Well done!
Human frailties, indeed create senryu.
And each line may stand alone, honoring Haiku tradition.
Then using the prompt,
you provide an enigmatic line tying all together.
I liked how you ended the poem with the same verse as the first.
To me that is the picture of the pianist, who enters,
sits at the piano for a moment of reflection, then begins.
Your poem built the tempo faster, then more passive then strident,
just as I feel much of Rachmaninoff's compositions seem to be presented.
The ending is just as the pianist finishes, and there is that tiny moment of reflection,
before they turn to the audience. A moment of perhaps, "Have I done justice to this piece, did they understand me?"
Here we go again.
That certainly ties into your note that no one escapes the rat race!
Short sweet story, anthropomorphizing a rat's behavior into our daily lives.
And I like how well you handle dialog.
Only one suggestion (unless you deliberately kept this under 300 words) would be
"He began with 'H', dot dot dot dot, tapping out 'here we go again'."
I like the pulsing that the same line as the first in each stanza creates throughout the poem.
The sound of when the rain, driven by the wind, suddenly increases and then abates.
Tin overhang augments the sound. That is true.
the last few lines cause the reader to ponder why the rain is more favored than the memories.
Very nice.
I like that you posted this look into your creative process.
I've not used google docs, but obviously you piqued my interest into looking at this resource.
You wouldn't know how many times I've revised my stories in my portfolio, even some that were published some time ago.
Our reading styles have shifted, and what was once hot is luke warm now.
Anyway keep on writing!
The opening of this essay draws the reader in. - The air hums with the buzz of insects, sunlight filters through a canopy of leaves, and the earth breathes life.
Then you define the premise, telling us just where this is headed - This is the essence of a forest, a complex and vital ecosystem that underpins the health of our planet. -
By this line the reader is committed to read the rest of the essay.
I think this was well-written, and informative.
Only suggestion is bump the font size up for better readability.
Well done.
A tale for children. This tells a lot about Owl's hunting and feeding habits, and creates fables as to how this happened.
Cute.
I did note some mechanical issues. there are no sentence breaks. That makes this hard to read.
Natural line breaks should occur. First one could be after the second sentence.
read out loud, and you'll find the other natural breaks.
Also you start out with "it" for the Owl, then later switch to "He"
you should standardize that.
Interesting free verse.
Made me think a bit about this.
Granted, in our minds, we probably drop adjectives and other grammar to speed our thoughts.
But I think this would be more powerful without the contractions and slang...
they'll - they will
one'll - one will
sorta - sort of
(or would 'seems to be' work better?)
also they're is contraction of they are, so I think that should be 'their hand'
can effect - I think more spiritual as 'may affect'
I found this intriguing, and a bit unsettling.
You built the suspense and kept moving toward what the reader anticipates but doesn't want to accept.
Well done.
A small mechanical error, where you write in paragraph five, ".... looked like... " that is telling not showing. Suggest simply change to "as if" (then the reader "sees" the floorboards in their mind.
Haiku Senryu styling
Each line stands alone, that's good.
A dichotomy exists in that, does the second line or the third create enlightenment? That's good.
My only critique is that "To whom do I wait" doesn't seem grammatically correct,
shouldn't this be "For whom... "
I was a child in North Carolina, my pop a US Marine - from california.
But I still remember the Dog-wood trees, buds jut blossoming when there'd be
a midnight chill, and thick, frozen, frost the next morning.
You poem helped recall that image from the early 1950's
Thanks.
Only one bit of mechanics I suggest working on
"to take and grab" just doesn't ring right with the rest of the poem meter.
Maybe drop 'take and' in favor of a two syllable word?
Roughly rudely 9something like that.
This follows the 5-7-5 sound count found in Haiku
there is a possible conversion to Haiku (human foibles)
in that neither really 'rises' nor 'sets' we only see that
from our earthly vantage point.
To fully convert to the traditional style for Haiku/Senryu, a few tweaks are needed:
Try changing 'there' to 'here'
then make this human perception,
(subtly) changing 'just' to 'Both'
This meets many of the staples of Haiku,
juxtaposition of "melody" against the natural word,
may be converting this into Senryu - do only humans understand "melody"
One suggestion- mold this into a traditional Haiku where each line can stand alone
First line add 'cold' in front of waves, and move "up" to begin second line
('cold' will imply possibly winter - thus a seasonal element)
Second line after 'up and down' = 'on' to keep the seven sounds count.
This will still leave the last line able to convert this to senryu if the reader stops to ponder 'does nature hear a melody, or is it just humans?'
Drew, this is a classic.
I think this would have a home in any anthology, whether fiction or creative non-fiction.
Be careful, don't give it away. I think you should try to get this published.
You'd have to re-title, but I have no suggestion for that! Also, you'd have to reassign the viewing so this won't show up as "published" by being available through a wb search.
you wrote "Think of punctuation as street signs for the reader:"
So taking your advice I stopped!
After reading your article, I printed and hole-punched this
to stick in my writer's reference ring-binder! Thanks.
Very nice rework of the old children's story.
I did note you mised a few quotation marks here and there.
Easily corrected in edit.
And, does one shake their head
or scratch their head when
pondering something they don't know about?
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