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Hi Vicki! Sorry for being so late, and thank you for swapping!
I don’t think I’ve had a chance to read your poetry in a while, so I was happy to take this chance to do so.
First off, your poetry is beautiful. It feels like I’m experiencing these seasons at Hogwarts. Despite my favorite season being summer (I have to; I’m a summer baby), I think my favorite of these poems is Autumn at the Castle. I’m not sure why, but it speaks to me just a little more than the others did. Maybe it’s because we’re almost in fall. Or maybe it just kind of sinks into my skin like the sun’s rays sink into the skin of those in the poem. It’s a very warm poem, as warm as the winter poem is cold.
Thank you for the explanation in the author’s note. I think that the styles you chose for each poem fit perfectly. I’ll have to try reading the early, early spring one out-loud so I can hear how it rolls off the tongue. I also did look up the fox drawn on a snow-covered lake, and that is gorgeous. I wonder how they got so much detail without accidentally stepping on it.
Thanks for doing a swap, and I am so sorry about how late this is!
-A
Author's Response:Hi, Robin!
Thank you so much for this lovely review. it's such a treat to see someone reading my poetry, since of course poetry gets fewer reads and reviews than stories do. And maybe Seasons are not a super-sexy theme, but the farther I got into this project, over a period of years, the more I liked it and the more I sensed the possibilities in it. Yes, do read Early, Early Spring aloud. In fact, all formal poetry should be read aloud because it has a lot in common with music. (I once heard the British Motor Vehicle Code set to music; it was hauntingly beautiful!)
Thanks for looking up the picture of the fox image drawn on the snow-covered lake. That's really something, isn't it? Like you, I wonder how he managed to do it. The news articles never said anything about him having a drone overhead sending pictures to his cell phone so that he could see how he was coming along! :) And I'm glad the link still worked so that you could see it.
Thank you for the swap. It is always a pleasure.
Vicki
Hi Vicki, here for a galazy review!
I'm so glad to read your writing in another format!
For Autumn, I love the way that you take us through the season from the start of the season, if that makes sense. You start with "before the wet", indicating that rain has not yet fallen, and end with "color vanishes into the void", indicating that the dark clouds of early winter are rolling in. I just love the phases that we see, and your use of color in that first section.
For Winter at the Castle, everything is glittering and chilly and just so beautiful. I love how you talk about the light and the shadows, the warm fire and the chilly rooms on the the top floors of the castle. I've always thought winter was so beautiful, and you make me believe it here. I especially love "too soon sinks the feeble sun", it's just a perfect description of the falling winter days <33
I love how you talk about change in Early, Early Spring. It's so suited, the season of life and growth. And the animals and the appearing summer constellations, it really reminds me of the freshness of Spring. And I love that touch at the end, about a farmer knowing when the season change :)
Then for Summer at the Castle, everything is so vibrant, colorful, running, bouncing. You can really feel the warmth in the air and the happiness of sun on your face. I love how you describe the berries and echoing footsteps and abandoned sleep schedules. It really is such a hallmark of youth.
Thank you so much for this Vicki! I love your poetry, you are such a good storyteller
Catherine
Author's Response:Hi, Catherine!
I'm so glad you picked this poem to review because it is special for me. In the north, where the seasons are so distinct, each season has its unique qualities, like four different worlds somehow all located in the same place. And as a result we have to live differently in each of the different seasons, in a never-ending cycle that we can always rely on.
I've been working on this cycle for several years and was happy to finally get it finished. I guess that in a way it is storytelling, althought I had originally thought of it as descriptive. But it's not just about the seasons but also about how we live in these seasons, so I guess that makes it a story, as you say.
Thank you so much for this lovely review.
Vicki
Hi! I'm here with your review :)
Just diving right in I LOVE the Autumn segment. Maybe because that's my favorite season, but the descriptions are so wonderfully evocative, and so simple; I can picture it so well, perched on the very edge of the shoulder season just before the weather turns. I think this section is also the one with the most color adjectives, which is fitting. Serene blue, gleaming gold, a riot of red ruby leaves, a glimpse of green, crimson carpet. That really encapsulates all of fall, a brief burst of color to hold on to before everything turns lifeless, and I love that the last line of this section is about the color vanishing into the void; the transition into the winter segment is perfect. All of the emphasis on this palette of fall color seems really intentional as it is wiped away at the end. Sitting here reading this in January I find myself missing the yellow aspens of a few months ago hehe.
