01-02-2016, 08:11 AM
Thank you very much, both @Apache and @Casey Renee, for your welcome critiques. My first edit of the poem, based on your suggestions, is below and in the updated initial post of this thread.
I haven't followed all @Apache's thoughts, though the second-to-last line is almost exactly as suggested. Although blank verse isn't constrained by rhyme, meter and a set number of feet per line are temptations to use filler. For example, the original version of the last line of the second to last stanza was simply throwing the bad-emotion kitchen sink at it without much thought; both critics caught that, and I've tried in this edit to make it do some useful work.
@Casey specifically, glad reading the poem has deepened your appreciation of the less bright side of life - resignation, in particular.
@Apache - I first saw the Churchill quote in one of Paul Johnson's history works (probably history of England). There are several variants, which is odd because it was apparently spoken in the House of Commons - all you should have to do is consult the minutes. (One variant is, "We shape our buildings, and thereafter our buildings shape us." I like the alexandrine better.) A somewhat similar quote - which could also form the basis of a poem, good idea you have there for a series - is Orwell's "The white man wears a mask, and his face grows to fit it."
P.S. I have etchings (also woodcuts and lithographs), and would hate not to have walls on which to show them.
Edit1
We shape our buildings, and thereafter they shape us. - Winston Churchill, 1944
A home is not a trap, a house may be:
The home may form, break - all depends upon
Each person who arrives, abides, departs,
Who loves or hates, who dies or procreates.
Each one shapes home-life - but the house endures.
The single man who buys a house invests,
Pays tax directly, not through fee or rent.
Depreciation’s his to bear, repair;
Appreciation swells his sole net worth.
But if he never marries, fails to form
A family, his house fills with the dust
Of years, possessions, everything but trust
In others. He’s shaped by its walls, constrained,
Made part of town and neighborhood, which change.
His house is comfortable, so is he;
But as he, childless, tries to break their chains,
Each book, each chair and etching forms a link
That binds him, owned by all the things he’s bought.
As sad or sadder is the fate of those
Whose family disintegrates but leaves
Their house of many years, once home, a prize
To be fought over. All its joy escapes
Like baby’s breath; too soon there’s nothing left
But walls and cellars, plumbing, attic, floors,
A shell trapped relatives contend to own.
We shape our houses, Churchill said, but then
They mold us. If the cast is too exact,
Too hard, we cannot leave until we melt -
For we’re no longer shaped to pass their doors.
I haven't followed all @Apache's thoughts, though the second-to-last line is almost exactly as suggested. Although blank verse isn't constrained by rhyme, meter and a set number of feet per line are temptations to use filler. For example, the original version of the last line of the second to last stanza was simply throwing the bad-emotion kitchen sink at it without much thought; both critics caught that, and I've tried in this edit to make it do some useful work.
@Casey specifically, glad reading the poem has deepened your appreciation of the less bright side of life - resignation, in particular.
@Apache - I first saw the Churchill quote in one of Paul Johnson's history works (probably history of England). There are several variants, which is odd because it was apparently spoken in the House of Commons - all you should have to do is consult the minutes. (One variant is, "We shape our buildings, and thereafter our buildings shape us." I like the alexandrine better.) A somewhat similar quote - which could also form the basis of a poem, good idea you have there for a series - is Orwell's "The white man wears a mask, and his face grows to fit it."
P.S. I have etchings (also woodcuts and lithographs), and would hate not to have walls on which to show them.
Edit1
We shape our buildings, and thereafter they shape us. - Winston Churchill, 1944
A home is not a trap, a house may be:
The home may form, break - all depends upon
Each person who arrives, abides, departs,
Who loves or hates, who dies or procreates.
Each one shapes home-life - but the house endures.
The single man who buys a house invests,
Pays tax directly, not through fee or rent.
Depreciation’s his to bear, repair;
Appreciation swells his sole net worth.
But if he never marries, fails to form
A family, his house fills with the dust
Of years, possessions, everything but trust
In others. He’s shaped by its walls, constrained,
Made part of town and neighborhood, which change.
His house is comfortable, so is he;
But as he, childless, tries to break their chains,
Each book, each chair and etching forms a link
That binds him, owned by all the things he’s bought.
As sad or sadder is the fate of those
Whose family disintegrates but leaves
Their house of many years, once home, a prize
To be fought over. All its joy escapes
Like baby’s breath; too soon there’s nothing left
But walls and cellars, plumbing, attic, floors,
A shell trapped relatives contend to own.
We shape our houses, Churchill said, but then
They mold us. If the cast is too exact,
Too hard, we cannot leave until we melt -
For we’re no longer shaped to pass their doors.
Non-practicing atheist