02-18-2017, 06:57 AM
amaril, you've made some very interesting points. It seems that the whole world agrees with you that my ending is terrible, which begs the question of why do I still like it? It's not as if I don't have any poetic sense. I've already changed "Oh, I am also a fly!" to something more understated, but there's still a lot that I like about the ending.
The two suggestions of yours that I can accept without reservation is removing "The" from before "winter" and changing "you buzz" to "your whine". As for business words in general (articles, prepositions, conjunctions), they make poetry sound more like natural speech, in my opinion.
Your comment about the rhythm is intresting. My free verse already has more rhythm in it than most free verse being published today, most of which sounds like prose. What I take from your comment is that, if I am going to be rhythmic, I should go all in and make it really smooth. I thought I had done that, but I guess not. Even my metered poetry sounds a little choppy.
Your comment that I should re-order the stanzas was interesting. I've decided that I'm going to try that (as an experiment) and post it here. I'll do that sometime in the next few days.
I've already made a decision that when I publish my first book or chapbook, I am going to publish the pre-shopworked and post-shopworked versions of many of my poems so that my original version is not lost -- just in case my original version had validity.
Thanks again.
The two suggestions of yours that I can accept without reservation is removing "The" from before "winter" and changing "you buzz" to "your whine". As for business words in general (articles, prepositions, conjunctions), they make poetry sound more like natural speech, in my opinion.
Your comment about the rhythm is intresting. My free verse already has more rhythm in it than most free verse being published today, most of which sounds like prose. What I take from your comment is that, if I am going to be rhythmic, I should go all in and make it really smooth. I thought I had done that, but I guess not. Even my metered poetry sounds a little choppy.
Your comment that I should re-order the stanzas was interesting. I've decided that I'm going to try that (as an experiment) and post it here. I'll do that sometime in the next few days.
I've already made a decision that when I publish my first book or chapbook, I am going to publish the pre-shopworked and post-shopworked versions of many of my poems so that my original version is not lost -- just in case my original version had validity.
Thanks again.