Their Alaska
a poem21 total reviews
Comment from nancy_e_davis
Part of our extended lived there for a while but they gave it up. I don't know the details. I suppose it is a beautiful place but I wouldn't like it. I hate winter. Your graphic certainly depicts beauty. Nancy:)
reply by the author on 16-Sep-2022
  |
Part of our extended lived there for a while but they gave it up. I don't know the details. I suppose it is a beautiful place but I wouldn't like it. I hate winter. Your graphic certainly depicts beauty. Nancy:)
Comment Written 16-Sep-2022
reply by the author on 16-Sep-2022
-
Thank you, Nancy
Comment from Mary Vigasin
A sad, honest and brutal poem. We tend to look at the beauty from afar, and overlook that reality and times can be brutal.
My deepest sympathy for you and the hell they went through.
Sincerely
Mary
reply by the author on 16-Sep-2022
|
A sad, honest and brutal poem. We tend to look at the beauty from afar, and overlook that reality and times can be brutal.
My deepest sympathy for you and the hell they went through.
Sincerely
Mary
Comment Written 16-Sep-2022
reply by the author on 16-Sep-2022
-
Thank you, Mary
Comment from Jasmine Girl
Even though you are very negative about Alaska in a satiric way, I like your rhyming poem. It' consistent with its negativity. I have seen "aurora borealis" in Canada before. I also took an Alaskan cruise in 2014. I have to say that it has a lot of glacial and rains a lot. Our tour guide said that weird people tends to live there, especially in winter.
Well done.
reply by the author on 16-Sep-2022
|
Even though you are very negative about Alaska in a satiric way, I like your rhyming poem. It' consistent with its negativity. I have seen "aurora borealis" in Canada before. I also took an Alaskan cruise in 2014. I have to say that it has a lot of glacial and rains a lot. Our tour guide said that weird people tends to live there, especially in winter.
Well done.
Comment Written 16-Sep-2022
reply by the author on 16-Sep-2022
-
I've been to Alaska twice. Once to see my brother and sister in two different cities, and once on a cruise. My siblings lived ther since the seventies and died as described.
Comment from BethShelby
This is a beautifully written poem, but those verses that speak of the horror of what happens to some who are lured there for whatever reason and fail to find what they expected is chilling. I don't know if this literally happened in your family or not. I hope not. Some were lured there dreaming of gold but without the right support I would imagine it could be a cruel land.
reply by the author on 16-Sep-2022
|
This is a beautifully written poem, but those verses that speak of the horror of what happens to some who are lured there for whatever reason and fail to find what they expected is chilling. I don't know if this literally happened in your family or not. I hope not. Some were lured there dreaming of gold but without the right support I would imagine it could be a cruel land.
Comment Written 16-Sep-2022
reply by the author on 16-Sep-2022
-
Albert and Muriel moved to Alaska in the seventies. One lived in Fairbanks and the other in North Pole. I feel they were trapped there in the end. Albert died in the hospital from gangrene poisoning. Muriel was found dead in her home.
-
I'm sorry it was true about your family.
I was afraid of that. It is an excellent true poem. I've been there but wouldn't choose to live there.
Comment from Faith Williams
Alaska--where the beauty and the brutal meet. Your poem's two sides of the beauty and the beauty presents this lovely and haunting picture at the same time. Your poem makes the heart soar with its vivid imagery of nature and then plummet.
Thanks for sharing.
reply by the author on 16-Sep-2022
|
Alaska--where the beauty and the brutal meet. Your poem's two sides of the beauty and the beauty presents this lovely and haunting picture at the same time. Your poem makes the heart soar with its vivid imagery of nature and then plummet.
Thanks for sharing.
Comment Written 16-Sep-2022
reply by the author on 16-Sep-2022
-
Thanks, Faith, for giving this a look.
Comment from Father Flaps
Hi Bill,
I enjoyed your poem very much. Alaska, or any other place that's beautiful and brutal, isn't for just anyone. You have to be prepared and equipped to survive in a place like that. Wet matches are no good in the woods.
You've done a nice job of telling about your sister's plight. But is she your sister, or just a fellow American? And then there's your brother in peril. But again, I feel you're describing the peril of a fellow American.
On one hand, Alaska is a beautiful place, but it can mean death, too. Blessing and cursing.
You have some nice alliteration in your poem...
"mountains majesty"
"I also see my sister, skeletal"
"footprint free"
"lured to a land of loneliness"
With some mighty fine imagery, you may be focusing on Alaska. But any place can hold danger to the ill-matched if it's out of the element. Most of us live in a dream world. Survival is easy these days for most of us on earth. But there are people who struggle every single day. I've seen pictures of kids scavenging at a dump somewhere in South America, for example. And what if an asteroid smashed through the atmosphere, upsetting our slumber. If we lived through the initial disaster, could we persevere? Most of us have few skills to carry on.
I guess I got off on a tangent here, didn't I? I guess it's just where your poem took me.
Nicely penned!
Cheers,
Kimbob
reply by the author on 16-Sep-2022
|
Hi Bill,
I enjoyed your poem very much. Alaska, or any other place that's beautiful and brutal, isn't for just anyone. You have to be prepared and equipped to survive in a place like that. Wet matches are no good in the woods.
You've done a nice job of telling about your sister's plight. But is she your sister, or just a fellow American? And then there's your brother in peril. But again, I feel you're describing the peril of a fellow American.
On one hand, Alaska is a beautiful place, but it can mean death, too. Blessing and cursing.
You have some nice alliteration in your poem...