I love that the winter section is sparse. The brief verses/lines really complement the shortness of the winter days. Once again your descriptions are wonderful and I love your use of detail to really paint a picture of the scene. I can feel that icy metal handrail :P
The early, early spring section surprised me (I read the poem before the notes at the end) - I guess I was expecting flowers or rain or mud or something that I more typically associate with spring. But this is a really magical moment that you've captured here as well - not spring yet, but that moment when you can start to feel a change happening in the air, when you can smell it; spring is on the way. You've captured the excitement and hope of that moment in this section - especially since it's told in the POV of an astronomy professor who's stoked about which summer stars are visble on the horizon that weren't there a few days ago. Which is especially cool because it's a really apt comparison of that first whiff of spring as equivalent to astronomical twilight.
And now that I look back, all of these sections actually focus on one particular moment; autumn JUST before it drops into dreary winter, the winter section is in the absolute dead of winter when everything feels static, and now the moment when winter hinges towards spring. I love the way you used one moment to illustrate the season - it's remarkably effective.
The summer section is interesting too because it has all the joy of summer in it, especially with the bonfire at the end, but since it's focusing on summer at Hogwarts, it has some loneliness in it too as no one is at the school then. It also feels like a lot more is packed into this section than just the single moments you focused on in the other sections, which also seems fitting- there's a lot to pack into summer before you have to be back to studying again, and it always feels like summer is too short.
I think it's interesting that you chose to include a flashback to winter during the summer verse. I like it, and of course poetry is incredibly subjective, but I wonder if it might tie the piece together more if the flashback was in the shorter verses like those you used in the Winter segment, rather than iambic pentameter (which was not used in the winter section)? I do like it how it is, just some food for thought I guess if that's what you were going for.
I very much enjoyed this piece! Thanks for bringing it to my attention - your poetry is lovely!
Author's Response:Hi, Kirsten! It's so kind of you to open your Reviews Requested thread again and give people reviews just out of the goodness of your heart. <3 That is greatly appreciated.
Thank you so much for this lovely review. You have pointed out something that other peope haven't yet mentioned -- that the first three poems aqppear to be focused on a particular moment in each season, not trying to encompass the entire season, but picking a single day as a representative of that season. I like your mention of astronomical twilight, the gray hours when it's not pitch black outside anymore and you can tell that morning is coming. I often refer to websites that show the length of days, including the dawnings and the twilights, at particular locations on particular days of the year, because that's often important for accuracy in a story.
I always had the impression, reading the Harry Potter books, that the spring term at Hogwarts lasted well into June, and the students' vacation was really only two months, July and August, so that the student body would still be at the school on the summer solstice, June 21, and St. John's Day, June 24. And I imagine that members of the staff were there during the summer time, on and off. Yes, there is a lot packed into summertime in the far northern regions, an almost frantic sensation of taking advantage of everything as fully as we can because it will be over all too soon. The references to the fox image on the frozen lake and the name Tiramisu that you see in some of the reviews of this poem come from my novel Tiramisu (also on my Author Page), about an arctic fox in the fourteenth century.
I'm so glad that you enjoyed this set of poems. Perhaps many of the members on this site live at a high enough latitude that these descriptions will remind them of their own seasons.
Thank you agaiin for reviewing.
