Caring takes a peppermint view
Of days gone by or moments news
Mirror of musing memory
Miles on high in reverie
Untouched by sorrow, sense, or plot
Near traps of torment we forgot
Instead to touch the hearts and needs
Telling tales of neighbors seeds
Yearning for community.
Catapulting through our dreams
Over fearful flooding streams
Mending walls, lamenting lore
Matching smiles while building floor
Undaunted by our own delights
Never fearing passers by
In life is love and love is free
To tarry longer than need be
Yielding to community.
Author notes
Minimal punctuation is intended. Honest comments welcome.
Afterthought--I noticed some people listing all the comments they had made in author's notes. If we were supposed to do that I missed it in the instructions. While I did comment on many pieces, I did it more out of a sense of community, since that is what the contest is about. 
I am not really concerned about getting credit for them. But I wanted to express an apology if I didnt follow directions so well.
Written October 27th, 2005
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deep
Woah..this was a very deep and thought provoking acrostic. You did very well. I don't know what it was for but I enjoyed reading it
Kari
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i like that begining, a peppermint view, opens the poem very nicely. good use of alliteration too. i didn't think it was hard to read, it works well in my opinion. love is indeed free, and we throw it liek confetti aroud our friends and neighbours a good piece here.
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Thanks so much for your kind comments. Of course, I never expect anyone to comment, but I am always happy when they do. There were soooo many good pieces. It was a great contest to be part of.
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I owe you an aplogy too, because I read your poem and left no comment. [Muddled on this computer again.] The minute I read your work I thought it was a winner so I am pleased to see you got a third mention. Congratulations.
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Thanks Country, glad you enjoyed it
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I still like this one.
I still like that peppermint thingy. It is a good quote indeed and one to remember. -
I see a positive outlook in the first acrostic. A desire to connect that moves us to identify with each other and overlook each others' faults. I'm thinking 'moments' is possessive... In that case, you should give it an a apostrophe. Be kind to the word.
In the second acrostic, there is a lot of action, activity... Building the foundation of community, secure in what we do... This seems to be the actual act of coming together, yielding to community.
The desire and then the act. Nice execution.
Thanks for entering the contest.
Mike
p.s. Don't worry about listing your comments in the author's comment box. I think people are just so used to having to do that that they do it without being told to. I'm going to go through and look at all the comments and rack them up. I appreciate your participation in the community of this contest. You're right, that's what it was all about. The points were just to encourage people to comment more. I imagine most of the people who entered this contest don't typically get this many comments, so I think that on the whole it worked.
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A good accrostic.
Well now I liked this one and you sure did come across really well in this particular piece. So the best of luck to you in this contest. -
Thanks for the nice comments . Feedback is always appreciated.
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I will check it out. Just because I am not a huge fan of his doesnt mean I wouldnt enjoy an occasional reading. Thanks.
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Thanks so much for the comments. Glad you liked it
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Thanks for the nice comments windsong. I really enjoy acrostic poetry, although, in all honesty, I really didn't know it had a name before I came to AP . I used to do it with friends names to do a personalized poem for them when I was too broke to buy them something . Now I can be all fancy and say I wrote acrostics
Again thanks for taking the time to let me hear your impressions
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The flow of an Acrostic is hard to manage at least for me. You managed it twice. I don't see this as cliched because this is how things were, should be, and in fortunate communities still are. The abstract and concrete merging are life as well. Everything is abstract in it's infancy only the maturation of an idea gives way to it's concrete form.
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LOL! You do that! I must say, if I wasn't so OCD about grammar and punctuation etc, the rebel in me might be tempted to break a rule here and there just for kicks...
Best of luck to you!
Kyla -
No, we don't have to post the comments that we made in our author's comment boxes! I just did it in order to keep track of the writes that I have read, because I don't want to miss reading any one of the wonderful pieces on this site...though there are many that my eyes will never see. There are too many pieces on this site!
I am lucky to have come across this piece though. You used community twice in your acrostic, which is great, because I was yearning for more(context?). In a way, you used meter...because there were some words that were supposed to have stressed and unstressed syllables to make the piece make more sense. LOL!
I liked the form, the structure, just everything about this piece! I liked when you said 'mirror of musing memory.' You used some alliteration, and it is a powerful line.
I wish you the best in the contest. Great job and keep up the great work! -
Acrostics often seem contrived and without "flow" when read aloud, but you've done a great job here in keeping the phrasing quite natural with some nice alliteration and, of course, an important message.
