Interesting Poem excercise

[twelveoone]

There was never a sound beside the wood but one,
And that was my long scythe whispering to the ground.
What was it it whispered? I know not well myself;
Perhaps it was something about the heat of the sun,
Something perhaps, about the lack of sound
And that was why it whispered and did not speak.
It was not dream of the gift of idle hours,
Or easy gold at the hand of fay or elf:
Anything more than the truth would have seemed too weak
To the earnest love that laid the swale in rows,
Not without feeble-pointed spikes of flowers
(Pale orchises), and scared a bright green snake.
The fact is the sweetest dream that labor knows.
My long scythe whispered and left the hay to make.


Suppose this was an orginal poem and appeared in new poems. Would you even look at if a no-name wrote it? Harry Hill? Me? Lets move up the Heirachy here. greenmountaineer, Angleine? Your comments? Would you recognise it for want it is?

I don't get it, and it don't look like porn.
thereby elimnating 50% of the audience


What about the metre.
eliminates another 5-10% What sayst thou, UYS?
Probably written by an American.

bright green snake.
feeble-pointed spikes
objection?

left the hay to make.
objection?

What was it it whispered?
objection?

My god, look at all the negation.


Well you get the point.

Now if I see something like this, Hoefully (sic) I would find it hard to resist a comment like:
Well it is a little fey and off the shelf
BUT THIS IS A GODDAMN SONIC WONDERLAND. How good, for starters follow the S's and the W's, go from there.

Truthfully, I would miss the fact it is a sonnet. It is.
THAT IS HOW GODAMN GOOD it is.
And I would fear this guy. (my valued perspective = yeh, fear this guy: no template, internal alignment, fucking bastard with rhyme)

And what would the anon say and vote? or Taz?

probably depends on whose name was attached.

Robert Frost, and this kind of stuff probably started his career, but that is history folks. (let's heave the penti)

Sorry for the caps, I was just being exhuberent!!

Now do you want me to bore you to tears, with another goddamn sonnet, I can do that.

 

[Angeline]

I know who it is so I won't spoil the exercise by saying. It's not 10 beats to the line and it doesn't have the standard rhyme scheme. I have been saying here for years the sonnet is an incredibly flexible form. There are great sonnets that stray even farther than this from the rules yet still manage to retain the essence of the form, which I believe is both structural and thematic.

So this poem is musical not only because the reader is forced to read a repeating rhythm but also because of the sonics you mention as well as enjambment, caesura, rhetorical devices like repetition.

Here's one that stretches the form even more. Not one of mine. I only wish.


Stronger than alcohol, more great than song,
deep in whose reeds great elephants decay,
I, an island, sail, and my shoes toss
on a fragrant evening, fraught with sadness
bristling hate.
It’s true, I weep too much. Dawns break
slow kisses on the eyelids of the sea,
what other men sometimes have thought they’ve seen.
And since then I’ve been bathing in the poem
lifting her shadowy flowers up for me,
and hurled by hurricanes to a birdless place
the waving flags, nor pass by prison ships
O let me burst, and I be lost at sea!
and fall on my knees then, womanly.

 

[butters]

coming back to this either tonight or before monday (got no3's girlfriend over to stay so depends on what time i have) BUT there's soooooooooo much to say. i'd probably start with WOW, lost in the sounds, rhythmics and visuals.

 

[Remec]

I'm intrigued, and will be back to reread and see what everyone has to add, but I am also confused. Other than having 14 lines, how is this a sonnet? I thought there was specific rules for meter and rhyme (and, to a lesser extent, organization and presentation of theme) that sonnets need to meet.

Could I get some clarification from someone?

 

[champagne1982]

My first comment to the writer, should they post it on the poetry index here, would be to state:

The language, while lovely, is outdated and will probably alienate a good 45 to 70 percent of the audience. I do love the picture of a farmer out scything his fields and bringing in the metaphorical sheaves. Thanks for the poetry!​

As a general comment otherwise to those who read this thread, I don't vote on poetry at Literotica because (1) I refuse to judge a poem's rating because I don't know how hard the poet actually worked at producing the piece, and (2) I haven't the background that gives me any authority to judge poetry. I'm glad the Lit web masters removed the thermometer, it takes away the obligation to rank a poem just because you comment, which you had to do if you bothered to leave a thought on a poem and didn't want the default setting (at 50) to effect the H a poet may or may not deserve.

