poemranker ::Rock of the Earth by ingwa

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Free verse № 125196

Rock of the Earth

by ingwa

Member since 2005 · Posted 22 May 2005 · 13 comments

Sing to my soul of ages gone by Paintings on walls, stories through lines Hunts gone by, inspired their hands Sing to me now, before I die Tell me the tales of things you know Let me know your experiences, good and bad The lessons you learned, mistakes you made Tell me the things that moved your heart Ageless you stand, tall and proud Lichen grows upon your surfaces The winds and rains slowly erode And still you stand, strong and bold Home to leopards, baboons and insects Bats take refuge in your dark crevices Explorers amazed, challenged always Can I make my abode within your safety

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13 comments

[8] richa 22-May-05/1:33 PM Reply
Quite like the first verse although the 'ages gone by' and then 'hunts gone by' sounds inelegant and before I die seems a bit melodramatic. Sonically speaking the poem does not hang together well, the rhythm is all over the place.
[n/a] ingwa › richa 22-May-05/2:50 PM Reply
Richa, thank you for your very welcome comments. I appreciate your reference to the first stanza that gone by repeated twice doesn't quite fit. I will have to work on that. What would you recommend that I do to improve the rhythm? I haven't been writing for too long and it would be nice to crack this perfectly. Mark
[n/a] INTRANSIT › ingwa 23-May-05/11:26 AM Reply
Listen. That's the secret to writing good rhythmic poetry. Read it aloud to yourself as if you were reading to an audience. Every hiccup will show. Make a mark or reword the line. Sometimes shuffling the lines helps the beat and the logic too.
I've rewritten poems 5 times before posting, no joke. Patience. Listen. That's all it takes.
[n/a] deleted user › INTRANSIT 23-May-05/3:58 PM Reply
Quite right Intransit. And sometimes the re-writing even never ends.
[n/a] INTRANSIT › deleted user 24-May-05/11:44 AM Reply
The point of diminishing returns is quite the hangnail.
[n/a] ingwa › INTRANSIT 24-May-05/2:16 PM Reply
Intransit and DoubleU, I certainly do appreciate your comments and tips on how to improve my writing. I am starting to put it to practice so will hopefully be able to repost some of my work soon :) Thanks for all your input.
[3] nentwined 24-May-05/4:28 PM Reply
"gone by" repetition hurts; I lose the rhythm in "Let me know your experience", and there's not much non-generic to pull my interest fuerther.
[n/a] ingwa › nentwined 24-May-05/4:32 PM Reply
Interesting comment. How about I take the second stanza out? The second one does seem longwinded.
[3] nentwined › ingwa 24-May-05/4:38 PM Reply
Taking the second stanza out helps more than I expected. Still, the whole thing needs a lot of chopping and/or polishing. I _STRONGLY_ recommend attempting to critique other poems more than investigating your own at the moment. Post, soak in the comments, but put effort into seeing what you like and/or dislike about other's poetry, seeing how you can apply that to your own work.
[n/a] ingwa › nentwined 24-May-05/4:58 PM Reply
Okay Nentwined, I'm certainly going to follow your advice. Perhaps I'm too caught up in how my work is at the moment instead of looking about more. Something definately worth improving. I will leave my posting for a while and come back to it some time in the future. Thank you once again for your comments, I do appreciate them.
[3] nentwined › ingwa 24-May-05/5:01 PM Reply
er, don't stop writing poetry--but do try to crit. The most evolution in my own writing laterly came from doing weekly anonymous challenges, where you have to crit every piece--having to not give away which one was mine somehow kickstarted my ability to see my own work from a bit more distant perspective.
[7] Jill Stockinger 22-Dec-20/4:46 PM Reply
Some good lines, I like the idea captured.
No comma after "Hunts gone by" I think-
some clunky lines: "experiences, good and bad"-
some very good lines: "sing to my soul of ages gone by" and "Ageless you stand, tall and proud/ Lichen grows upon your surfaces"; uneven rhyme scheme does not help (1st and 4th lines in first stanza, 3rd and 4th lines in 3rd stanza, no rhyme in last stanza.
[7] Jill Stockinger 22-Dec-20/4:46 PM Reply
Some good lines, I like the idea captured.
No comma after "Hunts gone by" I think-
some clunky lines: "experiences, good and bad"-
some very good lines: "sing to my soul of ages gone by" and "Ageless you stand, tall and proud/ Lichen grows upon your surfaces"; uneven rhyme scheme does not help (1st and 4th lines in first stanza, 3rd and 4th lines in 3rd stanza, no rhyme in last stanza.