[John Riley]

I've made a couple of changes. What Julie suggested and I worked on L3. I also changed the title. Thanks, Julie. Maybe this is better?

Sam, what are those lines from? I've googled and ended with an AI-generated poem.

Thanks for the help.

[John Riley]

I made a few more nips and tucks.

[R. S. Gwynn]

John, it was SG-generated. I'm sorry, but I find the poem a bit trite.

Cheerful robins, cooing doves, and tumbling morning (wouldn't morning light go up the stairs--I'm not sure?). Reread Spring & All. Williams avoids all the easy pickin's.

[John Riley]

It doesn't fail because it's trite. Nothing in it is real. It's a dream. It fails because I thought there was more in the gap between the dream and the actual than there is. Apparently. The trite scene is a dream and why a narrator has such a dream may not be an interesting enough question to entertain the reader's curiosity. It's the poem's machine that isn't working, not it being trite. The trite is on purpose and obvious.

Is it always the poem's fault when a reader doesn't see beyond the surface? Maybe asking the reader to wonder about a dream is the problem. Who cares? Perhaps that's what is trite? Or unrealistic? Or just dumb? Who cares about dreams in 2024?

Thanks, Sam

[Nick McRae]

FWIW, I don't find it trite, but I can see it getting that reaction from someone who wants more complexity and unusual word choices. I'd count myself in with the ranks who like simplicity, and simpler word choices, so it works for me.

[David Callin]

First time around - with the new title - I missed that the whole thing was a dream. It does, of course, read very differently when you understand that. At first I thought it was a guileless celebration of spring - which I didn't mind at all - but I agree that things take on quite a different hue once you factor the dream into it.

I prefer it the way you've revised it, John, but maybe you need to reinstate "In a dream", to help the lazily inattentive (like me) not to jump to the wrong but easy conclusion.

Cheers

David

[Jim Moonan]

.
Dreams defy metrics, I think. I wish this were a prose poem (proetry)

I know it’s been a long time since it’s been in vogue to take the title of a poem from the opening line, but I like it — at least in certain situations, like this one. I like the original title.

L3: The image “lilting scent” doesn’t make sense to me.

New morning immediately brings to mind Bob Dylan. It feels like you are trying too hard to make the word “new” do too much in the poem.

.

[R. S. Gwynn]

John, it's just not a beguiling dream. Why would the P care to recall it? Real spring is right outside the door.

[John Riley]

Sam, how do you know spring is right outside the door? How do you know where the dreamer is dreaming from? I said earlier I think it doesn't work. Not enough is at stake or something else may be the problem. But we know nothing of the situation except it is a dream. The world may be on fire outside.

[R. Nemo Hill]

"The world may be on fire outside."

That would make a great epigraph, or title.

Nemo