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Irene, please comin

C

Crystal

kickbox
What do you think about it? i want honest opinion. :) Thank you!

any comment from other members is also appreciated. PS: i would probably delete this naive piece. sorry about that.

First snow in October, 2004

I can hear the cracking of my steps on the clean white snow,
I can hear the falling of a snow flake on a quiet October night,
I can hear the breaking of a withered autumn leaf,
I can hear the melancholy lyric of the crystal moon,
I can hear the garrulous wind, murmuring the story of the strangers,
I can hear the flapping wings of a night,

But, …

But,…

But…

I am deaf to the child's desperate screaming in my heart for love,
I am deaf to the thick steps of loneliness, walking back and forth, forth and back,
back and forth, …
I cannot hear the dripping blood of a wounded wrist,
I cannot hear the turbulent passion for destroying the room that dwells a dying angel,
...
 
Well, Crystal, since you asked me specifically to respond (I'm surprised, but thank you), I will. However, I must preface this by saying that my views on poetry are not conventional. I'll leave it to others to tell you about meter and structure and so forth -- to me, those kinds of rules are meaningless. To me, poetry is like writing a novel on the head of pin. Slavishly adhering to rules of structure for structure's sake when the emotion, the feeling, and the power tell you, as the writer, to reach beyong the rules is like doing a "paint by numbers" -- clever, but not terribly original.

Ok, all that said -- I love the beginning. You pull the reader into a silent, meditative, reflection of snow white. I wanted to put on a sweater just reading it. :) Then you transition to images of heavy stomping, screaming, violence. The structure changes, but so what? The atonal contrast with the earlier verse shakes up the reader, grabs the attention -- it's that swinging bare lightbulb in "Psycho" throwing up helter skelter patterns on the walls. So all is well, so far.

Here's what I see as missing, and this is just me. As someone once told me about poetry, no one call tell the writer what she intended to write. If your thought ends here and you feel it's finished, then you, as the writer, have the final say. However, for me as a reader -- to make the poem complete -- I want a third verse, a verse that either continues to spiral into chaos by again shifting tone, or a verse that echoes the first verse and brings the reader back from chaos. But also, I want "why." Why can you hear the softest snowflake fall, but not a screaming heart, not the clattering cacophony of a room being destroyed in desperation? What has made your ears deaf to these sounds, while so sensitive to others? I'd love to see a third verse that addresses those questions. But like I said, it's the writer who wields ultimate power of such things. I wanted Gollum to earn redemption at the end of "Lord of the Rings" but Tolkien decided differently. I wanted Sidney to live at the end of "A Tale of Two Cities" but Dickens put him on the guillotine. Only when I write my own stories to I get just the beginning, middle, and end that I want.

Irene Wilde
 
Irene Wilde said:
Here's what I see as missing, and this is just me. As someone once told me about poetry, no one call tell the writer what she intended to write. If your thought ends here and you feel it's finished, then you, as the writer, have the final say. However, for me as a reader -- to make the poem complete -- I want a third verse, a verse that either continues to spiral into chaos by again shifting tone, or a verse that echoes the first verse and brings the reader back from chaos. But also, I want "why." Why can you hear the softest snowflake fall, but not a screaming heart, not the clattering cacophony of a room being destroyed in desperation? What has made your ears deaf to these sounds, while so sensitive to others? I'd love to see a third verse that addresses those questions. But like I said, it's the writer who wields ultimate power of such things. I wanted Gollum to earn redemption at the end of "Lord of the Rings" but Tolkien decided differently. I wanted Sidney to live at the end of "A Tale of Two Cities" but Dickens put him on the guillotine. Only when I write my own stories to I get just the beginning, middle, and end that I want.

Irene Wilde
Click to expand...

I came to delete it. but happened to read your comment. Thank you very sincerely.

as i kept repeating to myself that" i want 'why'", you wouldn't belive this, that tears spring to my eyes, I also want a why, i also want to know why is that?!! .....

