DETAILED COMMENTS ON YOUR POETRY AT REASONABLE RATES If you write poetry, give it your best. |
Copyright 1985, 2009 by Hayes Walker
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A salesman typically shows his samples in the hope of making sales. That is not my purpose here. This sample
critique--and any others that I might be able to post--will, I hope, assist some poets well enough that they will not
feel the need of purchasing critiques that are made to order for them.
When I started this "business" I was in my thirties, and I approached each critique job feeling that I had to deliver
an exhaustive and superbly-written essay for even the most unpromising amateur poet. In the sixty-odd critiques
I wrote from 1983 to 1990, I believe I succeeded admirably at least eighty percent of the time. A remarkably high
percentage of those clients showed genuine promise as poets. Nearly all of them were referred to me by Judson
Jerome, poetry columnist for Writer's Digest from 1960 to 1991. Poets who regularly read Jud's column, and who
asked him for his opinion of their work, came to me pre-qualified to some extent. During most of that time, I looked
forward to every batch of poems that arrived in the mail bringing a new challenge and a helpful check.
By 1989 I was beginning to tire of the process. It wasn't so much the critique writing that I was weary of; it was the
combination of the writing and my regular job. I was managing--or struggling to manage--several dozen employees
in a school supplies distribution warehouse. My work week typically varied from fifty to sixty-five hours. A typical
critique job occupied two or three Sunday afternoons. My wife and kids did not get a lot of my attention for a couple
of dreary years. Something had to give, and it had to be the critique work. I asked Judson Jerome to stop sending
my advertisements to his correspondents. A few more batches of poems arrived at intervals of two or three months,
then they stopped coming. Jud died in August 1991, so those pre-qualified referrals would have ended anyway.
Looking back over the dozens of critiques that I had turned out in about six years, I realized that many of them were
good enough to serve as examples for other amateur poets who wanted to improve their poetry. I devised a plan to
publish some of them in a book. I figured that Writers Digest Books would be the most likely publisher. I sent letters
to about forty of my clients asking their permission to include their poems and my critiques in a book. I offered them
shares of any profits that the book might earn, admitting the unlikelihood of successful publication, much less profits.
Eight or nine clients signed and returned the permission pages. One responded but refused to participate. Several
letters were returned by the Post Office marked undeliverable. I tried to track down those displaced poets by phone,
but I was unsuccessful in locating any. (One client was successful in locating another; nearly twenty years later, both
of those poets are now much-valued Facebook friends.)
A book including the eight or nine willing clients would have had barely enough pages to put between hard covers--
perhaps one hundred fifty pages. Two poets would have had chapters of forty to fifty pages each, while the others would
have had much shorter chapters. A book representing forty poets would have presented a wide variety of examples
of errors that I would show how to solve, whereas a book including eight or nine poets would have provided a much
narrower range of examples. Problems with an early form of word processing technology also plagued the project.
I reluctantly abandoned my plan for a book.
The critique that I'm presenting here was written for one of the most eager would-be participants of my book project.
She did not like her first name--although she signed it to every letter and Christmas card she ever sent me--so she
wanted me to refer to her as G.M. Parker in my book. I will follow her wishes here. She was an eighty-year-old
widow when she sent me the first batch of her poems for my comments in 1985. She had been corresponding with
Judson Jerome and he had referred her to me. She frequently sent poems to the type of "poetry contest" company
that I warn against on my home page, and she mentioned that Jud had warned her about them, too. In her last note
to me, in 1990, she wished me luck on the book. She said she had recently moved into an assisted living facility due
to her age and declining health. She had given up oil painting but could still create her hand-painted Christmas cards
using water colors. She was mourning the recent death of her only son. She was still writing poetry and working on a
book of family history. A year or so later I wrote to her at the last address she provided. I received no response.
Of all my clients, she came closest to being the textbook example of what Jud called the "garden variety poet." And she
worked hard at it. Abstractions, generalities, the wisdom of age, the wisdom of nature--these were her indispensable tools,
and she used them with dedication and the best of intentions. As a poet, she was indistinguishable from tens of thousands
of others. As a client, and as a friend, she was one of a kind.
