Saying it aloud
Posted: 19 February 2009
Word Count: 81
Summary: Revisited version - after very useful feedback from Joanie and especially James!
|
Font Size
|
|
I am angry with you Mother
For being like no other
For your absence
For the silence.
I am angry with you Mummy
For your wonderful beauty
For the tears I have shed
For the words I have not said.
Mum I am angry with you,
For your unmatched virtue
For the pain I still feel
For it will never heal.
I am angry with you Mama,
For the cancer and your trauma
For leaving me lonely
For going so quickly.
|
Comments by other Members
| |
 joanie at 18:40 on 19 February 2009
 Report this post
|
Hi Fabienne. The anger speaks out in this; I can really feel the emotions. It's very powerful. I do like the repetitions at the start of the lines and stanzas, just like a child not wanting to stop the tantrum.
The third stanza doesn't quite work for me, however; it seems a bit forced.
I think you should perhaps re-think the title, making it less self-explanatory, as it says pretty much what's in the first line. Perhaps you could pick something out of the poem, like "Leaving" or "Unread words". Just a thought!
Poignant and effective.
joanie
| |
 freynolds at 12:31 on 20 February 2009
Report this post
|
Thank you Joanie. This is very useful feedback. I thought about a different title as "Departure" and have rewritten the third stanza to now read:
I am angry with you Mum,
For the pain I still feel
For it will never heal
For being so awesome.
I think it is an improvement but would value feedback.
Best wishes
Fabienne
| |
 James Graham at 16:24 on 21 February 2009
Report this post
|
I've a bit more than usual in the in-try, Fabienne, but I'll post a comment soon.
James.
|
|
| |
James Graham at 19:41 on 22 February 2009
Report this post
|
As others have said, this poem is touching, and real feelings come through - especially the anger which is so often a part of bereavement but isn’t always acknowledged.
But I want to focus on technical aspects of the poem, especially rhyme. If you want to revise, maybe this will be of some help.
Some of the rhyme doesn’t work as it should. The third verse especially is very contrived so as to make a full rhyme with ‘Mum’. The trouble is, if you start with ‘Mum’ you already have a problem - available rhymes include drum, dumb and scum and others, most of which wouldn’t find a place in your poem at all. ‘Overcome’ is a possible, but you haven’t much choice. So you have to force a rhyme.
(I'm sorry, I was writing this in Word before I saw your revision. I have to say 'awesome' still seems forced. The 'um' sound just isn't much help to rhymers! Lines 2 and 3 are much better, of course.)
You can use ‘imperfect rhymes’, where only the consonant sound of the last syllable rhymes. ‘Mum’ could rhyme in this way with any word ending in an ‘m’ sound, such as room, warm, or time. This widens your choice considerably.
In the same verse, getting a full rhyme for ‘gap’ is maybe a little easier than ‘Mum’ but tricky all the same. Again, imperfect rhyme could be used, any word ending in a ‘p’ sound. (This is what you’ve done here, using ‘rasp’, but the word seems out of place.)
To make full rhymes successfully, you have to try to end your first line (the one to be rhymed with in the next line or further on) with a syllable sound that allows for plenty of good rhymes - i.e. words that rhyme with it and are potentially suitable words to use in the context of your poem. Maybe you already do this, but I’d suggest becoming addicted to a rhyming dictionary. I don’t use rhyme very often, but when I do I can’t be bothered racking my brains for rhymes - it’s the dictionary every time. (Same applies to the thesaurus, to help find a better word than the one I first thought of.)
Finally, probably the easiest rhyming form is ABCB, where the second and fourth lines rhyme but the first and third don’t. It’s a form very much used, and the lighter touch of rhyming alternate lines only can result in a very smooth-flowing poem with natural rhymes that never seem forced.
Your first verse, by the way, works perfectly - both Mother/ other and absence/ silence are perfectly natural in the context, and there’s no sense that the rhyme has been forced. The second verse is ok too. In the last, ‘carcinoma’ seems a bit forced, since normally we would simply speak of ‘cancer’ rather than use the more clinical term.
PS. I wondered if it might be a good idea to begin the poem - each verse, in fact - with the line ‘Mother, I am angry with you’. True, new, knew, renew, due, few, do, undo, subdue etc - the choice of rhyming words should be much wider.
I hope you will want to revise this poem, experimenting with rhyme especially, so that your articulation of the anger of bereavement can have even more impact.
James.
|
|
| |
James Graham at 12:24 on 02 March 2009
Report this post
|
This is definitely better, and none of the rhymes seems at all forced. Could I suggest you still might add a little to the effect of the poem by shortening the last line of the second verse:
For the tears I have shed
For words not said. |
|
This is more in line with other verses, especially the first. It shortens at the end as if the speaker is trying to keep control and avoid an outpouring of feelings.
‘Saying it Aloud’ is a very good title.
I wonder if you would like to try an experiment. You’ve said that you have been writing poetry for as long as you can remember, but I wonder if you’ve ever tried free verse? When you write about a subject like this, a rhymed poem can crystallise the feelings. Rhyme ‘fixes’ the words in place, as it were, and makes the poem seem more solid and permanent. But writing in free verse, starting a new line wherever you feel it’s effective and not using rhyme, can open up new possibilities. In this case, I think it would open up the possibility of illustrating the subject.
I’ll explain what I mean. If I were writing about my own mother - who died some years ago - I could write something like: ‘I am angry with you, Mother/ For your long-lived patience’. This would rhyme with ‘silence’. It would express the general feeling, as your poem does. But I could also write:
I am angry with you, Mother. Day
after day, when I came home from school, late,
ambushed again by the bullies, you were kind,
but quietly told me, day after day, that I
had character enough to send them off. One day
I did. I did. I am angry with you, Mother,
for your silence now. |
|
This isn’t very good, but it shows how the free form lets you go on a bit, and go from the general to the particular. Just a thought. You could take the subject in a different direction, and build up a vivid portrait of your mother.
James.
|
|
| |
SJ Williamson at 15:52 on 22 April 2009
Report this post
|
Once again, I'll leave the technical issues to the professionals.
However, this was a really emotional piece for me as it hits a few raw nerves. It's spot on though.
SJx
| |
| |
Comments by other Members
