Sta.sh
i. To live on a day like this
They all watch in awe as the great thing rises on a pillar of steam,
Hissing and puffing, no fear in what we have accomplished.
They call it a modern marvel of man, fantastically fascinating,
It sails the sky, bringing beauty to more than just the horizon.
ii. A simple process
Nature's constructs line every lush field and flowing stream,
We inhale as they exhale, and that is life.
iii. Harmony
With every careful step I take,
I check the marks my footsteps make.
I know, you know that's what I do,
You know, I know you do it to.
iv. To learn
For two years we stared into each other's imaginary worlds,
Always on the borders, together, alone and awkward.
For fear of regret we never trespassed,
Until that one single night, I dared step into a dream.
Sadly it was not what I had imagined.
v. Employment
Right here I work the fertile ground,
Within its fruits I often found,
Integrity is all you need;
To feed us all with just one seed.
vi. Effortless
When the sun set behind the endless scene of trees and hills,
When the moon took up the torch and lit the valleys in blue and grey.
When the creatures crawled out from hidden homes,
When we watched it all happen, just warm enough smile,
Happiness was effortless.
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Ok, ok.
My comment is on the two rhyming stanzas. I quite like the effect in the first one (Harmony) because it has an appealing childish nursery-rhyme quality; although I worry a little that content has been sacrificed to sound patterning. Is all the "I know, you know" stuff so important that we need it twice (even twisted round)?
The second rhyming stanza (employment) I think is more problematic. Firstly because the meter and rhyme scheme are identical to "Harmony"'s, which kind of conflicts with the prompt
Finally I'd like to query the titles. I'm quite happy for your mini-poems to each have titles, it's not that. But they inevitably, as each poems is part of an overall whole, they become almost part of the poem and I wonder if you've thought them all through as hard as you would the content of the poem itself? Clearly with "Employment" you have. But "effortless" for example seems a little lazy.
You have done a very good job (and when I say this I'm making a comparison with the other entries) of using different styles (with the one exception of course
I'm going to do a complete overhaul on this one as I wasn't truly happy with this submission when I entered it.
I don't want to mess with Harmony too much as I was quite pleased with it's childlike quality, I will re-assess the 'you know I know you know know I you know' bit as I wasn't sure how that would go down... I have my answer now.
I fully agree with your comment on 'Employment' and I'll even go as far as to agree with its triteness. I think I need to start over with this segment, as it actually represents one of the main points of the overall piece... oops!
I will review the titles (Do you think I should lose them altogether?) and try again when I finish work for Christmas and have some more time to fret over words and images.
The "you know I know" bit works on one level, I'm just not sure it works enough to be there. Probably what you should really do is try and think of an alternative or two, and if you think of a good one then it'll replace itself, but if nothing else is working, stick with what you've got.
In the first piece the speaker begins in the third person but moves to the second person in the next line. It's quite confusing - is the speaker a participant or not?
In addition the speaker's voice is kind of confusing. In the first line he takes a fairly detached-descriptive tone but in the second is more colloquial. It's as though he goes from describing the event from a distance to (like I say) participating.
Furthermore phrases like 'fantastically fascinating' are perhaps somewhat vacant. They don't contribute to the impression of the invention in the mind's eye of the reader after all. This'd be okay if the intention was not to describe the invention but to describe the impression of the invention on the audience - but I don't think that's the case.
In addition the last line of the first poem sounds like an advertisement. You can imagine a deep-voiced American saying it over a panorama.
I think the main issue with the first poem is that the speaker doesn't occupy a fixed position in relation to the events described. Is the aim of the poem to describe the event or to create a sense of community in the accomplishment? Is the speaker in the group or aside from them? Right now it isn't clear.
I have similar issues with a lot of the other poems here. Take the first line of the second poem for example: could you find a less natural word to describe nature's accomplishments than constructs? It's completely out of keeping with nature. It'd be okay if you were making some point about industry but the poem is a pastoral appreciation of creation piece, and it doesn't fit.
You're missing an 'o' in 'too' in the last line of the third poem.
So I think you ought look at the experience you're seeking to create in each poem. Create a single position for the speaker to occupy and follow through consistently. Are they detached from events? Are they sharing with someone else? Are they describing the scene in physical terms or communicating their thoughts? Once this is consistent I think you'll be on the way to writing some much stronger poems.
Good luck!
The use of the word 'constructs' was an attempted juxtaposition nature and urban domination. Replacing what would be an overcrowding of man made building with natures version... once again that clearly didn't work out.
Back to the drawing board on this one.
I have one question: Why "Employment" instead of "Working"?
Secondly, employment is a big issue for me, I don't agree with the concept at all. The mini poem deals with my preference for a true reward for ones efforts; if it's for survival it's not working it's living. So the title is more of a topic whereas the poem is more of a solution (if that makes sense).