Seasons of life by Emma Israel
The sound of children playing, the smell of cakes baking.
The sight of the world through innocent eyes, the autumn of my life.
A happy childhood in a beautiful neighborhood.
As innocent as the trees, enjoying a light breeze, not knowing yet, how cold winter can get, taking away with it, most of its precious leaves.
An unexpected accident, as brutal as the temperature drop.
Winter is suddenly here, innocence is suddenly gone.
It all started on a freezing night and blasted in my life like dynamite.
Picking up the pieces in the snow, waiting for the sun to show.
Quietly, the snow starts melting and the pain starts fading.
New opportunities blossom and new pages are being turned.
The cruel winter turns into a vague memory.
Spring is here, returning its original colors to my world.
And finally, the warmth of summer welcomes me in its arms.
A new beginning, bringing along its share of excitement and joy.
A new country, a new city, a new life.
Far away from the coldest nights.
Summer has turned painful memories into cherishable stories, paving the way to a bright future.
This is a poem about the circular nature of time and of the seasons. In a classic move, this poem uses seasons to portray the "cycle of life," which is something poets have done for centuries and will likely continue to do as long as there is poetry. Nearly every good poet has attempted a poem on this theme, which is suggested by the famous lines from the Bible:
RépondreSupprimerFor everything there is a season, A time for every activity under heaven. A time to be born and a time to die. A time to plant and a time to harvest.
My favorite parts of this poem are the descriptive parts that come alive to my interior senses. I like to be able to see, hear, and even smell the poem, and there are places here where I can, such as the following lines:
The sound of children playing, the smell of cakes baking.
Picking up the pieces in the snow
As innocent as the trees, enjoying a light breeze, not knowing yet, how cold winter can get, taking away with it, most of its precious leaves.
I have a hard time connecting to the cliches and worn-out phrases in the poem, and I would like to see you work on embodying the things we are learning about in class, such as the idea of showing rather than just telling about things, as well as trying to minimize use of abstractions and instead use descriptive language. With this in mind, I find these lines and phrases to be less effective:
paving the way to a bright future.
A new beginning, bringing along its share of excitement and joy.
The cruel winter turns into a vague memory.
innocence is suddenly gone.
A happy childhood in a beautiful neighborhood.
pain starts fading.
I hope this helps. Thanks for sharing your first poem. I will remind the class about your blog, since you joined late, and encourage people to leave comments.
Oh, and by the way, your blog's text is in French. This works for me, but I suspect it may be confusing for others in the class. I guess they could just use the Google translate feature. Or you could change it to English for the purpose of the class.
RépondreSupprimerHey this is a cool poem because of its simplicity. You wrote what you see and I like that. I am wondering if you could phrase some of the lines differently to do the effect of showing more than telling? Regardless, nice job on your first poem.
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