Vicki
hey vicki, i'm here for our swap and oh my god i love this collection of poems about the seasons!!
i loved the alliteration in the autumn poem, there's something about both seeing it, but even better when reading it aloud how it sounds, it honestly reminded me of crunching leaves and all the typical sounds of autumn. i thought it was so cool how you managed to create that ambiance.
but the imagery was probably my favourite thing about this poem, this line especially:
The riot of red leaves like rubies shines
is just so beautiful - using the word riot and rubies kinda gives it both a wild and royal feeling to the leaves and the tree they're part of, i don't know whether that makes sense but i just really really love the way it was written and the image it creates. and especially how it follows 'gleaming gold' from the first part of the poem, it's just a super enjoyable read about the transition from green to gold to red to then leaves on the ground, and the foliage rotting and all colour draining from the world when autumn ends and winter comes.
with winter i enjoyed how you really emphasized the coldness both outside but also inside the castle -- hardly daring to hold the icy handrails was a line i particularly liked, very vividly painting the atmosphere within the castle. but then the mention of fire just made me think how during winter it's likely people would huddle together around the fire and so despite it being a cold and stark season, there's something in winter that can also promote companionship and community which made me smile.
i also thought that the way winter has these short lines was effective in making the poem and whoever is telling it sound kinda chilly in a way (which hopefully makes sense to someone other than just me haha) almost like whoever is saying it is also saving their breath, their warmth... i don't know whether that was what you intended, but i thought it was beautiful anyway.
but spring had me grinning like an idiot! in a good way, of course! i thought i could *feel* the joy from the astronomy professor as he slowly noticed all the early signs of spring in the sky, and then his surroundings. the way he told it through the poem somehow reminded me of nature documentaries when they show you how a forest awakens when spring rolls around, but sped up, so the whole cycle is shown.
and so i loved when he remarked upon how there's no green to be seen on the trees, but their bark was another thing altogether, with hints of red and tan, and then the little animals...it all felt so wonderfully awakening and like, the astronomy professor was also enjoying himself immensely seeing it all come about. it really felt like a joyful, spring type of poem!
in summer i loved loved loved the little nod to winter and how the lake looked like during that time and the contrast and juxtaposition on how it is now, for boats and even swimming (also, not gonna lie, the fox image made me think of tiramisu :P i did google the image and it's beautiful but i also liked to think tiramisu just might have had something to with it :D )
and then also the contrast between the castle in winter, a refuge, and in summer how it's almost like a jail -- those two mentions of winter in the summer poem just somehow made it more special in my mind...almost like whoever is talking is so so happy summer is there that they also a little nervously flashback to winter knowing summer doesn't last forever. so it's like joy mixed with a little sadness (not a lot!) and i enjoyed reading that!
summer energy is also one of the images i really liked that you drew, like, who needs sleep when the sun is still out and again i felt a sort of feeling underneath that sentiment about how it soon won't be and winter will come again and the contrast between the night of winter in the winter poem....just...it was really really beautiful.
i loved these poems, i know i said it at the start of my review but i have to repeat it again!!
kris
Author's Response:Hi, kris. Thank you so much for this long and detailed review and all your remarks about the lines and images in the poems that struck you the most. And thank you for saying that you did google the photo of the fox image drawn on the snow-covered lake. It was so fortuitous that that fox image was reported in the news just before I finished writing the summer poem. The artist has drawn other animals in other winters, but this year it was a fox, and I just had to include it as a nod to Tiramisu.
In the responses to the other reviews I have received for this poem I included more background stuff; you've probably read those responses already. It's been a labor of love extending over many years, but I'm so happy that I finally finished it.
Vicki <3 <3
Hi Vicki! I’m here for our swap :D
I think it’s neat how in the first poem, the consistency of the syllables in each line makes the poem flow, even without rhymes. The whole thing flows very well, and creates a lovely image of Autumn. I like how you build all these rich colors and scenes, and but also remind us that this last blaze of color has to be appreciated when it is there, because soon it will be replaced by rot and colorless landscape. I like how you tie together the beginning and the end of the poem, first with the invitation to come and walk together in nature before the blaze of color is gone, and then with the reminder that soon it will be gone.
Oh, I love this winter poem. It’s so so hard to get up on dark, cold winter mornings. And I would imagine that winter in a castle would be extra chilly, since there would be so much space to heat, and stone and metal everywhere to hold the cold. I think the shorter lines and the way the rhyme scheme bounces you along the poem captures the feeling of being constantly cold in winter, like the poem is shivering along with the scene. And even when we finally get a glimpse of the sun, it’s a “red warmthless” sun. Such good wordplay there!
