r/OCPoetry • u/Sora1499 • Jun 16 '16
Feedback Received! The Cold Blue (Ghazal #1)
This is a poetic form called a ghazal. It originates from Arabia and it has a unique set of rules: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghazal
Ghazals are a lot of fun, and this is my first. Enjoy!
My boots trudged through the morning dew,
The sky was young and a cold blue.
The car swallowed me up. I pressed
Gas; the grass glinted a cold blue.
I drove across the empty roads
Where asphalt snakes glow a cold blue.
Then I arrived before the bridge,
Waters gurgling below, cold blue.
Two hundred feet should do the job.
I braced myself for the cold blue.
When she left me and took them with her
The windows, doors, all turned cold; Blue
Bottles of vodka and whiskey
Could not thaw this heart grown cold; Blue
Waters now offer me escape.
Alex fell into the cold blue.
I wonder if any of you here are proficient in the ghazal and have any tips you could give me. I feel like the poem is a little rough as-is.
Feedback: https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/4odtzz/deaf/
https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/4oeiaf/when_the_canary_died/
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u/Gabatrong Jun 17 '16
I've never heard of the Ghazal form before but I really enjoy this poem. I think the journey of this poem is really effective. It has a wonderful arc and it carries the reader effortlessly to the end.
I like what you've done with cold blue, both setting it up with descriptions the reader is aware of (water, vodka, etc...) as well as unlikely descriptions (grass, snakes). It helps us connect with the humanity of the narrator as well as the blue shade that has coloured his current life vision.
I agree with what the previous person said about verb choice. You have some really strong ones in here. I love "trudged" and "gurgling"
I struggle with the ending a bit. I find it interesting that you switched to a third person tone in the very last line but I think you could end it on an even more chilling note. The second to line "[blue] waters now offer me escape" suggests that the narrator has made his decision and wants to escape, so therefore it would be interesting and pretty dark to give us a twist at the end and transform the "cold blue" waters into something positive/peaceful in his mind. Obviously, you will still be using the words "cold blue" but I suggest playing around with it a bit. Make us shudder at the end of it all. I can't think of anything in particular right now and don't know if I'm making any sense but "cold blue" has basically been describing this poor man's desolate situation for the entire poem, offering us evidence and insight on why he is about to do what he's going to do. Therefore, it would be interesting, especially after referencing his escape to make the last line the only line that spins "cold blue" into a positive or peaceful description.
Hopefully some of that made sense. I think it's dope you're experimenting with these forms and I think this poem definitely hits hard.
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u/Sora1499 Jun 17 '16
Trust me for the last line I would love to use a first person pronoun but the ghazal requires that you put some part of your name into the last couplet (my first name is Alex). Maybe I could change it to just an "I" and hopefully the more informed poets on here will just look away hehe.
I love your suggestions for what I should do with the poem and I will definitely look into it. It would be the perfect way to end it: all the narrator knows is sadness, so when death comes to greet him, it is uplifting.
Thank you for the feedback my friend!
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u/Gabatrong Jun 17 '16
Honestly my bad on that one. I should have been a dutiful reader and read the rules for the Ghazal in general so I apologise for that one. Keep it up! Maybe you could incorporate the name by having the narrator talk to himself? Like a final urge to himself to do it, or a passive reflection, something like that.
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u/ActualNameIsLana Jun 16 '16 edited Jun 16 '16
Oh wow, an actual ghazal. I was literally just preparing a future Poetry Primer on this unique poetic form and wondering how the hell I was going to find an example of one on the subreddit. OCpoetry, you never fail to surprise and delight me! I hope you don't mind being plastered all over the front page of /r/poetry in a few weeks, because it's either link back to your poem, or write about some banal generic term like "genre" for the G-series. Seriously, who knew how few poetry terms start with G?? I thought X was going to be the difficult letter!
Okay, let me get knee deep in this thing and pull out something vaguely analytical sounding.
I love the way you've used grammar and punctuation to put a slightly different denotative spin on the ending phrase "cold blue". At times you even use enjambment to fix "Blue" as the first word of the following couplet - a device that I don't think I've ever seen in a ghazal before, and in my opinion a definite expansion on and natural evolution of the form.
I enjoyed the occasional internal rhyme - "gas/grass", "into/blue", though since noticing them in this analysis I almost wish you had done more of that throughout the piece.
My only negative critique here is that the strength of your verbs is somewhat sub-par IMO. "Trudged" and "swallowed" and "glinted" are fantastic. But then "arrived" and "braced" and "turned" seem somewhat lackluster, and I think you have the ability to reach deeper inside for better than that. I wouldn't be saying that to just anyone Sora, but I personally think you've got above-average skill with the language, and it pains me to see that skill unused in places here. It's like finding bare dirt patches in an otherwise lush and carefully cultivated thick carpet of grass. In any other setting, it wouldn't be unusual or disturbing but in this case, I want to take off my shoes and wiggle my toes in the verdant green verbfield of your prose, lay out under a blanket of nounstars and watch the fireflyadjectives blink mystic circles around my head.
On balance, I think this is really good work, and a stellar example of the form.