To make this page more user-friendly, I have inserted title headings into the critique. If you wish, you can read each poem,
then scroll to my comments on that poem. I presume that most viewers will want to read all the poems before starting to
read the critique, so I'm displaying the poems in a group rather than interleaving them with my comments.
I present the following poems and critique in fond memory of G. M. Parker.
Poems: Time; Life; Friends; The Milestone; Searching; What Is This?;
Sparrows; Haiku Pictures; all Copyright 1985 and earlier by G.M. Parker
TIME
Time flies......we sorrow and we sing;
It flies like birds and other winged things.
Then we gaze up into the night sky face,
And see the constant stars hang there in space.
Sun and moon travel on their daily way,
Never do they fret of time, rising each day.
The seedling grows not concerned with time,
Unlike man, who sets his hopes upon a prime.
Worries then it might not prosper, or soon be gone,
No longer there for man to look upon.
To-day, a time of yesterdays and future fears,
To-morrow, a time of planning future years.
Time is but a fleet and fragile thing,
And like the wind is ever on the wing.
LIFE
Life walked through my door with quiet step,
I had not bid her enter in to-day.
She entered as if having come before,
And so I calmly went upon my way.
She asked me to help ease a heavy load,
But I pretended that I did not hear.
She asked me to help mend a broken heart,
But I was occupied with other care.
I had no time to spend with other's woes,
I was too busy caring just for me.
Now if all would come ease my load,
Then I would have more time for being free.
Life sadly shook her head and walked away,
Should I call her back....or wait another day.
FRIENDS
Good friends are like old melodies,
Growing sweeter with the years.
You may forget the many words,
But the tune rings in your ears.
You easily may forget his faults,
But you can't forget the deed,
When he was there awaiting you,
To help you in your need.
He will greet you with his welcome,
Never asking for your praise.
Always willing to share your trouble,
Being a friend in many ways.
Good friendships help to make the earth,
A better place to live.
So be a friend to all mankind,
Your friendship freely give.
Then all the nations of the world,
Can see it's good to cease,
The selfishness and petty greed,
And live in loving peace.
THE MILESTONE
The path of fourscore years is truly worn;
Filled with deep ruts and unseen bores.
I slowly walk in quietude of morn,
And contemplate the "Why's and the Wherefore's."
A shower of my past deeds I scorn;
I hear echoes of penitent regrets.
Spring with an aura of life newly born,
Filled summer days with blooming violets.
Now autumn days with flame are yet aglow;
With burning fires that long have not been stirred.
Clothed in old memories, my raiment is
A show of paths, and seasons I preferred.
Fourscore years have swiftly passed, so true;
Autumn season shortens day by day.
Bluebirds fly by in skies of azure blue;
Content now, I go on my blundering way.
SEARCHING
Mysteries that often wrestle
With our truant minds,
Sometimes stir cells into whirlpools
Of unconscious find.
They are like treasures that have lain
Countless years untold,
Beneath accumulated dust
And undisturbed mold.
Then an urging voice appears;
Search of trove begins.
Hours of mind beating, sincere,
Soon are in the swim.
The outcome is another song
Flourishing for a time.
Then suddenly it too is gone,
Leaving man to find.
WHAT IS THIS?
What is this that is deep within the earth?
That nurtures soul of flower giving birth.
Warmth of soul by night and sun by day,
Beauty of creation nurtured here to stay.
Fragrance sanctifies a flower's place here,
Playing a melody on carnal ear.
Glory of flower beauty is like awe
We reserve for our Creator's law.
Only He can change a little seed,
Into miracles of beaulty by His deed.
Only He can create earth's beauties deep,
Give breath to recreate for future sleep.
SPARROWS
Are the sparrows dead, they have lost their heads,
Balls of feathery fluff.
Sit in crooked rows, in the chilling snows,
On the feeder cuffs.
Tiny feet are stowed, beneath a feathery load,
While warmth penetrates.