In the spring poem, it’s cool that you chose the perspective of someone who would notice the earliest signs of spring in the changing positions of the stars. Like her brother the farmer, who also is more intimately familiar with the rhythms of nature than the rest of us, she can tell that spring is coming before most other people can. I feel like her longing for spring is even sharper, because she can see in the stars that it’s coming, but the feel of it is still so far away. Excellent job wrapping the thoughts from line to line too.
The joy in the summer poem is palpable. After all the time spent in the dark and cold, it’s a delight to be out of doors, for the days to be long, and for the air to be warm and sweet. I loved the ways you marked time in the poem: the Candlemas candles that are no longer needed because the sun is basically always visible, the bonfire on St John’s Day to mark midsummer. This poem feels like a riot of light and life, in a similar way that the Autumn poem felt like a celebration of color. I think it’s a cool way to bookend the collection.
Lovely job on these, and congratulations on finishing them! Thank you for the swap <3
Yours,
Noelle
Author's Response:Hi, Noelle!
Thank you so much for doing this swap and posting this lovely review so promptly. I was thrilled to get three review swaps, expecially since they are all different, each reviewer commenting on different aspects of the poems. I'm glad you liked the tie between the beginning and the end of the Autumn poem, as it prepares to segue into the Winter poem. I wrote Autumn about five or six years ago and submitted it to my Creative Writing--Poetry class at the college. The professor didn't know that it was part of a poem cycle, and he said I should cut off the final lines that speak of the destruction of the autumnal glory, but my fellow students in the class came to the defense of the poem as written, even though they also did not know that it was to be followed by the Winter poem. :)
The Winter poem is my daughter's favorite of all four poems, perhaps because it reflects her experience living in Norway. She tells me about how keenly they felt the absence of the sun (only a few hours, very low on the horizon, if you can't go outdoors during those few hours, then you don't see it at all!) There is such a longing for the sun, even if you experience a northern winter every year and ought to be "accustomed to it." I love how you say that the short lines and the staccato rhyme scheme make it seem as if the poem itself is shivering! I think that was the unconscious reason why I constructed the poem in this form, as if we are almost too cold to talk.
Spring typically makes us think of flowers and butterflies, although in the north they're more typical of summer. But I learned from my brother to be keenly aware of the earliest signs of the changing season. Weather is variable--spring can come early or late in different years--but the astronomical changes are set in stone. As the stars say to the astronomer, "Patience, friend. We will not fail you." Again my poetry professor wanted me to cut out the lines about the use of the term "madrugada" to describe what we in English express, clunkily, as "the wee small hours of the morniing," but again my readers came to my defense, saying that of course the astronomy professor had traveled farther south, such as to Spain, to be able to observe those parts of the heavens not visible from so far north, and would have learned that very useful term there. (There are lots of instances where we adopt words from other languages because they express a concept for which we don't have one good word in English.)
The Summer poem was composed to be the culmination of the cycle of the seasons, which is why I placed it last. beginning with the beautiful but transitory Autumn, sinking down into the depths of Winter, struggling upwards , barely daring to hope, into Spring, and finally the riot of light and life, as you say. It's almost like one big party, and people don't sleep very much. My daughter says that if you are above the Arctic Circle in the height of summer, when/where the sun never sets and it never gets dark, the body loses its circadian rhythm, you feel jazzed up (not sleepy) all the time, and you have to force yourself to go to your bedroom at a certain hour, close all the curtains, put on your sleep mask, lie down on the bed, and try to go to sleep! It's not quite that extreme at the latitude of Hogwarts, but I have seen it in Finland where everyone, adults and children alike, is running around--in the streets, in the cafés, in the woods and fields--way late into the night. And then in the morning (which comes early), they pop right out of bed again. My daughter also likes the image of the young men racing the church boats (men will race anything that moves). The church boats are like water buses; they are used to pick up churchgoers from the farms all around the perimeter of the lake and bring them to the lakeside town on Sunday for church (during fair weather, of course). During the week, these large rowboats are stored in large wooden boathouses by the town docks.
