[John Riley]

Revision

Now A Wonder

Still dreaming, see an early glow,
spring’s fall into new morning,
raise the window to a lilting scent
where cheering robins soon visit.
Leave the room clinging to the dark
and watch the world ease on,
hear the roof dove coo
today is now a wonder,
see new morning tumble
laughing down the stairs
to where the hearth is cool,
wait before you follow behind
and hear the new light spool
a slip for night’s last mooring.

***

In A Dream

In a dream see an early glow,
a new spring’s fall into a new morning,
raise the window to a lilting scent
where cheering robins soon visit.
Leave the room that clings to the dark
and watch the world ease on,
hear the roof dove coo
today is now a wonder,
see the new morning tumble
laughing down the stairs
to where the hearth is cool,
wait before you follow behind
to hear the new light spool
a slip for night’s last mooring.

[Glenn Wright]

Hi, John—
I wonder if this doesn’t belong in the non-metrical section. It reads like free verse to me.
I like how the imperatives (see, raise, leave, hear, see, wait) give the poem structure. Maybe find a way to avoid repeating “see?” Taste is the only sense missing.
Maybe it’s a result of the dream-like state, but I feel a tension between active, excited verbs and verbals (fall, cheering, wonder, tumble, laughing) and quiet, thoughtful ones (glow, lilting, clings, watch, wait, mooring). It was difficult for me to decide what the speaker’s dominant tone was meant to be. The last two lines are money. I like the complex image and synaesthesia of hearing the light and the /ōō/ assonance with “new,” “spool,” and “mooring.”
Glenn

[John Riley]

Here I go again. I hear three beats a line. Accentual.

Thanks for the comment, Glenn. I'm happy it strikes you that way.

[Carl Copeland]

John, how you get only three beats out of L2 is beyond me, but I don’t think anyone here really cares. We’re just glad to read your poems.

I like the way nature does most of the acting, while the N simply opens his senses, leaves, waits and follows. Even when he actively raises the window, he’s told to do so.

Since you are punctuating, though minimally, I think you need a period or comma after “coo.”

My only real nit is “cheering,” which seems a little clichéd or telly or maybe too much on top of “lilting.” I couldn’t decide, but it bugged me.

Glenn is so right about the exquisite last two lines. At first I heard something ominous in “the night’s last mooring,” but I suppose the night has several moorings during sleep and will set out again when day is done.

[Julie Steiner]

My favorite bit is

     see the new morning tumble
     laughing down the stairs

Exuberantly disordered, both metrically and concept-wise!

Nits to take or leave:

I'm not wild about reinforcing the title's "In a Dream" with the first three words of L1, which seems like bending over backwards to make sure I understand that this is not happening in the waking world. But I can't fathom why I'm not allowed to think that the narrator might not wake up from this springtime magic anytime soon. Does it really matter at all whether the narrator is dreaming this? Wouldn't it be a lot more charming if he's not?

I do wish that the reportage about the robins' doings were a tad more dramatic than "soon visit."

"follow behind" also seems a little pleonastic. Perhaps "follow, eager" or similar instead?

[Carl Copeland]

Originally Posted by Julie Steiner

I'm not wild about reinforcing the title's "In a Dream" with the first three words of L1, which seems like bending over backwards to make sure I understand that this is not happening in the waking world. ... Does it really matter at all whether the narrator is dreaming this? Wouldn't it be a lot more charming if he's not?

I tend to ignore titles, so I initially read it as a real waking up. Next I read it as all dreaming, which helps to explain the “final mooring” as the final one before waking up. Ultimately, I went back to my first interpretation. If I’m right, Julie has a point about the title being misleading.

[Alexandra Baez]

John, it looks like you’ve broken down and written another traditionally-minded poem about spring—and this one feels much more traditional than your last one (despite its debatably accentual basis and its non-rhyming)! That window and “lilting” look familiar, lol. This poem is so adamantly light and positive that it feels somewhat cloying even to me. I assume that it must feel all the more so to you, given some of your comments on your last spring poem.

Is “a new spring’s fall” perhaps a bit too cheeky in its play with the word “fall”? I don’t normally think of a season, especially spring, “falling into” a morning.

I agree about the need for some punctuation after “coo.” Personally, I’d prefer a period, as that would be grammatically correct, and a little breather here would be nice. A semicolon (or period or em dash or colon) rather than a comma would be correct after “wonder.”

But my favorite part by far is “see the new morning tumble/laughing down the stairs.” Now there’s a fall that works! It would be wonderful to bring everything else in the poem up to the register of this phrase.

I’m not a nautical person, so I wasn’t sure about the meaning of “spool a slip for last night’s mooring,” but it does have a lovely sound to it. Still, I was thrown a bit by this sudden appearance of a nautical reference at the very end, and how it gets the last word. This image feels disconnected from all the homey scenes that the poem has centered on up until then.

[John Riley]

If there is a problem(s) with the rhythm or beats, I'm always open to critiques to improve. That's why I post. Maybe I'm trying to be better at writing these types of poems. It's weird, and not weird, that the reaction too often "This doesn't belong here." It's like trying to make it through the Pearly Gates.

I agree Julie about the title. I haven't thought of a better one yet and uses the first three words as a placeholder. I should have made that clear. I did want to emphasize it's a dream. Nothing here is happening. It can't be cloying or pro-spring or too sentimental. The question for me is why is someone dreaming this? So, perhaps emphasizing that it's a dream is too much for some readers and not enough for others.

Thanks to everyone who has commented. I've addressed the thematic questions and gathered the crits to use in revision.

Help is always appreciated.

John

[R. S. Gwynn]

When laughing morning tumbles down the stairs
And lands upon his face, we fall to prayers.

[Julie Steiner]

"Still dreaming, see an early glow" would leave more ambiguity, leaving it up to the reader whether or not to take the waking/dreaming at literal face value.