ABPA - Australian Bush Poets Association

A Baby Shoe

A tiny baby shoe of delicate pink hue
hidden at the back of my Mother’s clothes.
A token of you, who I never knew;
A mother’s broken heart I now suppose.

Often I would sneak and have a sly peek
at this small treasure from a time gone by.
Asking who you were Mum’s wrath did incur.
She turned before the tear fell from her eye.

It held your magic, though so very tragic
as Mum never spoke of your short life.
So I only knew of a baby’s shoe
and a Mother’s sadness; such was my strife.

I speak with you still, recall with a chill
the touch of death and loss I never knew.
Still in latter years our Mum spoke with tears
of the mystery: the pink baby shoe.

Now hindsight is great, Dad recalled the fate
of wedded life’s disasters the day he was wild,
“The cause of much strife, the loss of a life
and even more that of a baby child.”

Love held together although they never
spoke of your time nor that tiny shoe.
They held deep inside all they wished to hide
their guilt, their heartache and their love for you.

To this very day I often still pray
to the sister who owned that baby shoe.
And one day I know that our God will show
me the owner’s face and then I’ll know you!

DollyDot © 12.03.2012

Any feedback would be well received and appreciated. Thanks

Good to see you posting something Dot. It's a tough subject to tackle.

Since you asked for feedback I'll try and give something I hope will help.
Most poetry in the bush poetry tradition is expected to have a regular pattern of accents or stresses for each line.
The bush poetry writer has to learn to hear the accents in the words as they are spoken in normal speech and then arrange these in lines. I think people have difficulty because they think that we can sort of squeeze the words to fit to an underlying beat, like a musical accompaniment, but that won't work for poetry. The beat is in the words, the words are the beat.

Line 4 of stanza 1 has five accents, like this;

a mother's broken heart I now suppose
5 unstressed and 5 stressed syllables ( heavy print is the accents or stresses ) .
like this de DA de DA de DA de DA de DA
This pattern is called iambic pentameter, and is the most common metric arrangement in traditional English language poetry.

Now the idea is to consider all the other lines, and see if you can arrange the words so that they make this pattern of accents. For example line 2 in stanza 4 also has that same pattern
the touch of death and loss I never knew
also this line ( line 4 stanza 6 ) is iambic pentameter...five accents
their guilt their heartache and their love for you
a 1 a 2 a 3 a 4 a 5

Can you hear that ??

It will be a big job, you will need to change a few words, delete or add words, and completely change some sentences. I hope you can have a go at it. Take time, you might have to spend a couple of weeks doing it. That's the hard grind of poetry writing.


I hope this doesn't put you off. Please keep on having a go, no matter what you come up with. DON'T BE PUT OFF BY ME...PLEASE . KEEP GOING.
I took a punt, I put in all that teacher stuff because I think you are the kind of person who will persevere and eventually succeed. YOU CAN DO IT !!!!

Hello Dot. Plenty of feeling in this one.
As Neville said, sort out that rhythm and you have the makings of a beautiful poem.

Cheers
Sue

Thank-you! I will give it a go! I think my trouble is I don't hear it as clearly as others and internalise it incorrectly but I'll keep working at it. Thank-you both

Dolly

It's a lovely story Dot. "Hearing" the rhythm takes time and practice and you'll be there before you know it. Saying it out loud often helps. Keep at it.

Heather

Good onya Dot, those internal rhymes are pretty tricky to nail but you've done well.

Heather's right about the reading out loud - it helps me some anyway.

Marty

Dot some feeling in that one, as the others are telling you a lot depends on getting the beat right (metre) also the stressed and unstressed words in order an’ me I get it wrong all over the place, saying your poems out loud really helps, but I often send my stuff via PM to the Big Guns they don’t often smack me and they never bite.

Goodonya for posting.

TTFN

Lovely sentiments Dot, and IMO worth taking the trouble to iron out a few wrinkles.
Good to see you take the plunge and post!
Robyn

G'day Dolly,

You have a lovely story here and you have achieved a touching sentiment. We are all full of tips for others and have all started out as you have. This rhythm (or metre) bit is the thing most of us have problems with. I have been wrestling with it for years. I must be getting better at it, so I would like to give my thoughts on an alternate few lines as you have asked for feedback.
This might give you an idea of how you could tackle straightening up the metre of the poem. I have put the stresses (as I see them ) in capitals.

a TI/ny BA/by SHOE, of FEINT/est PINK/ish HUE (12 syllables)
was HID/den IN the BACK of MO/ther's CLOTHES (10 syllables)
it WAS a TO/ken TOO, of ONE I NEV/er KNEW ( 12
a MO/ther's HEART was BRO/ken, I sup/POSE ( 10

So now if you were happy with this pattern you must continue to make all the other stanzas the same. The internal rhyme is often hard to continue with throughout a poem. sSome may suggest that the shoe, hue,too, knew were too similar and that the reader may expect to see the same four 'like rhymes' in every stanza. (double hard)

Any and all suggestions are only meant to show what I am trying to explain and you should ignore them. This is your poem and you should keep in mind that sometimes the 'soul' of the poem is lost in squeezing it into shape. It is your poem and no one can tell you how to write it. Often we spend hours selecting the precise word we wish to use and if we change that word some of the feeling is lost. So unless you really want to 'fix' this one. I suggest you leave it and start again. I will be watching with keen interest in what you post next. You can always post in the workshop or other sections down below and then move it up here when you are happy with it. Or pm someone with a private question. I have found Glenny Palmer and John Peel a great help in my learning process and have asked them to look over pieces for me.

The suggestions about metre etc only count if you were to enter it in a competition under the 'rhyme and metre' rules.
There is a list of my poems in the Index and I have some 'mothers' poems. 'Why Me' and 'Stolen Years'

Thankyou to everyone for your advice and your encouragement. Thankyou Zondra for what you have said and for putting it in a way that I can easily see and hear - my biggest problem. I understand what you are saying about changing the words as I know it sometimes changes the essence but I would like to get this one correct. I have written quite a few with internal rhymes as well as other poetry some of which I've try to write as Australian Bush Poetry but others which only rhyme in places. I find the metre the most difficult. I have been working at it for a while and will persevere. Its scary and threatening asking for advice but it is also invaluable and very hard to get good, honest advice which is what I was looking for even if I was giving up yesterday. Thankyou.

Cheers
Dolly