Butterfly House

Lovely images: I particularly like 'bold and beautiful as paintings'. I believe 'tread' is what you want vice 'tred'.

I don't agree that 'bold and beautiful as paintings' is a lovely image. It certainly doesn't tell you anything about the butterflies. Some paintings are bold and beautiful. Some aren't. So the butterflies are as bold and beautiful as some things that may or may not be bold and/or beautiful. The point of using metaphors or similes is to tell the reader something new about the thing you're writing about by comparing it to something else. So Philip Larkin here: "Everyone old has dreamed of all their lives— Bonds and gestures pushed to one side Like an outdated combine harvester, And everyone young going down the long slide" tells you what the 'bonds and gestures' are like by comparing them to an 'outdated combine harvester'. The reader then considers how bonds and gestures might be like an outdated combine harvester. My general query about this poem - my starting point with any poem - is 'why have you written it?' It doesn't, to me, communicate anything much other than 'We went to a butterfly house and the butterflies flew around and we wanted them to land our hands'. So what? Going to a butterfly house may not be a bad idea for a poem but you don't effectively communicate (these are some examples of possible things that are reader might be interested in): - what the butterflies looked like (other than 'beautiful') - why you went there - who you are - how you felt when you saw them - why did you want them to land on your hands - what it smelt like (you mention a scent but don't tell us anything about it) The second half does go beyond 'We went to a butterfly house and the butterflies flew around and we wanted them to land our hands' but this: "The smaller ones land lightly on the leaves, stay still and unflinching as we get closer, tentative fingers reaching. They are safe, knowing that to touch or to capture, is as impossible as holding a thought for a second longer than it is." doesn't really make sense. The idea of the butterflies staying still and unflinching - not being scared - is potentially interesting. The problem is the pay off that comes after it. Aside from being a nightmare in terms of word order - which makes it unclear what the final 'it' is referring to - the underlying problem is that it isn't impossible to touch or capture a butterfly. There might be a specific reason why it isn't possible for you to capture a butterfly in this situation (you don't have a net? you're not allowed to capture the butterflies?). If so, and it's important, it could be in the poem. Sorry to be so harsh. I hope this is useful and not offensive. These points are some reasons why this poem probably wouldn't be published in a magazine in its present form. Whether or not it would get a good mark as part of your university course depends to some extent on the quality of the writing of the other people on your course. I've seen people get half-decent grades in creative writing BAs writing stuff which is worse than this.

I understood the final it to be a thought: you have a point, Bukh, when you say it could be could confusing. Perhaps ´them´is missing after capture. In my opinion, this deserved its cherry. There are far worse efforts on this site - many of them my own - I cannot comment on the merits of this poem within the context of a real university´s CW course, my qualification is only from the OU.

Well, it depends. Beyond the advice I've given above, I'd also advise you not to ditch a poem just because some clever arse tells you it's crap. I may be entirely wrong. If you know why you've written it and you think it does what you want it to do then you should ignore me. Ewan's right that this isn't one of the worst poems on ABCtales.com - I think it's in the better 50% of poems on here - but you're right in thinking that's not really a big reccomendation because anyone can post anything on here.

The point of cherries, as far as I can tell is encouragement: a reward for something which an editor believes is particularly good, or shows promise, or a deal of improvement in the standard of a writer's writing. This site is free, there are thousands of stories and poems on it. No-one, except for the editor-in-chief perhaps, derives any financial benefit from involvement in the site. People will probably comment, if you comment on their material: I doubt if you will get much criticism of the standard of Bukh's here. People don't feel qualified to give it. Don't you get the kind of thing you want from colleagues on your CW course?

Well, the point re: the Larkin quote is that his similie fulfills the function of a similie and yours doesn't. Whether the overall end product is something you (or I) want to read for the fun of it is an entirely different question. My specific suggestions - if you're not planning to new add ideas or content - are: - change 'paintings' to something that is bold and beautiful - or alternatively remove 'bold and beautiful' and have: "The larger ones flatten against walls as paintings. They watch..." If you actually make the butterflies themselves paintings then it's a much more powerful image because you're saying that in that moment when they flatten against the wall they become paintings. I'd knock out 'carefully' because 'tread carefully' is a cliche and it's more interesting if you let the 'tread' imply the carefully but I accept that the 'carefully' slows the poem down - which could be a good thing - so that's a matter of taste. I've also swapped 'decide' and 'chosen' for 'choose' and 'picked' because, for me, the 'picked' made me think of picking flowers and confused things. But you might want the reader to think of picking flowers at that point. Again, that depends on what you want to do. and in terms of the second half: I cut either 'stay still' or 'unflinching' because, although their meanings are different, they're not different enough to justify having them right next to each other describing the same inaction. So I'd have: "The smaller ones land lightly on the leaves, unflinching as we get closer, tentative fingers reaching..." After that, the problem isn't related to my personal taste - I may or may not like it if I understood what it meant. As mentioned above, there's the factual problem that it's not impossible to either capture a butterfly or hold a thought. And there's the grammatical problem with the 'it' on the end. The current subject of the final 'it' is 'how long it's possible to hold a thought for'. If can't specifically solve these problems without writing my own poem - which might say something entirely different to what you want to say - but to make it less confusing and more internally logical, I'd go for: "They are safe, knowing that to touch or to capture, is as impossible as holding a thought for a second longer." If you subject of it really is meant to be 'how long it's possible to hold a thought for' then you could finish with: "or to capture, is as impossible as holding a thought for a second longer than you can." but, while making sense, it's a rubbish ending. maybe "than this." So, putting it all together, I'd go for: They decide where they land. We hold out our hands anyway, hoping to be chosen. The larger ones flatten against walls as paintings. They watch as we tred through large-petalled flowers, breathe in the scent. The smaller ones land lightly on the leaves, unflinching as we get closer, tentative fingers reaching. They are safe, knowing that to touch or to capture, is as impossible as holding a thought for a second longer than this.

Hi shatterboxx I'm new here myself, but have been writing poetry for a while now so I am comfortable giving a little advice. I think you need to feel your poem a little more, poetry is about conveying emotions as well as good descriptions. I realise you have time constraints on your work, but sometimes it is better to take the good parts of a poem and re-write it into a new one from scratch, honestly a poem like this could be rattled off in fifteen minutes or so.. its not the end of the world to start again. One of the first poems I wrote myself was about a butterfly, I'll post it here on your thread and maybe you can see what I'm getting at. Your idea is a good one, maybe try and think of some comparisons, I like the paint idea. How about comparing the butterflies to some artistic work such as the boldness of picasso, or maybe the unusual colours in an artists pallette like ochre or azzure. Anyway here's my attempt, good luck with yours. Thanks, Steve. Butterfly Whimsical and beautiful Wonderful and colourful A Butterfly Floats on by Delicate and Graceful Settling for a moment so brief Gently upon a leaf Then gone again on a breeze Its memory left to tease