Thread: The Flanerie

The Flanerie

The ovens baking sweet and tasty things
The fire’s blazed fueled by the reams
Of onion skin with ink so black that sings
Of songs that lie in writer’s hopes and dreams
The café next the bakr’y will ignite
From jealous flames so green and yet so high
The pastry’s served with passion and delight
And topped with fruits becoming to the eye
The lone man sits in his solitary chair
Composing songs of love and desperate woe
His garments stained and torn with holes from wear
The ink in dirty bottles running low
The miracle of life yet to unfold
Salvation nears as oven’s growing cold.

Hello Jim,

Kudos for making me learn a new word - Flanerie!

Since I am not versed in the nuances of poetic structure, I can't comment on any technicalities, but I can say your poem speaks to me in a powerful way as a writer. For example:

The oven, in line one, I would say is the mind of the writer, where our recipes are baked to become the dishes we wish to serve (unfortunatly, some of mine are rather half baked and need more work!).

Line two: the fire fueled by 'reams'; Oh my! how many times have I wanted throw the reams of my efforts into the fire! (I now use the delete key, which is far less satisfying...).

I'll skip down to lines eight and nine - the lone writer, the solitary one that spends his existence in the effort to tell his story - the fruits of his passion - reminds me of... me... I have spent the last twenty years or so trying to get a story out, and it has been, until recently, a lonely pursuit, but a pleasant one.

The final lines are brilliant - the culmination of a life's work as the writer has matured enough that he no longer feeds the consuming fire - his work has come to life!

I hope I haven't missed the point! But if I have, it is not the fault of the poet!

Apart from that, I feel woefully inadequate to really critique this work. I like it very much, especially since it seems to mirror my own struggles, and hopefully one day a success or two.

Very best regards

CB

'Ello! You haven't said what feedback you're looking for, so I'll give you a grab bag of my responses. If you have a particular question or issue you'd like addressed, just let me know and I'll get to it.


The Good
- Yay for a successful sonnet with perfect rhyme.
- Like Seabee, I enjoyed your subject matter. It's refreshingly NOT just a "I like her but I'm not sure if she likes me" sonnet. You've chosen a unique topic to work with, and that's good.
- Particularly, I like your imagery. You include description of the fire, food, ink, and clothing, and you are willing to push beyond the literal. I like that.

The Could-Be-Better
- As much as I like this poem jumping about, I feel like it needs to feel a little more connected to itself. I see one or two lines devoted to each idea, and then an abrupt shift to the next
- Why is every line capitalized? If you're making that decision on purpose, go for it. If not -- I've generally taught (and been taught) that you should capitalize and punctuate most poems as if they are normal sentences -- so only capitalize a line if it starts a sentence. I feel that helps them flow smoother, and encourages enjambment. Speaking of which, I'd advocate including some enjambment (when sentences/ideas end mid-line). Doing so creatively can have good effects on a poem.
- You're dropping words and syllables to make the meter work -- don't! "Bak'ry" looks lazy -- the word is bakery. Dropping syllables like that only calls attention to the fact that you're struggling to fit the meter. Sonnets should look easy, even if they're not. Find a way to reword the sentence so that it works. Similarly, your last line "Salvation nears as oven's growing cold" has a very noticeable lack of the word "the." Generally, articles in this situation aren't optional. To make the poem flow beautifully, include even those bland but expected words, or find a grammatically correct way to word the poem without them.
- Finally, your meter splits from iambic pentameter at times. I mean, I can usually make it fit, but lines like "the lone man hits in his solitary chair" don't parse as iambic -- however I try it, there's an anapestic foot in there (either "in-his-sol" or "sol-i-tar" has to be a triplet for me to make it fit).

That's all I've got, unless you have specific questions. I do realize, I should note, that not everyone wants their sonnet to be technically perfect, and there may even be some disagreement about what that entails. Either way, I mean my advice only in the nicest way -- if there was some other feedback you were looking for, feel free to let me know and I'll happily take another look at things. Keep it up! This is good.

Hellow J.W.

I kNow about that anapestic foot. Thank you for pointing it out. As a sonnet it does lack smooth segue from image to image and enjambment would have facilitated that. I choose to end each grammatical phrase at the end of the line to overemphasize structure. Basically I was pushing myself to absolute limitation, especially with a self-imposed time constraint which I don’t wish to discuss here. (see PS) That’s how that pest slipped in.

Thank you for the encouragement as well as the very constructive criticism. This is only the second sonnet I have ever attempted and the first was twenty-four or so years ago with a traditional unrequited love theme.

As I am more competent in the prose form, I need to concentrate there but I am contemplating a long work of adaptation of prose into blank verse for sometime in the future when such technical advice as that given above will be necessary. In the meantime, poetry remains an emotional outlet that I have often used as a catharsis. Most verse, I tend to keep for myself for it is sometimes written hasitly.

Thank you kindly,
Jim

The PS

Anytime -- it was enjoyable to read. For a second sonnet ever, I'm impressed.