Tiny cheeps are heard, as each little bird,
Murmurs in debate.
Little "feathered friends," in the winter winds,
Outside my window sill.
In your constant way, you begin my day,
With determined will.
HAIKU PICTURES
Sunlight slants through trees,
Nature's posed masterpiece...
A breathless suspense.
Fall trees are singing
In harmony with blue sky.
Silent Eloquence.
Rainbow spans the sky,
A footbridge for souls to cross.
Distant steps mutter.
When the sun departs
Then night pulls her draperies.
Lantern lights flutter.
Dear G_________,
The titles of some of your poems provide a clue to your main flaw, which is the excessive use of abstractions
and generalities. Anyone who has written poems bearing the titles "Time," "Life," "Friends," and "Searching"
probably has also written poems titled "Love," "Death," "Hope," "Faith," etc. Sure, it's possible to write a good
poem about one of these weighty subjects, but it's a very difficult task, and I don't expect a successful example to
ever come to me in the mail. One trouble with such poems is that they tend to be lectures telling the reader how to
lead his or her life. Or else they try to define their subjects in fanciful ways to show off their authors' imaginations.
Such poems are often written by wonderful people; but wonderful people often write dreadful poetry.
TIME
You begin "Time" with a terrible cliché: "Time flies." The rest of that line tells what "we" do: "we sorrow
and we sing." That's a very narrow summary of how people spend their lives. ("We work and we play" would
be more broadly applicable, though I wouldn't recommend it for poetry.) In the second line you go back to telling
what time does: "It flies like birds and other winged things," which just isn't so. Time doesn't flap its wings or
glide in circles--though you might get some metaphorical sense from the notion that time can buzz in your ears
like a mosquito, annoyingly making you aware of its passing. Notice how general--how unspecific--your language
is: "We sorrow--what are we sorrowing about? "We sing--what kinds of songs? Do we sing loudly or softly?
Joyfully or mournfully? The more specific your language is, the better your poetry is likely to be.
In line three you say, "Then we gaze up into the night sky face"--as if that's what we habitually do after sorrowing
and singing. Line four is based on unscientific concepts of stars. Stars are not "constant," nor do they "hang" in
space. Light is still reaching earth from stars that burned out ages ago; and stars travel through space at
unimaginable speeds. I realize that you didn't intend to be scientific; but if you are going to write about anything
in nature, you should do so accurately. The fact that the sun and the moon and the seedling are not concerned with
the passage of time, but that man is concerned, and does worry, is so obvious that it doesn't need to be stated. If a
poet wants to comment on such things, she must do so in a specific and memorable way. Do you know the lyric of
"Ol' Man River" by Oscar Hammerstein II? (Note: the music is by Jerome Kern; not the lyric!) If not, ask your
librarian to help you find it in a book of song lyrics. Its theme is related to that of your poem: that people have
reasons to fret and sorrow, while, as Hammerstein puts it, "Ol' Man River, he just keeps rollin' along." I wouldn't
call it great poetry--after all, it relies on a dramatic setting and music for much of its effect--but it gives the
impression of arising from experience, not from idle observation.
The meter of the poem is inconsistent and often faulty. Line one is tetrameter. Line seven has five stresses, but the
third stress seems stranded in the middle of a tetrameter line. Line thirteen could pass as an iambic pentameter line
that is truncated at its beginning (that is, its first unstressed syllable is missing), or it could be scanned as tetrameter.
