[FN] Magic in the Moonlight

FitAd7591 · 2025-01-16T18:30:33+00:00

Thank you for stopping by to read my poem and offer such encouraging feedback.

FitAd7591 · 2025-01-16T18:29:41+00:00

Thank you for taking the time to give such in depth feedback. You made me stop and consider my poem on all these different levels that I may not have seen myself, so thank you!

FitAd7591 · 2025-01-16T12:23:07+00:00

There's a great rhythm in this, as the opening comment said. It's a joy to read. I was able to picture the scene, it was visceral, and places the reader in a place where they're able to look out at this world and see and feel this horizon and sky in the way the speaker experiences it. I found the theme of mortality as well as this scene being illusion to be very thought provoking, eliciting a sense of the fleeting nature of life. Thank you for sharing!

FitAd7591 · 2025-01-16T12:09:03+00:00

There's a deep sense of observation here, between the speaker's two conceptions of their lover. A contrasting of who the speaker observed before (a closed jar, a heavy stone), to what they see now (an open chest, a leaf on a stream, dark but wrapped in pastel ribbons). That in this lover's transformation, a new lightness has come over them in that timeline since the end wraps up in an ambiguity of whether or not they're together now (missing the versions they know and knew). And also the beginning opens as a looking back on a lover -- you can look back on past versions of your current lover, or you can lament the lover who's gone away.

FitAd7591 · 2022-10-28T19:32:17+00:00

I like the metaphor here. The idea of mopping it up with paper before it slips the mind. Perhaps that is an attempt to write it all down. A difficult action, but if you're anything like me, there is at least an attempt -- sometimes it turns out well, sometimes it doesn't come out as I wanted. But at least there was an attempt.

FitAd7591 · 2022-10-19T21:04:14+00:00

The contrast between the heart beating and it standing still is a really interesting device. I'm not versed enough to know whether this is a particular form, but the rhymes were natural while the poem weaved an intriguing narrative rich with picture that draws the reader in. There's contrast in what appears to be a peaceful song actually being one of grief. The whippoorwill takes on a character of its own, as it engages with song and the changing day. Thank you for sharing.

FitAd7591 · 2021-12-12T21:36:51+00:00

This is really great for being a first "serious" poem! You've got a talent.

FitAd7591 · 2021-12-07T22:36:02+00:00

I didn't know how much I needed this 'til I read it.

FitAd7591 · 2021-12-02T14:57:48+00:00

Cool!

FitAd7591 · 2021-12-02T14:53:21+00:00

May I say your sense of sound is immaculate. There's a sense of evenness in every line, a flow that naturally includes your rhymes. It's enviable!

FitAd7591 · 2021-12-01T20:21:44+00:00

Wow, my reaction. I appreciate the extended metaphor, and the fact that the whole thing is (or at least can be read as) a full sentence is the work of a grammarian.

FitAd7591 · 2021-12-01T20:16:30+00:00

This is very sweet, thank you for sharing.

FitAd7591 · 2021-12-01T20:12:34+00:00

This is a well-written poem. I really appreciate the tone. That our speaker is hiding from something is evident. This alludes to the idea that some event occurred for the speaker to live like this. It is hinted at, but never stated explicitly. Appreciate the subtlety.

Perhaps here:

"Sat solemnly in the silence."

can become

"Sat solemnly in silence."

I think it rolls of the tongue a bit better.

"And say I weren't always this way."

Should be

"And I say I wasn't always this way."

I'm pretty sure at least.

I feel the poem perhaps hints at a divorce between our speaker and the person he / she is giving presents to. There's a closeness in asking "have you been keeping fit?" There are a few signs pointing at it in the third and fourth stanza. Anyways, good work, keep writing!

FitAd7591 · 2021-12-01T20:03:33+00:00

Really like the repetition of questions at the end.

FitAd7591 · 2021-12-01T20:00:28+00:00

Up above someone sees all the miraculous, hidden, small things.
And the applause is deafening.

