This city is home but shabby and old,
Paradise, though winters are strangely cold,
Sand of the beaches warms feet,
The water is cold and I feel incomplete,
I never stay too long,
I miss it's flaws when I'm gone,
The sky will remain,
Through every rain,
Diverse,Dispersed.
Hello,
ReplyDeleteI'll concentrate on the structure for my comment, as I feel that's important for feeding into the next task.
As Mr Savage specified, your poem should have 10, 8, 6, 4, then 2 syllables. Unfortunately, you don't always have the correct number in your lines. Your first couplet is great, ten in each, but your second goes from 7 to 11, when it should be 8, and there are several more irregularities throughout the poem. If you struggle to keep count, try tapping your fingers on the desk.
This will help with tackling the stresses too. The stresses should be unstressed, then stressed like this -/-/-/-/-/. The stresses can be used to really emphasise the words you think are important, and help the poem flow. Words naturally have a rhythm, and this should fit with the iambic meter. I'll use line 2 as an example. Isolate 'paradise' and say it aloud. The first syllable is stressed, and doesn't fit with pa-RA-dise as you've placed it. In the same line, however, you have 'STRANGE-ly COLD' which fits really well. The reader knows that it is both strange and cold, super.
You've also done really well with the rhyme scheme too, so with a bit more counting and editing, I think you're well on the way to writing a sonnet. Good luck!
Frances
Hi lookingforneverland,
ReplyDeleteYou are going to need to practice this meter, and Frances' advice to read aloud and tap fingers is excellent. Read as a whole, the poem jerks my ear up and down left backwards..... However, read aloud your third line.
"The water is cold and I feel in complete." While the missing foot hurts the poem's overall rhythm, the line itself:
the WA-ter is COLD and i FEEL incomPLETE
is lovely. It's a different meter from iambic, but it is a meter, a rhythm and makes the line flow.
The couplet
"The sky will remain
Through every rain."
Is poignant, philosophical and quite beautiful. It's an important idea. Thanks.
michael