the fresh grass of spring
the nonchalant breeze and not the wind of speed
the scent of clover in flower
and the run of the fields
forever
Author notes
Eight Belles
A contest entry
- Brevity Quickie to Honor Eight Belles by carole21.
1100 points, ended May 19, 7 entries
Silver trophy winner
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest
Comments
1 - 29 of 29
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Silver looks beautiful on you
shivered with the last line...thank you. Love, Lane
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absolutely lovely, darling one
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I thought you might feel this was a little too sentimental.
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Very nicely done a great sentiment. Congratulations on your prize. Happy trails
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Thank you.
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i like this a lot, brief but not in any way diminished, much like the subject, i think...'skid
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Thanks, 'Skid.
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Beautiful. I'm bookmarking this.
LOL! I hadn't really analyzed it until I read Paula's crit. Good one! You probably could get by quite well with a semicolon in place of the 'and' in the second line. -
In a restricted word count you have brought the feeling of Kentucky to my mind. This is beautiful, you are beautiful.
Love,
Amera
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This is heaven
for any horse but especially Eight Belles. Mairi, mares deserve such peace. Summerland pastures, sweet with clover, forever. Yes, I could take that.
You made my nostrils flare! Ron.
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I Love it.
What beautiful idyllic thoughts it brings to my mind. So different from the thoughts I was thinking this morning as I mowed ten acres of grass and brush trying to keep the jungle at arms bay.
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This is really rather lovely, Mairi--a piece that touchs the heart and with not a wasted word to boot!
Bill
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Can't afford to waste words, Bill - there's a limit of thirty.
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I adore your poetry, and I am learning such a lot here but this does not do anything for me.
Maybe I'm just not horsey enough
I think maybe a racehorse in heaven would want the wind of speed perhaps.
I hope you don't mind me telling you.
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OK so you disagree with the concept (you don't think that a horse pushed to the limit would wish to be freed, to run only as she might choose?), but what about the poem? It is a piece of free verse, stipulated under 30 words (I believe there are 27) - what do you think of the execution, the choice of words, the imagery? or does the fact that you are not "horsey" spoil it for you that much?
Now then, Paula, you are a student of literature, and I believe you aspire to be a teacher. In order to be either, you are going to have to read, appreciate, get the most from, and teach others about many, many things you don't like.
So here is the challenge: beyond this poem's failure to speak to you, what else does it have, or indeed does it lack? Get in and give me a lit-crit. Don't be timid about it.
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You are making me work for this!
I am finding this rather hard, a poem this short has different rules to obey. Perhaps it would still be possible under the constraints, to relate it more closely to the horse, so it stands alone without any reference to the prompt. The very long second line seems to break the visual appeal.
Actually I can see or is it hear, one specific thing. Why do you have "and" in the second line?
This is a terrible lit-crit! -
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Hi Paula
I read the verse without seeing the picture. I feel the poem in it's self can stand alone. I visualized standing in my meadow feeling the gentle breeze and smelling the sweet clover rather than spending the day mowing it. -
OK.
The second line was designed to do exactly that - to provide something anomalous to the eye - otherwise I felt the poem would be a little too visually predictable.
"And" here is included as a kind of "kireji" (literally a cutting word - a term borrowed from haiku and pressed, rather inaccurately into service here). It is there both as a way of breaking AND combining the two elements of that line, which, as I have said, I deliberately kept as a single. This, by the way, was the secondary reason why it was a longer line - I was reinforcing the balance between to two concepts of the "nonchalant breeze", symbolizing freedom, and the "wind of speed", symbolizing the obligation to run under the whip and the reins.
You'll find that very little I do in poetry is done without thought and deliberation.
No, it isn't actually a "terrible" lit crit...
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I keep reading it with and without the and, it just sounds so much better (to my ears of course) without it. the almost rhyme of breeze and speed is tempting.
Maybe all it means is I don't like very short poems! -
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Like I said - many things you don't like...
OK, read it again, and this time read "and not" as a single iamb, with the weakness of "and" lending definition to the strength of "not". How does it sound now?
(keep working) -
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Still working, still don't like it. But I am learning especially at free verse. I feel nuch more confident about blank verse but I have only found a few people who write it. And not being too pushy I hope, mine is as good or better than them.
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Still working, still don't like it. But I am learning especially at free verse. I feel nuch more confident about blank verse but I have only found a few people who write it. And not being too pushy I hope, mine is as good or better than them.
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You're not going to get a free comment from me on your blank verse here.
Ok you have worked hard enough, even though you are still stuck on the "like" thing. Class dismissed - for now.
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You have to give me points for trying!
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No I don't
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Mairi bheag
Beautiful Write I love this. Good Luck
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Thank you.
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beautifully written for the prompt . . thanks for the contest entry . .
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Like I said, thanks for the invitation. Not something I would have chosen, but it all helps me keep my poetry-writing muscles in trim. I enjoyed trying to say something in so few words.
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