Is this meaningful or what?

Question

THE STOLEN ORANGE by BRIAN PATTEN
When i went out i stole an orange
I kept it in my pocket
It felt like a warm planet



Everywhere i went smelt of oranges
Whenever i got into an awkward situation
I`d take the orange out and smell it


And immediately on even dead branches i saw
Tha lovely and fierce orange blossom
That smells so much of joy


When i went out i stole an orange
It was a safeguard against imagining
there was nothing bright or special in the world

No time wasters please or i may have to kill you and make it look like an accident. Ttankyou lovely schoolteacher who appreciates the beauty of prose .

annabella you made me laugh. no i am not Brian. I am a great fan of his poetry. all the best to you. xxx

annabella you made me laugh. no i am not Brian. I am a great fan of his poetry. all the best to you. xxx

Answer 1

Yes! I like it.

Brian Patten! Roger McGough! Adrian Henri!


Edit: are you really Brian Patten, as somebody thinks you are! It made me laugh!

Answer 2

I'm confused...you had a very good poem going...then you turned it upside down with the last stanza...why?

For starters, the audience would have felt more for you if you'd simply said "when I went out I took an orange"... when you say you "stole" an orange, you're already two notches down in most books...regardless of why you stole it...so why take that chance? The first three lines (other than the "stole" part) are very good, indeed. The next stanza was just about perfect. The third stanza started to waver. The stanza could have said,
"And immediately would bloom on dead branches"
A lovely and fierce orange blossom
That smells so much of joy"

The final stanza argues against everything that came before...and I don't know why. However, if you must keep it in, then consider changing "stole" to "took"...it doesn't make you sound like a criminal and leaves the true owner of the orange indeterminate.

keep writing

Answer 3

Brian,

It's meaningful and I liked most of it. Normally, I'm not a big fan of a lack of punctuation: 1) it's hard to pull off consistently 2) it muddles the meaning around a bit unless you exercise your line breaks as punctuation; and 3) usually a sign of the author's laziness or fear of punctuation. But I don't get that from this, I get that you knew what you were doing. The last two lines to me are too easy and they are a let down. I was hoping for brilliance here. I don't want to discourage you in anyway, and I'll let you know up front that I rarely have found reason to offer positive feedback to poems posted here (yours being one of a handful) and the "too easy" ending is something I save for authors who have done a good job on the rest of the poem and need to think more about the ending in order to make a better, if not greater poem.

My only other comment is you might have been able to explore this idea more. Taken more time with it and perhaps to make a better ending you may, indeed, have to do that.

Do well.

Answer 4

I think it is.

1 - it is very evocative, strange.

2 - Look at the last verse:

'When i went out i stole an orange
It was a safeguard against imagining
there was nothing bright or special in the world'

When poets avoid punctuation it is to create ambiguity and make you work out what it means, decide for yourself. In this case the last verse COULD mean: 'It was a safeguard against imagining there was nothing bright or special in the world' or 'It was a safeguard against imagining.
There was nothing bright or special in the world'

The second interpretation is obviously wrong, but that is the sort of game you play when you don't punctuate. Its kind of clever. Was it worth it? Was it meaningful? The reader must decide for himself I guess.

Answer 5

Surprise surprise it don't mean a thing to me to much imagery

Agent orange was code for massive defoliation operation by the Americans in Vietnam in which many square miles of forest were treated to try and deny ground cover to the Viet Cong.
It was about as successful and as deadly as this poem.

Answer 6

Meaningful life-long one. But the overnights are good while I'm working on that.

Answer 7

I like the first 4 lines, but after that it smelt of oranges

Answer 8

Could the orange be a metaphor for a drug? The fact that it is used in awkward situations is one Piece of evidence and, The apprearance that the user of the "Orange" is hallucinating-
"And immediately on even dead branches I saw
Tha lovely and fierce orange blossom"

Answer 9

oh i get it I think, the orange smell and colour makes you feel happy and safe from the ugliness in the world.

Answer 10

Thank you for sharing, I did take some thought but I eventually understood it.