It’s been
nearly a year since we held our last monthly Leaping Word poetry group meeting
in the light and airy music room in Bristol’s Folk House, before the first
lockdown was implemented. I don’t believe even the most pessimistic of us there
that day imagined that we would still be living and writing in varying degrees
of isolation all this time later.
We’ve kept our
poetry groups going by email and Facebook group, with the occasional Zoom
meeting for good measure. When we first came up with the idea of weekly prompts
and feedback for the duration of our exile, again I don’t think we anticipated
the situation lasting to the point where we have now received and critiqued
several hundred poems. But it has kept us and our poets busy and out of
mischief.
In the summer I
had a rush of blood to the head and have now embarked on an MA in Creative
Writing at Manchester Writing School, and one of the modules requires us to …
yes, critique each other’s poems. And because you can never have too much
practice, here’s one written just for fun.
Hi Bob
Thank you for
sending us your poem, ‘Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening’. We think this is
a promising early draft.
You set the
scene well. The narrator is making a journey, accompanied by a horse pulling a
sleigh. It is evening and there is snow. Nearby there are woods, and at a
distance a village. The narrator pauses and then considers continuing his journey.
You capture
this opening scene with such precision that it is a surprise to the reader when the
poem fails to progress beyond it. We wonder if you have been struck by writer’s
block or had a particularly busy week? Have you considered having something
happen in the poem? Maybe there could be an attack by a highwayman, or a
chance encounter with a young man and his heavily pregnant girlfriend, who are
from out of town and need a lift to a nearby inn? Who knows where the story
could go from there.
We have a few
specifics to draw to your attention.
First, the
title. We don’t think it’s working hard enough for you. You could use it to
locate your poem more precisely, as in ’Stopping by Michael Wood just outside
Thornbury on the M5 northbound on a Snowy Evening’, or add an air of mystery by
calling it ‘The Numinous Snow’.
In the opening
line, the inversion feels very archaic to us. It would sound far more natural
if it read ‘I think I know whose woods these are’. Of course, you would then
have to alter the entire rhyme scheme of the poem, but it needs attention
anyway, as ‘though’ at the end of the second line is clearly there just to
rhyme with ‘know’. In fact, end rhymes are rather old-fashioned, as is the
tum-ti-tum metre of the poem. You could really add interest by breaking the
poem up with some enjambment and the addition of internal and half-rhymes.
In line 1,
stanza 2, ‘queer’ is a somewhat problematic choice of word. At best, you risk
wrong-footing your reader; at worst, it’s cultural appropriation. And of
course, making assumptions about what the horse is or isn’t thinking is an
example of anthropomorphism and best avoided.
Lines 3 and 4
of this stanza are superfluous. You have already mentioned the woods, and the
frozen lake is irrelevant to the action of the poem as it stands currently.
It is
frustrating that although you return to the horse in stanza 3, its potential is
not fully explored. The harness bells add a picturesque, almost whimsical
touch, but we know nothing of the animal itself. What colour is it? Does it
have a name? There is so much more interest that could be added at this point.
In the final
stanza, the repetition of the last two lines makes for a slightly weak finish.
We suggest you substitute line 4 with something like ‘in a Berni Inn that’s
clean and cheap’.
Finally, Bob,
we hope you don’t mind if we point out that you’ve been writing rather a lot of
these little New Englander poems lately. They can only ever be of local
interest. Have you thought of writing something more culturally appealing, such
as a riff on Love Island? Or a poem on a theme everyone can relate to, like
picking up a prescription on a Saturday with the kids in tow when they’d rather
be flying their kite? You could call it ‘Shopping in Boots on a Blowy Morning’.
All the best
with it, Bob. We think you have the makings of an interesting poem here, and
look forward to seeing a much later draft.
Warm regards
Colin and Deb
If you write
poetry and are interested in feedback for your work and/or help with
getting a collection together, do contact us on admin@theleapingword.com.
