I would Appreciate Feedback on Poem

[Mythos50]

Close to final, need to know if there are punctuation, spelling, technical, unnecessary words, etc.

* * * * * * * *

Our Tomorrows


You still are everywhere I look:

In the freshness of clean sheets;
On clothes hung neat by beds;
There is the coffee brewed each day
Served with breakfast once we pray.

In the evening you greet me warmly
Tell we funny almost daily stories
About the kind of day passed us by
We laugh, we cheer, dream tomorrow.

Days spent camping with scout boys
Morals, ethics taught in outdoor joys
Then a day, then weeks pass into night
We laugh, we cheer, dream tomorrow.

Soon their graduation, prom night ball
One leads one thru sport season fun
The games to play on field with horn
We laugh, we cheer, dream tomorrow.

Tomorrow comes and a dream fulfills
To college and higher education thrills
And hidden lessons no book describes
Still we laugh, we cheer; we’re revered.

So it goes, so it goes with fears and woes
Hairs get thin, eyes weak, bunion grows
Grandkids starting to show up now and
We laugh, we cheer, live our tomorrows.


by Mythos 3/10/03
* * * * * * * *

 

[Mythos50]

Maybe if I present my ‘argument’ here it will get things rolling:

You still are everywhere I look:

Opening line -
1. ‘You’ is the subjective personal pronoun and undetermined as singular or plural at this point.
2. Could be ‘are still’ but I figure ‘still are’ causes reader to pause and helps sets the pace of poem.
3. The opening line is metaphysical since subject cannot be everywhere physically at once. ‘I’ is therefore speaking to a metaphysical ‘you’

In the freshness of clean sheets;
On clothes hung neat by beds;
There is the coffee brewed each day
Served with breakfast once we pray.

1st Stanza -
1.“sheets”, “clothes” and “beds” are multiple. Imagery here is to build a sense of more than one “you” hoping for a sense of established routine, of continuity, of family life in first stanza mood set by the imagery. Does this work? Suggestions for improvements? The mood of poem should be slow, steady, an ease that comes with ‘home’ feeling is what I am after.

In the evening you greet me warmly
Tell we funny almost daily stories
About the kind of day passed us by
We laugh, we cheer, dream tomorrow.

2nd Stanza-
1. first stumbling block - if tempo of poem is not reached the second line here with ‘almost’ will catch reader. Could punctuation change this? Is there a need to change the reader’s pace through poem to this point?

2. ‘We’ and ‘us’ –plural pronoun usage to give reader sense of multiple ‘you’ being spoken of here in this poem.

3. Last line – I have a sense of seeing this somewhere before, have you seen this ‘We laugh, we cheer, dream tomorrow’ in another poem?

Days spent camping with scout boys
Morals, ethics taught in outdoor joys
Then a day, then weeks pass into night
We laugh, we cheer, dream tomorrow.

3rd Stanza –
1. does mood and theme carry on thru here? Getting more of a sense of who ‘you’, ‘we’ are? A sense of time passing?

2. any suggestions on the remaining stanzas?

 

[Angeline]

Feedback

Hiya Mythos!

This is a lovely poem, and your spouse (I presume) is lucky indeed to have someone who wants to write it at all, let alone "still."

A few suggestions:

1. I wouldn't get too hung up about the I-you pronoun thing. I think it's clear that one person is writing to another expressing love that has sustained. I would delete "still" though--to me it seems unnecessary.

2. Also the poem feels a bit stiff--the stanzas too constricting. Note how the construction of lines in your original (their syntax) is not parallel, either within or across stanzas (except for the repeated line). This says to me that you have a more free-form poem trying to break out of a format it doesn't quite fit.

Call me crazy (well, not to my face lol), but when I played with the poem, it went here:

You are everywhere I look:

In fresh bedsheets
and clothes hung neat by beds;
in fragrant daily coffee
served after morning prayer

In warm evening greetings
and laughter shared
in our daily spoken diaries

We laugh, cheer, dream tomorrow.

In camp days of boy scouts
teaching ethics in crisp outdoors
in days and nights passing through time

We laugh, we cheer, dream tomorrow.

In children growning to proms
and seasons leading one sport
to fields and horns and graduation

We laugh, we cheer, dream tomorrow.

In tomorrow dreams ever close fulfilled
by college, books and classrooms
And hidden lessons no book describes

Still we laugh, we cheer; we’re revered.

So it goes, so it goes with fears and woes
Hair thin, eyes weaken, bunions plague toes
Grandkids arrive and still we grow

We laugh, we cheer, live our tomorrows.


That's one way to go. I also think this idea would work really well as a sonnet.

 

[Mythos50]

Thank You Angeline For Feedback

You Wrote:

"This is a lovely poem, and your spouse (I presume) is lucky indeed to have someone who wants to write it at all, let alone "still."

A few suggestions:

1. I wouldn't get too hung up about the I-you pronoun thing. I think it's clear that one person is writing to another expressing love that has sustained. I would delete "still" though--to me it seems unnecessary. "

On this point - I was not clear if the pronouns were 'saying' what I was looking for. I shall have to look once more. I was hoping to bring 'love that has sustained' and also a sense of family into the poem as well. Perhaps aiming for too many themes in one poem?

I agree, dropping 'still' would sound better.

2. Also the poem feels a bit stiff--the stanzas too constricting. Note how the construction of lines in your original (their syntax) is not parallel, either within or across stanzas (except for the repeated line). This says to me that you have a more free-form poem trying to break out of a format it doesn't quite fit.

I also think this idea would work really well as a sonnet.

Thank you for the suggestion! Since I owe JUDO a sonnet, I shall see if I can put this into sonnet form. Might be fun!

I read both versions of this poem to my wife and she picked mine out without hesitation, and said she liked both versions. When I asked how she knew the one I wrote she said "you write abstractly.” She said the other poem was clearer in imagery and more direct in use of emotion."

Abstractly? I asked. "Yeah, I always wonder where the nose is going to be in your picture!"

Ever trying to figure out my spouse,
Mythos