Bubbles filtrating up through the emerald-like lake
A man positioning his camera
as he beckons for the two swans to pose
The white swans preening themselves
next to a glistening maple tree
Dan and I are fishing as I scope out my surroundings
A father and his curly-haired daughter
A father and his curly-haired daughter
feed the swans pieces of hot dog buns
Up in the sky a plane engine pulls
a glider behind it
The sound of the Campanile chimes
a quarter after four
Breaking the stillness of silence
Mel, I see you are trying to view the scene through your personal perspective as Anna suggested. I like the other first line of your original poem better, though. Maybe insert this new line as the fifth line? I don't know. Where is everyone?
ReplyDeleteI think the first line should go in the middle of the poem after swans preening...
ReplyDeleteI agree with you Mel
ReplyDeleteMel,
ReplyDeleteI like that you have pared down the ending here. This ending seems more effective, and helps carry that beautiful imagery straight through to the end without interruption. You brought a definite first person voice into this poem, along with a character named Dan. Now they carry great weight as subjects of the poem because of the first person position of the narrator, and Dan's relation to that narrator. If it were third person, they might not necessarily mean anything more than anything else in this scene. Does that make sense? So, the challenge here is to either expand the narrator and Dan's role in the poem to help the audience understand why they are important to it, or to eliminate the first person narrator in this poem entirely- replacing it with third person omniscient point of view. If you decide to keep the first person narrator, what is the narrator thinking or doing besides looking around? What does this time at the lake mean to the narrator? What is important about it? What is the emotional undercurrent of this story? If you decide to eliminate first person, why is this scene important? It may just be for its beauty, and that is a perfect reason to write a poem. Right now, though, I'm not sure that is all this poem is about for you as a writer. Mel, thanks for posting. I hope this was helpful and not plain confusing. Let me know if it is and I'll try to clarify.
Anna