Well, before i am going to be crazy, again, thank you! Goodnight and take care of yourself and your dear little one, :)
 
watercrystal said:
as i kept repeating to myself that" i want 'why'", you wouldn't belive this, tears spring to me, I also want a why, i also want to know why is that?!! .....
Click to expand...

When you have those answers, you'll have the rest of your poem, and some insight, and maybe even some wisdom.

Please don't delete. Leave it here to be finished some day. Please?

Irene Wilde
 
I only want to say not everything has to be finished or have an answer. Life itself has no anwser. Does the flower know why it grows? Not to have an answer is a statement in itself. Her poem is complete because she wrote a poem reflecting that she does not know.

Indeed, also, some of the best novels or art have no reason or they have no ending and no answers. They just SHOW us an emotion or a concept or an event and let us FEEL it or let us think it and wonder with many questions and make up our own minds.

My passion or my hate or my anger or my love know no bounds or no reasons and no ending and no answers to why. All emotion has no reason. Snowfall has no reason. It just is. It has no end and no begining. Starlight has no reason. Humans struggling in the dark, the blood, and the mud for a country or a cause have no reason and no anwsers and no end. The baby that smiles and struggles and grows toward the light has no reason and those things have no answer or an end.

There are many things that have no reason or anwsers and most of them are the most mysterious, profound, wonderful, and beautiful.

To me, more than anything, a poem can be an evocation of wordless beauty or pain or happines. A poem needs no reason and needs no end.

To me, the poem is finished.
 
I concur with you, Mr. Wabbit. I believe I said the writer has the final say on the matter, I was just speculating as to what I, in my reading, was hoping for.
Poetry is an intimate form of expression, and its shape, form, and substance are directed by the writer. If the writer wants only to ask the question, that's perfectly acceptable.

Irene Wilde
 
No worries. I'm glad to see someone else reacting to this piece. As a writer, I like to see discussion about the pieces posted here. I'd rather see a critical reaction than no reaction at all, and a discussion with various viewpoints can give a writer more ideas to work from and keep the creative energy sparking. If people are discussing a work that means it interests them, and Crystal's work certainly interested me.

Irene Wilde
 
I also liked this, watercrystal, but I was a little distracted by the series of "I can hear" at the beginning of each line. Perhaps just a colon at the end of the first one and then make the others a list.

But to finish it, you gave the absolute perfect ending in your next post:
*********

"I cannot hear the dripping blood of a wounded wrist,
I cannot hear the turbulent passion for destroying the room that dwells a dying angel

Why? Why is that?!"

***********

It would be real -- gut-wrenching -- and pure.

Otherwise, Bravo!

Cathy
 
Thank you all!

Honestly, I, should at least admit what I have put down here is far from being a poem. Some thoughts came to me as I walked at night in that first snow, and I did not know what form was better, so just scribbled down like that.

Irene Wilde said:
I'm glad to see someone else reacting to this piece. As a writer, I like to see discussion about the pieces posted here. I'd rather see a critical reaction than no reaction at all, and a discussion with various viewpoints can give a writer more ideas to work from and keep the creative energy sparking.
Click to expand...

EXACTLY.

Carthy C said:
"I cannot hear the dripping blood of a wounded wrist,
I cannot hear the turbulent passion for destroying the room that dwells a dying angel
Why? Why is that?!"
Click to expand...
*smiles* Carthy, I am glad to know your comment on this. I had thought it might be silly to use “I cann’t hear…” always, so…. But now it seemed to me that, following feelings is always the best. Thank you, sincerely.

And sillywabbit, appreciated your comments as well.


Mile-O-Phile said:
Can't you, at least, try to answer it? Why leave all this open to the reader? What does it say about you? …
Click to expand...

without the permission of Mile-O-Phile, I just found this in a previous thread, and not sure whether it suited to my posting here.

If he was still here, I wanted to know what he would say.
 
Honestly, I, should at least admit what I have put down here is far from being a poem
Click to expand...

But what is a poem, watercrystal, but scribblings of the soul...?

It's free-form, but perfectly acceptable as poetry. :)

Cathy
 
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