 

[todski28]

I still don't know what a sonnet is but fuck that is amazing is the best I could add.

 

[UnderYourSpell]

I also know who it's by but I'm the last person to ask about Sonnets, I freely admit that I'm not that hot with this form and have only written them when forced

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

As a general comment otherwise to those who read this thread, I don't vote on poetry at Literotica because (1) I refuse to judge a poem's rating because I don't know how hard the poet actually worked at producing the piece, and (2) I haven't the background that gives me any authority to judge poetry. I'm glad the Lit web masters removed the thermometer, it takes away the obligation to rank a poem just because you comment, which you had to do if you bothered to leave a thought on a poem and didn't want the default setting (at 50) to effect the H a poet may or may not deserve.

This give me pause for thought - the voting is a bit phony. As Champagne says, the writer might have worked long and hard, be discouraged and give up - or, be ENcouraged and feel they have nothing to learn.

I too thought the thermometer a poor option.

 

[greenmountaineer]

There was never a sound beside the wood but one,
And that was my long scythe whispering to the ground.
What was it it whispered? I know not well myself;
Perhaps it was something about the heat of the sun,
Something perhaps, about the lack of sound
And that was why it whispered and did not speak.
It was not dream of the gift of idle hours,
Or easy gold at the hand of fay or elf:
Anything more than the truth would have seemed too weak
To the earnest love that laid the swale in rows,
Not without feeble-pointed spikes of flowers
(Pale orchises), and scared a bright green snake.
The fact is the sweetest dream that labor knows.
My long scythe whispered and left the hay to make.

My comment to the new poem by the new Lit poet:

This sounds very "Robert Frost" to me
(A) because I live in Frost country
(B) I live in an old farmhouse
(C) I actually own a scythe.

Joking aside(even though A,B, and C are true), I would have agreed with Champagne that "I know not well myself" and "at the hand of fey or elf" may have flown in the early twentieth century, but....

nonetheless, I would have said I think the antiquated language was mitigated somewhat by the lines that immediately followed them which seemed like something someone might say up in northern New England because, well, I've heard people say lines like that, particularly lines 4 and 5.

I would have said the last two lines were well written and reminded me of "Two Tramps in Mudtime" by Frost. In fact, I probably would googled "Two Tramps" just to make sure no lines were plagiarized.

 

[UnderYourSpell]

My comment to the new poem by the new Lit poet:

This sounds very "Robert Frost" to me
(A) because I live in Frost country
(B) I live in an old farmhouse
(C) I actually own a scythe.

Joking aside(even though A,B, and C are true), I would have agreed with Champagne that "I know not well myself" and "at the hand of fey or elf" may have flown in the early twentieth century, but....

nonetheless, I would have said I think the antiquated language was mitigated somewhat by the lines that immediately followed them which seemed like something someone might say up in northern New England because, well, I've heard people say lines like that, particularly lines 4 and 5.

I would have said the last two lines were well written and reminded me of "Two Tramps in Mudtime" by Frost. In fact, I probably would googled "Two Tramps" just to make sure no lines were plagiarized.

googling his other poems might yield better results

 

[twelveoone]

I'm intrigued, and will be back to reread and see what everyone has to add, but I am also confused. Other than having 14 lines, how is this a sonnet? I thought there was specific rules for meter and rhyme (and, to a lesser extent, organization and presentation of theme) that sonnets need to meet.

Could I get some clarification from someone?

I said it was Frost, it is Mowing here is the Volta break 8/6

Or easy gold at the hand of fay or elf:
<
Anything more than the truth would have seemed too weak

The Rhyme Scheme would determine what type of sonnet

 

[twelveoone]

And what would the anon say and vote? or Taz?

probably depends on whose name was attached.

Robert Frost, and this kind of stuff probably started his career, but that is history folks. (let's heave the penti)

Sorry for the caps, I was just being exhuberent!!

.

I think I remember Pound launched his career. Yes, heavy on the substitutions.

 

[butters]

There was never a sound beside the wood but one,
And that was my long scythe whispering to the ground.
What was it it whispered? I know not well myself;
Perhaps it was something about the heat of the sun,
Something perhaps, about the lack of sound
And that was why it whispered and did not speak.
It was not dream of the gift of idle hours,
Or easy gold at the hand of fay or elf:
Anything more than the truth would have seemed too weak
To the earnest love that laid the swale in rows,
Not without feeble-pointed spikes of flowers
(Pale orchises), and scared a bright green snake.
The fact is the sweetest dream that labor knows.
My long scythe whispered and left the hay to make.

