About
“To Dream” was an interesting and, in my opinion, one of the more magnificent of my poems, because of its overall beautiful romantic dream. Also, the idea of repeating the word three times as a rhyme schematic in this poem is to be accredited by me to the poem “For Annie” by Edgar Allen Poe. The trifecta is very similar.
The poem is that of the person waking from a dream only to find that his life is upset and even dismayed by the supposed loss of his lover. I liked the way the poem builds upon depressing suspense and becomes the high point during the “memory of her kiss”, yet the suspense again dies back down afterwards as we now “lull in the warmth of her kiss”. The secondary high point of the poem is perhaps the revealing of the romantic fantasy to be that of only a “shadow of memories”.
“A sullen shadow” concludes the poem with alliteration, perhaps also a metaphor for the current situation of the person as well as perhaps the tears themselves.
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I started doing this short poem, Thumbykin With Honey, after reading an old rendition of the 1835 fairy tale “Thumbykin” or “Thumbelina” by Hans Christian Andersen. My rendition of “Thumbykin With Honey” has little to nothing to do with the original plot of the fairy tale itself.
I felt that the title of my poem would conjure the image of the fairy herself with a pot of honey. The poem is written from the vantage point of an imaginary character of Thumbykin’s, whereas the said character has retired from a hard day’s work and is now at the fairy’s footstep for the evening, perhaps looking for rest.
I feel that the poem is kinetically a good example of how words are supposed to rhyme – well-placed; also resounding. This, being the writer, notices that getting these words just right takes time and effort.
To me, the poem flows beautifully off the page!
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The basic storyline for the poem “Sexual Blood” is that of a sexual encounter that is later to be unrequited.
This is first apparent in the first two lines “You love to be loved, but can you love back”, whereas the persona is expressing his discontent for the unappreciated feeling in that the lover does not “love back”. The line is then repeated once at the end of the poem as a means of conveying emphasis.
The next line, “sexual blood”, is a strong metaphor for the overall sexual encounter itself, which is also the reasoning behind the title of the poem. The fourth line “finds her prey then attacks” is then indicative of perhaps the ferocity, intensity, and passion of the sexual encounter.
The poem’s storyline continues with “heaven today, sorrow tomorrow” which shows us that the encounter was only current, and indeed ends with sorrow the next day. Finally, “Another scratch on the back” is indicative of the negative effect of the persona’s psyche during and after the encounter.
Some of the interesting ways the poem was designed are that of its rhyme scheme, where “back” rhymes with “attack”, “sorrow” rhymes with “tomorrow”, and the word “love” is used three times as a small-ended repeater. “Sexual blood” also mirrors “another scratch on the back”, which means the two lines are adjacent metaphor-wise, yet lie four lines apart, also each line is two lines from the top/bottom. Also, “love back” is also a simple diplex with, “on the back”, which in each word takes on two different meanings within the same poem.
I always felt, that the unique nature of “Sexual Blood” is that of intricate word play, yet mostly its feeling for the scenario of the entangled two lovers.
The way “Sexual Blood” was first thought of; with the idea that if romance be the poetical thematic of an large amount of my poems, then the lonely, one-time sexual encounter, would fit neatly into that “box”.
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I went into nature as a poetic theme instead of my usual romance theme in 2015 because I had completely given up on poetry as a medium and as a hobby since loosely 2010. Nature as a theme for poetry was a great new agenda of mine for to find the greatest aspects of the wonders of nature which seemed difficult to me at first because I had never dealt with this subject material, and it honestly seemed rather intimidating.
I thought this over for quite some time before attempting the concept. Because of my renewed love for poetry at the time, my nature poems are just as great of “master works” to me as my prior romance poems.
“The Greenest Trees” exemplifies the great aspects of poetry in the art form’s unique ability to help the reader imagine along with the poem, this time being the “greenest trees”, which are perhaps that of a giant forest in the middle of the wilderness. I particularly like picturing a giant redwood forest during reading this poem, which isn’t mentioned in the poem itself!
The roots were fertilized and then sterilized not only rhymes but is to me an interesting description because the roots of course begin as fertilized, and yet perhaps become sterilized (the opposite? of fertilized), over time, by the sunshine. Under many, many vine is of course the depiction of the tree itself falling underneath vines.
I liked the rhyming of the “strongest wood” with “moss once stood” because of, to me, the difficulty of finding the correct word choice for the dual line. The greenest of the green, embellishing the title itself, is followed through with the alliteration as well as rhyme surely a sight to be seen.
Concluding; thank you for visiting my art website. I hope you enjoyed it.​
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If you would like to contact me, kindly email me at: redglossyart@gmail.com.
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​Also, please be sure to check out my books, for sale now on Amazon.com.
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sincerely,
Jeff Galven
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