Considering I began writing in the exact middle of puberty, with raging hormones and the biggest of feelings, it can be difficult and painful to look back on the material I created when I was getting started. While some of it has been legitimately cringey, I mainly find myself bored with the structure and flow of it. Naturally, any writer’s style and skills are going to shift and improve as they mature (both literally and figuratively in my case), but that doesn’t mean those first works are devoid of meaning, purpose, or even use.
A couple years ago I decided to dive into my old files and re-invigorate some of my first poems. So far, this has gone a couple different ways and I want to highlight both those evolutions. I’ll start with perhaps the more obvious of the two, which is simply expanding upon what was already there. First you will read through the original, and then the redux; and I’ll conclude with a brief analysis, but I mostly want to hear from y’all about what you notice.
The poem referenced here is called “A Lighthouse View”
Deep blue and slowly churning,
It feels my lost and cold heart yearning.
The waves’ great and tall white crests
Pound the shore like the heart in my chest.
So rough, so violent, but still so calm.
I feel the water rush over my palm.
I heave a sigh and smile so wide.
This place has always put joy inside.
Ocean water flows over my feet;
The salty sea air smells so sweet.
The coastline stretches on forever.
It seems to reach its sad end… never.
Sunlight dances on the sea;
The place so dearly special to me.
Eventually I’ll see the wonders below;
And maybe one day the world will know-
The ocean, the sea, my watery home.
The silent place my heart is known.
I belong with it, it belongs to me;
We will live forever-myself and the sea.
REDUX
A blue so deep it appears as wine, the currents
beneath its glossy surface slowly churning – taking long
forgotten treasures along an unplotted course.
The unknowable water must feel
my sorrow, my desire.
For I feel it pulling me.
The calm breaks, and
great waves begin to rage, cresting impossibly high,
though mere inches tall in the distance.
When they finally reach the shore at my feet, all that remains is foam.
I think of metaphors, so often cliched
or overused but occasionally taking root as objective truth.
I contemplate the nature of dichotomies as well – being themselves
a dichotomy:
both dissonant and congruous.
The sea is my favorite example: so rough and violent,
but simultaneously tranquil.
I chuckle at the small oddities of the
world and reach down to feel the water
rush over my palm.
An involuntary sigh escapes me, and a smile
slides onto my face.
One far wider than I wear on my daily mask.
One that is true.
There is something eternal about this place and the
peace it offers. Ocean water
flows over my feet as a salty balm that
washes away all remaining traces of pain.
At least while I am here.
I envision my sins drifting away, to join the
treasures of the deep on their unplanned
voyage, and inhale deeply.
The sea air, imbued with such dampness, offers a
vague aroma of life, but also of death.
Somehow it still smells sweet.
On my left is a lighthouse, red and white and
immense. A startling, colored monolith in this
world of grays.
Formerly a beacon in the fog
for weary sailors, now simply a remnant of a
time left behind. Not yet forgotten,
but memory dies with those who possess it, and few
still hold harbors in their mind’s eye.
I peer to my right and see
naught but coast, following a trail that
seems to have no end – though I know that all things
must and do find their end in time.
Sunlight dares to peek through the
endless clouds for a brief moment – and it dances
on the sea.
Reflection or refraction?
I cannot remember the difference, though I know
I learned it in a science class taken long ago.
It does not matter.
Such point-of-fact explanations for the world
never much appealed to me, so I enjoy the
dancing sunbeams.
Soon my gaze settles back on the
water – it cannot stray for long.
Perhaps in time, I will get to see the
world below that ever-changing face, but
for now, I dream of such wonders from my
solid place on the shore.
I listen to the gentle surging of the tide,
its ebb and flow, and I ponder.
Do I hesitate for fear of the unknown?
Or fear that I may never return to land?
I have always felt it deep in my
bones: the ocean, the sea.
My watery home.
Up here it can be so loud, but
beneath I imagine a most welcoming silence.
And in that quiet, the deepest desires of my
heart can be known.
I must belong with it, this thing that has
called to me forever.
And surely it belongs to me.
We will live forever, myself and the sea.
Analysis
The major difference between the two, excluding the clear difference in length, is the change in style. I started with a coupled rhyme scheme (AABB) in the original, and tossed that out the window for a free verse style in the redux. This is in part because I am more confident writing in free verse – I don’t feel that I have the strongest execution of meter in a rhyming poem (ONE OF MY GOALS FOR 2025!), but also because I find a certain freedom in free verse [just a wild thought, but maybe that’s where the name came from?!].
I also feel that this poem evolved into a free verse form of an ode, which is a form of poetry that celebrates or praises a certain topic or person. However! According to the rules of poetry (a concept I both struggle with and find enthralling), odes are almost exclusively written with a rhyming scheme – typically ABABCDECDE – but since free verse poetry doesn’t have any official subgenres, this is me making one up.
Your Turn
Alright, I think I have bared myself enough for the moment. Which brings me to you. I did say I want this blog to be a collaborative workshop of sorts! So, please, share your takeaways from this experiment of mine. What did you notice about the language or the flow or really any aspect that stands out to you.
Poetry analysis can seem scary, but there are truly no wrong answers, so don’t be afraid to share your view – because it could sincerely help someone else struggling with a concept or even where to start with analysis!
And please share if this inspired you to revisit some of your own first efforts!
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