I wrote this back in sixth grade. I just found it sorting a box of papers today. The Sky at Night When I look at the sky at night I see the stars shining so bright The moon is like a silver dollar Before it rains it gets a collar Sometimes when I forget to sleep I stare at the sky so deep As I watch in wonder A star falls with the sound of thunder As I sit there and watch in wonder of it all My eyelids begin to fall.
After reading it and putting it up here, I was finding I wasn't really happy with it. So here is the rewrite I did last night. The sky at Night II When I look at the sky at night I see the stars shining so bright The full moon hung low Like a sorrowful soul Sometimes when I can not sleep I stare at that night sky, so deep I sit and watch in wonder as a star falls with the clap of thunder As I sit and stare, absorbed in the wonder of it all At the cusp of twilight I hear the call and into sleep I fall.
I kind of liked the sixth grader one better, mostly because it's pretty good for a 12 year old. The re-write is phrased awkwardly -- the rhythm is all over the place and the alussions don't really speak to me. You should try a few more re-writes. It probably takes a bit of practice to hit something that really resonates.
If you don't mind me asking, what do you find awkward about the phrasing and could you expand on the allusions comment?
It's the pattern of the words. There is no natural cadence to it. That can be okay in poetry if you are deliberately trying to disturb the reader or jar him in some fashion, but this is a warm feelings poem, it should flow more naturally. Try as an exercise, re-writing a few of the couplets (paired lines with rhyming endings), forcing each line to have the same number of syllables. Then read it out loud, note whether there is a different feel to it. As for the allusions, I get the feeling you were just looking for rhymes, more than looking for meaning in the words. For this you might try not rhyming, focusing instead on a message. Eventually you can get away from set rhythm patterns and rhyming schemes, but I wouldn't recommend dropping all of it now, just dropping one thing or another as an exercise for understanding how it might change the poem.