So lost in this, the fact it was a sonnet went right over the top of my head - i was too busy being lulled by the swish, the hush, the rhythmic passing back and forth in my mind's eye of the scythe.... There's a mesmerising quality about the first half in particular: the sounds, rhythms and hazy imagery lend themselves to creating a state by which the mind is open and easy, accepting rather than thinking consciously. I can feel the heat, see the bright glints of sun sparking off the long blade as it sweeps backs and forth - if that's not hypnotic, i don't know what is. Even to the 'feeble-pointed spikes' and 'Pale orchises' - there's nothing to jar the reader from sleepy contemplation, dreamlike experiencing of the piece till we get to the bright punctuation mark of 'a bright green snake'. We know it's harmless, a grass snake, but it snaps one out of the dreamy contemplation with its hard I/E/A combo like someone snapping their fingers - the reader then pulls back into active contemplation reading the final two lines, the statement made in the penultimate line, and the soothing single pass of the last line rounding it all off with a pleasing susurration and an ending of labour well-completed.

so much more to say about it, but the sounds - above all it's the sounds that work for me. in this instance, it's more about consonants than vowels - just look at that first line with all it's soft 'w''s and 'd' pronunciations softened further by the 's's:

There was never a sound beside the wood but one,

 

[twelveoone]

There was never a sound beside the wood but one,
And that was my long scythe whispering to the ground.
What was it it whispered? I know not well myself;
Perhaps it was something about the heat of the sun,
Something perhaps, about the lack of sound
And that was why it whispered and did not speak.
It was not dream of the gift of idle hours,
Or easy gold at the hand of fay or elf:
Anything more than the truth would have seemed too weak
To the earnest love that laid the swale in rows,
Not without feeble-pointed spikes of flowers
(Pale orchises), and scared a bright green snake.
The fact is the sweetest dream that labor knows.
My long scythe whispered and left the hay to make.

So lost in this, the fact it was a sonnet went right over the top of my head - i was too busy being lulled by the swish, the hush, the rhythmic passing back and forth in my mind's eye of the scythe.... There's a mesmerising quality about the first half in particular: the sounds, rhythms and hazy imagery lend themselves to creating a state by which the mind is open and easy, accepting rather than thinking consciously. I can feel the heat, see the bright glints of sun sparking off the long blade as it sweeps backs and forth - if that's not hypnotic, i don't know what is. Even to the 'feeble-pointed spikes' and 'Pale orchises' - there's nothing to jar the reader from sleepy contemplation, dreamlike experiencing of the piece till we get to the bright punctuation mark of 'a bright green snake'. We know it's harmless, a grass snake, but it snaps one out of the dreamy contemplation with its hard I/E/A combo like someone snapping their fingers - the reader then pulls back into active contemplation reading the final two lines, the statement made in the penultimate line, and the soothing single pass of the last line rounding it all off with a pleasing susurration and an ending of labour well-completed.

so much more to say about it, but the sounds - above all it's the sounds that work for me. in this instance, it's more about consonants than vowels - just look at that first line with all it's soft 'w''s and 'd' pronunciations softened further by the 's's:

There was never a sound beside the wood but one,

Oh, damn you, you are too good.

And I would fear this guy. (my valued perspective = yeh, fear this guy: no template, internal alignment, fucking bastard with rhyme)

Strange word choice, eh, fear? As a former moderator, who has to suffer the likes of me, strange, huh?

Well, I was going to question greenmountaineer about what he thought was happening here, regarding the rhythm since he's been known to pull off these tricks and he owes a scythe.

 

[butters]

Oh, damn you, you are too good.

And I would fear this guy. (my valued perspective = yeh, fear this guy: no template, internal alignment, fucking bastard with rhyme)

Strange word choice, eh, fear? As a former moderator, who has to suffer the likes of me, strange, huh?

