Fixed Form Poem
by sarahdawes
A Runners Way of Interpreting History
One by one we climb into
the backs of those three vans;
proof of mileage from past months
show clearly in our tans.
As engines fire and music blasts
we head West up route three –
our nerves are jarred by bumps and twists,
nor by each sweltering seat.
Our dismounting becomes the part
that we each shy from most;
“For three steep miles you’ll fight uphill,”
announces our fervent coach.
Sunlight dodges through the trees
as we start the upwards climb –
speed is watched most carefully
for we’re conscious of our times.
The smoke of gravel clouds the air
with every cone we pass –
heartbeats race and footsteps pound
as we make our final dash.
When all is done we each agree
on pains got from the hill;
as we head home we share the tales
of our battle of Chancellorsville.
-Sarah Dawes
This is fun to read, and you sustain the 3-beat line pretty well.
For revision, I’d concentrate on making the phrasing more fluid, colloquial, where it now sometimes feels forced to fit the meter. In several places there’s some awkwardness to be ironed out. In “make only the retreat a coast,” for instance, I’m not sure what you’re saying.
When I got to the end of the poem, it made me laugh. The whole time through I was thinking what does this have to do with history, until you said “our battle of Chancellorsville.” Really creative.
The details and description make the poem realistic, but I feel like if the reader were not familiar with the area or from here, they might not get it. I want to say make clear that the jog is through the battlefield sooner, but I personally liked the surprise. It’s a toss up.
I like the standardization of punctuation at the 2nd and 4th lines of the stanzas and think you do a good job varying between semi-colon and dash for the 2nd. The systematic formatting is good here.