Focusing On Dreams

If each day, when I woke there was

Nothing for me to look forward to

If there were no dreams for me

There would be nothing left to do

I would have given up a while ago

When the love of my life was gone

For my world had fallen apart

Now, once again, I am here with no one

There is no longer anyone to care

No one to help me through the day

When troubles seem to overwhelm me

And they always seemed to want to stay

But, seeing how I am one who never

Gives in and just gives up

I picked myself up after awhile

Enduring all those trials that were so tough 

I plunged right on through this life

Always focusing on all of my dreams

Trying to hang on to the hope I had

In hopes that they would all come true for me

Today, I am glad I had some dreams

To keep me going for a while

And, I am grateful for the friends I have

Because, they always bring a smile

3-12-06

© copyright Sue Graves (All rights reserved)

Reviews

[Rogue]

I am sorry I am late getting back to you on this review.

Although this piece is filled with sadness, there is also hope and a positive message in it as well. "Get up. Get on with life and make it happen for yourself."

Hope to see more from you here, Sue. :)

[Rita L. Sev]

This is a good piece, with structure and clean rhyme. I love the message - basically, pick yourself up and keep going. Well done!

[James Hanna-Magill]

Dear OklahomaRose

First of all, let me bid you a warm welcome to Writers Café. I have been on this site for a couple of months after another I was on sadly had to close.

After looking at many writing sites and trying them out, I finally stumbled over this one and found it to be just what I wanted. So I set out my writing stall here and am pleased I did.

I hope you will have a long and happy experience of Writers Café where we are all trying to hone our writing skills. The name of the game is review to be reviewed.

If constructive review is given to your writing, then it is possible to improve and when reviewing others you can get ideas about how to experiment with your own. That is what I have found to hold true for me.

Thank you for your review of 'Dear God'. I thought I would return the compliment and am pleased to be the first to review you so far.

I review in different styles, but my reviews can often be quite long. Above all my reviews will always give the writer a feel for the affect of the writer's words on one reader so that they can judge impact.

I want to give you as much encouragement and constructive feed back as I can, so I will give this a relatively detailed review.

1) Structure: Six stanzas, each four lines long. It has shape.

2) Rhyme: You have a rhyming pattern which you generally observe throughout which is abcb - that is the second and fourth lines rhyme. I think this adds elegance to your poem.

3) Rhythm: Although it is not fixed, read aloud in places there is a mellow beat.

4) Punctuation: I have a personal preference in poetry, that you either fully punctuate or not at all. I am not keen on mix and match. Just one of my pet views. You achieve that sort of consistency here by not punctuating at all. So I like what you are doing here too.

Taking a step back from the nuts and bolts of the poem, this is more traditional poetry. Whilst I have much time for many other styles including free verse, blank verse, narrative verse, poetry and prose (I could go on) I am often attracted by something rather more structured and formal, which is what I see you attempting here. So nuts and bolts wise, I am happy.

5) Use of English: You keep your language simple and accessible rather than complex. I feel it suits the message of the piece.

6) Allusion / metaphor: You do not use any. Again, I feel, the poem in its simplicity has a much more direct hit on the reader because of that.

7) Meaning: At times poets like to leave their writing opaque so as to leave the reader guessing as to meaning or to form their own conclusion. At times others will leave their meaning more transparent. That is what you do here. Whilst there is much to be said for opaque, transparency and simplicity can have and yours does here much more immediate impact and punch as the reader is not left scratching his or her head.

My view of your meaning? The trials of losing love and the major emotional daily consequences, but with a strong belief in recovery and realisation that that that in the end you have achieved it.

It is therefore a poem with a mournful opening but a very strong message of hope in the end. Funny, quite often some of my poetry does exactly the same. Sadness yet in the end hope.

8) Impact: Ah now this is where we get to the heart of the matter. Precisely because the feel of some of my poetry is often like yours as I say above, bittersweet, I have an immediate sense of recognition, albeit my topics tend to be a little different.

But there is more to it.

The specifics of lost love and dealing with it have featured a number of times in my life and I am actually at the moment struggling to deal with it again, in a world where I have a mental health disorder (bipolar disorder) which holds up my ability to recover easily or quickly.

The process of my own grieving and getting back one my feet may take a while, perhaps longer than yours. But however unwell I may be, living in complete isolation and without support of any kind from anyone, I still retain hope that things will get better with time.

So in terms of impact, this poem has had a huge and immediate emotional response from me as one reader reacting to your words. But then I think, as many of us will end up in this spot at least once in our lives, the poem must have universal appeal.

9) Favourite lines: Let me just pick three to avoid quoting the whole poem back at you.

First:

If each day, when I woke there was
Nothing for me to look forward to
If there were no dreams for me
There would be nothing left to do

Your opening lines. Be we writers of prose or verse, this is where we have to draw the reader in. You have done that effectively with me. Your words 'Nothing for me to look forward to' immediately rang bells in my head as it is language I have used in the past and in fact I used even yesterday in my head and in conversation with one person.

Second:


There is no longer anyone to care
No one to help me through the day
When troubles seem to overwhelm me
And they always seemed to want to stay

The sense that no-one cares and you are left to deal with your troubles on your own after lost love is something I have lived in the past and am living again now. You express it well here.

Third and last:

I plunged right on through this life
Always focusing on all of my dreams
Trying to hang on to the hope I had
In hopes that they would all come true for me

This is the penultimate stanza before your positive conclusion. What this demonstrates is the method by which you overcame your heartache and which comes right back to your title and opening quote.

We must focus on the positive and fight for our dreams to recover. That is precisely what I have had to do before and I am trying to do again against the odds.

10) Overview: A well structured poem with many attractions, which in its simplicity holds a very deep, powerful and effectively expressed meaning which may well have universal impact. It certainly has had on me.

I find nothing adverse to say.

Accomplished writing!

With my warmest regards


James Hanna-Magill