Aibu to ask if this poem’s any good

[Millionnewnames]

Just that really, dabbling in poetry as a distraction from life atm. For context, I’m a painter and very much into ‘old’ art and literature. Here’s a draft , so please don’t pick apart the grammar or the borrowed olde English , it’s just how it came out really :)

Silly Things.

Beware the purple heathered hills,
That kiss the mossy gorge.
Tread not across the windswept mounds
Between the golden gorse.

Don’t clamber down the waterfalls
To the shimmering creeks below,
Or gaze between the diamond ripples
Into the fishes home.

Tread not through ferns and ancient trees
Where shy woodland flowers grow.
Where fairies surely dance each night
When human eyes are closed.

Avoid the strawberry painted sky
When framed with amber gold.
For a sunset can steal a brave man’s heart
And claim a wandering soul.

Sit not among the meadow flowers,
As the morning chorus rings,
For ‘twill fill your heart with paint and poetry
And other silly things.

She hides between the jagged rocks,
Which guard the briny pools,
She whispers in the salty winds
As each wave doth rise and fall.

She’ll pluck you from the clifftops,
To win your heart forever
The roots of the ancient forest
will bind your feet together.

Beware the goddess of nature
The mistress of the wild,
Her power and her beauty
leave you helpless as a child.

Sit not among the meadow flowers
As the morning chorus rings
For twill fill your heart with paint and poetry
And other silly things.

I think it's beautifully written but possibly more than one poem as you're writing beautifully
Good for you OP
It's all there if not too much at once
It could do with blending or separation
That saying I wish I could paint those pictures the way you can 👍🏼

I get what the poem means, and if you want to stick with the imagery I would suggest changing silly things to foolish things. To me, it matches the old-fashioned language of the poem slightly better.

I thought it was good but not clear on why I don't have to or shouldn't do these things?
Filling my heart is dangerous? Is it facetious?

I will start by saying I dislike poetry generally, it rarely makes sense to me. So my comments will not be as sophisticated as some others and in fact I just have two things that jump out at me.

So firstly, I don’t get what you mean by “silly things”, I would expect a light hearted poem about, well, silly things with that title whereas this is a serious poem.

Then considering I don’t like poetry, I didn’t mind the first four verses at all or even the fifth although the first mention of “silly things” is puzzling. But what I really disliked was the use of “she” in the next two verses. Where did she come from, it feels like she needed to either be in from the start or not at all. Two verses of she made it feel like they were verses from a different poem.

@Melitza

On another point. Can someone really commission a piece of art, knowing full well your style, and then just reject it? After, presumably, a great deal of work by you.

I’m afraid so. And they do sometimes, usually by just ghosting rather than directly rejecting . It’s why I don’t do portraits, other paintings can be chucked onto eBay and sold at least. I, and my other artist friends earn around £2.50 per hour for what we do, even though we are ‘good’ and popular. I’ve had the odd fluke and sold something for much more than I was expecting, generally though we work for peanuts .

There's some clunky scansion where there's a syllable too many or few in some of the lines, but it's betterv than a lot of stuff.

Rather old fashioned, but nice in its style.

I did a summer job once at The Poetry Society when I read their incoming mail and it is definitely waaaay better than most of the unsolicited poetry that got sent their way!

I think it's beautiful OP, I love it. The only stanza I didn't like was the first mention of twill and 'silly things' it felt at odds with the rest of the poem. People are so critical on here, obviously take some tips off people but the audience in AIBU is mostly angry and critical so bear that in mind!

I used to belong to a forum called the Poets' Graves Workshop where beginners or even more advanced dabblers could post their poems for critique. It was a serious forum not one where everyone automatically gushes over others' work.

Last time I went to log in, it had shut down and transferred to a forum called Prole Art Threat - Contemporary Poetry Forum, Creative Writing Workshop and Arts Discussion - I hope it's still going - where you can also submit your work for constructive comment and criticism.
Link here: proleartthreat.co.uk/forum/

I don't think much of it but then I have studied poetry extensively so my standards are high.

There are some pretty phrases in there OP.

@Drunkenmonkey

I think it's beautiful OP, I love it. The only stanza I didn't like was the first mention of twill and 'silly things' it felt at odds with the rest of the poem. People are so critical on here, obviously take some tips off people but the audience in AIBU is mostly angry and critical so bear that in mind!

But the OP was actively seeking objective criticism, not gush. ‘Is this poem any good?’ is what she asked. I responded in the same spirit. Nothing good is written as a first draft. A poem might easily have dozens of drafts, and there mightn’t be a single word of the original still in the final version.

OP, are you aware there’s a Creative Writing board on here?

You clearly could write but writing isn't quick or non committed.

