Tree Climber
Iambic pentameter blank verse.70 total reviews
Comment from Patricia A. Shaw
I read this poem twice in the early hours and its memory is still with me. This is a well structured story that grabs you and keeps you captive in it. I believe a comparison of the life of the tree and the life of the child is being depicted. A child can sometimes experience things that they don't understand when they are impressionable. This piece reminds me of that. I noted the dreaming which represent the longing to escape as feeling so real. Thank you for sharing something to close to your heart. This is brilliant.
reply by the author on 02-Jun-2017
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I read this poem twice in the early hours and its memory is still with me. This is a well structured story that grabs you and keeps you captive in it. I believe a comparison of the life of the tree and the life of the child is being depicted. A child can sometimes experience things that they don't understand when they are impressionable. This piece reminds me of that. I noted the dreaming which represent the longing to escape as feeling so real. Thank you for sharing something to close to your heart. This is brilliant.
Comment Written 02-Jun-2017
reply by the author on 02-Jun-2017
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Oh, thank you, ppepnp1, for your generous, six star review. A couple of weeks ago when I rediscovered the picture in an old family photo album, I was haunted. There I was with my brother climbing our plum tree in full bloom. I stand on the branches of the tree as I bent my body back until my head was upside down! I would never attempt that today in a tree, although I have practiced it on terra firma to see if I could recreate the pose. The image stayed with me. I was seized by a fever to write this poem. I could not work or rest until I had completed it.
Thank you again for your generous review and for comparing the life of the child to the Tree of Life.
Comment from duchessofdrumborg
'Tree Climber" is an extremely well-written and delightfully descriptive piece. This talented poet's work was a pleasure to both read and review. This is a definite six!
You KEEP WRITING and I'll keep reading.
reply by the author on 02-Jun-2017
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'Tree Climber" is an extremely well-written and delightfully descriptive piece. This talented poet's work was a pleasure to both read and review. This is a definite six!
You KEEP WRITING and I'll keep reading.
Comment Written 02-Jun-2017
reply by the author on 02-Jun-2017
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Yes, duchessofdrumborg, I will keep writing. Thank you for your generous, six star review of my delightfully descriptive poem. I appreciate it.
Hi Sis Cat. I always enjoy reading your poems.
Take care.
Best wishes, the Duchess
Comment from JW
This is a very deep poem, Sis Cat.
In reading it, it stirred a lot of personal memories.
Like in the poem, in real life my mother, alone, raised us kids.
Yet, each tree grew, the limbs twisting this way and that, at times. Yet, they eventually reached the sky.
Thanks for sharing this. JW
reply by the author on 02-Jun-2017
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This is a very deep poem, Sis Cat.
In reading it, it stirred a lot of personal memories.
Like in the poem, in real life my mother, alone, raised us kids.
Yet, each tree grew, the limbs twisting this way and that, at times. Yet, they eventually reached the sky.
Thanks for sharing this. JW
Comment Written 02-Jun-2017
reply by the author on 02-Jun-2017
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Oh, thank you, JW, for your generous review. My poem has struck a chord with those of us who were tree climbers or who were raised by mother alone. Like the tree, we grew. Thank you for your review of my deep poem.
Comment from Emily George
Beautiful imagery in this poem and a bit of a track back to childhood. It is interesting to read Kodak lens. So much good about before, but great about the now. I like that you used black and white and a tree, that symbolises life.
' Could he imagine I would climb this far '
It's interesting how we change climbing trees to climbing ladders. That's where your poem took me
reply by the author on 02-Jun-2017
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Beautiful imagery in this poem and a bit of a track back to childhood. It is interesting to read Kodak lens. So much good about before, but great about the now. I like that you used black and white and a tree, that symbolises life.
' Could he imagine I would climb this far '
It's interesting how we change climbing trees to climbing ladders. That's where your poem took me
Comment Written 01-Jun-2017
reply by the author on 02-Jun-2017
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Oh, thank you, Emily, for your review of my poem that tracks back to childhood. I was stunned when I rediscovered this picture that depicted my brother and I climbing the plum tree in full bloom. I wrote my poem in response.
I am also glad you love the last line. I wanted something simple and profound that would match or surpass Robert Frost's closing line to "Birches", "One can do worse than be a swinger of birches."
Thank you for your review.
Comment from angel123
Your Blank verse poem is interestingly descriptive and I enjoyed reading it. It flows well and good alliteration of words throughout. I really like your last stanza and your artwork choice goes well with your message.
angel123
reply by the author on 02-Jun-2017
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Your Blank verse poem is interestingly descriptive and I enjoyed reading it. It flows well and good alliteration of words throughout. I really like your last stanza and your artwork choice goes well with your message.
angel123
Comment Written 01-Jun-2017
reply by the author on 02-Jun-2017
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Oh, thank you, angel123, for your review. My mother took that picture of my brother and me climbing the backyard plum tree in full bloom. I am glad the last stanza are right, tfawcus with you. I worked hard to come up with words that would equal or surpass Robert Frost's "Birches."