Here are scansions for those lines, including both ways of scanning line thirteen:
TIME FLIES/......we SOR/row and/ we SING
The SEED/ling GROWS/ NOT/ conCERNED/ with TIME
TIME/ is BUT/ a FLEET/ and FRA/gile THING
TIME is/ but a FLEET/ and FRA/gile THING
The rest of the poem is pentameter except for some lines that are overlong and prosy--lines six, eight, nine, and eleven:
NEver/ do they FRET/ of TIME,/ RISing/ each DAY
UNlike/ MAN, who/ SETS his/ HOPES up/on a PRIME
WORries/ THEN it/ MIGHT not/ PROSper,/ or SOON/ be GONE
ToDAY,/ a TIME/ of YES/terdays/ and FU/ture FEARS
The rhymes in "Time" are ordinary and occasionally strained. "Sing" and "things" is an inexact rhyme because
one word ends with s and the other doesn't. "Prime seems to have been chosen just to rhyme with "time," since
its meaning doesn't really fit the context. "Future fears/future years seems a strained pair of rhymes, particularly
because the distinction you are trying to draw between "today" and "tomorrow" seems illogical and arbitrary. Why
is today "a time of yesterdays and future fears" and tomorrow "a time of planning future years"? Someone else
might see it the other way around. I consider every day as a time for reviewing the past, imagining things that might
go wrong in the future, and making plans that might prevent some of those unfortunate things from happening.
Do you think "fragile" is an apt word to describe time? I've never heard of time getting cracked or broken, but I
see no reason why that concept can't be used figuratively. Just saying that time is fragile does not adequately use
the concept; it lets the reader use his or her imagination, but it doesn't demonstrate the writer's imagination. How
about this:
The time we need for accomplishment is broken
by interruption, cracked by catastrophe.
That's generalizing, of course, which puts those lines in the same category as "we sorrow and we sing." Writing
a poem about a general topic such as time, or love, or faith tends to trap a poet into generalization. Writing about
experiences--that is, telling stories--lets you escape generalization and write more creatively. For example, one
might say of a boring conversation: "It ground two solid hours into timedust/ and vacuumed them out of my life."
Of a disappointment: "It dropped my day like a cup and broke its handle./I cannot grasp it now."
LIFE
In "Life," you The language of "Life" is unimaginative and often trite, especially in such phrases as "help ease a heavy load" The meter of "Life" is a little too regular, so that when you vary it (as in lines five and seven) the variations She ASKED/ me to/ HELP EASE/ a HEAV/y LOAD
She ASKED/ me to/ HELP MEND/ a BRO/ken HEART
Line eleven is the only tetrameter line in an otherwise pentameter poem; as such, it is a flaw. The rhymes are
FRIENDS
In the first stanza of "Friends," the comparison of good friends to old melodies is stale. I seem to recall that there's In that first stanza, you refer to friends--plural. In the next two stanzas, you refer to one friend, though not necessarily The last two stanzas constitute an ethics lesson with which I certainly agree. But the language is stale: "make
THE MILESTONE
Are you really eighty years old, as implied by the first line of "The Milestone"? This is the sort of poem that causes Your habit of generalizing is in evidence all through this poem. The "deep ruts and unseen bores" refer to various
SEARCHING
"Searching" is virtually incomprehensible to me. At first I thought it was a clever twist, having mysteries wrestle
WHAT IS THIS?
In "What Is This?" you seem to have tried so hard to make your lines rhyme that you weren't careful about making
SPARROWS
I like "Sparrows"! It needs some revision, though, mostly in punctuation. You overuse commas; I've noticed that Are the sparrows dead? Have they lost their heads? Tiny feet are stowed beneath feathery load Little feathered friends in the winter winds, Some things bother me about the poem, such as the repetitions of "feathery," "tiny," and "little;" the triteness of
HAIKU PICTURES
I don't care much for the first of the "Haiku Pictures," but the others are pretty good. To describe sunlight I have written only one good haiku, and it is untraditional in two ways. It isn't about "nature"--as that term is Take care, and write again. in the microwave
of cloth as your generalization. Your purpose is to convey a moral message that can be stated: "You should help
people when you have the opportunity. You shouldn't be selfish." The way you conveyed the message is almost
as flat and general as my statement of it. Your personification of "Life" as a woman who enters your home and
asks you to behave responsibly toward your fellow humans is simply not realistic, and therefore is not believable.
