What happened

Life's every day daunting
Fighting dreams that keep haunting
What happened?
I was brave
Now my hearts an echoing empty cave.

Most days I sit here motionless
Poppin pill cus it's better to be emotionless.
What happened?
I was joyfully proud
Now my feelings are somber storm cloud

I'm not graced with familiar faces
Just disgraced by pungent places
What happened?
I was at ease
Now I'm lost in these seven seas.

© 2021 The Immortal Phoenix

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JayG

I see what you’re going for, but there are a few things you might look at.

First, while we write from our own chair, and express out own feelings, we, inherently, have context to make it meaningful. So for you the poem will always make sense. But the reader has only what the words suggest to them, as-they-read, which means we must edit from the chair of a reader, who lacks our knowledge, so as to be certain to provide what’s needed to make it meaningful to the reader.

With that in mind, look at the first line as a reader must:

• Life's every day daunting

In this line your intent was that “life’s” is a contraction for “life is” But the reader, lacking context, will probably take it as possessive, Wondering, "Life's what?" and hit L2 expecting something entirely different than what your intent was.

When you say, “I was brave,” the reader’s reaction will be, “For doing what?” But that’s never addressed. And what can a reader make of “Just disgraced by pungent places?” Yes, it rhymes, but if they have no idea of what you mean by it, they'll assume you said it because you need a word that rhymed with "faces," and had to come up with something to more-or-less fit "places." And that brings is to...

At all costs, do NOT subordinate the need to rhyme to the intent of the poem. Rhyming isn’t the purpose of structured poetry, and the rhyme should seem like the perfect word for the thought—the tink of the cymbal as accent, not the thud of the bass drum. Elevating the rhyme’s importance can lead to a forced feel.

And finally (well, you did ask 🤪) Prosody, which is one of the most important, and most overlooked issues of poetry. The idea is that the words of the poem should flow “trippingly” from the tongue. The regular flow of stressed/unstressed syllables creates a background cadence that makes poetry feel very like a song. And to do that we need to take the flow of stressed and unstressed syllables into account. Your intent for the flow of them should be clear to the reader, and like a song, the beat must be consistent from stanza to stanza. But look at L1 from each stanza:

S1: Life's EVery day DAUNting = Iambic, 2 stressed syllables (called feet in poetry)
S2: Most DAYS I SIT here MOTionless = Iambic, 3 feet.
S3: I’M not GRACED with faMILiar FACes = Trochaic, 4 feet.

For a really good introduction to the ideas of stressed/unstressed syllable usage in poetry, take a look at the excerpt on Amazon, for Stephen Fry’s, The Ode Less traveled.

And for a great, and fun example of how the use of it can literally become a drumbeat as you read, take a look at The Cremation of Sam McGee, by Robert Service, on Shmoop. Written over 100 years ago it still has the power to make you smile, and react to the beat.
https://www.shmoop.com/cremation-sam-mcgee/poem-text.html

After you read it, look at the following pages for an analysis of it.

Hope this helps. Hang in there, and keep on writing.

Jay Greenstein
https://jaygreenstein.wordpress.com/category/the-craft-of-writing/the-grumpy-old-writing-coach/

Posted 3 Years Ago

I see what you’re going for, but there are a few things you might look at.

First, while we write from our own chair, and express out own feelings, we, inherently, have context to make it meaningful. So for you the poem will always make sense. But the reader has only what the words suggest to them, as-they-read, which means we must edit from the chair of a reader, who lacks our knowledge, so as to be certain to provide what’s needed to make it meaningful to the reader.

With that in mind, look at the first line as a reader must:

• Life's every day daunting

In this line your intent was that “life’s” is a contraction for “life is” But the reader, lacking context, will probably take it as possessive, Wondering, "Life's what?" and hit L2 expecting something entirely different than what your intent was.

When you say,  “I was brave,” the reader’s reaction will be, “For doing what?” But that’s never addressed. And what can a reader make of “Just disgraced by pungent places?” Yes, it rhymes, but if they have no idea of what you mean by it, they'll assume you said it because you need a word that rhymed with "faces," and had to come up with something to more-or-less fit "places." And that brings is to...

At all costs, do NOT subordinate the need to rhyme to the intent of the poem. Rhyming isn’t the purpose of structured poetry, and the rhyme should seem like the perfect word for the thought—the tink of the cymbal as accent, not the thud of the bass drum. Elevating the rhyme’s importance can lead to a forced feel.

And finally (well, you did ask 🤪) Prosody, which is one of the most important, and most overlooked issues of poetry. The idea is that the words of the poem should flow “trippingly” from the tongue. The regular flow of stressed/unstressed syllables creates a background cadence that makes poetry feel very like a song. And to do that we need to take the flow of stressed and unstressed syllables into account. Your intent for the flow of them should be clear to the reader, and like a song, the beat must be consistent from stanza to stanza. But look at L1 from each stanza:

S1: Life's EVery day DAUNting  = Iambic, 2 stressed syllables (called feet in poetry)
S2: Most DAYS I SIT here MOTionless = Iambic, 3 feet.
S3: I’M not GRACED with faMILiar FACes = Trochaic, 4 feet.

For a really good introduction to the ideas of stressed/unstressed syllable usage in poetry, take a look at the excerpt on Amazon, for Stephen Fry’s, The Ode Less traveled.

And for a great, and fun example of how the use of it can literally become a drumbeat as you read, take a look at The Cremation of Sam McGee, by Robert Service, on Shmoop. Written over 100 years ago it still has the power to make you smile, and react to the beat.
https://www.shmoop.com/cremation-sam-mcgee/poem-text.html

After you read it, look at the following pages for an analysis of it.

Hope this helps. Hang in there, and keep on writing.

Jay Greenstein
https://jaygreenstein.wordpress.com/category/the-craft-of-writing/the-grumpy-old-writing-coach/

Rating /100