A Loving Home

[karalma]

A Loving Home

Excitement grows as we await our first child
A boy of eight we have been told
We know that things may go awry
But we have plenty of experience in supply

For our birth children are now all grown
And we miss the pleasure of young folk
So we thought we’d try and foster
And give a child all the love we can muster

We have been through all the interrogations
Of our home, our family, our friends
We have answered questions, challenged our thoughts and ideas
And now it is time to face our fears

We welcome Andy into our home
He does not smile or meet our eye
After all the months of waiting and anticipation
We are left feeling frustration

We soon realised that parenting other people’s children
Is not as easy as we both thought
It was not the tears, tantrums or being kept awake at night
Nor even stealing our car or the constant fights

It was the fact that he couldn’t see
How much we wanted to succeed
So we tried and tried and tried again
To use our affection against his pain

Finally we had to admit defeat
Our loving home could not compete
With all the pain he had suffered before
We had no choice; we could offer no more

So now we say goodbye
And hope that Andy will find the home he needs
But we will try again
For there are too many children who live in pain.

[Danté]

Karalma

You have some great material here.
You have made a task for yourself, by choosing to structure this with a strict rhyme, which is fine if the piece is firstly working as a poem. This reads like a series of statements and has no use of poetic devices or concrete imagery to deliver the ideas in a poetic way to the reader.
There is a lot to say in the poem, which has made this difficult to write as a complete piece that you could do a real fine poetic job with.
I read some of your other replies in which you have said you are new to poetry, if that´s the case I would strongly recommend that you try to keep things simple until you have grasped the nature of poetic communication.
My advice here is this, break the piece up and deal with the anticipation of having this young person come into your lives, and then move into the period of actually having this person around and the associated difficulties. You could probaly get three shorter poems from this, it would then be a worthwhile challenge to weave the whole lot together.
We are all learning as writers, poetry is not easy and is far more than writing a story, cutting it into verses and thinking it becomes a poem by default.
It is obvious that you can communicate clearly, I would suggest you find some information on the web that discusses the use of metaphors and how to portray emotions without simply telling the reader in a way that one would if having a simple coversation.
One of the hardest things in writing poetry is having worthwhile material to work with, you don´t have that problem here, it´s simply a case of conveying that material in a poetic manner.


"We welcome Andy into our home
He does not smile or meet our eye
After all the months of waiting and anticipation
We are left feeling frustration"

This is a good verse to use as an example, how does it feel when he won´t meet your gaze, how do you feel after all that anticipation, what is his facial expression? What is the atmosphere like around the house? What is his overall demeanour? Also, you could hint at his unsettled life, which has probably contributed towards the difficulty of integration into a family setting.

You have enough here to write poetry all day with.
If you want to learn how to write poetry, this is a damn fine place to do that, there are loads of examples of differing styles and subjects. Try to make it appealing without abstraction, and not overcomplicate it.

This may seem a little harsh, but is meant as a positive piece of feedback which I hope will be of some use to you. If I thought I was wasting my time, I would have not bothered typing this, as it happens I don't, as I see you have taken some time and have put thought into this.

This is good stuff, that could become maybe two or three good poems, its predictable in its current form, I knew where it was leading quite early in the poem, perhaps capitalise on the struggle in respect of making such a descision, make the reader ponder more instead of simply making bold statements.

Good luck

Danté

[Leigh]

I think this peice has strong sentiment. I felt for you and Andy. The story alone has great power. Keep writing, and also keep reading; I think reading is the key to becoming a great writer. Words like yours, that are inspired by such deapth of experience, no matter their form or structure, enourage empaty; which is, I think, one of the most virilent tools at any artists dispossal

[karalma]

Thank you both for such great feedback. Dante I didn't think it was harsh at all. it gave me a lot to think about. I know I see things quite literally and like facts which is possibly why my work is coming across as statements. I have started to experiment with metaphors etc so hopefully this will come through in my future writing.

Thank you both for taking the time.

[dogofdiogenes]

Hi there,good to meet you. I agree with a lot of what Dante has said here. It's easy to have lots of things you want to say but focussing in is really hard. You may have an idea about what you want to say but it's making that work in 'poetic' terms that is the task. It takes lots of practice and lots of reading other poetry but it's worth it. If you write about something personal that's fine-but remember people will want to critique your writing as an expression of that expression. We used to have an exercise at college where we had to write a metaphor for lots of everyday objects. It was good for focussing writing which sometimes means you focus your thinking, makes things clearer.

All the best

dog