Poem Review:’ Sunny Day’ & ‘Out of the Blue’
Sun is our star. Sun nourishes this beautiful blue planet, on which we happen to live.
Our life is and should be beyond existence. It needs emotions, aspirations and thoughts to flourish.
Poems address this need. Now, if the poems bring the provider, ‘Sun’, out and create a cocktail, then it is a double whammy for the reader.
I shall review two poems, that bring the ‘Sun’ out, in contrasting ways. But the essence is to bring the ‘human hope’ alive.
Let me introduce the poets first.
Poet Adam Prockstem Smith
First is Adam Prockstem Smith. He is the most prolific poet in my circles, and I admire his short, nippy poems.
His website reads thus:
’Adam Prockstem Smith is an entrepreneur, blogger, and an international author. At the age of sixteen, he started his first business building one-page internet marketing websites. He speaks fluent Russian, Hebrew, and English.
After finishing high school, he proceeded with self-education and exploration of the nature of the human mind. Through extensive research, and many trials and errors, Adam has become experienced with Zen. His particular style of choice is the Kwan Um School of Zen, of which he is a moderate practitioner. He is always ready to help others and learn new things.
Adam is the founder of Prockstem.com. He is also running a Slack channel to discuss creative writing with like-minded people.’
Poet Sakshi Arora
Sakshi Arora is a bubbly poet, and that is how I will remember her. She has just launched her poetry book ‘ Aisling- My Poetic Words’ in Amazon. Here is what her ‘About me’ in Linkedin says.
‘Sakshi Arora is a post graduate in English Literature and holds a diploma in French Language. She is a poet and also a Verbal, Communication and Personality Development trainer.
Apart from writing for various anthologies, she has also written online journals.
She has come with her Poetry Book -Aisling:My Poetic Words.
For her, poetry is the way to find emotional catharsis. She believes that poetry sheds a light on the world and provides the best way to express yourself and understand others.’
Let us get into the two poems and their commentaries. Finally, I shall endeavor to analyse the connects and contrasts of the two poems, and bring out the magic of Sun in my ‘Sunny Cocktail’.
Here goes the first poem:
Poem 1: ‘Sunny day’
Poem Number 3. ‘Sunny Day’ from “Vandalism With Cheese” By Adam Prockstem Smith.
-Sunny day-
One-step at a time,
You are throwing your golden time
Into the well by the river.
It shines like a sun,
On a sunny day and its light,
Brings you the hope for tomorrow.
All grease is gone from the wheels
That take you home.
Come on, come on, take it all the way.
If not today then tomorrow anyway,
You belong in a sunny day,
That’s today, today it comes your way.
Commentary on Poem 1:
The poet brings in a breezy and lighthearted narrative, with just the right dose of motivation. I can feel the poet smiling while writing this poem.
The poem starts with a call out on time. Time is an investment that you should make. The poet talks about ‘One step at a time,’ ‘ you are throwing your golden time into the well by the river’. The investment of one’s time is always incremental, like small savings in a piggy bank. I still have my coins jar. Don’t you?
Imagine, dropping coins of time into that piggy-bank-jar. Well, that jar here, is a well by the river. It is a powerful but subtle point and we are bound to miss it. Time once put into the ‘jar’ will never return. Time lost is time lost. So, better it shall be an investment. The adage, ‘Time is Money’, fits so well here.
After sending a powerful message, the poet springs words of motivation and hope. Most of us are uncertain whether we spend time properly or not. The poet assures us the investment of time ‘shines like a sun,’ and the ‘golden time, on a sunny day and its light, brings you the hope for tomorrow.’
I am attempting to decrypt the word ‘ sunny day’ here. Sunny days are days when you make things possible — that is you ‘can’ do, what you ‘want’ to do, that includes ‘throwing the golden time into the well’.
As against, consider the untold antonym, the ‘rainy day’, when things become difficult or scarce. Therefore, the message is clear — ‘time won’t come back, but if used properly, it becomes an investment’.
Here, it might be that some of us may give in because of the uncertainty. Sometimes, the motivation to go further and invest time on a particular purpose or project could be lost. The poet acknowledges this, ‘All grease is gone from the wheels that take you home’.
But should one abandon the golden time already invested and drop the ball? The poet vehemently disagrees. ‘Come on, come on, take it all the way.’ Even the grease is gone, put a bit more time ( the investment that has gone down the well, one should keep in mind), and get it across the line. This is the take away line, with the additional emphasis on ‘ Come on, Come on’.
