New Poet

[Tien]

Hi

I have been writting poems since I don't remember when, but this is the first time that I actually post one of them. So, comment of most welcome, however, please be gentle, :oops: .

Ubobtainable Love

By: Tien

The thing about love

Is that it comes and goes

With the breifness of time

Time flow, it flows

It comes to you

On bright summer days

And leave you cold

In its wake

In its present

joyous reign

But in its absent

Eternal rain

Generation after generation

Endlessly sought

Only to slip away

breifly abort

Unobtainable love

Is the fuel of imagination

But beware, for its reality

will leave you in desolation

Well, that's it. Tell me what you think, like I say all comments are welcome.

[blue]

Hi, Tien, that was pretty good, and of course, it's one of the favorite subjects for a poem.

My only real criticisms at first reading are just spelling and grammar, and are very minor. There's only one that's a problem with getting across the idea you wanted to say in your poem. Please don't let my comments discourage you. (Also, everyone has trouble with grammar and spelling, so don't let it bother you if English isn't your first language.)

The main one is in this verse:

Generation after generation

Endlessly sought

Only to slip away

breifly abort

Sought and abort don't rhyme, and abort doesn't fit there. You need another word, with -ought or -aught or -ot or -aut. Maybe "caught" or "thought" would work there. You might need to change "briefly" to another word like "quickly" to fit your concept. It's plain you want to contrast "Endlessly sought" with some sudden loss.

The others are:

- Briefness (spelling) (more about "ie" versus "ei" below.)

- Time flows, it flows -- You might want, "love" instead of "it." -- Time "flows" because it's singular, not plural. The -s on the end of verbs is not a plural marker, it used to be -th, centuries ago.

- And leaves you cold -- For the same reason as "time flows."

- presence, absence -- These need to be nouns; present and absent are the adjectival forms.

- Joyous, Briefly, Will -- To fit the poetic form you're using, capitalize the first word of each line.

- reign and rain -- Good, not an error, of course.

Do think about using something else for "Briefly abort" or for "Time flows, it flows." Those are the only real problems in the poem. But it's clear you have the idea you want to get across.

There's a rhyme that deals with "ie" and "ei" that goes:

I before E, except after C

Unless spoken as "ay" as in "neighbor" and "weigh."

The other exceptions to the rule are when it's pronounced "ee" or "I" as in "either" and "neither."

[Graeme]

Sought and abort don't rhyme

Ummmm... When spoken in Australia, they do...

I'm not sure, but I believe they rhyme in most English (as distinct to American) pronounciations.

Happy to be proven wrong, of course :D

Graeme

[dude]

And it may be noted that some Americans seem to have some pretty weird interpretations of their "borrowed" language, English.

We'll save that for another thread on another forum when I take on the CNN-led dumbing down of American English.

Welcome Tien... post away. The basic feeling must be there before we get to polishing the poems. You have it and it is a great start.

I'm just sorry the moderator of this forum has more or less abandoned us, perhaps to pursue what the carpet-bagger Illinois Republican candidate for US Senate calls "selfish hedonism."

:twisted:

[blue]

Well, I was trying to allow for r-dropping. Without the R, the vowels would be similar enough to allow the rhyme, I suppose. A close rhyme and r-dropping both are fine.

I'd expect them to be pronounced as "sawt" and "uh-bohht" or "uh-boh-uht."

The closeness of the rhyme isn't the real issue there, imho.

-----

I miss Nick, too. I hope he's just preoccupied with classes and work on his book. May he find no roadblocks on the path to enlightenment.

I submitted a poem for the site, but haven't heard anything back. :( I thought my poem was pretty nice. I'm trying to be patient.

[Graeme]

I remember reading once that accents are more often on the different ways of saying the vowels. Certainly, that's the essential difference between the Australian and New Zealand accents (the i and e pronounciations are effectively swapped).

For me, the word "sought" is pronounced exactly the same as the word "sort" which rhymes with "abort".

Graeme

[blue]

OK, you probably say them about like, "soht, aboht," but with those "aw / or" vowels a bit shorter than long o, which in Aussie dialect turns out differently anyway. -- Yes, vowels differ a lot more than consonants.

Er, and we now return you, gentle reader, to discussion of the poem at hand.

Tien, forgive us for getting sidetracked. It wasn't a major point.

[Tien]

No, not at all

you guys are great. I'm glad to be getting any comments at all. Comments imply that you guys actually read and analyze the poem and care enough to tell me about it. Critique or compliment, I'll always listen (or should I say read? lol).

Tien

[aj]

Hey blue--

Don't be blue; i also submitted a rather dandy little poem to Nick and haven't heard anything either. He's busy, i suppose.

Tien, this is the core of a good poem. With some corrections to grammar and spelling (see Blue's suggestions above), this could be very nice.

cheers!

aj

[Guest]

Since Nick apparently is busy with other things at the moment (I don't presume to speak for him), why not go ahead and post your poems here, guys, so the rest of us can enjoy them?