My first poem

Ponge

I've always wanted to write, however I get the same fear and anxiety I get when sitting infront of the word processor as I do when I pick up a pencil to draw. I know it's all about practice, but this morning when I woke up I just had an idea for a poem, so I forced myself to sit down and write it out.

And well, here it is:

---

While digging another hole in freshly disturbed soil,
I clutched the rough wooden handle of my dulled spade,
And thrust deep into the ground, meeting little resistance,
Yet still the timber grain of the shovel
Dragged against the caloused skin of my tired hand,
Splintering off a fine shard into my finger.

It had come as no surprise,
Infact I had been more prepared for injury, however slight
Than I was for progress, however slight.
Being guarded in this manner, anticipation helped to dull the pain
But had caution contributed to this outcome?

I clawed at the fragment under my skin,
My broken fingernails, clumsy
And not designed for this delicate task,
Pushed the tiny wooden needle further
And more painfully, deeper.

Yet I had no other option,
I knew that I must remove this splinter
From my finger, or risk infection and poison,
That would surely take my finger, and with it my hand
Perhaps my arm.
And then, how would I dig?

For I had looked at the others
Around me, digging their own holes in their own grade of soil,
Their excavations more guided and purposeful than mine
Sometimes successful, sometimes in vain.
And I knew that, whatever I was digging for,
Still remained buried.

---

I'd be interested in hearing if anyone has the faintest idea at what I'm alluding to here, but I'll throw the explanation in a spoiler just incase it's not very clear.

Spoiler:

I recently broke up with my very long term girlfriend and have been courting another girl. I'm not 100% sure if it's going too well and it might have been far too soon to start something with someone else, but I tried anyways.

This is my first post in the Writers Block and my first piece of writing in many years (since I was a kid, and it just came so much more naturally). So I'm totally aware that it's not an amazing piece of writing, however constructive criticism would be very much appreciated!

The Crowing One

There are some real gems in here. And that's pretty high praise considering my usual slant toward meanness.

You've got a solid core, here, and a few of the lines are absolutely beautiful, in a "lyrical Frost-esque" type of way. Seriously, if there isn't a lot of Frost in your past, you've stumbled on a pretty damn good style. You seem to get far, so we're jumping right into 300-level crit.

Lines I loved, "unnecessary words" are in bold and can probably be removed to enhance the cadence; italics are places where the syntax gets a bit awkward and probably should be re-written:

While digging another hole in freshly disturbed soil,
I clutched the rough wooden handle of my dulled spade,
And thrust deep into the ground, meeting little resistance,
Yet still the timber grain of the shovel
Dragged against the calloused* skin of my tired hand,

*two "L"

Your cadence is rather trotting. It reminds me of how Frost described poetry as (paraphrase) mumblings heard under a closed door. There's something very organic about the rhythm, and it works very well due to the "conversational" toned married to a ear for the sounds you're producing. The free-verse pentameter works very, very well. Really fantastic!

The following line is a little too rough, and I think it would benefit from a re-write. This is the point where you become self-conscious, as a poet, of your metaphor and you end up being too direct in fear of misunderstanding.

Splintering off a fine shard into my finger.

Skip, skip:

Being guarded in this manner, anticipation helped to dull the pain
But had caution contributed to this outcome?

Same as above. The rhythm gets a touch awkward as you struggle for clarity of metaphor. Don't worry too much about your reader "getting it" until you have a good musical structure.

I clawed at the fragment under my skin,
My broken fingernails, clumsy
And not designed for this delicate task,
Pushed the tiny wooden needle further
And more painfully, deeper.

This is fantastic. A perfect example of form fitting function. Pentameter is near perfect, with variations on 2 and 5.

Yet I had no other option,
I knew that I must remove this splinter
From my finger, or risk infection and poison,
That would surely take my finger, and with it my hand
Perhaps my arm.
And then, how would I dig?

The content here is very good, but the presentation remains a touch awkward. Again, you get a little too bogged down in communicating your metaphor, and the piece suffers a touch for it. I'd re-write with an ear to the music and cadence to see if you can make this strophe a little less "jarring" in rhythm.

For I had looked at the others
Around me, digging their own holes in their own grade of soil,
Their excavations more guided and purposeful than mine
Sometimes successful, sometimes in vain.
And I knew that, whatever I was digging for,
Still remained buried.

