Wind and Water

Critiques, prompts & challenges.
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Yejun
Posts: 229
Joined: December 22nd, 2007, 4:17 pm

Wind and Water

Post by Yejun » December 22nd, 2007, 7:38 pm

I hear the wind whose words are low
Beneath the sound of the river flow
But rivers and waters don't pass near
And life doesn't evolve here.

I thought they moved the leaves, I thought
They moved the wind a half-tone higher
I thought they singed the leaves
With gasoline fire.

A half-tone higher than it was before
I hear the wind whose words are low
Beneath the sound of the river flow
A half-tone higher than it was before.

With gasoline fire
I thought they singed the leaves
And moved the wind a half-tone higher,
I thought they moved the leaves, I thought,

Life doesn't evolve here
And rivers and waters don't pass near,
But in the sound of the river flow,
I hear the words.

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Doreen Peri
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Post by Doreen Peri » December 23rd, 2007, 7:50 pm

Hi! Welcome to the Studio, Yejun!

OK... here goes...

First, I need to ask .. are you intending to keep the meter and structure totally clean and "perfect" or it doesn't matter to you if you stray from it some? That's an important question to me because you are straying from it some and that's OK if that's what you want to do. But I tend to read poetry as a spoken art. To me, it has to "sound" right in my head as I read it silently or when I speak it aloud (because I often do that, speak the poetry other people write and post on the net. I know, I know. Nuts, huh? ;) You should see my daughter blush when she enters the room with a friend or two and I'm sitting there reciting someone else's poetry and I'm the only one in the room!)

Stanza by stanza...
I hear the wind whose words are low
Beneath the sound of the river flow
But rivers and waters don't pass near
And life doesn't evolve here.
I have a problem with "whose." Are you personifying the wind? Then it would work but if that's what you're doing, capitalize Wind and make it a person, maybe. I donno. But I don't think you're doing that. And I don't much like "whose" when referring to the wind because I don't think you're doing that. There are also extra syllables in here which make my tongue trip a little. How about...

I hear the wind. Its words are low
Beneath the sound of river flow,
But rivers, waters, don't pass near
And life has never evolved here.


As you see I removed the "the" and the "and" in the 2nd and 3d lines because I stumbled on the rhythm of it when those words were in there. I really don't like what I did to the last line of the stanza though I think it's a bit of an improvement. Still, the rhythm's off.
I thought they moved the leaves, I thought
They moved the wind a half-tone higher
I thought they singed the leaves
With gasoline fire.
I really love the first 2 lines of this stanza! Very nice! The second 2 lines, though, leave me wondering (again) what happened to the rhythm of it. Something's missing or askew. How about

I thought they moved the leaves, I thought
They moved the wind a half-tone higher!
I thought they singed the leaves, I thought
They singed the leaves with gas on fire.


Or, maybe it's just the line breaks that bother me. Maybe just combine the last two lines of your strophe so it reads

I thought they moved the leaves, I thought
They moved the wind a half-tone higher
I thought they singed the leaves with gasoline fire.


I donno. That doesn't really fix the meter problem (if it is a problem... to me it is, but maybe it's not?)
A half-tone higher than it was before
I hear the wind whose words are low
Beneath the sound of the river flow
A half-tone higher than it was before.
Is this a villanelle? Or some other formal structure with a name? Noticing that you're repeating lines and I like that effect but reminding me of going to school and studying poetry and trying to remember the name of the formats (which I call "puzzle poems").

This stanza, punctuation would help. Again, I'd lose the "whose" when you're referring to the wind since you really are not personifying the wind and "whose" is a word which refers to a person. How about...
A half-tone higher than it was before –
I hear the wind. Its words are low
Beneath the sound of river flow.
A half-tone higher than it was before.
Also, again, I moved the extraneous "the" before "river." To me, this helps keep the meter cleaner, easier on the tongue.

I'm not going to continue with the last two stanzas because since they are already echoing lines from earlier in the piece, I already touched on them.

Except the last stanza.. which I would adamently tell you I would remove the contractions if I were you.

"Life does not evolve here" is much stronger than "Life doesn't evolve here." (but earlier I changed it to "life has never evolved here".. lol.. so still.. anyway, remove the contractions is my advice)

Too many "ands" in the next line. I'd start the line with "Rivers."

"Rivers and waters do not pass near" is much stronger than "Rivers and waters don't pass near." Removing the contraction would make it better, in my opinion.

The theme is a little cliche but hey, it works! I mean nature themes, rivers, wind, etc., they are always enjoyed by readers.

Just thinking might be interesting to add another level to it, though. Maybe make the wind an analogy for the empty words of some idiot ex girlfriend. Just an idea. lol

(Sorry, was listening to Dylan's "Idiot Wind" last night so I guess that's in my head)

Anyway thanks for the contribution to this forum and again welcome... and if you find anything I said here useful, cool! If you don't? That's cool, too. Who died and made me critic, after all? What do I know? lol.. take whatever you like and throw away the rest.

Yejun
Posts: 229
Joined: December 22nd, 2007, 4:17 pm

Post by Yejun » December 25th, 2007, 5:46 pm

Thank you very much.

No, it's not a villanelle, but I was playing around with repetition. I read poems out loud as well -- so I hear what you hear sometimes. I'm a little confused that the anapestic substitutions bother you, but hey everyone reads a little bit differently. The main idea was to let the repetition do the work, not the rhythm.

I understand it on the first reading, but if you speed up the tempo just a bit there (I mean like you would say those phrases in a normal speech pattern), the rhythm should be fine.

I think I failed, particularly in the 4th s. It doesn't seem to add anything to the rhythm or the meaning. I'm going to have to rework that one (and that's also where many of your suggestions make sense to me).

Whose -- to be honest -- that's just a pet peeve of mine. We spend most of the time consciously and unconsciously personifying things and storms and yet gramattically we're not allowed to? Doesn't make any sense to me.

True, I didn't want someting like "And Mr. Wind said to Mr. Sun . . ." but, to me, animism is an ever present part of the world we live in. Why not acknowedge that in the written word?

And it helps understand what particular wind I'm talking about.

Yes, wind and water are cliches and that was the challenge. To turn these overused images into something new.

Thanks again. It may look like I'm disagreeing with you here and there but you've made see it in a new way and that's always a good thing.

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