Well, I was going to question greenmountaineer about what he thought was happening here, regarding the rhythm since he's been known to pull off these tricks and he owes a scythe.

it's all down to some reading i've been doing of late; seeing things i maybe would have before but only subconsciously - now i'm recognising certain ways and can understand what i'm seeing on a conscious level.

yeah, strange indeed

i hope he comes in to answer - i'm very interested to hear his take on this.


also, as an aside, that whole Once upon a time... thing - i'm thinking it's like a sweep, or a pass, a not even a having to touch thing like an implanted (through familiarity) idea we place in children's minds that, upon hearing those words, makes them automatically settle, listen, open in a more receptive manner

 

[twelveoone]

I know who it is so I won't spoil the exercise by saying. It's not 10 beats to the line and it doesn't have the standard rhyme scheme. I have been saying here for years the sonnet is an incredibly flexible form. There are great sonnets that stray even farther than this from the rules yet still manage to retain the essence of the form, which I believe is both structural and thematic.

So this poem is musical not only because the reader is forced to read a repeating rhythm but also because of the sonics you mention as well as enjambment, caesura, rhetorical devices like repetition.

Here's one that stretches the form even more. Not one of mine. I only wish.


Stronger than alcohol, more great than song,
deep in whose reeds great elephants decay,
I, an island, sail, and my shoes toss
on a fragrant evening, fraught with sadness
bristling hate.
It’s true, I weep too much. Dawns break
slow kisses on the eyelids of the sea,
what other men sometimes have thought they’ve seen.
And since then I’ve been bathing in the poem
lifting her shadowy flowers up for me,
and hurled by hurricanes to a birdless place
the waving flags, nor pass by prison ships
O let me burst, and I be lost at sea!
and fall on my knees then, womanly.

if over in new poems, I would have to refrain:

Holy Crap
It's Col. Kurtz! a small niggle, "poem" in a poem offends me, Oh this poem is so wrong. 5ed, just because it is sea/me/ see/womanly, alright enuff foolin' around
l1,l2 great opening lines, and like this:
Dawns break
slow kisses on the eyelids of the sea,
reminds me of ted berrigan

 

[greenmountaineer]

I don't think I can add anything to butters' excellent comments about the sound, except to say all of the soft "s" sounds created a rhythm and a momentum which, in fact, happens with a scythe. It's like a meditation. Those days are over for me as well as my farm neighbors with their machinery. Besides, it was never more than play, at least for me, at the time.

What struck me were the subtle idioms. Although not specific to the poem, "making do" is a common expression here, but it's a bit of a misnomer because when people say it, they always find a way to do more than that in a creative way. Anyone who's been to a farmer's market or summer craft fair on the village common knows what I'm talking about. Frost did the same with "Mending Wall" and "Two Tramps in Mudtime," both of which I immediately thought of as I read the poem.

 

[UnderYourSpell]

As a matter of interest this scores 1.8 in your Poetry Assesor

 

[twelveoone]

As a matter of interest this scores 1.8 in your Poetry Assesor

not my Poetry Assesor,
it is an interesting experiment in machine learning, it is also a rough duplication of how people think, in some respects better than most. Most people don't look at poetry with a 100 variables in mind. Best here, maybe five, they "feel" something. If the reader/writer investigates why he "feels something", he generally becomes a better writer until he becomes tired and/or bored. The machine as is cannot.
And this machine as is, is a better assessor than at least a certain percent of the commentors. And not prone to bullshit, i.e. this is what I am looking at, and this is how I access it. Not by the name on the top. One of the reasons Frost did not score higher is because of the perfect rhyme (this was written in the 1910's I believe) and I explained what the machine was comparing, the market, if there is one, is for poetry editors to do a quick cut of the wheat from the chaff, and writing in forms is currently not the market like it or not. I also get a grim feeling I just typed all this for nothing. Tell me it is not so.
Now did you look at the poem, doesn't keep the metre does it? Doesn't fit the form, not particularly interesting as far as subject matter is it? Did you just walk away?
If you did you missed something.

 

[todski28]

The whole feels something is how I get when I read a lot of stuff, like I am missing the meaning, as much as I read it over, I still come up short. I am surprised not at the -1.6 but that I score anything in the positive side of things. Market or not.

Normally what I am missing has to be pointed out, I.e Butters break down of this piece, or your break down of a number of things. Then I get that aha moment.