Lime is, of course, awesomeness. That is a perfect example of how a metaphor can act as both a rhythmic device as well as a vehicle for metaphor. The "than mine" in the 3rd line, here, needs to get cut. Read it without and you'll agree.

Overall I love it, and I believe that with another 2-3 writes you should have a successful and meaningful poem. Let go of what "the poem is about" because that's really out of your hands as soon as you have an independent audience. Get the rhythm and cadence right, then go back a make sure that there are levels of meaning. A reader can get a nice story about digging, while another will piece together clues as to a deeper meaning. Don't worry about readers understanding just yet.

In closing, here's one of my favorite Frost pieces, for the hell of it.

Birches

WHEN I see birches bend to left and right
Across the line of straighter darker trees,
I like to think some boy's been swinging them.
But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay.
Ice-storms do that. Often you must have seen them 5
Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning
After a rain. They click upon themselves
As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored
As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.
Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells 10
Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust—
Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away
You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.
They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,
And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed 15
So low for long, they never right themselves:
You may see their trunks arching in the woods
Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground
Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair
Before them over their heads to dry in the sun. 20
But I was going to say when Truth broke in
With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm
(Now am I free to be poetical?)
I should prefer to have some boy bend them
As he went out and in to fetch the cows— 25
Some boy too far from town to learn baseball,
Whose only play was what he found himself,
Summer or winter, and could play alone.
One by one he subdued his father's trees
By riding them down over and over again 30
Until he took the stiffness out of them,
And not one but hung limp, not one was left
For him to conquer. He learned all there was
To learn about not launching out too soon
And so not carrying the tree away 35
Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise
To the top branches, climbing carefully
With the same pains you use to fill a cup
Up to the brim, and even above the brim.
Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish, 40
Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.

So was I once myself a swinger of birches;
And so I dream of going back to be.
It's when I'm weary of considerations,
And life is too much like a pathless wood 45
Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs
Broken across it, and one eye is weeping
From a twig's having lashed across it open.
I'd like to get away from earth awhile
And then come back to it and begin over. 50
May no fate wilfully misunderstand me
And half grant what I wish and snatch me away
Not to return. Earth's the right place for love:
I don't know where it's likely to go better.
I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree, 55
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

Speaker

I think that was quite nice.

Try cutting down the final two stanzas.

You don't really need to reference yourself at all.

"Yet I had no other option,
I knew that I must remove this splinter"

You can just say that the splinter has to come out. This "I knew" stuff isn't necessary. We know who is talking.

Ponge

TCO and Speaker, thanks for the incredible (and very flattering) crits. TCO, that was incredibly indepth and has given me a lot to think about, I really wanted to re-write sections and repost before replying, but with Christmas preperations being a bit crazy I haven't had a chance. The only Frost I had actually read before was 'The Road Not Taken', I haven't actually read a lot of poetry in the last few years however I have been making an effort recently. The comment about not having control over the 'meaning' of the poem once it goes out to an audience is a really important one, and has given me a lot to think about. So thanks again!

Speaker, i appreciate what you're saying. I'll try to remove myself from the poems and make it less autobiographical.

Thanks again guys,

The Crowing One

Ponge wrote: »

TCO and Speaker, thanks for the incredible (and very flattering) crits. TCO, that was incredibly indepth and has given me a lot to think about, I really wanted to re-write sections and repost before replying, but with Christmas preperations being a bit crazy I haven't had a chance. The only Frost I had actually read before was 'The Road Not Taken', I haven't actually read a lot of poetry in the last few years however I have been making an effort recently. The comment about not having control over the 'meaning' of the poem once it goes out to an audience is a really important one, and has given me a lot to think about. So thanks again!

Speaker, i appreciate what you're saying. I'll try to remove myself from the poems and make it less autobiographical.

Thanks again guys,

Poetic theory is pennies for a handful. Find what works for you. Eliot famously stated that "Poetry is impersonal", but this has been challenged and critiqued endlessly in postmodernism. I think here's a definite place for the "I" in your poem, here, but Speaker's comment (if I'm reading it correctly) was more concerning the use of the actual pronoun "I". Refer yourself as subject by virtue that you are subject, splinter/tools being object. Autobiography is poetry. Even The Waste Land is autobiographical.