[Glenn Wright]

Flower Child

You love the fragile, feathery balls
one little puff can blow apart—
a tiny flurry that recalls
a wintry storm in summer’s heart.

You pluck the golden crowns and twist
wilting chains in an endless wave
to adorn your mother’s hair or wrist,
or decorate your hamster’s grave.

You know them well. The root grows deep
and if you eat the leaves, it’s said,
you’ll see the future in your sleep—
but eat too much, you’ll wet the bed.

A yellow flower beneath your chin
will tell you whether you’ll be rich
by shining golden on your skin.
The stem’s white sap will make you itch.

But then one day the magic fades,
and they become the gardener’s foe.
Sprays and powders, trowels and blades
attack the shoots before they grow.

My childhood lasted till the day
the yellow tufts and fuzzy clocks
of dandelions in wild display
were simply weeds among the rocks.
————————
Edits:
Title: Dandelions > Flower Child
L1-4: Moved to the end.
S1L1: For children love the fragile balls > All children love the fragile balls > You love the fragile, feathery balls
S2L1: They pluck the golden crowns and weave > You pluck the golden crowns and twist
S2L2: their wilting chains to decorate > their wilting chains in an endless wave > wilting chains in an endless wave
S2L3: their mothers’ hair or neck or sleeve, > your mother’s hair, or neck, or sleeve, > to adorn your mother’s hair or sleeve > to adorn your mother’s hair or wrist
S2L4: or pets’ graves to commemorate. > or your hamster’s grave to venerate. > or decorate your hamster’s grave.
S3L1: They know the lore. > You know the lore. > You know them well.
S5: Try to blow the seeds away
from a blowball—however many
seeds upon the flower stalk stay
tell your children’s number, if any. > Delete
S5L4: tell how many your children, if any. > tell your children’s number, if any.
S7L1: Childhood lasts until the day > Your childhood lasts until the day > My childhood lasted till the day
S7L4: are simply weeds among the rocks. > were simply weeds among the rocks.

[Christine P'legion]

Hi Glenn,

I think that this poem's rhetorical point might work better if you moved stanza 1 to the last position (changing S2L1's "For children" to "All children" to accommodate it). Right now you're giving it away at the start, and when the poem ends on the same note it feels a little flat. If you started with the magic before moving to the magic's end, I think the reader would feel that loss a little more keenly. (I almost want to put the whole stanza in parentheses once it's moved down to its new place. That might just be me though.)

In S4, consider changing the comma after "sleep" to an em dash.

In S6, the syntactical inversion to fit the rhyme and the "how many... if any" pairing in L4 feel a bit clumsy. Is there another way / another rhyme scheme you could use to get the same thing across?

[Roger Slater]

I like Christine's suggestion to move the first stanza to the end (and delete "For" to begin the poem with "Children love..."). I would then cut the current last stanza.

Wherever S1 ends up, I'd suggest changing "simply" to "seen as".

On the whole, I think this is solid work. I've looked at dandelions from both sides now.

[Glenn Wright]

Hi, Christine and Roger—

That’s a great suggestion, Christine! I originally had another concluding quatrain which I deleted because it struck me as sappy and anticlimactic:

The ordinary cares of living
dim the recollected joys
the friendly blooms delight in giving
to thoughtful girls and curious boys.

Moving the first quatrain to the end solves the problem of landing the poem in a unifying and sap-free way.

I decided to stick with “simply,” Roger, because I like the gentle irony of children being able to understand things more deeply and completely than adults.

Thanks so much, both!

Glenn

[Paula Fernandez]

Glenn-

I'm just reading this, post the re-ordering of the original first stanza. A good move, I think.

I quite like this overall--the simplicity of the content works nicely with the rhyming tetrameter. I particularly enjoyed the (new) first stanza comparing the dandelion fluff to the snowstorm. The final two stanzas were also quite strong in my opinion.

A few places I found a little awkward. The last two lines of the second stanza didn't flow for me. The "hair or neck or sleeve" felt belabored, and the word "commemorate" felt forced to get the rhyme.