Good poetry should be believable. It can, of course, be fiction, but it must be written realistically enough to
convince the reader that it did happen, or at least could happen. Not only is it unbelievable that "life" would take
the form of a woman entering your home, it is also incredible that your reaction to such a visitation would be to go
calmly upon your way and to pretend you didn't hear what she said.
and "mend a broken heart." Also, notice how unspecific such phrases are. You should have mentioned specific
acts of kindness and mercy that you had opportunities to perform. Your tendency to generalize can also be seen
in "other care" and "others' woes."
seem clumsy. Those lines scan similarly:
passable, though not particularly praiseworthy. The punctuation is faulty at a few points: line one should end with
a period or a semicolon instead of a comma. Line nine should end with a semicolon. Line thirteen should end with
a period. Line fourteen, being a question, should end with a question mark.
a song that says the same thing in much the same way. "Growing sweeter" and "the tune rings in your ears" are
likewise unfresh.
a particular one. This is an inconsistency--the way you handle it, anyway, just jumping from plural to singular. Your
habit of generalizing shows up in "his faults," "the deed," "help you in your need," "share your trouble," "being a
friend in many ways." Which faults, which deed, what sort of need, what kind of trouble, which ways? Nothing is
specified.
the earth/a better place to live," "be a friend to all mankind," "loving peace." The conclusion of this poem is an
example of what I said about "lectures telling the reader how to live his life." It is also unrealistic. Individual
friendships are not going to be noticed by the nations of the world. Your reader, though, might notice that the
commas you placed after earth, world, cease, and greed should not be there.
the reader to like the poet, though it doesn't make much of an impression as poetry. I especially like the honesty of
the admission of "past deeds I now scorn" and the "echoes of penitent regrets."
problems and pitfalls in your life, but they tell nothing specific. The "Whys and the Wherefores" could mean just
about anything along the lines of "the mysteries of life" or "the ways of the world." Those "past deeds" and
"penitent regrets" seem to be things that you don't want to get specific about. The seasonal symbolism is both
trite and generalized, with spring representing "life newly born" and the vitality of youth, and autumn symbolizing
the declining "fires" of life, and time slipping away. Many phrases are unoriginal and--I hope you don't mind my
saying so--old-fashioned, such as "fourscore years," "quietude of morn," "aura of life newly born," and "skies of
azure blue." The last line, "Content now, I go on my blundering way," implies that some sort of transformation, or
transfiguration, has occurred during your morning walk--something that permits you to be content in spite of those
scorned deeds and penitent regrets. But there is no evidence of anything that might have brought that result. You
mused about the passage of seasons and life. Bluebirds flew by. But that doesn't logically get you from regrets to
contentment. "I go on my blundering way" ends the poem with a bit of self-effacing humor that seems out of place
in an otherwise serious poem.
with minds rather than minds wrestling with mysteries. But I find the rest of the poem so confusing that I'm not sure
now whether the twist was clever or arbitrary. To say that mysteries "stir cells into whirlpools of unconscious find"
seems like a clumsy way to say that they produce ideas. "They are like treasures," you say of these mysteries,
apparently because they "have lain/countless years untold/beneath accumulated dust/and undisturbed mold." But
in the first two lines you said these mysteries "often wrestle/with our truant minds." Do you mean to suggest that there
are a lot of those mysteries, and that however often one is found to serve as a wrestling partner for our minds, there
are still many others lying under the dust and the mold? That doesn't say much for our intellectual house-cleaning,
does it? Why do you specify truant minds? Truant means idle, errant, shiftless, straying. How could mysteries
wrestle with minds that aren't making any effort to wrestle? Perhaps you are suggesting that the mysteries are
attracted to idle, straying minds--or vice versa, to revert to the conventional viewpoint. "Then an urging voice
appears," you say. To appear means to become apparent to the sense of sight, so a voice cannot appear. Where is
the voice coming from, and whose is it? Is it the voice of that truant mind, or of one of those unspecified mysteries,
or of God, or what? It certainly smacks of something "mysterious." "Search of trove begins" leads me to think
that you don't mean what trove means. I had to look it up to be sure. My dictionary referred me to treasure-trove,
and the Old French etymology (trove, past participle of trover, to find) suggests that "a trove" means "a find."
