Poetry / Fall

Beautiful image, nonetheless, a bit cliche. Nature in fall is a beautiful subject, but it has been sooooooo over used. There is not much new in your descriptions. Anyone can point out the leaf’s vein. It seems more like a fragment of a story, a description, rather than a poem. Good poetry evokes a message, an on going and transcendant theme that unites and moves…I do not sense this passion.

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March 27, 2008

by HMStocker

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Thanks for your views. I disagree wholeheartedly that poetry must evoke a message. I’ve read many poems which were solely descriptive and others that were so convoluted and focused on language that there is no overarching message, but rather simply the sound that the poet was focused on (the language poets come to mind).

You’re right, however, fall is a perennial favorite and it IS hard to say much new. When I wrote this one though I kept thinking that it’s more in the spirit of a simple haiku. Observation of nature pegged down in a single moment, a single image.

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I like the description of the leaves being compared the the spidering hands grapsing for the last rays. The meaning could be literally or symbolically in reference to personal relationships that are slowly falling apart. Struggling, hopeful that what is meant to be doesn’t happen.

my biggest problem with this is i don’t understand it. the words you chose were nice – “pearlesque” and
“misty grain”. the metaphor of “veins spidering out like hands” is beautiful too.

is the blue the sky behind all that is happening on the fall tree? and what is the misty grain?

thank you. fall is my favorite.

Clean
blue
broad
pearlesque beyond,
shuddering leaves
fading green
into Fall and light.
Sun leaks through,
misty grain,
veins spidering
into hands
grasping
last rays.

Sorry if this isn’t how you saw it but it’s how it came across to me. I like the image. I have one in a similar ‘vein’ and I can’t right now remember the name of it, but it’s somewhere on my site. It’s something like ‘catching sunlight’. Take a look at the various sections of your poem. The broad blue is disparate from the leaves by many miles of distance. Keep it separate to give a visual range. ‘3d’ poetry! I’m never sure about describing a metaphor or simile in a poem as in ‘out like’ hands. ‘into’ gives movement if it’s only transitional and gives a sense of progression so now you have both time and distance. Put a scent in there and the touch of the wind on your face and you’ve got it all! Seriously though, I do like the image.

Bill
www.billallerton.co.uk

Simple…..goood…...