Thank you so much for reading and reviewing, Noelle. It is always a treat to get a review from you. A very happy new year to you.
Vicki
Hi Vicki, here for our swap!
You're always so wonderful at formal poetry, and I really enjoyed this collection of poems and seeing how they were all different, and I suspected you must have had reasons for choosing the form you did for each of them -- whatever those may have been specifically, the result was to give each poem its own character and a distinct feeling and sound from the others. And each one seemed to suit its season.
Even before reading the author note at the end I picked up right away on the alliteration in Autumn, and it was so pleasant to read. Very rich, particularly with all the imagery there. And then after I'd read through all of the poems I read your note and then went back and read them all out loud, and that's when the alliteration became truly delightful. There's something really charming about it, and just very pretty and satisfying. Like autumn.
It didn't escape me that Winter had the shortest lines -- it made it feel more terse and constricted, which I think really suits the subject. And the contrast between the masculine and feminine rhymes (that's so interesting, I wonder why they're so termed??) adds just that little something that keeps it all from feeling too staid and grim.
Something I noticed about (Early, Early) Spring was how you have lots of enjambed lines there and pauses/stops in the middle of lines. There's sort of an unconstrained feeling about that, the words and sentences rolling right along heedless of where the line ends and where the rhyme falls, and it's even more pronounced when read aloud, and even though in this poem it's still early, early spring and everything hasn't quite come back to life fully, the way those sentences sort of flow and fight back against the lines is evocative of the awakening that's happening. And you're very right that the alternating meter of the lines gives it a melodic quality, and I think that also adds to the feeling I just talked about.
It was very clever of effective of you to change up your verse structure for that one verse of Summer that flashes briefly back to winter -- it does serve to set that verse apart from the rest, visually and aurally, and it really is like a little aside.
Very nicely done!!
Melanie
Author's Response:Hi, Melanie! Thank you so much for doing this swap. :) You are right, I did want to choose poetic forms that added something to the images I was trying to portray, and I also wanted to avoid being boring by having all the poems sound alike.
Winter was actually the poem I wrote first, inspired by the verse by Robert Louis Stevenson that I quoted in my Writer's Journal entry of December 21 (which also talks about how this poem group came to be). The short lines were deliberate, to convey the constricted and grim (to use your words) aspect of this season. Even when people decorate their houses to a fare-thee-well to make midwinter seem more cheery, it's still a tough time. Without a major holiday, it would be hard to endure. And yet Courtney came away with the impression of winter as cozy and snuggly. So there are two ways to look at it, Cocoa and Marshmallows, or Trying Not To Slip on the Ice. I have no idea why "masculine" and "feminine" rhymes are called by those names.
For the springtime poem I deliberately chose the early, early spring rather than flowers and butterflies. After the rigors of winter, shoveling snow, trying to drive on the ice, hoping the tree branches won't break under the weight of ice and fall across the power lines, (and so on), there is such joy to see the earliest signs of spring. Where I live, the sap starts rising in January, and suddenly the twigs are yellow and red, and the tall cottonwood trees near the Columbia River get this glowing, shimmering whiteness to the leafless twigs in their crowns. It's really the first sign of spring coming, even while the snow still covers the ground. I like where you say that the enjambments and pauses/stops give this poem a feeling of restless motion, as though things want to start moving again. The image comes to mind of the rivers in Alaska or Canada that freeze over in winter, and then, on one day in later winter or early spring, the ice suddenly breaks up with a mighty roar, and the water is hastening toward the sea again, with giant chunks of ice floating and bobbing as it all takes off downstream. And meanwhile, even before that happens, we can see the point of sunrise beginning to move north along the eastern horizon, and we say "Yes!"
I have never seen a St. John's Day bonfire for real, but my daughter has, and she says she loves how the bright flames light up the twilight sky (that never gets completely dark at this time of year). My brother speaks of having driven home from a pub in Scotland at 10:00 p.m. without having to turn on his headlights, and other people speak of reading a newspaper outdoors on summer nights without having to use any other light. The difference between summer and winter is so striking. Speaking of the flashback verse, did you google the picture of the fox on the frozen lake? Isn't that something!