The poem does not end with that push. He shows more hope to the reader. The returns shall come. ‘If not today then tomorrow anyway, You belong in a sunny day, That’s today, today it comes your way.’
The end of the poem is to not to lose the moment. Keeping aside the uncertainty, seize the moment. Carpe Diem. You will have your time under the sun. You will get your wins. Don’t give up.
The poet’s play of words ‘Golden time’ into the ‘well by the river’, caught my eye. The poem reminds us to do our best every day, despite self doubts. I am carrying it to my bed, my friend, and shall face tomorrow, with lot more confidence.
With that confidence, let us turn to the next poem by Poet Sakshi Arora. This poem is contrasting in narrative and content. A numb mind and heart tells her story on a winter day.
Poem 2: ‘Out of the Blue’
-Out of the Blue-
It was a dead cold month
No light no sun
Shivery wind hitting the body
Brittle broken bones, already.
Breezy winds, made me go cold to bits
Aching body,couldn’t get hold of it.
Cold Cold Cold and hard
Bones body brain and heart.
Out of the blue, one day
Sun unveiled, its sparkling rays
Touched, made the bones repaired
What if it didn’t care or dare?
An unexpected relief washed over me
From cold numbness, I was free.
Cold weary soul got warmness.
Calm relief from the stress.
Commentary: Poem 2
The narrative is in first person, and as one reads ‘Out of the Blue’, the palpable feeling of suffering seeps through the poem. This continues until we reach the second half of the poem, where the words wash up with relief, thanks to the bright sun, out of the blue.
The poem opens with a winter day in a ‘dead cold month’.
How was the day? It was dark and cold. ‘No light no sun, Shivery wind hitting the body’. It is a horrible situation.
But not only the situation was hard, but the condition of the protagonist can be surmised to be weak. ‘Brittle broken bones, already’. A horrible situation on a weak person, so I read.
How does the situation manifest? The breezy winds, cold and merciless, breaks the protagonist ‘into bits’, and it is beyond the tolerance level of the weak and ‘aching body’, as it could not ‘hold’ on.
A metaphor creeps in. Are the winter days, difficult days in reality? Is the cold metaphor for challenges? And fighting the challenge, do the body and soul become numb, battered and aching? How long and far this will go on, and how much can one tolerate, suffer or fight?
A good place to pause and fret.
Well, there is the proverbial ‘sunlight at the end of the tunnel’. The winter sun comes out. May be, it is a change. But it feels good.
The sun unveils, from behind the cloud curtain, and its ‘sparkling rays touched’ the protagonist. The aching bones rejuvenate under the touch of the sun’s rays. Magical? Yes. But the poet throws a question. Is the sun’s caress caring?
Sun is a universal provider and healer. This thought now seems to be in the protagonist’s mind, as a wave of relief washes her. She ‘free’ in mind and body, as the warmth permits her ‘cold weary’ soul. The warmth provides relief to her stress.
This poem, in a simple two part approach, brings out the suffering due to cold ( or difficulty) , and how, from out of the blue, the sun ( a positive change) emerges to provide warmth and makes people feel better. No wonder, sunny days are better days.
The Sunny Cocktail
Adam and Sakshi bring out one common message : ‘ Sunny days are what one wants. But make hay while the sun shines.’
The first poem emphasizes invest one’s time purposefully, so that the sunny days can be seized and made good. The exhort from Adam to not give up is what my take away is.
The second poem brings out how sunny days can lighten up one’s life, however long and painful the suffering might be.
This makes a simple ‘sunny cocktail’ of a message.
Just sip and savor the poems, for what they are, and let them bring your ‘sunny side up’.
I will end this review with a quote:
“The sun, — the bright sun, that brings back, not light alone, but new life, and hope, and freshness to man — burst upon the crowded city in clear and radiant glory. Through costly-coloured glass and paper-mended window, through cathedral dome and rotten crevice, it shed its equal ray.”
― Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist
~Ashok Subramanian
Postscript:
a) Copyrights of ‘Sunny Day’ poem and words in italics — Adam Prockstem Smith
b) Copyrights of ‘Out of the Blue’ poem and words in italics — Sakshi Arora
c) To read ‘Sunny day’ and other poems from Adam’s book ‘Vandalism with Cheese’ — click the link here https://www.amazon.com/dp/B085LH1TSM
d) To read ‘ Out of the BLue’ and other poems from Sakshi’s book ‘Aisling’- click the link herehttps://www.amazon.in/Aisling-Poetic-Words-Sakshi-Arora-ebook/dp/B08DP7Z5C5/.
