Do you like my new poem?

Question

Dreaming over his written words
Dreaming over his absence
Over foreign lands that lie across
Between us

Out of sight
Out of touch
He understood me so well
Better than some who were too close
And could not see the true me

He could read and see
All so clearly
Inside and outside me

Out of reach
Land spreading us apart
And even time
Not working the same way

I let my poem flow
Does it need to rhyme?

I let my best thoughts
And wishes
My warmest feelings
Be sent to him

Out of reach
Out of touch
Yet his words
Warm and melt my heart

Answer 1

*hi*
*he smiles*
*he sighs*
there are SO many answers to your poem, what else can I say? my heart is glad you're thinking of me... I mean HIM.... he sounds like an awesome dude. :)
"I let my poem flow
Does it need to rhyme?"
those two lines, set apart the way they are, make me wonder if they're a question you're asking of yourself.... my answer is: I don't mind if your words are perfect. you don't HAVE to be perfect. let your words flow, and the guy will accept them because, well, he's old enough to know that everyone has flaws. and he won't hold your flaws against you. flaws make us human--perfection is impossible, so don't expect it of yourself. he certainly doesn't expect it of you! so let the words go.... let go of that part of yourself that holds back, that THINKS so much before just saying what's on your mind. he'll appreciate that much more than carefully constructed sentences and perfect grammar.... he just wants to hear YOU. trust me.
it's late here, it's CHRISTMAS! merry Christmas Ana!
thank you for thinking of me. HIM!
it's nice to know that there's a girl out there who's melted by words.
xoxox
Kurt

Answer 2

For me a poem has to have rhythm. It doesn't necessarily have to rhyme but it needs to hit my emotions. I think clarity of expression is important as well. I don't like to second guess what I'm reading about. I always look for what I term "poetic gems"in the text.

Answer 3

I can see what you are trying to say, and it is quite a regular theme in poetry (parting and absence). However, in order for a poem to be interesting to readers and listeners, it has to have some content that is external to the poet himself or herself. What you have written is highly personal, and does not have much that would translate to someone else's experience in order to hold that person's interest. In essence, what you have written is inward-looking and of internal value; it has no 'hook' or general point of interest to another reader. You need a 'bullet' at the end. To get an idea of what I mean, look at a poem in a completely different genre, 'To A Mouse', by Burns. It's worth reading this. Burns starts by describing the mouse in his field, and how he has inadvertently destroyed with his plough the mouse's work building its shelter. Most of the poem is spent on this description, which, incredibly well crafted as it is, has no apparent interest beyond being a kind of 'diary entry'. That is, until the end, when Burns draws the parallel between what has happened to the mouse, and human destiny and fears for the future. It's brilliant. That's the 'bullet', the 'hook' for interest outside the mere tale-telling of the incident with the plough. That makes it suddenly relevant to the reader in a wider sense. In order for a poem to 'live' in the minds of others, it has to have this external hook from the internal experiences that are being described by the poet.

A word about so-called 'free verse'. This is often chosen by writers who are not confident in, or think it would be easier to write than 'conventional' verse forms. On the contrary, you have to be very accomplished in language in order to write 'free verse', and you have not yet attained that level of accomplishment. Your sentences don't flow in semantically sensible organisation:

"Over foreign lands that lie across
Between us"

jolts the reader with an ungainly pile-up of conflicting prepositions -- the effect is not good. The lines beginning

"Out of sight / Out of touch / He understood me so well"

look suspiciously like anacoluthon: you start with one sentence structure, and abruptly change to another. This is a common error among those who are not experienced in literature, and who let a desire to 'appear poetic' get in the way of expressing themselves in a syntactically sensible way. Whilst one can appeal to 'poetic licence', poetic licence is not a sticking plaster to cover structural flaws in a piece of writing.

It's not my intention to discourage you -- far from it! But it takes a great deal of effort to make something look effortless, and that's what a poem in general should do -- appear effortless and almost 'inevitable' in the way it flows. You need to acquire a habit that novice writers are too often reluctant to accept -- the need to edit ruthlessly. For its content, your piece is too long.

I suggest that rather than flirt with 'free verse', you choose instead a classic form (sonnet, terza rima, whatever), and try to work your ideas into that. For one thing, you will have a fixed number of lines to work with, and won't be so tempted 'not to stop', a classic fault in 'free verse'. With a fixed number of syllables per line, and a defined metre, you'll have to think about the words very carefully, how they fit together, and the sound they make when spoken. Poetry is, after all, first and foremost an oral art, not a written art. (Remember Pope: "The sound should seem an echo to the sense.") The constraints imposed by classic or standard forms will actually help you here.

Having said all that, I have to commend you for committing yourself to print and seeking the opinions of others. It takes a bit of bottle to do that, and I hope that, if you do revise your piece, you post it here once more.

Best wishes!

Answer 4

I am amazed at the kind of some obviously misinformed criticism your poem has elicited.

In my opinion it captures passionately the theme of forced spatial separation of two individuals the inescapable wistful feelings and nostalgic hauntings that punctuate such fateful eventualities.

Anyone who lives in our society today certainly is aware about these many forced separations from loved ones. Loved ones traverse the seas for national or communal or familial services overseas and or locations beyond our geographical and or societal borders. But the most sensitive barely go beyond emotional borders.

