Appearances

[Lykren]

In the window an enormous hue.
Like the arc of a candle
impressing its shape into the dark,
like the dry, eternal hope

that dissolves crosswise into itself,
winter bows.
Turns a step in the night.

Not blue-black, nor flush
with hidden verdancy, that night
streams by my window,
threatening to break through. I never,

until now, searched for leaks.
This is the only house that holds me
as I am, and to doubt it
would break faith. Nevertheless I look

and find just dust, an interior,
a little music. That plays sweetly, then bitterly
across the room. It reaches
the motive of sound, and its clear
slowness drinks at night’s calm well.

[Mohammad Ahmad]

I felt passionate indeed, I like this style because it is nearer to my soul, the poet soul would convey a real message!

[NikolaiI]

Simply wonderful!

Mohammad puts it well - there is so much metaphysical beauty in this poem.

There's a melody to it, and nothing is out of place.

Very well done indeed - Many thanks for sharing!

[Lykren]

Thank you Mohammed and NikolaiI :)

[Delta40]

Can I ask about form. The reason is I have no education in poetry and reading this out loud as opposed to how it is presented, I would have presumed there is a link to the kind of delivery the poet had in mind should it be read at a poetry night for example. I'm no poetry reader either but I do feel there are dramatic pauses here which are embedded rather than stand alone or do you think the reader should be able to apply their appreciation and give a delivery which does the poem its full justice?

[Lykren]

I don't like poetry, mine or anyone's, read aloud. Not sure why, but it kind of prevents me from being able to answer your question. If I had to try, I'd say that some people would know where to pause, and that yes, there are specific places where pauses should go.

[Hawkman]

Hi Lykren. I have issues with this poem and the first is the opening line. What exactly is "an enormous hue" supposed to be? Enormous is not a very good descriptor for a hue. It's like saying "big colour." Simile and metaphor really need to be rooted to work, and I'm afraid this really doesn't for me. Also, as a stand alone statement it doesn't work because, even though you have terminated it with a full stop, by starting the next line with "like", the reader thinks that what follows is a description of the enormous hue being like "the arc of a candle / impressing itself into the dark..." Is the candle bent? Surely you should be referring to the candle's flame or the light which it emits. It's not a good image. With that "enormous" still floating in the back of the mind, the idea of a candle or even its flame, fitting the bill isn't appropriate.

Even though you go on to marry the idea with "dry eternal hope" dissolv[ing] crosswise into itself" in the way that "winter bows" it just doesn't work. The overall effect is of parody rather than meaningful poetry. What the first two stanzas convey is overblown angst and a liberal dose of pretentiousness.

The good news is, that from the beginning of S3, the poem stops trying to impress the reader with the vagaries of the poet's "artistry" and concentrates on just being a poem, with the result that it reads rather well and makes a hell of a lot more sense. It is also where the poem actually starts to be about something rather than a random collection of images intended to convey "mood" and "emotion" but whose very randomness defeat the objective. There are still minor issues, though. In L1, "flush" is not appropriate. I feel, flushed would be better. I know the word is used colloquially in this sense, but not by the erudite or educated. The specificity of "that" modifying the generality of "night" in L2 is a flaw. What night, exactly, are you talking about, and why is it different to any other night? There are no antecedents within the text to make the night specific. You should lose "that". Another "that" which has been misapplied is the one that begins the new sentence in S5 L4. You don't need a full stop in the middle of this line as it reads as a continuous sentence. In order to emphasise the caesura of the full stop, it is really necessary to begin this second half with "It". I'd also question the necessity of creating a second caesura with "It reaches..." A conjunction (and) would be better here, attaching it to the preceding sentence.

The last three verses, apart from the minor elements which I have flagged, form a discrete, coherent and relatable poem which reads rather well. I would recommend, that as part of your composition process, you include a rigorous and critical reading of what you have written, and really think about the meanings of the words you use. In so doing you will be able to appreciate what really works and discard and/or edit what doesn't.

Live and be well - H

[Lykren]

I think your criticism of the first stanza is accurate. I get sloppy like that pretty often.

One point of yours I'd like to contest is my use of the word 'flush', which I meant in the sense of 'filled'... Hold on, I just looked it up. Apparently the dictionary agrees with you that my adjectival use of it is indeed informal. I still think I want to keep it, since a) I've honestly never heard it in a particularly informal context, so that association with formality still exists for me, and b) I like the slight suggestion of another meaning of flush, 'a reddening of the face or skin that is typically caused by illness or strong emotion' (source: Google). Except of course in this case it would be a greening (word?) not a reddening.

Anyway, thanks for the consistently firm advice! I don't whether it actually encourages me to shape up and, as you aptly say, "really think about the meanings of the words you use," but nevertheless it is correct and necessary.

[YesNo]

I liked the idea of drinking at night's calm well.

[blank|verse]

Appearances, of course, can be deceptive. So perhaps it’s only fitting that a poem on the subject is itself elusive. Even the word ‘appearance’ is deceptive as it can mean an impression, or a sudden physical presence. Arguably, the poem is broken down into two sections along these lines: the first two stanzas deal with an ‘appearance-impression’; the last three an ‘appearance-presence’.

And we have an impression in the verbless first line, which is a nice touch, as verbs usually give actions (although ‘appear’ can be a stative verb which just gives a state of being, of course). The phrase ‘in the window’ made me think we were outside looking in, but it soon seems we are inside looking out at an ‘enormous hue’, like a sunset.

Then we have the synecdoche of ‘the arc of a candle’ – where a part represents the whole – so the reader is invited to picture the curve of the light of the candle.

