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Okay people. I have a poem I need your opinion on. I just wrote it in the last fifteen minutes, so it’s bound to have some mistakes in it, but here it is anyway.
The Coming Dawn
Long we have stood
In the shadow and mist;
Deep is the darkness
Around us.
Black is the night,
And hard is the road,
And cruel are the foes
That surround us.
Hard is our fate,
And bitter our lot,
And cold is the night
And the darkness.
The shield is shattered,
The bow is not bent,
And the sword has lost
All it’s sharpness.
But here stand we still;
And here we will stay,
Be the battle ever so grim.
Here we will stand,
Though the darkness falls,
And the lights of the world
all grow dim.
And so we will greet
The coming dawn…For the Dawn is coming.
I like it.
Honestly, I never take much time to think about my poems when I’m writing them myself. Some of my best ones are the ones that only took me a couple minutes.
I’d just pick pick out a couple lines that don’t flow quite right:
The bow is not bent,
And the sword has lost
All it’s sharpness.
Be the battle ever so grim.
Though the darkness falls,So there you have it. By the way, have you ever heard of a sestina? It’s a pretty neat poetry form. At first I almost thought you might be using it, but then I realized that wasn’t so. Anyway, I’m sure you’d like it. I’ve written two with the form. It helps me break my habit of over rhyming everything.
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Okay Daeus, thanks! Would you mind pointing out exactly where the lines were wrong?
No, I’ve not heard of a sestina. How does it work?
And I certainly know what you mean about working too hard on the rhyme. I used to think the only good poems were ones that rhymed properly, but now I know better. 😀By the way, how are you liking all the poetry in LotR? It’s very diverse, isn’t it?
Wow. Great job, Kate! You had a great rhythm going throughout the whole thing that was really awesome.
I noticed the same part Daeus did, and I think I know what was my problem there.
You kind of have the beat going like “bum BUM bum BUM bum BUM”. Accentuating every other syllable at a pace you can nod your head to.
It sorta broke at the part: “The sword has lost all it’s sharpness”. (btw, misplaced apostrophe there)
It would keep up the rhythm better if you changed it to “The sword has lost all of its sharpness”.
There’s my nitpick.
Again, awesome job! 🙂I analyzed some of the poem, and I don’t think it follows any meter, but I do think if you changed the meter on some of the lines I pointed out that would help a lot. I don’t exactly know how to explain it. I get this sense which I’m not going to spend hours trying to prove that there is a sort of rhythm to your rhythm throughout most of the poem. In other words, each line has a meter of some sort (not that all of them follow a strict pattern, but of course they all have accented syllables and unaccented ones and that is a meter of sorts) but instead of all the lines keeping the same meter, you kind of use totally different meters in different lines in a musical sort of way. I hope that makes at least some sense.
Weather it does or not, just play it by ear. I’ll give you an example. Instead of saying, “Though the darkness falls” say something like “Though darkness may fall”. Doesn’t that sound better? That’s the thing about poetry. You’ll be writing like crazy and then you’ll come upon this one line where you know exactly what you want to say, but what you end up writing just sounds jarring and you have to completely rephrase it. You see, poetry is 25% rhyming and meter and other forms of pattern and 75% just being deft with phraseology. That might have something to do with why I love it so much. I’m a phraseology fanatic.
And I am liking Tolkien’s poetry. There are a couple shorter ones that don’t have rhyme and didn’t seem to have meter or anything else really that I could notice and they were rather flat, but they were few. For the most part he has some really great stuff. I love how he infuses poetry everywhere. I don’t think I’ve seen that before. I’m trying to do that a little but it can be harder with historical fiction I think. One thing I’m doing to compensate for this is to include a short stanza or two at the beginning of every chapter as kind of an introduction.
By the way, I think you misunderstood me a bit on the rhyming thing. I don’t work hard on my rhyming except occasionally, I will have to try hard when I want a really unusual rhyme. Rhyming just comes to me naturally. My problem then is that I have trouble rhyming too much. That is why I like sestinas so much. They don’t use rhyming but I find them very easy to write. Other than that, I’m pretty much left with meter, which I can do but I find difficult, and free verse which I like here and there, but don’t do much of.
Speaking of sestinas, they are very simple. There are seven stanzas. The first six have six lines and the seventh has three lines. In the first six stanzas you choose six words to use, one for the end of each line. Now the thing is, you must use those same six end of line words for each stanza. They are the only ones you can use. It gets a little more complicated though. You must reuse those words in a very specific order. How it works is you take the last line-end word and make it your first line-end word and make it your second. Then you take your second to last line-end word and make it your third and your second line-end word and make it your second. Finally you take your fourth line-end word and make it your fifth and your third line-end word and make it your sixth. Let me demonstrate this for the first three stanzas of a sestina.
