Cotton Wolf

[natroyce]

I pass you my kite string to hold
I enjoy watching your smile unfold

Never suspected you so shy
Your courage rises as you try

Dreams you weave I want to discover
It is truth of possibilities I have to uncover

For in this space moments build
You turn and run for it is your grand parents field

I wait under this pomegranate tree
Climbed to the branch so I can set this string free

Your desires intent true and strong
Calling those who hear pipers song

Must stop to acknowledge might of most high
How could one earthbound angel wash the deepest cry

Must be somewhere inside me to able and recognize
For in all life you appeared as the greatest prize

I could never demand you
Why would my thought surround you

As the sun gets ready to set
I am safe that it was you I met

[hillwalker]

Mhmm –

I think this poem got away from you somewhere along the line and developed a life of its own. Perhaps you had two ideas in your head at the same time – the child playing with the kite and the narrator finding someone he cherishes.
As this stands the two images or ideas don’t combine particularly well, largely because of the way you have gone about constructing the piece.

If you hang around these pages long enough you’ll discover I’m not a huge fan of rhyme in poetry, especially when it’s used by aspiring writers in order to create ‘serious poetry’. Too often they lumber themselves with it and as a result never seem able to write what they’re actually wanting to express.

The poem starts off with two children playing – or a parent and child (not sure which). We’re not told why the smile unfolds but presumably it’s because the child is having fun taking over control of the kite. So far so good.

In line 3 you change the tense temporarily but that’s not too much of a distraction. But line 4 is a little too open ended because we’re not told what is being tried. Again the reader has to make the connection between the child and the kite but it’s as if you’ve already let the kite go metaphorically and forgotten the child is still holding it. We perhaps need to share the tug the child feels as the wind pulls it higher and the thrill as she gains mastery of it, tries to take control.

Line 5 has a rather archaic construction – no one would ever speak a line like that. They’d say ‘I want to discover the dreams you weave’… which is where the rhyme has taken charge of the poem rather in the same way the child has taken charge of the kite.
And the line that follows doesn’t make a great deal of sense – ‘truth of possibilities’???
It’s also rather a huge step from flying a kite to weaving dreams.

The next couplet about the grandparents’ field I’d seriously consider dumping – it’s more like prose than poetry. The implication that the child turns and runs because she feels secure there is handled rather clumsily and again we’ve moved from weaving dreams back to playing with the kite again.

I like the image of someone who cares enough to untie the string once it gets caught in the tree – but we’re never actually told it got caught there in the first place which can lead to confusion in the reader’s mind.
And you needlessly change the tense again:
’I wait’ – ‘Climbed’ – ‘I can set’.

This time it is distracting.

Unfortunately, from this point the poem wanders off track. There seems to be too much going on – things you’ve not mentioned before and that have little if any connection to what were described earlier.

pipers song - might of most high - one earthbound angel - wash the deepest cry

I can’t begin to understand what that’s all supposed to mean. There seems to be possibly some religious theme at play – but as I say, I’m not sure.
Then the focus changes yet again to the writer telling us how lucky he feels to have found ‘her’.

Personally I believe you have created an interesting image of a parent supervising a child at play… the child allowed to fly her kite, watching as her aspirations take flight on the wind, rising higher yet still gripped in her tiny hand. And if ever the string becomes tangled in a branch the parent is there to unravel it.

As for the rest, I’d take a long, hard look to see what you were trying to say. Perhaps recycle the second half of this in a different poem.

And take some friendly advice: treat rhyme like gelignite because it has a habit of blowing up in your face.

H

[Fellsman]

Hi natroyce


I simply feel that here you flit from couplet to couplet with no sense of continuity. Having passed someone a kite string to hold, four couplets later you are climbing a tree to set the string free. I am guessing the reader has to suppose that somewhere between couplets one and five the string becomes entangled in the pesky pomegranate tree.

Regarding rhyme, build and field just doesn't work for me, and rhyming two you's together is careless, or even a little lazy. Being from the more traditional users of rhyme, I do think that where rhyme is being employed it, it should be used with rather more precision than you use it here.


Regards

Fellsman

[natroyce]

Thanks again for taking the time to help guide me

I am new at this and appreciate any advice given