This Poem was Submitted By: Thomas H. Smihula On Date: 2005-12-10 19:40:53 . . . Click Here To Mail this Poem to a Friend!

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Ingredients

A flicker of a candle  A pitcher's porcelain handle The first, a brief moment The other, delicate hardly touched The table made of teak The doorway with a creak One, is so solid Second, a reminder The soul, for a moment The heart, so delicate the soul, touched by afffection the heart, breaks if disheartened The body, a solid form The mind, the reminder The body, rises to face essense The mind, helps us with wisdom              Ingredients for Love...

Copyright © December 2005 Thomas H. Smihula


This Poem was Critiqued By: Jordan Brendez Bandojo On Date: 2005-12-25 21:32:05
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 9.50000
Hi Thomas, It is my pleasure to have read your poetry again. This one is short but full of essence in life. The way you depict the message is effective. You use concrete things for us visualize. Thanks for sharing, Tom. Regards, Jordan


This Poem was Critiqued By: Lora Silvey On Date: 2005-12-25 21:24:31
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 10.00000
Thomas, I'm not quite sure what all this has to do with love. This poem offered an interesting read although I think the thought patterns here are somewhat disconnected...the first not realy having anything to do with the second...perhaps a bit more clarification as to how you connect the things of which you speak... Best always, Lora
This Poem was Critiqued By: Duane J Jackson On Date: 2005-12-15 19:28:34
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 9.75000
Hi Thomas, I liked your 2nd, 3rd and 4th verses compared to the 1st. I did not get the drift in verse 1 - a pitcher's porcelain handle being hardly touched ...why? And if it were hardly touched...would it be possible to pour from it? Largely, I would work at this by packing in the imagery with a tad more punch and clearly defining the abstractions in the piece. The body rises to face essence is also unclear...not specific. I eagerly look forward to a revision of this as it does have potential. Take care, Duane.
This Poem was Critiqued By: Mark Andrew Hislop On Date: 2005-12-15 07:40:08
Critiquer Rating During Critique: Unknown
Thomas To get the anal part of my nature out of the way, three things. First, the use of an unusual font for the title adds nothing for this reader: it is decorative only, and needlessly so, and I would recommend staying with the same font as you use for your poem's body. Second, the lack of punctuation is an irritant, and "line breaks" do not only fail to add punctuation where it is absent, but militate against enjambment where it my be being attempted: for example, what is the meaning of "delicate hardly touched / The table made of teak / The doorway with a creak / One"? This, without punctuation, would normally read as one enjambed sentence, but if it is enjambed it is, in practice here, incomprehensible without punctuation. One might eschew "regular" punctuation for stylistic reasons, but there must still be a readily graspable sense: poor punctuation is no help to a poet's cause. Third, spelling. Yes, I can read a misspelt word and know what you meant ("afffection" or "essense") but unless the misspelling has a clear purpose, one must always assume that it will weaken a poem. Overall, "Ingredients", to this reader, does not offer any idea as to why the selected ingredients here should be considered "ingredients for love". They may be ingredients for romance ("A flicker of a candle"), but even then they are watered down ("A pitcher's porcelain handle") by non-sequiturs. I think there is more work to be done with this idea to bring it to the height that you intend for it. The "parallel" constructions you employ, e.g. "the soul ... the heart ... the soul ... the heart" and "the body ... the mind ... the body ... the mind" present a potentially beautifully arranged dialogue, yet no dialogue is actually forthcoming. The conception of love in its "grand" form is here being rendered by midgets ("so delicate" ... "a solid form" ... "helps us with wisdom") and hence thoroughly undermined. One suspects you know more of love than you are letting on, that you know more of love than your words show. I'd try this one again. Mark.
This Poem was Critiqued By: arnie s WACHMAN On Date: 2005-12-13 14:59:55
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 9.58333
Somehow I fail to equate the first two stanzas with the last two. What am I missing here? The mind is the brain is the essenses here...are they too the soul? A lot has been written about souls but has anybody ever seen one? I remember watching many a patient die and I immediately looked for a soul escaping. No such thing. At least to me anyway. Ingredients? How about some Dom Perrinon? Just kidding. I know you make a good point here but...but in my way of thinking of what a good poem is and/or should contain, well it did just that...made me question and that is good in itself.
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