And in the fifth stanza, the repetition of "however many" and "how many" caused me to pause in mild discomfort. Perhaps a bit of rework there?

Otherwise, a charming effort I think.

[Julie Steiner]

Yes, S5 needs revision. There's a stray capital at the beginning of its L3, too. But otherwise delightful. The reordered ending is just right.

"Sleeve" did seem a bit of a stretch, and I noted the inversion of "commemorate," but I didn't mind much.

[Glenn Wright]

Hi, Paula and Julie—

Thanks very much for weighing in! Your suggestions are helpful.

I wrote this poem quite a while ago and sent it out to a few publications, but it never got picked up. Now I know why! This workshop thing is amazingly useful. I had filed it away, but I thought of it, Paula, when I read your poem “Nature Takes Her Bow” (formerly “Wilmette Warzone”) and decided to try to resurrect it. Nice to know there are other dandelion fanciers out there.

I adjusted S5 using both of your suggestions. I see your point, Paula, about S2, but other than cutting it, I can’t think of an easy fix. I’ll give it some more thought. It might need to be one of my murdered darlings.

Thanks again!

Glenn

[R. Nemo Hill]

Glenn, this one teeters on the edge of sentimentality for me, but I think it would be improved if the whole was written in direct address to a child.
You do switch to you in the middle, and I think it would work better if you held to that throughout.

I think S5, with its torturous wording, needs a lot of work, or could just be eliminated.
And I don't like the commemorated moment.

In the first stanza the singular/plural choices you've made seem awkward.

I also think you should not flag-wave dandelions in the title.
The poem seems more evocative if it paints the dandelions into focus and only uses the word, in the poem's body, toward the end.

Taking all that into consideration, I've played around with the poem, I hope you don't mind ....


To A Child

You love the fragile feathery balls
one little puff can blow apart—
those tiny flurries that recall
the wintry storms in summer’s heart.

You pluck the golden crowns and weave
their wilting chains. They decorate
your mothers’ hair or neck or sleeve.
On pets' graves, they commemorate.

You know the lore. The root grows deep
and if you eat the leaves, it’s said,
you’ll see the future in your sleep—
but eat too much, you’ll wet the bed.

A yellow flower beneath your chin
will tell you if you will be rich
by shining golden on your skin.
The stem’s white sap will make you itch.

Your childhood lasts until that day
the yellow tufts and feather-clocks
of dandelions in wild display
are simply weeds among the rocks.

For on that day the magic fades,
and they become the gardener’s foe.
Sprays and powders, trowels and blades
attack the shoots before they grow.



Somehow the poem goes down easier with me if it is addressed to a child, rather than drawing back and drawing stern philosophical conclusions about childhood. It needs to retain a light touch, until the very end, when the attacked shoots that grow seem those of childhood itself.

Nemo

[Max Goodman]

The final stanza holds the interest for this reader. Not a bad epigram.

Stanza three feels admirably direct.

A lot of the rest feels overtly poetic to this reader, which is maybe a different way of saying what Nemo has expressed.

"a wintry storm in summer's heart" (a storm the poem doesn't help me feel), a general abundance of adjectives, the inversion that's been pointed out, and vocabulary like "foe" contribute to an artificial feeling.

FWIW.

[Jim Moonan]

.
You've picked a beautiful trope. I liked the poem immediately on first reading. I felt I was being directly addressed and I liked that. I felt the child stir in me. But then, as I tend to do quite often (I'm trying to stop), I read Nemo's comments and I think he found the heart of this trope. I picked fistfuls of these when I was five. It was the go-to flower of choice to shower love and affection. Nemo's suggestion that the poem address the child directly throughout is brilliant, I think.

They are indeed a child's flower. A toy for their imaginations. The more you imbue the poem with a sense of child-like powers that evoke the nature of innocence, of resilience, imagination, the better.

Sorry I can't be more specific than that.

.