Thread: Winter

Here, bachelors dream of names for their future sons.
Wistful daughters wish through windows for those bachelors
to turn them to mothers.
There, a boy watches from behind smoke curling out under his hat.
These are those cold months.


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This was going to be the last stanza of a larger four-stanza piece, but I realized I was only writing the rest of the poem to put this at the end. I decided to cut out everything else and just use this as the whole piece. Yes the first line is not capitalized. Use your imagination for an intro. Hope you enjoyed.

Hi ODaly

No point padding out when what you say is there in a minimalist poem. I think you could cut out some redundant words and if you are deliberately not capitalising the first line, why not leave out all capitalisation and punctuation.

Suggestions for tightening

and here, bachelors dream of names for their future sons.
Wistful daughters wish through windows for those bachelors
to turn them to mothers. do you need through windows especially as you have through in the next line?
and there, a boy watches through smoke curling out from under his hat.
These are those cold months.

I liked this, thanks for the read.

Thanks for the input, shadows. I left the capitalization as is mainly because I still wanted it to feel like it was part of something bigger, though what that was would be up to the reader, subconsciously or otherwise.

I'm glad you caught "through" used twice. I'd like to save "through windows" if I can, partly because of the image and partly because of the alliteration. Maybe I'll find a way to edit L4 to accommodate.

I love that last line. I agree with Shadows about cutting the "and"s especially. Just having "here" then "there" is beautiful with the minimalist approach. Good work.

I can only third what has already been said.

Thanks both of you. New fixed version is up.

Great job getting rid of the double through and those ands, OD. The brevity works very well, gives the reader's mind room to wander. I, would, however, love to have a peek at those other three stanzas just to see how you managed to pad the stellar ending. You don't have to oblige me, though. I thoroughly enjoyed this, love.

hello

the only things I didn't care for that much was the 'turn them to mothers' well the 'turn them to' because it felt out-of-control of the girls

maybe its just my sister's influence on me, she'd never let a man turn her into anything.

But I like how you describe time frozen til spring.

enjoyed

Lisa, I'll shoot one of the stanzas over to you either sometime tonight or tomorrow. Though I can't say they're anything much more than just bland.

As for "turn them to," Sync, you raise an interesting point. I guess I look at it as a mutual effort to change, since nobody can do it on their own. The first line gives the same message, but with different words. The bachelors would need to find one of the daughters to turn them to fathers, but saying it both ways would take away from the piece I think.