jackpoemed

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Beautiful, dreamer.

My dear Jack,

What a pleasure to read this was. But that's nothing new with your work.

Here, I'll critique you. Don't take me too seriously: I've been drinking for six hours straight.

I want this poem to play by my rules. I'm spoilt and demanding. So I want the first six lines to become one solid stanza. I also want to read the stanza beginning "It could be pink orchids in bloom" again and again, 'cause it conveys a voice so smooth, a description given so gently and softly, that it turns me on.

I want to understand what getting "gripped in your slippers" entails, but I can't, and that's probably because I'm Greek and there's no fixing that now, 39 years ago someone abroad should have adopted me.

I want to be confident enough one day to use "coffee" as a verb, even gutsy enough to apostrophize it and add a "d" at the end. Right now I want to understand it and I can't. It makes my brain chug like an overworked compound harvester.

Still, I re-read, and the blue velvet night-time imagery gets me going again. I want to read again. I want someone to read this to me. I want a petite blonde to read this to me while I bury my face so deep in her cleavage I'm almost unable to breathe. I want. Want. More.

Good health,
DH

This poem is so...fragrant.
Now I want to go out and dip my toes in the wet grass outside, without any slippers on.

Delicious, with sweet sprigs of awe. I'm not sure what creamer is though, and I've had it. Wouldn't cream be better? But then there's no wonderful dreamer...

Someone can steal all I have, but please dont steal my view of the beautiful moon.

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Beautiful and enigmatic as a girl
Love it.
Now I'm thinking of a poem: A Boy is a boy

A Girl is a Girl is great! An impressively utilized imagistic technique.

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Hi jack. Now this is a really engaging poem. I love your use of alliteration and rhythm. What I don't like is the opening stanza, not because it's bad but because it feels as though it's in the wrong place. As the last stanza it would work better. The problem is that you say,

"These are consonants..."

The reader asks, 'What are consonants?'

By placing the stanza at the end of the poem, the list of things you have so beautifully presented to us have been presented as "the consonants".


Alternatively you could end the second line of S1 with a colon. This way the first verse would introduce the list.


However, there is a problem in the tenses: To conform with S1, whether you put it at the beginning or the end, the items in your list need to be in present continuous. S2 is in present simple, as is S5.

In S3 you need to lose the "is" at the beginning of each line. By doing so the thing itself becomes the "consonant" You don't need to define what it is.

So, I'd recommend putting the verbs, burst, shoot and wanes into their present continuous "ing" forms; In S3 removing the two "is"s (and the definite article in L2) and either putting S1 at the end, or using a colon and leaving it where it is.

Regardless of the niggles in execution, the idea behind the poem and its conceptual grace are marvellous.

Live and be well - H

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jack of Hearts

A Girl is a Girl

These are consonants
bending the barley and the grass.

A flock of birds burst into sunlight,
shoot away from a cathedral roof.

This is breath in fading blue,
this is the breeze behind her neck.

A girl is a girl by the lightness of her fingerbones,
her heartlines slender, wrapped in blue;

The crescent moon wanes toward new,
the steeple and the cobblestone.

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Yours fooly finds elegance in the simplicity of this piece. A poem which "does what it says" is rare; in this case the word "consonants" underscores the consonance of "bending. . . barley" and "breath. . .blue."

You might want to fix the subject/verb disagreement in l.3"Flock" is singular, so the verb should be "bursts." A couple of stylistic changes you might consider: Changing "these" to "here" in l. 1. Also, the adjective "new" doesn't seem to modify anything-- "phase"? If it is meant to describe the steeple and the cobblestone, lose the comma.

What about "consonant streams" or "consonant waves" bending the barley and grass. I personally prefer "waves".

This criticism was all on point. This reader likes to think that, had he taken his time and edited, he would've picked up on it without intervention. But that may be fantasy.






J

Why Jack?

At last I get to see an original Jack composition.

Nicely done. Like a loving caress.

New moon, Auntie.



J