Our loved ones may be far away in distant locations but they wont forget us nor we forget them if we really love each other. Hence, like the speaker here we often find ourselves wishing for their letters:
*
Dreaming over his written words
Dreaming over his absence
Over foreign lands that lie across
Between us
*
The distances separating us, thankfully, do not hamper our dreams and passions whenever we receive letters from them.
Certainly we know they are "Out of sight/Out of touch" but as the speaker in this poem intimates about her bossom love:
*
He understood me so well
Better than some who were too close
And could not see the true me
*
This is undoubtedly wistful reflection about the old days when the two lovers sauntered about together. And certainly, it is no crime for the speaker to re-visit the magical moments of those old days! Or, is it not?
"He" understood the inner thoughts of his lover quite well, even much more than those other lip-serving and tongue-wagging hang-abouts claiming astute keenness. And I repeat that in my view, there is no offence in this regard. We experience these feelings all the time if not now and then!
This line simply states the obvious even though poetically pedestrian as someone noticed:
*
He could read and see
All so clearly
Inside and outside me
*
The emphasis is on the idea that he was special endowed with the ability of unravelling the inner complex thoughts of the speaker. Notice the idiomatic, "read and see" deployed as adverbial phrase to qualify the quality of perspection.
Then the speaker laments this fate that has decreed they must spatially and temporally separate!:
*
Out of reach
Land spreading us apart
And even time
Not working the same way
*
And then this rhetorical question about basically how to moan or strictly, how to express these deep inner feelings:
*
I let my poem flow
Does it need to rhyme?
*
Of course, we shall in a chorus respond: Not necessarily. There is no formula to crying. You simply cry or moan as your state of pain dictates! Is that not so!
And if there is no formula, the speaker has found ways of condoling and consoling herself:
*
I let my best thoughts
And wishes
My warmest feelings
Be sent to him
*
Who would not want to receive these fruits of "best thoughts," and "warmest feelings" when physically separated from their bossom love? Who would not want to write a missive, a reply that reciprocates such fond regards in "warm words" that would "melt" a dear one's "heart!!"
***
Someone charged that the poet of pours her feelings out in prose masquarding as poetry (I cannot see them as I write this) and declared the poem prose not poetry.

Two faulty assumptions.
1. As teachers of poetry have always insisted, the speaker is not necessarily the poet/writer. The speaker or I-narrator is just one character invented by the poet even if the poet were talking about herself. Better grab Derrida's responses to John Austin and Roland Barthes' "The author is dead" theories.
2.With respect to versification, better grab Jean Paul Sartre, and a poet no one here has ever read, Taban lo Liyong, and his Latin American ancestors like Argentinian, Jorge-Luis Borges and the Brazilian poet who composed 'Velocidade' (Azeveredo, I presume). Read Nobel Prize Winner, Wole Soyinka's poems too. Perhaps closer home is T.S. Eliot. They did not write/compose as 'the bird sings.'
Someone encouraged that you should not mind about what others say. But I think, you should if you want your piece to be evaluated and analyzed. After all, we all know that the meaning of a poem is not a preserve of the poet. Readers have their own interpretations and poets do write with readers in mind if they are accomplished.
Somebody talked about "free verse" as a style used by poets
who lack confidence in "conventional verse forms." (whatever that means, I know not). The unsettling piece of advice offered is that one has be an accomplished speaker in a language in order to writw free verse! I wonder what happens if one recites a poem. The assumption is that an upcoming poet should learn logocentric metrical conventions in order to be regarded a good poet. That is a sure way of suffocating creativity.
Poets in my estimation are first and foremost, singers, oral performers, and as Jean-Paul Sartre said, a poet should be given free will to go wherever he/she was bound to go. Poetry is not mathematics in the Wordsworth sense. Poetic expression depends on the poet and the spirit of the age. Otherwise, we would not have had The Lovesong of Alfred Prufrock and the Wastelands. Why should one be confined to Keats' sonnet metrical patterns whenever one wants to sing or cry or express some other similar passion!

I'd ask with the speaker of the poem above, If I want to cry, laugh or love, "Does it need to rhyme?"
Any Yes answer sounds misinformed in my opinion.

Be encouraged and compose more poems.
good luck

.

Answer 5

Put it back in your diary. It doesn't flow, it has no rhythm, it's not poetry. It IS two long run-on sentences, and doesn't even use comma coupling to add to the sense of flow, or to give pause for breathing. This is really done very badly, so my answer has to be no, I don't like it.

Answer 6

I really really like it you know i have heard that poem somewhere from someone i will tell you ...........
I heard it on Yahoo as a question and bye a girl called
Analyst.

See now do you believe me that it was a good poem come look at my questions!!!!

Answer 7

Short but creative. You have written your feelings very well. Lines are short but you have conveyed your emotions as you like and it is ver creative. I like the short lines which are written in simple lanugage.Very good poem.

Answer 8

WoW This is a wonderful poem and you have expressed so much love in it.' and this person is a very lucky person to have such a great lady as your self....

Answer 9

Warming, well flowed and a tad pedestrian, however it is emotionally full which I look for in a iece, well done.

Answer 10

Yes, sounds like a love story...