Ole Blue
He did his best30 total reviews
Comment from rspoet
Hello Jim,
I enjoyed your tale of Old Blue and his double life
My dad was a model railroader in the OO gauge
and I often helped with the layouts. The old Steams
were the engines of fantasy, like the Big Boy.
I even wrote a poem a while back (four years) about an old engineer
named Joe, titled The Railroad Man.
Well done.
Best wishes.
Robert
reply by the author on 24-Aug-2024
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Hello Jim,
I enjoyed your tale of Old Blue and his double life
My dad was a model railroader in the OO gauge
and I often helped with the layouts. The old Steams
were the engines of fantasy, like the Big Boy.
I even wrote a poem a while back (four years) about an old engineer
named Joe, titled The Railroad Man.
Well done.
Best wishes.
Robert
Comment Written 24-Aug-2024
reply by the author on 24-Aug-2024
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Thanks very much for sharing your story with me, Robert, and for your 6-star review. It's much appreciated. I love those old steam engines.
Comment from Shanbreen
Jim, this a good poem, but you call this a children's poem (6 to 10), and I wonder if the length and the vocabulary (pulverized, smithereens, obsolete) may prove too much, specially for the 6th and 7th graders. Perhaps, the poem could be used to learn new words.
To me, this could be just as much an adult poem that personifies the sacrifice of life for the greater good (metaphorically, speaking, of course).
Well written. I hope you find some other venue for for a publication.
reply by the author on 24-Aug-2024
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Jim, this a good poem, but you call this a children's poem (6 to 10), and I wonder if the length and the vocabulary (pulverized, smithereens, obsolete) may prove too much, specially for the 6th and 7th graders. Perhaps, the poem could be used to learn new words.
To me, this could be just as much an adult poem that personifies the sacrifice of life for the greater good (metaphorically, speaking, of course).
Well written. I hope you find some other venue for for a publication.
Comment Written 24-Aug-2024
reply by the author on 24-Aug-2024
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Thanks very much. I agree that it may be too advanced for children to read, although the length is about right. They say a children's picture book should be less than 1,000 words, and this is 614.
It's probably the kind of book that parents would read to the kids. (Even then, the parents would have to explain a number of words to them.) I had my 8-yr-old grandson read it to me today, and he did pretty well with it and only needed help with a few words, so I don't know. It wasn't originally written to be a children's book, but several people told me they thought it might make a good one.
If a publisher ever responds favorably but thinks it's too advanced for the age range, I could probably simplify the language some.
Comment from nomi338
I agree. As a writer who has rewritten several children's stories into urban versions more suitable for older audiences, (no profanity). I see an acceptance of rhyming stories, consider the popularity of non offensive rap lyrics. Some of the best are really short rhyming stories.
reply by the author on 24-Aug-2024
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I agree. As a writer who has rewritten several children's stories into urban versions more suitable for older audiences, (no profanity). I see an acceptance of rhyming stories, consider the popularity of non offensive rap lyrics. Some of the best are really short rhyming stories.
Comment Written 24-Aug-2024
reply by the author on 24-Aug-2024
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I know, right? All a publisher has to do is read a stanza or two to see if it rhymes well and keeps the meter, and if it doesn't, then delete it, but it doesn't make sense to rule out all rhyming books. Are they saying there's no place for a Dr. Seuss today?
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Go the independent route. KDP-Amazon is my publisher for about 12 books so far.
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If I were an artist who could illustrate it myself, I might do that; otherwise, I would have to pay quite a substantial sum to have the pictures made, and I'd never recoup it in sales. That's the problem with KDP, which I've used for a few of my earlier novels. No one can find them unless I tell them about them since I have no social media presence.
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Maybe you should look into Dal-E, an AI app.
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I'll look into it. Thanks for the suggestion.
Comment from papa55mike
The train, who saved the day at all costs. What's not to love about this poem and story? Best of luck with your writing! Have a great day, and God bless.
mike
reply by the author on 24-Aug-2024
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The train, who saved the day at all costs. What's not to love about this poem and story? Best of luck with your writing! Have a great day, and God bless.
mike
Comment Written 24-Aug-2024
reply by the author on 24-Aug-2024
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Thanks very much, Mike. I appreciate your 6-star review.
Comment from Nicki.B
I think this is just great
The life and soul of old Blue, so entertaining right the way through!
Sort of reminds me of ' Thomas the tank engine' a very popular cartoon tv series for kids in the UK and Ireland, you may not have heard of it!
Well done, pity about the contest, great you got your fee back though lol!
reply by the author on 24-Aug-2024
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I think this is just great
The life and soul of old Blue, so entertaining right the way through!
Sort of reminds me of ' Thomas the tank engine' a very popular cartoon tv series for kids in the UK and Ireland, you may not have heard of it!
Well done, pity about the contest, great you got your fee back though lol!
Comment Written 23-Aug-2024
reply by the author on 24-Aug-2024
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Thanks so much, Nicki. I've watched a number of Thomas videos with my grandsons when they were younger. I always loved those.
I really thought I had a good chance at that contest. Oh, well.