Good job x 2 ! -
OK, thanks, I can see from where you come from! Still you may like to read his essay "A Retrospect". Can you explain that "moments news line". Lack of punctuation is by purpose: sounds a fancy statement, like being NOT a FAN of Ezra Pound. THESE days EVEN lack of COMPETENCE is counted as being SMART and COMELY. ENJOYED MUCH, and enjoyed some of the commentary. Still I am not convinced you have ever read "Ezra Pound".
Calvin
Edited on Nov 04 because ''. -
Lol, Calvin. Way to make a person break out the dictionary. The word moment was intended in its plural form. It is a play on words coinciding with news. The word moment has multiple meanings--meaning being one of them. It indicates something of more importance than say, a minute, or an instant.
The lack of punctuation in the piece is intended. It is part of allowing the reader to form their own conclusions. I was never a huge fan of Ezra, though I appreciate his artistic endeavors. I quite enjoy a mysterious mix of abstract and concrete.
For me, a true sense of community is much like peppermint. It not only takes the dryness from the mouth and settles the stomach, it also opens the nasal passages and opens the mind to views that are a bit different and sometimes not so concise.
Thanks so much for the in depth comments. Some of what we glean from comments like this can be taken into future works and help us decide how we wish to grow. -
Lol, for some reason, I think the system wiped some of your comment since it stops in mid sentence. Poetry for me is a weaving of words around a topic to make a tapestry of meaning. One can sometimes decipher the meaning as a whole, or pick it apart line by line and decide for themselves. Sometimes I prefer to leave something to the readers imagination and interpretation and sometimes I would rather be blunt and slap them in the face with it. Thanks for expressing your impression. I appreciate it, though I wish I had seen the remainder of your comment
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You may be right about the passers by. I will look it up in a bit. Though I may leave it as is just so I have the feeling of breaking a rule There were always times that I couldn't resist making my english teacher cringe.
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It is okay you did not HAVE to put anything in your author box I think people did that to have a chance at the second set...I think this is great you have a real sense of community....and I loved the double acrostic that is rare and really hard to do so congradulations on that....and good luck in our contest.
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I see that our N (narrator) is presenting a view on what is her/his community…or what is community by and large. Caring takes a peppermint view (GRIN) (peppermint being used in adjective…but then is there an idiomatic value for this.) To me it looks like a mixing of an abstract and a real/concrete image. Moments should be a possessive, but then do we put apostrophes to make possessives out of abstract nouns. Did you mean “momentary news” or “ephemeral news”? “ Mirror of musing memory” has good alliteration…but then like the rhyming in the first two lines, it looks forced, and burlesque. Memory doesn’t have sonic support. Miles on high in reverie is just abstract. Sometimes abstractions can appear profound! Like “Herman Melville” described the sea! “Neighbors” did I miss an apostrophe? Seeds rhyme with needs…but “seeds” doesn’t have support of assonances/consonances. Yearning for community is acceptable. I see similar problems in the next strophe…with rhyme driven words, alliterations!
While I liked the spirit and idea of this, and in fact some of the imagery…but then as Ezra Pound said, never mix an abstract image with a real one…or at least separate them thematically…It is good to use a variety of words, but then one should also get to their etymology, especially when trying innovative ideas (e.g., peppermint view).
Calvin
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"Caring takes a peppermint view" what an interesting opening line. After that I'm afraid that the wording felt a little too cliche for me and I wasn't convinced that the author had anything he was really trying to impart from any position of driven communication, but was just kind of weaving words around the topic. Though this piece did have
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I love your imagery and your rhyme scheme!!! It flowed so nicely. So many times, the imagery or the rhyming (or both!) seems forced. But in yours, it was beautiful. I love the perfect rhyme. The subltle repetition was nice as well.
I think my favorite image was the "peppermint view" one. I guess that kinda describes how I feel about this write. In a world of crinkly wrapper poetry and boring white stripe imagery with the most awful and redundant rhyming, your write seemed like the refreshing white or green stripes that color your tongue and make you remember the the mint long after the sensation of taste has passed. It's late at night, so don't make fun of my metaphor...
I noticed one little thing... In the line "Never fearing passers by" I do believe "passersby" is one word. You can check me on that, though...
The lack of punctuation works here. Wow, did I really just say that? I'm a punctuation freak. But I like what you've done. Great job!!!
Kyla -
very nice indeed kept the words very well formed to the words great strength through out..Linda
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Thanks for the comments Pixie, I appreciate the feedback. I also enjoyed your take on it
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Beautiful in its simplicity
I think that this poem is beautiful in its simplicity. It flows well like a see saw and that is what community is all about. Give and take like a softball team where everybody backs up each other in a "one for all and all for one" philosophy of Community.
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