Your thoughts on a poem I'm working on for class.

[Lyric]

I'm probably going to be revising this a dozen more times, but this is revision #2. Please give me your thoughts. My appreciation in advance.

The River

We walked for miles on the pitted tracks,
the scent (of tar and coal and sun-scorched grease)
haunting us—a freighter shade.

Wild mint leaves between our teeth,
heat climbing in waves up our feet,
we dared to cross the ironwood trestle--not to fall,

          and it was

             a long way down.

But we were young; beautiful, aching young, and
reckless like all new-made things,
     (just-born)    stumbling.

Somewhere below us, what could have been
Appalachian diamonds
(in handful-thousand years)
trembled the earth black,
shaken
by our radiance. Shaking, and

oh how your mother laughed at us
laughed like we were may-apples and she’d bitten into us.
If a smile could be bottled, she’d have made
lemonade for us.

She knew the truth about bridges.

We dazzled that day,
our seventeenth midsummer,
blackberry porch-brandy,    leaping
                                            into the water.

You lost your wallet in the thistle grass,
our fingers stained blood-berry red
looking for it, wet denim strings and
river-sand pebbling our knees.

But we unrolled that river,
tangled legs among the reeds.
We pinned it down between us;
we found it on our hands.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. My dear oktoberain...

This is quite beautiful...

I love the imagery...

I don't see anything I'd want to change...

Good work!

[Lyric]

5. Thank you Peggy

:hug: :loveya:

How's your class coming along? Or are you finished with it already?

[CaliforniaPeggy]

7. Ah, it's done...

I'm hoping to do something else this semester...

We'll see...

:hug:

[Rabrrrrrr]

2. Fantastic!

I read it twice, it's so wonderful.

:thumbsup:

My only suggestions are a few lines that seem to drop the movement of the style - most of it is so terse and symbolic and full of imagery, but a few times a line is too, for lack of a better word, obvious:

heat climbing in waves up our feet - you used 'climbing' and 'up', which are the same action in this one; I'd get rid of one.

she’d have made
lemonade for us. - seems there should be another way to say that in a style that fits the rest of the poem.

our seventeenth midsummer - also seemed lacking in the imagery of your other beautiful line. "Midsummer seventeen" or take out 'our' and go with 'seventeenth midsummer'.

Trivial critiques, those are, though.

I love

what could have been
Appalachian diamonds
(in handful-thousand years)

Such a beautiful way to talk about coal.

And the way you interrupted the flow for this bit of exciting imagery and poetry:

oh how your mother laughed at us
laughed like we were may-apples and she’d bitten into us.

Well done!

[Lyric]

4. Wow. Thank you, Rabrrrrrr!

All of your comments are solemnly noted--if you don't mind, I'm going to copy-paste your thoughts and print them out to assist me in workshop on Monday. This is my very first college poetry course, so I'm really excited about the whole process to come.

Thank you most deeply for the help.

[RainDog]

9. wonderful. agreed.

and very constructive crit from Rabrrrrrr. I re-read the poem with his notes in mind and I think they work well.

my notes, which may or may not be useful... if they are, good. if not, good.

the opening sentence is too adjectivial (whatever that means)

in keeping with the sense of the poem, my revision would be:

We walked for miles.
pitted tracks, the scent (of tar and coal and sun-scorched grease)
haunting us—freighter shade.

But we were young; beautiful, aching young, and
reckless like all new-made things,
(just-born) stumbling.

The reckless takes me out of the metaphor, even tho I know what you want from that...but I said to myself...self, newborn things aren't "intentionally" reckless. they don't have all their senses working. They're birth blind, maybe? Maybe this is just my personal response and others think the word choices work. It does go with the theme, but, imho, seems "forced" to fit where you want to go. Does that make sense?

but really, this is a beautiful poem. thanks for posting it.

edited to close bracket

[Lyric]

11. I'm looking at your revision

of the first stanza, and I'm going to free-write on it and see what comes up. There's something there that could be said more purely, and I need to find it.

"Reckless" was more meant to imply the immortality mindset of youth, the risks you take because only "old people" die, when death is just a concept from the movies, and you don't really understand time yet. But I see your point, and I'll definitely look into that.

Thank you for the critique--it was very helpful.

[kimmerspixelated]

3. Wonderful!

Have you joined The Next Big Writer yet? Once there, you will find loads of contructive criticism. A nice, caring community. They also have links to many good places to get published. Your poem is certainly worthy of publication. Good Luck!

[Lyric]

6. Nah--this is for a college course.

And it's only my second draft, so it's nowhere near ready to go out into the Big Mean World of publication yet. But I'm flattered that you liked it so much, and I'll Google that site and keep it tucked away for later. Thank you! :hi:

[rateyes]

8. Beautiful,

sounds like the place in the Appalachians where I grew up, and even more so where I moved when I first was married. Thanks for those memories.

[bbernardini]

10. You call that poetry? It doesn't even rhyme!

Old Burma Shave ads...now THAT'S poetry.

:sarcasm: ;)

[Haole Girl]

12. Very nice!

As for English and grammar suggestions you may want to post it in the writers group. The only words I might change: new-made to newly made (?). But I'm not very good at stuff like that.

I could almost smell the tracks... good job! :-)