Blah blah blah blah blah End
Blah blah blah blah blah Line
Blah blah blah blah blah Words
Blah blah blah blah blah Of
Blah blah blah blah blah First
Blah blah blah blah blah StanzaBlah blah blah blah blah Stanza
Blah blah blah blah blah End
Blah blah blah blah blah First
Blah blah blah blah blah Line
Blah blah blah blah blah Of
Blah blah blah blah blah WordsBlah blah blah blah blah Words
Blah blah blah blah blah Stanza
Blah blah blah blah blah Of
Blah blah blah blah blah End
Blah blah blah blah blah Line
Blah blah blah blah blah FirstThen you just repeat the patten until you have finished the sixth stanza. The seventh stanza is different. In the seventh stanza you have three lines. It does not matter what are your line-end words for this stanza, but you must use the line-end words from the last six stanzas somewhere in your three lines. For instance:
Blah First Words blah Stanza
Blah blah blah blah End
Line blah blah Of blahI hope that makes sense. It’s really fun and easy actually.
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Hi, Kate! I love this poem! It was very raw and descriptive, which I love! Keep it up! I agree with @Daeus; most of my “best” poems happen in the spur of the moment. 😀
"When enemies attack your kingdom you don't flee you show them why it's your kingdom. With your lightsaber."
@writefury— thank you! That helps. I see what you’re saying, definitely.
@Daeus… um… that’s a beautiful poem there, Daeus. 😛 😉 I… think I may see what you’re saying. I’ll take your word for it that it’s easy… it certainly doesn’t sound easy! 🙂
Yes! That’s one of the great things about Middle-earth. There’s poetry everywhere, and it all fits in seamlessly. I especially thought you’d like it how Tom Bombadil always talked in poetry, even if it wasn’t in verse. I think it rubbed off on Frodo for a little while too. 🙂 Where are you now?
And yes, I can be a bit of a phraseology fanatic as well. I understand.
@spradlin— Thank you so much! I’m so glad you enjoyed it. It seems whenever I tell myself ‘Okay Kate, you’re going to sit down and you’re going to write a poem’ I can’t ever do it, but when I’m really busy and don’t have time to sit down, they come flocking from the four winds and rattle around in my head until I’m driven to the end of my patience and just have to force myself to slow down and get them on paper. 😛Haha! I feel that. Sometimes, too, I want to write a poem, but I sit down and I’m like “Nope, not happening” even though there’s a rant eeking to get out of me. xD
"When enemies attack your kingdom you don't flee you show them why it's your kingdom. With your lightsaber."
Tom Bombadil was one of my favorite character, probably in the top five. He was unusual, he was a great broke of creativity, but really, he was just downright beautiful. That song he sung when he came to help the hobbits when Frodo called/sung for him was probably my favorite of all the poetry. Just beautiful. I just started book six by the way.
And I know what you mean about the sestina looking hard. I thought the same thing. It does look hard. Thankfully the trouble is only in figuring out what you are supposed to be doing. Actually writing it is easy. I’ll tell you my trick too. It may not work as well for you as it does for me, but I think it will. What I do is write all the end line words in their correct orders for all the first six stanzas. After that I go through and start writing the rest of the lines. I’m just filling in the blanks then. I’m putting on walls and floors, but I already have the structural frame.
I’ll go ahead and make one of my sestinas my next post so you can see an example of one without the 40,000,000 blahs.
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Oh good! You’re almost done. Good stuff, huh? One of my favorite poems is the one that starts ‘Roads go ever, ever on, over rock and under tree, by caves where never sun has shone, by streams that never find the sea…’ etc.
Yes please do post a sestina— I tried to make sense of the pattern and I think I got it… heh-heh… maybe… sorta… kinda… 😛 But examples always help.
That’s an awesome poem, Kate!
I think it would flow better if you changed these lines a little:
“And the sword has lost all
(Of) it’s sharpness.”
Or change “lost” into a two-syllable word.“Be the battle ever so grim”: I would replace “battle” with a one-syllable word, like “fight”.
Does that help?
Thanks, @sarah-h! I’ll post the revised version and see if I got all the kinks out.
The Coming Dawn
Long we have stood
In the shadow and mist;
Deep is the darkness
Around us.
Black is the night,
And hard is the road,
And cruel are the foes
That surround us.
Hard is our fate,
And bitter our lot,
And cold is the night
And the darkness.
The shield is shattered,
The bow is not bent,
And the sword has now lost
All its sharpness.
But here stand we still;
And here we will stay,
Though harsh be the battle,
And grim.
Here we will stand,
Though darkness should fall,
And the lights of the world
All grow dim.
And so we will greet
The coming dawn…For the Dawn is coming.
Is that any better?
Also, I would like it if I might ask your opinion on this poem, @hislittlerose. I hear you’re good with poetry.
Yeah, that sounds much better. The only thing I can really pick at is the second to last line. It’s too short so it flies by you without taking its affect. All you really need is one more syllable.
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I love it…I somehow missed seeing it the first time around. I do have one suggestion, though it’s more personal option on wording and not on the flow.
The shield is shattered,
The bow is not bent,
And the sword has now lost
All its sharpness.I love the first line, but I think second line would be more powerful if it said something about the bow or arrows being broken (after all, and unbent bow can be bend). And maybe combine the last two lines about the sword into one shorter line about how the sword is dull or broken or something like that.
INTJ - Inhumane. No-feelings. Terrible. Judgment and doom on everyone.
Thanks @Daeus! Hm… I’m not sure what I could add to that line. Any suggestions?
Glad you like it, Hope! I see what you’re saying, definitely, but about the sword, ‘Sharpness’ was supposed to slant rhyme with ‘Darkness’. Any suggestions to get around this?
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