Ghosts and the Haunted House in the Woods - Poem by Bruce Whealton

Written by Bruce Whealton

Monday, 02 March 2009 05:22

Your feedback and suggestions for this poem are very much appreciated. It is an early draft and I hope to see what I can do with this. Comments are welcomed and appreciated. From your feedback and suggestions, hopefully my skills as a poet will grow.

Ghosts and the Haunted House in the Woods

There was a haunted house
not far from where I grew up -
about a mile of woods
separated me from that place.
It was set into the woods,
set off from a rather quiet road
and this hideaway location
only added to the intrigue.

My friends or my sister and I
would walk through the woods
at dusk, and watch
eerie lights come on
at dusk
in the house -
a house where nobody lived -
we were quite certain of that.

You could see the entire inside
by looking in through the windows.
It appeared empty,

except for that something
that we thought we were seeing,
or the voices we thought we were hearing,
at dusk or after dark.

Bruce Whealton 2009

Comments

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Alan Summers - re Ghosts and the Haunted House in the Woods

|Publisher |2009-06-27 03:01:57

Hi Bruce,

I really like the poem. It's just at an interesting stage where
you can pull out a penultimate draft! :-)

Quote:

Ghosts and the Haunted House in the Woods

A title is such an important part of the poem, it's not just an extra
line but works almost as an extra verse.

I would suggest either
having "Ghost"; "Ghosts"; "The Haunted House";
"The Woods" etc...

Quote:

There was a haunted house
not far from where I grew up -
about a mile of
woods
separated me from that place.
It was set into the woods,
set
off from a rather quiet road
and this hideaway location
only added to
the intrigue.

If those first two lines stay, you should consider a completely different
title, as these lines say so much already.

You can afford to
edit this down e.g.

There was a haunted house,
about a mile of woods
separated me from that
place.

Quote:

My friends or my sister and I
would walk through the woods
at dusk, and
watch
eerie lights come on
at dusk
in the house -
a house where
nobody lived -
we were quite certain of that.

The "or" slows things down and doesn't lend itself to the poetry
in this piece and you don't need to repeat "dusk" trust
the first use of hte word to lend a lot of atmosphere.

We'd walk through the woods at dusk,
watch eerie lights in the house -
a
house where nobody lived.

Your original draft is still here, but it's not put out into text now,
but in the negative space.

It's a brutal edit, but you have
the makings of a brilliant poem here, so trust yourself, I can see a
classic poem coming out.

all my best,

Alan

Phillip Arthur Ellis

|Publisher |2009-06-27 00:04:57

Bruce,

when you revise, I suggest that you work towards conveying a sense of
the emotions involved. At the moment, it is very flat in emotion; as others have
said, it tells, but it does not evoke an emotional response in the reader as it
should.

yrs

Phillip

Bruce Whealton - To post poems or other content...

|SAdministrator |2009-03-12 17:07:24

You have to login to post a poem or for that matter any content on the site,
other than commments. If you are not a member yet, just click on
"Register/Join the Community" and you just enter your name, username,
email and a password. Then confirm the registration by going to your email and
clicking on a link. Then you just login to the site to post content.

Dan Bierce

|Registered |2009-03-05 15:09:34

What do we click on to post a poem?

B. T. Forsythe

|Publisher |2009-03-04 17:03:37

I agree pretty much wholeheartedly with Dan. Very telly -- I've missed all but
the surface, prosaic meaning of this.

And then there were three!

Dan Bierce

|Registered |2009-03-04 16:18:27

Hey, Bruce. In my opinion this poem is lacking in meter and sound. Non-rhyming
free-verse idealy will have some sort of meter going for it. A bit of rhythm.

To my ear this poem reads in a very prosiac way. Very telly. Virtually no
showing involved. Telling is what prose is for.

Maybe if you reduced this
poem by about ten lines it would work better.

All just my opinion, of course.
See what others say, although from what I can tell you and I are the only
participants here so far.

Have fun!

Dan

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Last Updated on Monday, 02 March 2009 05:27

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