Poetry Cop-out: How Would You Fix This?
I *was* writing a funny little Fashion Babble post, but LJ apparently hates me today and wouldn't let me insert my images which, obviously, are the only reason to write Fashion Babble posts. So now I'm all cranky.
@#*&#!
I'm also not feeling particularly poetic today, despite my National Poetry Month promise to ya'll. So here is my compromise (aka cop-out). Back in grad school, I wrote the following piece. It ended up in my portfolio, but even after multiple edits and tweaks, its meaning always alluded everyone who read it. *I* know exactly what it means of course, but the point is to make a connection with your readers. Not just write a super seekrit poem only the writer understands. Anyway, here it be:
Fickle Tide
I am caught between
the lilac bush and
swift, mercury waves.
Every day my choice
rises, waits to be abandoned,
or renewed.
I could burrow deeper,
offer wafts of
comfort until I
shrivel and wilt.
Or splash silver,
swept by the
moon’s moods,
slice through icy fire
and leave you scrambling
in the sand.
Water flees the land
in an enviable hiss.
Always to return,
never to rest,
never to root.
Basically, it's a poem about restlessness. Knowing you belong in one place, but always tugged toward something else. Something other. The tide is usually seen as a constant thing, but I tried to paint it in a different light here. Maybe the reason the tide goes in and out, in and out is because it can't decide where it wants to be.
Interestingly, I chose the title of this WIP poem as the title of my current WIP book (aka book 2). My book, I will finish. This poem? I don't know. It's been so long and I've grown so weary of trying too hard to bend the words into something more understandable (without resorting to the dreaded clichés).
So. What would YOU guys do? What is it about this poem that makes it so damn confusing? And how can I fix it? I love the images it paints...but it has to have some substance under all the pretty pictures.
PS: Speaking of pretty pictures, if I can ever get LJ to load my images I am SO doing that Fashion Babble post anyway.
@#*&#!
I'm also not feeling particularly poetic today, despite my National Poetry Month promise to ya'll. So here is my compromise (aka cop-out). Back in grad school, I wrote the following piece. It ended up in my portfolio, but even after multiple edits and tweaks, its meaning always alluded everyone who read it. *I* know exactly what it means of course, but the point is to make a connection with your readers. Not just write a super seekrit poem only the writer understands. Anyway, here it be:
Fickle Tide
I am caught between
the lilac bush and
swift, mercury waves.
Every day my choice
rises, waits to be abandoned,
or renewed.
I could burrow deeper,
offer wafts of
comfort until I
shrivel and wilt.
Or splash silver,
swept by the
moon’s moods,
slice through icy fire
and leave you scrambling
in the sand.
Water flees the land
in an enviable hiss.
Always to return,
never to rest,
never to root.
Basically, it's a poem about restlessness. Knowing you belong in one place, but always tugged toward something else. Something other. The tide is usually seen as a constant thing, but I tried to paint it in a different light here. Maybe the reason the tide goes in and out, in and out is because it can't decide where it wants to be.
Interestingly, I chose the title of this WIP poem as the title of my current WIP book (aka book 2). My book, I will finish. This poem? I don't know. It's been so long and I've grown so weary of trying too hard to bend the words into something more understandable (without resorting to the dreaded clichés).
So. What would YOU guys do? What is it about this poem that makes it so damn confusing? And how can I fix it? I love the images it paints...but it has to have some substance under all the pretty pictures.
PS: Speaking of pretty pictures, if I can ever get LJ to load my images I am SO doing that Fashion Babble post anyway.