Meta - If I were to publish as an Editor

If I were to publish a specific poem in what's been submitted this week, it would be LitheWalrus's Poem:

"Fish" - like Poem, for Prompt

I Remember

Ah! I remember!

     I remember a river

          Tossing here, curling there

               Twisting like walrus' whiskers

                    Ah! I remember!

               I remember a shiver;

          The shiver that ran up my spine

     The shiver of seeing the wonder

Instead of only the pictures

Ah! I remember!

     I remember a place

          The place I met the wallaby

               Singing like a wind through the vines

                    His name was Rutherford Kingsley

                         And his hair was matted and frayed

                    And, oh, how dismayed and wide-eyed

               Was he, when had he drunk of my wines

          Ah! I remember!

     I remember a face

The face of Mme C.

The beaver

Sweet face

     She spoke like a squirel

          In a chittering whirl

                   Like hummingbirds fast in a race

                            Ah! I do so remember in fondness

                                             My time spend on that river

                                                        My mind is taut like a bowstring

                                                                       But, alas! I've emptied my quiver!

--LitheWalrus

What this poem does that really sticks out is how its meticulously designed for both what it looks and sounds like: a river. This Shape Poem is superb with its sound play with rhyme that almost seems to mimic the soothing sounds of a river. There's not much indication of any rhyme that's sharp, but instead it's softer (er's, e's, and rl's, and s's), like that of a river. Unless if the water is forceful like that of a hurricane, tidal wave, tsunami, hail, or high pressure rain, it's rather difficult for water to create sharp sounds, which is precisely why it's an excellent idea to leave these sounds out of this shape poem. I think that the sound of the poem matching the shape is a new dynamic, at least for me, when it comes to shape poetry that I haven't quite thought of before.

Also, the use of the white space and measuring out the lines to make them unequal makes this poem far more convincing that it is shaping a river as well. I think that if it had a stagnant beat or meter throughout, that this would not be the same poem because of the fact that rivers constantly change in depth and width as they go. If writing about nature poetry in the future like that of a tree, then I think that we need to make it a point not to just write a shape poem that's your typical pine tree or oak, but what about the palm? The Flowering Dogwood? The Shagbark Hickory? The same can be said about different forms of plant life, or animal life. Not only do we need to reflect the shape of what we're representing, but the sound of it as well.

For instance, if we were to write a shape poem that's about a mouse, but use louder and a more jolting rhyme scheme, then we would do the mouse an injustice of representation that it has in nature by misrepresenting it entirely. Mice are mostly silent with perhaps light taps on its feet for movement, but are as slippery as soap when trying to catch them as well.