Comment from tfawcus
I admire the consistent rhythm of this blank verse poem, in which you vary the pace skilfully using run-on lines and mid-line pauses. What memories these old photographs bring back, and more particularly so the black and white images which stir the imagination more deeply. A fine poem.
reply by the author on 02-Jun-2017
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I admire the consistent rhythm of this blank verse poem, in which you vary the pace skilfully using run-on lines and mid-line pauses. What memories these old photographs bring back, and more particularly so the black and white images which stir the imagination more deeply. A fine poem.
Comment Written 01-Jun-2017
reply by the author on 02-Jun-2017
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You are right, tfawcus, the old black and white photos stir us to use our imagination more to paint the colors. Thank you for noting the consistent rhythm of my blank verse, and thank you for your review.
Comment from smerryman3
Wonderful poem! I loved how you used different memories, some good some bad, but came full circle at the end with the theme of climbing. As I read, I felt like I was looking through a scrapbook of snapshots like the one you described at the beginning and used as your cover photos. A gripping read!
reply by the author on 02-Jun-2017
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Wonderful poem! I loved how you used different memories, some good some bad, but came full circle at the end with the theme of climbing. As I read, I felt like I was looking through a scrapbook of snapshots like the one you described at the beginning and used as your cover photos. A gripping read!
Comment Written 01-Jun-2017
reply by the author on 02-Jun-2017
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Yes, smerryman3, mixing the bod memories in with the good made the poem, because they serve as contrast, heightening one another. I rediscovered this photo in an old family photo album. The image of my brother and me climbing our backyard plum tree in full bloom so haunted me that I wrote this poem. Thank you for your review of a gripping read.
Comment from Irish Rain
This is wondrously beautiful. I've only attempted blank verse once, and it is very challenging, to avoid the rhymes, and near rhymes. You have written a lovely song of imagination, and memories. I loved every line. Blessings...
reply by the author on 02-Jun-2017
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This is wondrously beautiful. I've only attempted blank verse once, and it is very challenging, to avoid the rhymes, and near rhymes. You have written a lovely song of imagination, and memories. I loved every line. Blessings...
Comment Written 01-Jun-2017
reply by the author on 02-Jun-2017
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Oh, thank you, Irish Rain, for your generous, six star review of my first, and hopefully not the last, blank verse. This is harder to write than sonnets, rhymed poems, and free verse, but I learned a lot. Thank you for your support.
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I know...I couldn't believe how hard blank verse was to write!! You did awesome!!
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Yes, I was nearly totally floored in writing blank verse. It's harder that a sonnet because I don't have the crutch of an end rhyme to lean upon. I had to focus my entire attention on the sound of each word and their metered sequence. This is a good exercise.
Comment from Caressa_08
Very deserving of a six, and wish that I've had one to give...your true story was quite the read, and in a world that is unfair, and cruel, at times, being a child , it seems that you experienced some of that... And arson, so scary to have been through that... and like your last stanza, surprisingly, it seems to you... that you are climbing still past that tree of your childhood....Hopefully, to even now to a successful writer and so much more.
God Bless...Caressa_08
reply by the author on 01-Jun-2017
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Very deserving of a six, and wish that I've had one to give...your true story was quite the read, and in a world that is unfair, and cruel, at times, being a child , it seems that you experienced some of that... And arson, so scary to have been through that... and like your last stanza, surprisingly, it seems to you... that you are climbing still past that tree of your childhood....Hopefully, to even now to a successful writer and so much more.
God Bless...Caressa_08
Comment Written 01-Jun-2017
reply by the author on 01-Jun-2017
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Oh, thank you, Caressa, for your virtual six star review. Yes, I am still climbing. Thanks for the encouragement.
Comment from kiwisteveh
I have just had occasion to see a couple of photos of myself as a boy - ones I had never previously seen or had totally forgotten, and yes, they brought memories flooding back - familiar faces frozen in time staring out of the past.
Great to see a different poetic form in your blank verse and observe how you can extract a message out a simple occurrence. The line
Could he imagine I would climb this far?
cleverly connects the subject of the poem to a thought-provoking theme.
Steve
reply by the author on 02-Jun-2017
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I have just had occasion to see a couple of photos of myself as a boy - ones I had never previously seen or had totally forgotten, and yes, they brought memories flooding back - familiar faces frozen in time staring out of the past.
Great to see a different poetic form in your blank verse and observe how you can extract a message out a simple occurrence. The line
Could he imagine I would climb this far?
cleverly connects the subject of the poem to a thought-provoking theme.
Steve
Comment Written 01-Jun-2017
reply by the author on 02-Jun-2017
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Oh, thank you, Steve, for your review. Yes, when I rediscovered a couple of weeks ago this picture of my brother and me climbing the backyard plum tree in full bloom, it haunted me. And that look on my face when I tilted my head upside down in a tree! This inspired my poem. The closing line connected with many reviewers like you. Thanks again.