The next simile perhaps gets a little too abstract for its own good, as much as I enjoy the consonance of ‘dissolves crosswise’; you could think about whether you need lines 4-5 in the poem. That would leave the reader wondering why a candle ‘bows’, if the comparison is to work. Of course, the light would dim slowly, eventually, so perhaps it works as it stands. Otherwise, a ‘dying candle’, or similar, might strengthen the image.

But either way, I’m not too keen on winter ‘bowing’ – although here we have another deceptive homonym. Because of the next line, I take it to mean bending the head or body in deference, but why would winter do this? It seems at odds with the other imagery which is more ominous and threatening, which becomes a feature of the rest of the poem.

Next, we have a shift of subject, from winter to night, with the reference to ‘that night’ in line 9 finding its antecedent in ‘the night’ in line 7.

Again we have a cataphoric reference – referring to something before the reader is told exactly what is being referred to – as we did with the reference to ‘winter’. It’s asking a bit of the reader, and of you as a poet, which is perhaps why you have to resort to the demonstrative pronoun ‘that’ in ‘that night’ to make this shift clear, which proves a bit of a distraction and doesn’t read very smoothly. (And as you said you don’t read your poems aloud, I would strongly urge you to start; poetry is an oral art, and poems are performances for the human voice, so it is essential you consider this aspect of the art form.)

I don’t have a problem with ‘flush’. I think that argument about diction, and poetry’s audience, was won more than 200 years ago by Wordsworth.

The rest of the poem speaks of a narrator under threat (from a personified ‘night’); a threat he takes seriously enough to question the security of his literal or metaphorical house. He is either religious or superstitious enough not to want to doubt this structure, but in so doing finds something – music, and by extension, art – that seems to provide some comfort or justification for the narrator’s being there, as the threat of night has changed at the end of the poem to a ‘calm well’.

What is ‘the motive of sound’? (It’s an intriguing concept, and puts me in mind of Wallace Stevens’s ‘Peter Quince at the Clavier’: ‘Music is feeling, then, not sound’.) Is it the narrator, winter, the night, or something else? The music itself becomes personified but finds that night is not the threatening presence it was, but is a ‘calm well’.

Personally, I find the final metaphor too much and so makes for a weak ending. It feels like it’s straining too hard but collapses on itself as a result. And the fact the night suddenly becomes ‘calm’ after being a threat seems unconvincing as I don’t see why the sudden change has happened.

The imagery of this section reminds me of Phantom (I) by Don Paterson from Rain (Faber, 2009). The mention of ‘a little music’ – a little night music, perhaps? – and more specifically, the change it undergoes, recalls Twelfth Night (‘If music be the food of love, play on, […] Enough no more; | ‘Tis not so sweet now as it was before’).

I would suggest a comma after ‘music’ in that line as well. As it stands, the ‘That’ that starts the next sentence takes greater stress as a result: ‘That plays sweetly’. The full stop after ‘room’ is fine. But I’m also not keen on this break:

[...] I never,

until now, searched for leaks.

Dropping ‘I never’ onto the first line of the fourth stanza seems fine to me. (And / or switching the syntax to: ‘Until now, I never searched for leaks’.) The breath that the stanza break represents seems more human. Here’s the event – that night is threatening to break through. Pause. And here’s the afterthought – that I’ve never before searched for leaks. While we’re talking linebreaks, I’m not too keen on this one either:

winter bows.
Turns a step in the night.

The second line should be broken, I feel. Although if I’m honest, I’m not sure what this means exactly; some kind of dance step? Or just that it becomes a bit more like winter over night?

Anyhow, enough. It’s great your work is strong enough to generate such a discussion, and your magnanimous response to some overly-subjective remarks is commendable. I look forward to reading your next poem. b|v

[Lykren]

Thank you blank|verse!

The overall feeling I'm getting from yours and Hawkman's comments is that there are concepts in this one worth using, but that the execution, in particular the use of metaphoric imagery, is weak. I've rushed my last few poems, including this one, and I don't have a problem admitting that that shows :)

By the way, I changed the word 'calm' in the last line to 'oblivious' since, as you pointed out, 'calm' seems to give it a saccharine flavor. I'm still not really pleased with it though. Why is a well oblivious? I don't know. Maybe that word is more of a placeholder for now.

Also, I suppose I can enjoy poetry read aloud occasionally, if its done right, which I think it usually isn't. Though, I also tend to hear the words pretty clearly in my head when I read (in fact I sense sound more than I sense images).

Anyways, thank you again! I'm currently deciding what to post next, an edited poem from my recent crop, or whether I should wait a while (I get tired after writing poems several days in a row, oddly) and see if anything better comes along.

[blank|verse]

Thanks, Lykren.

That's honest of you to admit your recent writing habits, but it's good you reflect on them. Perhaps you just need to be tougher on yourself; if you're not happy with an image, or don't think it's strong enough, don't include it in the poem.

Personally, I think I'd reconsider the image of the 'well' rather than tinker with the adjective. It's a bit of a cliché and I'm sure you're capable of something more imaginative. They're also a bit anachronistic these days - how many wells do you actually see in your everyday life? :)

Also, you described the night earlier in the poem, saying that it: 'streams by my window, | threatening to break through'. So if you're also saying it's a 'well', not known for their fluidity of movement, that's somewhat contradictory.

But yes, do keep writing, when the muse strikes; your imagination and means of expression are wonderful to read.

[NikolaiI]

No, I am not going to have a conflict of any kind with you, blank|verse.