So your line means "Search of find begins," which I think means less than you must have intended. Also I didn't,
at first, see any sense in saying "Hours of mind beating...are in the swim." Then I realized that you must be
referring to the whirlpools in line three. "The outcome is another song," you say. Do you mean that literally?
Has the search been for a song? Is that your idea of how a song is created, or are you being metaphorical? The
song flourishes for a time, you say, then is gone "leaving man to find." To find what--another song? I shudder
at the thought, but I think I'd welcome a playing of Barry Manilow's "I am Music, and I Write the Songs" right
about now. Somebody save me!
realistic sense. It doesn't make sense to speak of a flower as "giving birth;" you just had to find something to rhyme
with "earth." It is inaccurate also to refer to a flower as "here to stay;" you were straining for a rhyme for "day."
In saying "Fragrance sanctifies a flower's place here," I think you are placing too much importance on that aspect
of a flower. To me the fragrance of a flower is secondary to its visual beauty--but that's a subjective judgment with
which some people would not agree. To say that fragrance plays "a melody on carnal ear" seems a definite error
of sense. Fragrance appeals to the sense of smell, a melody appeals to the sense of hearing, and never the twain
shall meet. I think you were searching for a rhyme for "here," came up with "ear," and created line six somewhat
haphazardly. In the remainder of the poem, your purpose is fine and clear: to give God credit for the beautiful
miracles of nature. Some of your phrasing is clumsy and unfocused. In lines nine and ten, all of the meaning is
conveyed in "Only He can change a little seed/Into miracles of beauty." "By His deed" serves only to fill out the
line and to provide a rhyme. In line eleven, "deep" is used as a syllable to fill out the meter and as a rhyme for
"sleep." "Beauties deep" is an inversion of "deep beauties," and inversion is to be avoided in modern poetry,
particularly when it is employed to unnaturally place a word in rhyme position. As for line twelve, I just don't
understand it. I've turned it over in my mind ten times, and I can't grasp what you mean when you say that only
God can "Give breath to recreate for future sleep." Please try to explain it to me.
habit in some of your other poems. You sometimes omit question marks from sentences that are clearly meant as
questions. In some places where a comma should be used, you place a period and thereby create a sentence
fragment. Here is how I think "Sparrows" should be revised and punctuated:
Balls of feathery fluff
Sit in crooked rows in the chilling snows,
On the feeder cuff.
While warmth penetrates.
Tiny cheeps are heard as each little bird
Murmurs in debate.
Outside my window sill,
In your constant way you begin my day
With determined will.
"feathered friends," which is not mitigated by your placing of quotation marks around the phrase; and the fact that
"cheeps" and "murmurs" are not compatible. Cheeping and murmuring are two different sounds. And to follow
your image of dead sparrows that "have lost their heads" with the line "balls of feathery fluff" is to invite the
reader to envision (as I did) severed heads and headless bodies of sparrows lying on the ground. So I changed
"They have..." to "Have they...?" Always ask yourself: What am I telling the reader? What thoughts and
pictures am I causing to arise in the reader's mind, and are those the thoughts and images I am trying to convey?
slanting through trees as "Nature's posed masterpiece... A breathless suspense" seems overly dramatic and
grandiose, but I guess that sort of thing is more allowable in haikus than in standard poetry. I think the
punctuation is faulty. End line one with a colon and line two with a period. I wouldn't change the second haiku,
although I don't particularly admire a poetic sensibility that would conceive the notion of the trees and the sky
singing. But haikus are often fanciful in that sort of way. The only thing I don't like in the third one is the use
of "mutter" to describe the sound of distant steps; but here (as elsewhere, certainly) I'm giving a subjective
response to another person's subjective image. In the fourth haiku, "then" is an unnecessary word used only
to fill out the syllable count in that line. (By the way, the first haiku needs one more syllable in its second line.)
usually understood--and it depends on its appearance on the page for much of its effect. I'll close with it.
the soup goes PoP, PoP, PoP, PoP,
the Peas exPloding.