A Pitcher of Promises

[MorpheusSandman]

(I don't really like this one; it's the remnants of a more elaborate and less cliche metaphor that was going on in my head last night when I couldn't sleep, but I thought I'd post it and get another opinion.)

In the January of our birth
We’re given an empty pitcher first
Full of summer’s promise
The seeds of dreaming youth
The soil of life in wait to bloom

For some the years bring rain
And nature’s nursing sun
Those seeds grow into massive trees

For some the years bring weight
The clouds of memory’s fate
Those seeds are drowned and pushed right out

And our pitcher is empty again

[Bar22do]

(I don't really like this one; it's the remnants of a more elaborate and less cliche metaphor that was going on in my head last night when I couldn't sleep, but I thought I'd post it and get another opinion.)

In the January of our birth
We’re given an empty pitcher first
Full of summer’s promise
The seeds of dreaming youth
The soil of life in wait to bloom

For some the years bring rain
And nature’s nursing sun
Those seeds grow into massive trees

For some the years bring weight
The clouds of memory’s fate
Those seeds are drowned and pushed right out

And our pitcher is empty again

The pitcher, actually, is full from the beginning, in a way... there is power to your metaphor, but I would work on it so that we can feel better how the potential blossoms or or is drowned, depending on our life fate... thanks for your sharing!

[Buh4Bee]

(I don't really like this one; it's the remnants of a more elaborate and less cliche metaphor that was going on in my head last night when I couldn't sleep, but I thought I'd post it and get another opinion.)

In the January of our birth
We’re given an empty pitcher first
Full of summer’s promise
The seeds of dreaming youth
The soil of life in wait to bloom

For some the years bring rain
And nature’s nursing sun
Those seeds grow into massive trees

For some the years bring weight
The clouds of memory’s fate
Those seeds are drowned and pushed right out

And our pitcher is empty again

Morpheus, this poem reminds me of the last poem I posted. I just didn't know what to do with it, but needed to post it anyway.

I agree this poem is not finished. It has a simpleness to it that almost makes it quaint.

The ideas of the second and third stanza are contrasted leading the reader down the negative path of those that do not survive. In essence, the message let's us think that luck plays a part in thriving, while for others nature is cruel. "Pushed right out" conveys this idea, but I'd prefer a better, more elegant way to express this thought. At the end, the pitcher is empty, but is it empty again? If so, you are implying the cyclical relationship of life, that next season will bring forth more life. Is this what you mean or are you saying things are dead for good and the pitcher is empty for good? I'm wondering about the word "again" in the last line. The poem seems to end on a negative notion, so I wasn't feeling the hope of another coming, rebirth, especially in January.

Oh, I just reread Bar's and I think he makes the same point. My mistake.

[PrinceMyshkin]

Apropos your "hatred" for this poem (a hatred, in my opinion, it absolutely does not deserve), I'm reminded of a conversation I had once with a Russian film-maker. The name of a current avant-garde film-maker came up, and he exclaimed:

"I khate X! But I must khave enemies to live!"

Likewise, I think poets need to have enemies, even within their own camp, to spur them to create new poems to get the bad taste out of their mouths of the ones that didn't quite work out...

However, I believe that this one did, and that the very abrupt ending, which caught me so much off-guard, has its part to play.

[MorpheusSandman]

Wow! Thanks to all the above for your rather extensive critiques, comments, and interpretations which I really didn't think this little piece deserved, but whoever said the poet was the best judge of his own pieces?


"Pushed right out" conveys this idea, but I'd prefer a better, more elegant way to express this thought.I wholly agree here and it's one of the lines I lost during the night's sleep. I really dislike how I expressed that but after sitting and thinking for 10 minutes I just couldn't think of anything else. I'll definitely try to work on it and find something better to replace it with.


At the end, the pitcher is empty, but is it empty again?
The pitcher, actually, is full from the beginning, in a way...I don't like to provide my own interpretations, but the way I thought of it as the difference between the literal and the metaphoric: Promises can only "fill" the pitcher abstractly, and yet it's still literally "empty", so when it's "empty again" the promises return to take the place of everything that life filled it with.

It was really THAT idea that made me want to write the piece even after forgetting the more eloquent way I had composed it during that sleepless night. I really liked the idea because it reminded me of the way that East Asian art has a way of expressing death and loss through sadness while they still manage to celebrate the transience of life; it's really a ying-yang thing, and that's what I thought the idea of a pitcher being both full and empty captured.


I'm reminded of a conversation I had once with a Russian film-maker.A very apropos comment yourself, Prince. I think I was vividly reminded of a comment that Michael Cunningham made during his audio commentary for The Hours in that, for the artist, the finished product of our work never turns out quite as amazing as it existed in our head. It can be especially be frustrating when you know what you had was much better and you just lost it in the haze of sleep. :sick:

[hack]

I rather like it, although it may be that you could rework the third verse, and even add a fourth to bring it together more completely. As I have said before, I am a sucker for a tree, and the massive tree from tiny seeds idea is one that, almost always, strikes a chord with me. I am probably not one to offer concise criticism, that is of any assistance, as I am often hard pressed to say why I like what I like, except to say that it evokes something visceral in me.

[PrinceMyshkin]

Wow! Thanks to all the above for your rather extensive critiques, comments, and interpretations which I really didn't think this little piece deserved, but whoever said the poet was the best judge of his own pieces?

I wholly agree here and it's one of the lines I lost during the night's sleep. I really dislike how I expressed that but after sitting and thinking for 10 minutes I just couldn't think of anything else. I'll definitely try to work on it and find something better to replace it with.

I don't like to provide my own interpretations, but the way I thought of it as the difference between the literal and the metaphoric: Promises can only "fill" the pitcher abstractly, and yet it's still literally "empty", so when it's "empty again" the promises return to take the place of everything that life filled it with.

It was really THAT idea that made me want to write the piece even after forgetting the more eloquent way I had composed it during that sleepless night. I really liked the idea because it reminded me of the way that East Asian art has a way of expressing death and loss through sadness while they still manage to celebrate the transience of life; it's really a ying-yang thing, and that's what I thought the idea of a pitcher being both full and empty captured.

A very apropos comment yourself, Prince. I think I was vividly reminded of a comment that Michael Cunningham made during his audio commentary for The Hours in that, for the artist, the finished product of our work never turns out quite as amazing as it existed in our head. It can be especially be frustrating when you know what you had was much better and you just lost it in the haze of sleep. :sick:

Further to the immediately preceding, Graham Greene once wrote that "a writer is someone who always fails."

But you've enriched my appreciation of the poem, and of you as an artist, by this seminar between yourself and a number of others. Thank you.

[Delta40]

I really appreciate how you underline two types only in this world. Its beautiful in the sense that it doesn't dally with the grey of our existence.

[Buh4Bee]

Fantastic! I like this idea very much. Thank you fpr your explanation.