The Last Friday

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The Last Friday

The Last Friday is a poetry editing group. Once a month, we post a poem and then offer feedback to the other poems on the Forum. We're a friendly but honest group. We value each other deeply and desire for every poet to be published or become famous.


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    tsukany
    tsukany


    Posts : 924
    Join date : 2011-05-21

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    Post  tsukany Fri Apr 24, 2015 8:01 am

    In this poem I am trying to see if you read enough "poetic devices" to keep it out of the prose pool.



    Tuesday Evening Service

    Sitting in your church, I question
    “How big is your hope?”  I hear you
    elucidate seven minutes of verse here
    and six minutes there.  Inside one of those

    experiences are two lines
    that hint at the intervention
    of a supreme being, or a wind,
    or a meditation that, upon scrutinizing,

    eke out a drop of promise.  
    I want to take a drink, but there’s not enough
    for a taste, not enough for over thirty mouths
    who’ve spent the past year in a desert.  

    This desert of cruelty, disrespect,
    lawlessness, chaos, and disorder,
    grows decade after decade.  Any oasis
    we once could see, even as mirage,

    is swallowed up by line breaks,
    by shifting sands, by mountains
    of political correctness, an equality
    defined by personal benefit.  I hope

    to stand up, expand the borders
    of the oasis that is truth, grow grass
    at the edge of the sands, toss a branch,
    no, a tree of hope large enough

    to float across, relaxing until strength
    is restored enough to swap places
    with one stuck behind the manuscript.

    --Todd Sukany 23 Apr 2015
    Karen
    Karen


    Posts : 320
    Join date : 2014-10-25
    Age : 70
    Location : North Little Rock

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    Post  Karen Fri Apr 24, 2015 4:21 pm

    I buy it as a poem.  What makes it a poem to me is the way my attention is directed by the form.  It slows me down, makes me think at the pace of the poet, keeps me from rushing forward. 

    I also appreciate the poet's eye, emotion, and perception.  I would have a different reaction to a prose piece. I would receive it as an opinion.  I would be caught up in my own reaction to the opinion instead of listening.
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    dennis20
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    "minimum of 10 characters" Empty I'd like to say no, know

    Post  dennis20 Fri Apr 24, 2015 5:04 pm

    Todd,  I could see a theme and a form with imagery. I didn't find rhyme, internal rhyme, much alliteration (shifting sands), but some repetition, personification, and metaphors. There is also the involvement of the senses which helps pull the reader into the poem.  With that said, it still appeared more toward prose writing than poetry to me.  That may have been because of the subject matter. It seems heavy for poem fodder. Anyway, yes, I could see enough "devices" to keep it's feet out of the water.
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    Pat


    Posts : 1162
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    "minimum of 10 characters" Empty No, I do not read it as a poem

    Post  Pat Sat Apr 25, 2015 8:31 pm

    It has stanzas and line breaks like poetry, but I do not hear music or see imagery.  Words like promise, hope, disrespect, cruelty, truth may be where you want the reader to go, but it's telling.  One little image might take us there.  It sounds more like a rant.  I pushed myself to read past the third stanza.  I had a hard time with this.
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    Dewell H. Byrd


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    Age : 93
    Location : Central Point, OR

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    Post  Dewell H. Byrd Sun Apr 26, 2015 11:56 am

    Poem?  Yes, a prose poem.  First couple of stanzas I thought it was a RANT.  I guess overall the piece covers too much ground to be a typical TODD poem though the subject is right on.  I like the absence of poetic mechanics for a change since I'm basically a storyteller.  Go with it as is.  Reading it to an audience will be more interesting than seeing it alone.  Good work.  Dewell

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