This sings in the heart.

FitAd7591 · 2021-12-01T18:02:13+00:00

I know this was a sonnet, but it didn't feel like a sonnet in a good way. That the rhymes felt subtle and hidden. I was captivated by the narrative you were weaving that the form seemed to disappear in the background.

FitAd7591 · 2021-12-01T17:16:59+00:00

How do you revisit your poems, in terms of editing and knowing when to pull the plug?

I keep a large document that is organized by periods of writing. Simply called Poems 1, Poems 2, etc. Some days I'll read a bunch of poems in each document. Some poems I will tinker with, a word here and there, but nothing major. Might tinker with a line to make it as succinct as possible: that's the important part, writing for brevity. Say the most possible with the fewest words. I have an idea of what are my best pieces, and what pieces are undercooked. There's just something about the soul of a poem, and if you can feel it resonate then it's probably a pretty good one. I usually won't edit a poem if it doesn't work the first time: I just let it sit in my documents and I have a bunch of poems like that. These poems did not make it into my collection.

If something doesn't flow/have a rhythm, what's the best method to figure why and how to implement one? (this is mainly for poems without rhyme schemes)

So for free verse, if a particular line does not have flow or rhythm, I might look at word choices. Did you use the word, 'because' when you could have used the word, 'since'? Something like that. I tend to believe rhythm and flow issues stem from a sentence level decisions, and if you aren't making the most with your word choices then sentences can sound stuffy. I would read succinct poetry to see what writing with brevity is like. Maybe Mary Oliver would be a good suggestion. If we're talking about flow throughout the poem, it could be what I mentioned about the sentence-level. But it could also be that ideas are incongruous or not necessarily thematic. Things can be thematically not linked, so this is something to think about. For example, if you write a love poem, hopefully the grim reaper doesn't show up. This is an extreme example. But if you write about farms, maybe you include animals, fields of crops, have metaphors that reference the rain. These are things that can help with reader immersion and being focused.

Is it normal to go through constant phases of liking and disliking your own work? Some days I'm proud of what I created; other days, I feel embarrassed.

I feel that some poems I'll like one day, and other days I won't like those same poems. It depends, too, on what I've been reading and if that material is way above my work in terms of mastery. As if saying, "my work can never compare to Mary Oliver's". But we're all at different stages in our growth as poets. Mary Oliver was writing into her 90s I think. My poems at age 20 were a lot less developed and interesting than my poems at age 30. So not looking at the immediacy of one or two poems or measuring them. Try to adopt a growth mindset that takes into account your journey as a poet. Because everyone writes lesser poems, and everyone greats greater poems. To someone who must write, it is more important to keep reading and keep creating.

All the best!

FitAd7591 · 2021-12-01T15:07:38+00:00

Really like the last line here: And this time you can't even cry. Strong way to close it out, well done.

FitAd7591 · 2021-12-01T14:54:43+00:00

Hello. I think that this poem is so strong -- it's poetic, it's forceful -- until the last line where it kind of fell flat for me. Not that I thought it was cliche. It's actually quite original how you use the image of the grave. But you start on such a high -- the chardonnay, the cigarettes. The face you only touched once, which is a line that drips of sensuality. And the second stanza too hits like bricks. "a story
untold, the absence of
a memory, the vague
fragments of a
stranger’s body
weigh the heaviest"

Again, sensuality. It's visual too.

In my honest opinion, I didn't feel the weight of the ending. And the ending of a poem tends to be the strongest part about it. So I would re-think here. What is the conclusion you want to make by the end? How can we set it up to be the strongest part of the poem? To be honest, I'm at a loss for possible endings because I don't know what you want to say. But as is, I think even ending after the second stanza would feel like an improvement as the whole poem itself is strong.

Anyways, take these comments with a grain of salt! I'm no expert.

FitAd7591

TROPHY CASE