Thank you so much for this lovely review, and I'm really glad you read the poems out loud. <3
Vicki
Vicki! I am here for our swap!
As a general observation, the imagery choices you made regarding objects and color and how each season visually appeared, were absolutely perfect. They really impacted the mood of each section quite effectively. I was drawn into each season and experiencing these vastly different moments of time all within the same place. It was just a lovely reading experience overall.
I'm going to walk through each section now and tell you what I liked about them, because I think that will probably make the tidiest sort of review here hah.
"The riot of red leaves like rubies shines // held high above our heads against the sky."
^^These two lines were particularly gorgeous to me.
And then to show the progression of the leaves as they become part of a "crimson carpet," was a magnificent way to show the passage of time within the season. It also shows that things we hold in high esteem might fade and become just ordinary over time? We love the leaves in fall (at least, I do in my part of the world) when they are vibrant and high above us...but...when they fall and rot...we feel a little bit differently about them, don't we? Anyway, I loved all of these things in this section.
I also thought your transition of how these colors fade from the world as winter takes over...it was a very smooth transition from the two seasons. And it also shows the differences between the seasons BUT. Red is also a vital color in winter as it appears through firelight. And whereas it took on this majestic sort of feel during autumn, it takes on this "warm and necessary for survival." feel in winter.
I thought the winter section was cozy and lovely and I just wanted to be apart of this scene, to be honest. Even if it also felt very cold. But again, the imagery choices you made, really evoke these lovely visuals, even in the darkness and frigid nature of the season. I felt warm reading about the fire and the many layers of clothes needed. :)
Spring was really interesting. I appreciated the interlude of introspection that the professor has beneath the stars. It reminded me of "When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer," a little bit. I love that poem, by the way hah. So I mean it as a compliment.
I think you really showed nature in similar ways that you did in the first two sections, what with the colors and the way the world is moving and at action. But I really felt this section differed in a way that felt meaningful with the mentions of the different stars and constellations (which I have rubbish background knowledge about). But I think it's really cool that you spent so much time on the sky and the stars and identified the speaker here, because this is the time of year when we begin to notice the days lengthening again (which you also mention in a very poetic way). So I think sometimes we pay more attention to the light coming sooner and staying longer because we spend so much of winter in darkness. At least, I know I do. :)
"an artist with a shovel ventured forth // and drew a giant image of a fox." I wondered if this was a nod to Tiramisu? I sort of interpreted in that way and thought it was cool that whether or not you intended that, it could be. :)
In summer, I really felt the joy in that section. There is so much activity and excitement that we feel during this time of year, and you captured that quite well in that piece of it. And again, another great incorporation of the color red as it relates to the sun and feelings of warmth as it pertains to joy.
Back to the piece overall...I really enjoyed how you took us on a journey throughout this poem. The "come walk with me," and we then quite literally feel as though we are walking alongside the speaker as the seasons change. Anyway, this is a poem you most definitely should be proud of. I loved it and can see all of the thought and hard work you put in to create this final product, both without having read the author's note and then after reading it.
Brava, my friend!
<3 Courtney
Author's Response:Thank you so much, Courtney, for leaving this review and telling me what stood out for you in my poems. "Vastly different moments of time all within the same place" is exactly what I wanted to convey. And the sense of an endlessly repeating cycle of them. Our word "Yule" comes from the same root as "wheel," because our ancestors saw the seasons as an endlessly turning wheel. Our Yuletide holidays make the winter bearable. When the longest day is reached, on June 21, the Scandinavians say, "From here on, it's all downhill," referring to the fact that the days are starting to get shorter again.
Thank you for reading the Author Notes also. Formal poetry is really at its best when it's read aloud. Did you google the reference to the fox drawn in snow to see what it looked like? In previous years, that artist has drawn other kinds of animals on the lake, but this year it was a fox, and that seemed so apropos. Yes, I did think of Tiramisu when I saw it, although I think the image was not an arctic fox because the snout and ears are too long.
I am so glad that you enjoyed these poems. They are really timeless. Hogwarts Castle has stood in its place for centuries, and these verses could represent any of those years.
Vicki
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