Since blogs are incredibly self-serving and implicitly beg for feedback and engagement have no fourth wall... you, dear reader, have a job.
Week 1 of Creative Writing at King this September will involve teaching my students how to give and receive productive feedback in peer reviews of their creative output. Prerequisite lessons will include:
1.Technical language. "Stanza," "couplet," "diction," "cadence," etc. I look forward to being a stickler for this. Brings me back. "No, Kayonna, 'Mister' or 'Mister Thing' or 'Thingy' are not accurate ways to refer to me."
2. Feedback scripts/sentences starters. "I wanted to ask you about your decision to...", or, "You may want to consider...", or, "It stood out to me where you chose to..." Kids have to be able to phrase their feedback in ways that their peers can access it without being defensive or feeling offended.
So, to these ends, I was hoping to solicit reader-generated (read: organic and honest) feedback on a poem that I dug up from an intro to poetry course I took as an undergrad. Analyze the crap out of this bad boy: form, structure, word choice, poetic devices, setting, connections, everything. When we're done, I can create a mock marked-up poem and include various pieces of appropriate feedback language.
Readysetgo.
Passing under the abandoned bridge, I would take care with my strokes,
and conceal my eyes under the brim of my hat, for you.
I would take care that they might be delicate and deliberate
The hooked cod trailing alongside the old dugout seem to swim,
I would take care that they might be delicate and deliberate
and the ripples would be in harmony with the burdened willows at the bank.
The hooked cod trailing alongside the old dugout seem to swim,
cheating death by my humble approach and diligent strokes.
For you, I would approach, for you, I would lift my gaze at a distance,
The village behind the willows but before the sinking hills
For you, I would approach, for you, I would lift my gaze at a distance,
just peeking out from under my straw hat, like a child at church.
There would be the Old Post bridge, eclipsing the already half-orb sun,
There would be the Old Post bridge, eclipsing the already half-orb sun,
where I would squint to discern the shimmering silhouettes.
The village behind the willows but before the sinking hills
has not changed, ten-thousand lures and flies later, and I know
that the old men hang over the iron rails of the bridge in the same way
as when I, just a boy, would lean courageously over the rail, with you.
It took me two read-throughs and a dictionary to figure out that there was a boat involved in this poem. I had to look up the word 'dugout' to make sure it was a vehicle of some sort, which isn't necessarily bad for my vocabulary, but it is bad for your poem because I had to put it down to figure out where it was taking place. Changing the first word to 'floating,' 'rowing,' etc., would help your case. 'Strokes,' I don't think, evokes boats strongly enough for clueless readers such as myself.
ReplyDeleteMinor grammar point: The comma after the word 'approach' in the third stanza should probably be a semicolon.
That said, the atmosphere of this poem is really lovely and poignant. It made me feel happy and sad in that summer afternoon kind of way.
I don't know if you did this on purpose, but there are a surprising number of "l" sounds, especially in the last stanza, that really seem to express the speaker's feelings towards his subject. Very nice.
I agree with Hillary that some of the diction seems off or perhaps misleading. I’m no fisherman so maybe “strokes” is what they are called, but it conjures up images of golf (strokes also makes me think old people, which just reinforces the golf image). You have “dugout” later, which is more commonly a baseball word, so how could the language be synced up so that the connotation is strictly, or at least primarily, to fishing?
ReplyDeleteWondering about the choice to employ 2-line stanzas. I think it fits the meditative quality of the poem, but the last stanza seems to sag under its own weight. I would advise against using long sentences in poetry unless there are obvious pauses for breath. Reading the last stanza aloud (as I did), with the multiple commas, is a chore.
There are some wonderful uses of sound and internal rhyme in the poem, line 10 being the standout as the best line of the poem. There is an excellent but subtle emphasis on the s sounds.
I’m all for religious similes, but how is someone with a straw hat “like a child in church”? Or is it the gaze that is similar? How?
The use of “would” (grammar people, what is that called?) shows that the speaker is older now, but reflecting on a past tradition or ritual, but is it necessary? Seems like you could trim the fat and just make it past tense.
My last comment is about the title. Epitaph generally is considered to be what’s on a headstone, but there are no graves or headstones in your poem. An epitaph is also a short poem dedicated to someone who has passed away, but the poem makes no specific mention of anyone who has died. Apostrophe can be a good strategy in poetry, and the speaker (I’ll play along and assume it’s not you) clearly addresses someone. The repetition of “for you” shows that the speaker is pondering the loss of someone, but it’s not clear who that person is. A father, grandfather? The cod? The sun?!
*Ross, this is what happens when I have comments due tomorrow morning for report cards. Thanks, buddy.
"Would" is the conditional tense, and John is right, it's distracting, because it's difficult to determine whether the speaker is promising to do these things in the future or at present, or if he is using the vernacular and describing what he used to do. If it's the latter, it doesn't work with the rest of the language of the poem; the former is too vague.
ReplyDeleteChange it to future ("will") or be more precise with time.
On the other hand, I noticed it the first time around and didn't say anything. Time might not apply to this poem, as the subject has passed but the speaker is remembering, and blurring that line between then and now is part of what gives the poem its sadness. So I changed my mind. Keep the conditional, and keep it vague.
Disagree that the subject's relationship to the speaker needs to be known, because what is known is the activity they used to do together and the sense of loss, both of which are universal in their specifics.
And I know what a dugout is! But I wonder if dugouts are seen on modern rivers and streams.
ReplyDeleteIn any case, please keep 'strokes'.... stroking the water with a canoe paddle is the most serene way a human can traverse through space or time.