly the moment
when all seemed to fly
Death was potent
Coming in the blink of an eye.
Crushed by the car's roof,
Not needing any more proof.
The little boy left,
She cried over his death
Sad things passed
and bad will follow.
To escape the sorrow
Two chose their paths
Alcohol in mornings and nights,
Followed by overbearing fights,
Inbetween this shit
Was one little kid
Treated like air,
It was just not fair
Her family's break,
Was the last thing she could take
She ran into the woods,
Only on foot.
Soon she lost her trail
And soon after she wailed.
In her last thoughts
she met her god.
Looked him deep in the eye
And pierced him with a knive
Somewhere,
deep in the wild
Layed there,
Cold a little child.
Edit: Formatting mistakes
I like it! I have a couple grammatical notes for you if you’re interested (but hey, it’s poetry so do with them as you please)...
I think “layed there” should either be “laid there” or “lay there” depending on what you wish to say about the child’s agency in the situation.
You might consider using “crows crying violence” if that suits your meaning (it would also rhyme better with the preceding line). Or alternately “crows crying violently.”
“Of the ones she hold dear” should probably be “of the ones she held dear” since this verse is written in the past tense.
I believe “knive” is a misspelling of the singular “knife.”
Keep it up! It’s a compelling read.
Thank you for the help.
Edit: I really like the "Crows crying violence" that's much better than my version
This is a ~creative piece into which you put a lot of thought; it is definitely appropriate to post it here. :)
I also have to give you kudos - most people find it hard enough to do poetry in their first language, let alone a second one! That being said, what sort of critique would you like? There are a few grammar issues that distract from the meaning, and one or two places where the imagery is hard to make out. Any requests?
Thank you.
To be honest I would be happy about everything you have to add.
If you know something about poetry, maybe you could let me know if I did any poetry faux pas, or some tips for future poems.
Which grammar issues distract from the meaning?
@balooga already corrected some grammatical mistakes, so some might already be solved (should I post the updated version in the father post, as an edit, as a comment or not at all?)
Please post updates as a comment! It's really nice to see the evolution. :)
I posted the update in the comments
Nice work and great idea posting here. While I click probably 50% of the posts on tildes, and truly do enjoy most of what I see, so far I feel like this personal, almost private touch is missing. That's likely due to the nature of tildes growing and still learning. But I'm very happy to see a post like this in addition to everything else. For tips on writing poetry, I've found that simply reading new poetry is a fantastic tool for learning and developing. I've gotten lots of inspiration from reading John Berryman and ee cummings among others. The more styles I've dove into, the more I experiment with breaking rules and finding new rules that I write well under. Good luck. And thanks for sharing!
Reading poetry ...
I can't believe that I never thought about it.
Do you know about a good website, which features good poems, classics as well as new ones?
Thanks for the advice, I'll be sure to check Berryman and Cummings out.
I've always enjoyed physical books of poetry myself. And you can pick up used copies very cheaply. Search for used books online, for example "Better Wolrd Books" is a decent online book shop, and then search for "poetry anthology" and go with one that speaks to you. There's journals that publish annual poetry anthologies as well as university presses that put out anthologies of classics. For ee cummings I like his book "Is 5" the premise of which is that what we know can be tampered with and changed. The question of "2 and 2 is 4" he plays off of with the title "Is 5". And John Berryman, I like "77 Dream Songs" which can be complicated at first but I've come to value his style of very personal and often dark confessional.
"Is 5" is not to my taste, it is extremely confusing.
"77 Dream Songs" on the other side seems more enjoyable to me.
That's great! There's so many styles and forms in poetry. There's something for every taste.
Also, it just occurred to me that the two poets I mentioned both seem interested in pushing the boundaries of the English language in their own way. Often slang words are interspersed with proper English, punctuation is missing or deliberately misplaced, the "voice" changes multiple times in the same poem, or the rhyming meter is interrupted to accomplish a sentiment or add to the meaning.
I only have a small base of knowledge about their works, but this really jumped in my eye.
Cummings jumps around from perspective to another perspective and as soon as you think you understood the rythm and the storyline it changes again. Like an endless game of cat and mice.
I'm probably to conventional to be able to enjoy it.
Updated version:
I think that this tells a good story, and I especially like how it circles back to the opening stanza. Repetition is always a powerful tool.
One thing that I think might improve the overall flow of the poem is if you either had a more consistent rhyming scheme, or got rid of the rhymes almost entirely. As it is, there's not really any structure to the rhyme scheme at all and it's a bit jarring to go from ABAB to AABB to AABA to ABCAA.
It's wonderful that you've posted a poem here! In a second language, no less! Thank you for sharing, this definitely qualifies as high effort.
Thank you for your feedback.
You're right, I should definetly take a look at rhyme constructions in the future.
This poem was created in a flow, before going to sleep without any thoughts into consistency. I just did what felt "right" at that moment, without looking at the bigger picture.