 

[UnderYourSpell]

not my Poetry Assesor,
it is an interesting experiment in machine learning, it is also a rough duplication of how people think, in some respects better than most. Most people don't look at poetry with a 100 variables in mind. Best here, maybe five, they "feel" something. If the reader/writer investigates why he "feels something", he generally becomes a better writer until he becomes tired and/or bored. The machine as is cannot.
And this machine as is, is a better assessor than at least a certain percent of the commentors. And not prone to bullshit, i.e. this is what I am looking at, and this is how I access it. Not by the name on the top. One of the reasons Frost did not score higher is because of the perfect rhyme (this was written in the 1910's I believe) and I explained what the machine was comparing, the market, if there is one, is for poetry editors to do a quick cut of the wheat from the chaff, and writing in forms is currently not the market like it or not. I also get a grim feeling I just typed all this for nothing. Tell me it is not so.
Now did you look at the poem, doesn't keep the metre does it? Doesn't fit the form, not particularly interesting as far as subject matter is it? Did you just walk away?
If you did you missed something.

I am hoping you didn't mean this and that you don't believe I am a robot that can't appreciate a poem just because it doesn't stick completely to a form. If you had hung around in the Teach ins more often you would have seen being discussed the different ways a form can start with the bare basics and then go off in all sorts of directions. I am truly hurt that you think I cannot see beauty outside a form

 

[HarryHill]

There was never a sound beside the wood but one,
And that was my long scythe whispering to the ground.
What was it it whispered? I know not well myself;
Perhaps it was something about the heat of the sun,
Something perhaps, about the lack of sound
And that was why it whispered and did not speak.
It was not dream of the gift of idle hours,
Or easy gold at the hand of fay or elf:
Anything more than the truth would have seemed too weak
To the earnest love that laid the swale in rows,
Not without feeble-pointed spikes of flowers
(Pale orchises), and scared a bright green snake.
The fact is the sweetest dream that labor knows.
My long scythe whispered and left the hay to make.

..
There never was a sound save one, next the wood ,
and that my long scythe whispering to the ground.
Whispered what, I know not well myself;
perhaps something about the heat of the sun,
about the lack of sound, perhaps,
and that why it whispered and did not speak.
No dream the gift of idle hours, easy gold
at the hand of fay or elf:
more than the truth would have seemed too weak,
the earnest love laid the swale in rows,
without feeble-pointed spikes of flowers,
pale orchises, scared bright green snake.
The sweetest dream that labor knows,
my long scythe whispered, leaving hay to make.

 

[bronzeage]

This give me pause for thought - the voting is a bit phony. As Champagne says, the writer might have worked long and hard, be discouraged and give up - or, be ENcouraged and feel they have nothing to learn.

I too thought the thermometer a poor option.

Scores on Lit poems and stories have absolutely no relationship to any quality of the writing.

 

[twelveoone]

The Killing Frost

Line 12 is strict iambic pentameter, the rest aren't

required reading for "poets" who do want to be bothered by people with tool belts.
Beside this one of many tools in Frost, I asked you to pay attention to tools in his poetry as you read it over the weekend. To work in Frost is to use a tool. Tools mediate the worker's relation to the world. It's what the worker uses to do things and to make things. Things are not "made up" in Frost, "not made up" in the sense of imagined, called up out of thin air, like fairies and elves. Instead, things in Frost are "made" in the sense of "constructed."
excerpt from
http://oyc.yale.edu/transcript/506/engl-310

Good stuff, about Frost

Wha?
You will find the word "dogma" here, but also some fine work on scansion.

Keep in mind, I don't like Frost, never did, still don't. I hate dogma. If anything I am "Verse Libre", but what does that mean. To me, "truisms" are only 50-90% right and there are tools, tools have specific purposes, use them, but keep your hand out of the buzz saw. I think Frost wrote about that.

 

[twelveoone]

I am hoping you didn't mean this and that you don't believe I am a robot that can't appreciate a poem just because it doesn't stick completely to a form. If you had hung around in the Teach ins more often you would have seen being discussed the different ways a form can start with the bare basics and then go off in all sorts of directions. I am truly hurt that you think I cannot see beauty outside a form

I'm truly hurt (actually I'm not) that you think I might not know this. However, I am dismayed that I stated it was Robert Frost straight up, and everybody seems to have missed it. The point was how do you look at a poem and what is the relationship to the name attached and are you reacting to things outside the line(s) drawn. You seem to have been more interested in whether it was plagiarized. i.e. by me.
BTW Tod, I googled this (after I posted it) looking for a scansion of this. There is a lot on the Internet regarding this poem. It is worth trying frost and sense of sound, or pursuing the links in the friends of frost. Worth also his "Strict Iambics" and "Loose Iambics" rif.