Morning’s drift puts him off

as dreams grasp at waking layers

pull and push

sleepy eyes

retreat and reluctance.

Endeav’ring to fulfill

a father’s plan

follow the design demanded

before being born

he wilts like old cabbage leaves

unfit for sweet crunchy slaw.

To put a foot out the door

he drags his attitude forward

claws his way to fortune

ignoring gnawing taps upon

a half-accomplished dance career.

Years shall pass

he may forget his passion

while wrapped in cuddled levels of temporary love.

Side-tracked, extracting what’s expected

all strength drained and waning

will he have time instead to overthrow traditions?

 

Where is the love?

 

I’m not sure of the purpose of this title. Doesn’t seem to add much and doesn’t do much to lead us into the poem. I don’t think “love” is the right word here anyway. I think you really mean “passion.” This is especially true given you make the distinction between “passion” and “temporary love” in the final stanza.

 

 

–Mihail Baryshnikov

This is simply too long. It’s practically an essay before you enter the poem. The quote is very prosaic, artless. Though I’ve done so myself, I’m not a big fan of this kind of attribution, but if it must be done, let it be as short and pointed as possible, especially when you’re not dealing with lines of verse. Furthermore, I’m bothered by the political message. It’s not an overtly political poem, doesn’t deal with art education, or the government. Frankly, I’d either cut the whole business, find a way to rewrite the poem so that the quote becomes obligatory, or move it into the title somehow. If it must be there, cut it to the quick:

 

–Mihail Baryshnikov

 

Morning’s drift puts him off

as dreams grasp at waking layers

pull and push

sleepy eyes

retreat and reluctance.

 

 

First of all, I’m not entirely sure what this means. Are you trying to describe a man stumbling from bed or a man frustrated by circumstances or both? Whatever the case, it needs work. Think clarity. If you’re able, try to use concrete and sensual details, but if you must– simply tell us what you mean. Ted Kooser says the beginning of a poem is where clarity matters most. You want to invite the reader inside the poem and make him comfortable. By comfortable, he does not mean calm or lacking tension, but grounded and knowing his footing.

 

Anyway, just going by what’s here, I will say you have a nice run of opposites with dreams/waking layers and pull/push, but you start to lose it with sleepy eyes (cliche) and then lose it completely with retreat/reluctance, which are not opposites or even at odds with each other. The “sleepy eyes” bothers me in its placement anyway. If you’re going to keep it, and not change it for something stronger, I suggest moving it away from the opposites.

 

Morning’s drift puts him off

sleepy eyes

as dreams grasp at waking layers

pull and push

retreat and reluctance.

 

Better, but would be better still with something like “retreat and advance.”  Isn’t there a dance step of foward and back you could call on?

 

Finally, the lack of punctuation does not bother me, except that in the final stanza a comma suddenly appears. Either you’re going to use commas in the poem, or line breaks as commas, or you are not. Like Mr .Miagi says, “You karate do yes, okay. You karate do no, okay. You karate do ‘guess so,’ squish like grape.” Well, you punctuation do yes or no, but you punctuation do sometimes, squishy poet.

 

Endeav’ring to fulfill

a father’s plan

follow the design demanded

before being born

he wilts like old cabbage leaves

unfit for sweet crunchy slaw.

 

What is the purpose of ruining the word “endeavoring”? Are you endeavoring to destroy your poem? Listen, the reason poets used to truncate the syllables in words, like “o’er the land of the free,” was so they could keep the meter right–especially when poetry was mainly sung or performed, rather than read on a page. This is not a metered poem, and its primary audience consists of readers. Doing something like this makes the poet look like a rank amateur. Worse, it pulls the reader out of the poem to figure out why an apostrophe is sitting in the middle of a word. I’m not one for making a lot of rules, but unless you’re playing it for laughs, or writing old-fashioned sonnets, you should never do this.

 

Why is it “a father’s plan,” emphasis on the indefinite article? Is it any old father? Or is it his father?