"mountains majesty"
"I also see my sister, skeletal"
"footprint free"
"lured to a land of loneliness"
With some mighty fine imagery, you may be focusing on Alaska. But any place can hold danger to the ill-matched if it's out of the element. Most of us live in a dream world. Survival is easy these days for most of us on earth. But there are people who struggle every single day. I've seen pictures of kids scavenging at a dump somewhere in South America, for example. And what if an asteroid smashed through the atmosphere, upsetting our slumber. If we lived through the initial disaster, could we persevere? Most of us have few skills to carry on.
I guess I got off on a tangent here, didn't I? I guess it's just where your poem took me.
Nicely penned!
Cheers,
Kimbob
Comment Written 16-Sep-2022
reply by the author on 16-Sep-2022
-
Thanks, Kimbob.
Comment from Theodore McDowell
Wow! The two personally tragic stanzas are juxtaposed with stanzas reflecting the natural beauty of Alaska. In the personal stanzas, the reader is confronted with death and loneliness. A very jarring poem. Well done.
reply by the author on 16-Sep-2022
|
Wow! The two personally tragic stanzas are juxtaposed with stanzas reflecting the natural beauty of Alaska. In the personal stanzas, the reader is confronted with death and loneliness. A very jarring poem. Well done.
Comment Written 16-Sep-2022
reply by the author on 16-Sep-2022
-
Thank you, Theodore
Comment from nomi338
This is a cold reminder that there are two worlds. There is the world that we imagine, and there is the world that really exists. The wealthy are capable of making the real world look like the one we all imagine in our dreams. The unfortunate poor are forced to see and live in the world that exists sans the frills and pleasures that money provides. for the majority of us the world we inhabit is the one without the bell and whistles.
reply by the author on 16-Sep-2022
|
This is a cold reminder that there are two worlds. There is the world that we imagine, and there is the world that really exists. The wealthy are capable of making the real world look like the one we all imagine in our dreams. The unfortunate poor are forced to see and live in the world that exists sans the frills and pleasures that money provides. for the majority of us the world we inhabit is the one without the bell and whistles.
Comment Written 16-Sep-2022
reply by the author on 16-Sep-2022
-
Alaska is not a place to be on one's own.
-
I have never been there, but I expected no less.
Comment from Sandra Nelms-Ludwig
Whew! This a heck of a deep poem. If this is based on a true story, I am sorry for your losses. I like how you go back and forth between how most Alaskans' view their state and your own, close familial view. It throws the reader off-balance, and I love poetry that does that. Starting with the beauty first is also great. I love the vibrant pretty colors because it too gives the impression this is a sweet Alaska poem. In the family section I would give each trait a separate line allowing the reader to feel the impact of each description one at a time. I would also put the descriptions in logical order. Such as:
I also see my sister,
alone
skeletal
reduced to skin and bone.
dead from malnutrition.
I would do the same for your brother's section. Make the reader feel the powerful differences that your siblings experienced from the tourists' notion about the state. Such as:
I also see my brother,
alone,..............mimicking the order of your sister's list.
lost
legless in a bed;
succumbing to gangrene poisoning,
and dead. Each section has 5 lines.
If it screws your rhyme scheme up-make it a free verse or fix the rhyme. I have only 3 sixes left, and you Mr. Bill from my viewpoint deserve one of them. Good stuff!
reply by the author on 16-Sep-2022
 |
Whew! This a heck of a deep poem. If this is based on a true story, I am sorry for your losses. I like how you go back and forth between how most Alaskans' view their state and your own, close familial view. It throws the reader off-balance, and I love poetry that does that. Starting with the beauty first is also great. I love the vibrant pretty colors because it too gives the impression this is a sweet Alaska poem. In the family section I would give each trait a separate line allowing the reader to feel the impact of each description one at a time. I would also put the descriptions in logical order. Such as:
I also see my sister,
alone
skeletal
reduced to skin and bone.
dead from malnutrition.
I would do the same for your brother's section. Make the reader feel the powerful differences that your siblings experienced from the tourists' notion about the state. Such as:
I also see my brother,
alone,..............mimicking the order of your sister's list.
lost
legless in a bed;
succumbing to gangrene poisoning,
and dead. Each section has 5 lines.
If it screws your rhyme scheme up-make it a free verse or fix the rhyme. I have only 3 sixes left, and you Mr. Bill from my viewpoint deserve one of them. Good stuff!
Comment Written 16-Sep-2022
reply by the author on 16-Sep-2022
-
Thank you, Sandra, for your thorough and helpful input for this poem. Yes, their deaths were as written, and only a couple of years ago. I appreciate the six as well. Bill
-
I am sorry. You are welcome. That poem is a hard truth.
Comment from Jay Squires
Well ... I don't know what to say. That was dark! I hope you were exercising your fictive muscles for this poem. Either way, though, it has its tragic power in the contrast between beauty and death. A damn good poem!
This rating does not count towards story rating or author rank.
The highest and the lowest rating are not included in calculations.
reply by the author on 16-Sep-2022
|
Well ... I don't know what to say. That was dark! I hope you were exercising your fictive muscles for this poem. Either way, though, it has its tragic power in the contrast between beauty and death. A damn good poem!
This rating does not count towards story rating or author rank.
The highest and the lowest rating are not included in calculations.
Comment Written 16-Sep-2022
reply by the author on 16-Sep-2022
-
Thank you, Jay. My brother and sister both died in Alaska as described.
-
Oh, my God! I'm so sorry for you -- and them.