Take your time, make it personal, say what matters to you, forget form.

Irony is very hard to do and you've got to get the weighting just right. I wouldn't try it yet.
Two poems to try, I will check the titles...

For irony, see Elizabeth Bishop's One Art. Very committed to the irony, it's more than a rhetorical device.

If you can get your hands on Stranger to Nothing by Philip Levine, I would do that. Start from the other end. You have a wonderful advantage as a visual thinker. You can bring clarity, detail and discipline to nature writing. Do that. Write as you would draw.

I would also say, the only reason you're getting the shallow criticism is (1) you're not committed enough to the natural observations, it's a bit purple prose which doesn't draw the reader in to see something new in the familiar (2) the deeper message is scant and reads like a device, partly because there isn't enough of it and you haven't brought yourself to it-there's no vulnerability or idiosyncratic view explaining why you feel the need to be ironic, what you are pushing back against. However I wouldn't attempt rewriting this to achieve those things. I would start again separately with the story about why you feel the need to be ironic, writing very simply and truthfully with no thoughts of being read. It may go in directions you hadn't anticipated. There may be sentences you can use in the original draft poem you've posted. Then I would also, separately, use your artist's eye to write about the detail in the visual images in your draft.

This is entirely crackers, but I would then type each line out separately, cut them up, shuffle them, lay them out again in the new random order and use that as a springboard.

I like the imagery in your poem, and I like the "backwards" message--"Be careful, or all this beauty will captivate you forever."

Several of the lines seem to have too many syllables for the stanza form you've chosen, making the rhythm a bit rough and skippy. In traditional-type poetry, keeping the number of "feet" per line consistent is important. (I like "traditional" poetry too.)

Also some of your rhymes are not exact--for example, "gorge" and "gorse," or "grow" and "closed." I find the inexact rhymes rather charming, but sometimes searching for an exact rhyme and figuring out how to frame the line to include that word can be a good exercise in craft. I will say that "grow" and "closed" are a bit irksome, because it's the extra ending on "closed" that disturbs the rhyme. "Grows" and "close" would be better.

The poem has a lot of lovely word-pictures, but could benefit from attention to technical matters.

I agree with ZoniSouslaLune. The rhymes which don’t rhyme and the erratic scansion distract from what you are trying to depict.

I think it’s good in places but some lines just jar, Ie the fishes home one. I also didn’t understand the title and I think the goddess of nature made a late appearance,

Bluntness as a poetry critic, there should be more of this!

I was jolted by the late appearance of She too. What about moving it up to after the bit about waterfalls, and keeping the water stuff together?

I wondered about making some things possessive, as in belonging to Nature? Eg
Avoid her strawberry painted sky...
I'd move that verse down to the end so it goes from dawn to sunset and ends with a stolen soul, rather than silly things.
What about breaking the brave man's heart, rather than stealing it?

The "silly things" isn't working for me either sorry, I was also going to suggest foolish things.

I found this verse most problematic, maybe because I don't think of ancient forests being in with meadows and forests and you have heart many times...

She’ll pluck you from the clifftops,
To win your heart forever
The roots of the ancient forest
will bind your feet together.

I'd probably go with something like
She'll pull you from her pathways,
And win your love forever
The roots of ancient forests
Will bind your feet together.

Oh god, I've come over all half remembered Keats from school, so sorry OP. I was even going to suggest "bind your soles together", as in feet. I can only apologise.

Sorry, I meant I don't think of clifftops being in with meadows and forests and...

Looking at the poem as a whole, you mainly use iambic feet.

An Iamb is a metrical foot that has the stress on the second syllable,

This means that it flows along - ti Pom, ti Pom, ti Pom, so you need to use words that have the emphasis on the second syllable such as 'include' or ' retain' or combine two words for the same effect, nice examples in your poem are 'and claim' and 'sit not'.

Your first line works well, the stress is on the syllables in capitals:

BeWARE/ the PUR/ple HEATH/ered HILLS

You have four iambs in that line so it is an iambic tetrameter.

The next line has three iambs so it is an iambic trimeter
That KISS/ the MOSS/ y GORGE

It is OK to mix up trimeters and tetrameters and even pentameters (5 feet)
But it is usually a bad idea to depart completely from iambic feet once you have started with them.

Things go well until we get to:

'Or gaze between the diamond ripples
Into the fishes home.'
' Diamond Ripples' does not fit correctly into the rhythm of the line because it is not made up of iambs and the next line does not help.

Many of the rest of the poem's lines are quite OK, scansion wise, but are spoiled by, for example 'As each wave doth rise and fall' - no iambs in there.

I would go through the poem ironing out the scansion and introduce a consistent rhythm.

Apologies for bossy tone, trying to be constructive.