Ponder Awhile

Mohit.K.Misra

WIN SOME LOSE SOME,
a poem from Ponder Awhile

"Trust only in god,

Faithful then comes the dog.

The human is a racist,

Indeed also a sadist.

You seem to enjoy it when I burn,

Why should I show any remorse when it is your turn?

By so many I have been deceived,

Of course I am peeved.

More so at myself,

The other was cause itself.

To love is to respect to trust,

Something so often is unjust

.

Either you think divine,

Or you think like a swine.

You win some, you lose some,

Decide wisely for the outcome."

My Take:

I am an absolute lover of poetry.  I love all kinds, ranging from the semi-nonsensical of Lewis Carroll, to the romance of Shakespeare, and even the macabre work of Edgar Allen Poe.  Now, I am not expecting every piece of poetry I read and review to be absolute genius or groundbreaking, but I think that to classify Ponder Awhile as mediocre would be a stretch.  The poetry really felt like a middle school project for several reasons.  The first reason being the lack of editing.  There were several instances in which the author uses the word "seize" in place of "cease", here is an example:

From The Now

"All your practicalities will seize to exist,

The moment death you seize to resist"

Aside from misuse of words, grammatical errors abound (to, too, etc.).  The second reason was the ever present AABBCCDD rhyme scheme (if you are unfamiliar with rhyme schemes, what this means is the first two lines rhyme together, than the next two rhyme, the next two, on and on, as opposed to ABAB where every other line would rhyme).  While couplets (AABBCCDD) have their place, 50 odd poems chalk full of them was just too much.  This makes it feel very forced and very choppy.  Here is an example taken exactly as it was from the book:

From Shoot the Goal

"Focus between your eyebrows with intense concentration,

Then will come a deadly confrontation.

First implode into the of light,

Then explode to a divine sight.

Your religion and country are part of your ego,

For god, the truth even that one must let go.

Spread knowledge of the Light is what I must,

Soon I will be just dust."

I think it is an amateur belief to feel the need to be so strict with your rhyming.  When you are a child, and are learning about poetry, you think everything has to rhyme and match up perfectly.  This is not the case.  For some great examples of flow and effective use of rhyming, check out some of my favorite poems: Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley and Shakespeare's sonnets numbers 18 and 116.  It feels as if the author of Ponder Awhile is so bound and determined to have every line rhyme, that he has to twist his words around in weird ways to work in a rhyme, sometimes it doesn't even make sense at all.  Poetry is a way to express your deepest feelings, and as such must feel natural to be effective.  Again, I'm not saying that unless you are Shakespeare, your poetry is crap, but Ponder Awhile just wasn't very good, there's no two ways about it.

Now, I did like a lot of the messages the author was attempting to convey.  He writes about tolerance, love and religion, all worthy of poetic reverence.  The ideas behind the poems are very simple, which I believe to be a very good thing.  One poem in particular I did enjoy:

Drinking tea has become a hobby for me,
It gives me time to pause and think of eternity.
What we have been taught is so full of rot,
Such beauty lies when it is all shot.
Whatever you do try your best,
Unto God leave the rest.

Poetry is extremely subjective.  If you enjoyed the excerpts I shared with you, please check the book out.  Overall I am going to rate this book a 5, Don't Bother.

Do you agree with my review?  Do you think I'm totally off base?  Either way I'd love to hear from  you.  Be sure to leave a comment and tell me how you feel!

If this poetry were to be assigned an MPAA rating, it would likely be rated PG

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