 

I don’t care for “before being born,” when just “before born” or “before birth” will do. But if it was up to me I would just drop it all. A father’s plans for his kid always predate the kid’s own plans. We get it.

 

I like a lot “he wilts like old cabbage leaves.”  I just don’t know if it belongs in this poem. It’s the only garden/vegetable image. It comes out of nowhere and disappears into nothing. You would think there would be some kind of art/dance/ballet image here, but instead we’re talking about cabbage and a KFC side dish. I do not like the “sweet crunchy slaw” here anyway, since the idea is that he is entering a world where he doesn’t belong and that is somehow less than the artistic world he should be entering, so why is that world sweet and crunchy? Or perhaps you mean the dance world is sweet and crunchy? Well, it’s not clear.  But even if that’s the case, the image just doesn’t work in this context. W
hy not just have him grow fat?

 

To put a foot out the door

he drags his attitude forward

claws his way to fortune

ignoring gnawing taps upon

a half-accomplished dance career.

 

Clearly the best stanza in the poem. The mentions of “foot” and “taps” have nice dance overtones. A couple of issues, though. I see no reason why this stanza should be tabbed out differently than the others. It seems merely random and random formatting in poetry is almost as bad as mutilating words when it comes to distracting the reader. He asks himself, why is the author doing this?  If he doesn’t reach a clear answer soon, he grows confused and the poem suffers. Also, I wasn’t sure about the word “claws,” especially since it seems too clever with the aw-aw-aw with “ignoring gnawing,” especially since claws, again, has nothing to do with the arts/dance. However, the one I disliked most was “half-accomplished.”  It’s both a mouthful and needlessly prosaic. Pull out the thesaurus and find something better. Unrealized. Abridged. Unconsummated. Almost anything else. I’d also take a close look at the word “career.”  Isn’t the whole point of the poem that dance is a passion and more than just a career?

 

You should question every word in this manner.

 

Years shall pass

he may forget his passion

while wrapped in cuddled levels of temporary love.

Side-tracked, extracting what’s expected

all strength drained and waning

will he have time instead to overthrow traditions?

 

Shall and may don’t work. Shall is old fashioned and unneeded. May is a word that lacks conviction. Isn’t the tragedy that he loses his connection with dance? You’re writing a tragedy here, so write a tragedy. Have the courage to stick with it. After all, it’s not the character you’re trying to steer toward your point of view, it’s the reader.

 

Years pass

he forgets his passion

The next line is too long for the poem. “Cuddled levels” doesn’t work and isn’t needed. Omit.

 

wrapped in temporary love.

We already know he’s side-tracked, the whole poem has been telling us that. Omit.

 

Extracting what’s expected

Strength cannot be “drained and waning.” If strength is drained, he has none. A drained sink has no water. The water cannot therefore also be waning. It can be draining and waning, but the rhyme, I fear, would be too much–and it would be redundant, not to mention mixing water and light images. Again it would be so much better if there was a dance verb here, but sticking with what you have in place: 

strength waning

 

In my opinion, the first and last lines are the most important in the poem. Let’s look at your last.

 

will he have time instead to overthrow traditions?

Up till now, you’ve given us no reason to think he will, so why ask the question? Again, you’re writing a tragedy, but you don’t seem to want to let it be a tragedy. Let it be a tragedy. A poem is only as strong as the author behind it has conviction. With that in mind, the poem would be much more powerful if you don’t leave the question open at the end, but instead bring the man to defeat with something like:

 

he tumbles toward tradition.

 

See what I’ve done? I’ve used a negative dance image–tumbles–to show the tragedy. He’s no dancer, he’s followed the wishes of his father.

 

The last stanza, then, might look something like this:

 

Years pass.

he forgets his passion,

wrapped in temporary love.

Extracting what’s expected,

strength waning,

he tumbles toward tradition.

 

Alice, as you can see, I’m a tough critic, but only because I think you have a good poem here that hasn’t yet realized its full potential. I hope something I said helps. If nothing else, if only you don’t mutilate the word endeavoring, you’ll have made this a stronger poem.