Thank you to everybody who took the time to look at my experimental poem "A Recurring Dream" and pass comment on it. It has been a most interesting exercise. I would love to do it again - any chance of forming a group to use the internet as a means of improving our poetry?
Thanks in particular to Dick, Dave, Crafty Green Poet, Tina, Rachel, Arija, Dominic, Reader Wil , Pamela and several others. Here are some of the suggestions:
Title too long: Rhyming Scheme too complicated; too many cliches (is there an acute symbol on this keyboard - it looks such a funny word without an acute sign over the e); beware adjectives; look at the last two lines again - and as somebody said "let the axe fall heavily in those last two lines" (like that comment).
Well - thanks to you all - I have worked long and hard on it. I make the following points:- I agree about the title being too long, although it has been a recurring dream since my early childhood; I also agree about the rhyming scheme. I have been trying to write to a rhyming scheme and find it very hard. It is difficult not to make it appear contrived. However, having started with a rhyming scheme I have found it impossible to break away from it in this particular poem. So much so that last night I had the dream again and this time, in the middle of the dream, I found myself in Rome, with somebody saying "you have to come to Rome because it rhymes with home." That is the absolute truth!! I also agree about the cliches - shimmering trees and sparkling water are not good images, are they? So I tried to rewrite that bit; altering the end I found hard and it did lead me to ask myself what I was writing the poem for. If I am writing it for myself - i.e. in some way to try and exorcise the dream as sometimes it can be quite a scary dream - then the last two lines have to stay the same because that is what I feel - I wake up distressed because I have lost my way, Or, on the other hand, do I alter it to make it a better poem? Well here are the two versions. Have I made it better or have I over worked it and made it worse?
A Recurring Dream
The road was long, and I
would follow it, and see
familiar faces with no name.
And sometimes there would be
a house I'd visited in years gone by.
Tall trees would shimmer in the haze
and sparkling water shine;
and as I walked the road became
another road of mine
I'd known from childhood days.
I'd walk until it came to me
with chilling certainty -
I walked this rambling road alone
and never would it lead me home.
Dream
The road was long, and I
would follow it and see
familiar faces with no names.
And sometimes there would be
a house I'd known in years gone by.
Tall poplars then defined a shore,
dark water, still and wide
and as I walked the road became
a narrow pot-holed lane that I'd
climbed many times before.
And, climbing it, it came to me
with chilling certainty.
This road would never lead me home.
I had to journey on alone.
Thanks again!