Comment from GWHARGIS
I love a rhyming story. You can't help but smile at it. Children are drawn to it as well. This was really a great poem. I thought it was a true story. You write with historical accuracy and a sense of authority. You convinced a 63 year old woman of Old Blue the steam hero. Wonderfully entertaining. Gretchen
reply by the author on 23-Aug-2024
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I love a rhyming story. You can't help but smile at it. Children are drawn to it as well. This was really a great poem. I thought it was a true story. You write with historical accuracy and a sense of authority. You convinced a 63 year old woman of Old Blue the steam hero. Wonderfully entertaining. Gretchen
Comment Written 23-Aug-2024
reply by the author on 23-Aug-2024
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Why, thanks, Gretchen. I'm still mystified by publishers who won't accept rhyming picture books. I'm reminded of the scene in the movie "Pretty Woman" when Julia Roberts is turned away by a snooty clothing store because of how she was dressed, and she comes back in later, dressed to the hilt in expensive clothes and many additional items purchased elsewhere and tells the original saleswoman "Big mistake," (for turning me away when you get paid by commission).
You just shouldn't act bigoted or prejudicial, but judge everything on its own merits. Sure, most submissions of poetry may suck, but "big mistake" if you turn away that one that doesn't. I can just picture Dr. Seuss being rejected for his stories by some publisher who doesn't like rhyming picture books, and his saying to them, "Big mistake."
Not that I'm comparing my stuff to Dr. Seuss, but you get the picture.
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Well, good luck to you!
Comment from artisart4u
This is very good to read and I am sure children will love reading it. I am sorry it had a bad ending but Blue
it made Blue a legend. He did, do his best.
Your couplets are nice and congratulations on being Recognized.
reply by the author on 23-Aug-2024
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This is very good to read and I am sure children will love reading it. I am sorry it had a bad ending but Blue
it made Blue a legend. He did, do his best.
Your couplets are nice and congratulations on being Recognized.
Comment Written 23-Aug-2024
reply by the author on 23-Aug-2024
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Thank you very much. I appreciate your nice review.
Comment from Barry Penfold
this is an excellent poem. rhyming excellent and the image is totally suitable. Good old blue. A really nice story but with a sad ending. Thanks for sharing and I hope you find a publisher. Take care and have a wonderful day.
Regards
Barry Penfold.
reply by the author on 23-Aug-2024
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this is an excellent poem. rhyming excellent and the image is totally suitable. Good old blue. A really nice story but with a sad ending. Thanks for sharing and I hope you find a publisher. Take care and have a wonderful day.
Regards
Barry Penfold.
Comment Written 23-Aug-2024
reply by the author on 23-Aug-2024
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Thanks very much, Barry. I appreciate your kind words.
Comment from Karen Cherry Threadgill
A wondrous tale. But do you worry that the tale is adult in it's musings, and while it would be a grand tale to be read by a parent to them, they would not have an easy time reading it by thewselves. I love you sweetie, but I found some things you might want to edit.
Line 14: saguaros who with reverence would bow down. Instead of with reverence bowed down.
Line17: But now he has, instead of : But now he'd
Line 22: as he sits rusting ( he is still sitting) instead of : he sat
rusting ( in the past)
These are my opinions only. I like your work. Karen
reply by the author on 23-Aug-2024
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A wondrous tale. But do you worry that the tale is adult in it's musings, and while it would be a grand tale to be read by a parent to them, they would not have an easy time reading it by thewselves. I love you sweetie, but I found some things you might want to edit.
Line 14: saguaros who with reverence would bow down. Instead of with reverence bowed down.
Line17: But now he has, instead of : But now he'd
Line 22: as he sits rusting ( he is still sitting) instead of : he sat
rusting ( in the past)
These are my opinions only. I like your work. Karen
Comment Written 23-Aug-2024
reply by the author on 23-Aug-2024
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Hey, thanks for your critique, Karen. You make a good point that this is the kind of book that might be tough for 6-10 year olds to read and works better when it's read to them. For that reason, it may not be picked up by anyone. I sort of sent it out on a whim, because it was never written with the idea of being a children's book, so I didn't attempt to dumb down the vocabulary for a child.
In terms of the other suggestions, this would be my answer to those if you are interested. Keeping a strict iambic heptameter meter was very important to me because I really prefer to write poetry with perfect meter with perhaps only a very few exceptions. A couple of your suggestions would have put in syllables that would have violated the meter. Let's go through them:
Line 14: While you are correct grammatically that it should be "who would" to match the "He'd" in the line before, which in this case is a contraction of "He would," it throws the meter off. I suppose I could have also used the contraction "who'd" (meaning who would) but that just sounds funny and, in my mind, not worth it to be grammatically correct. So, on balance, I would prefer to be slightly inconsistent with the grammar rather than violate the meter.
Probably the best solution to be consistent and keep the meter would be to rewrite the two lines as follows:
He steamed along majestically, Sonoran Desert-bound
and passed the great saguaros who, with reverence, bowed down.
Just put it all in regular past tense (since the the previous stanza was just straight past tense.) I think I'll change it.
Line 17: I believe "He'd" is correct here instead of "He has" as you suggest. "He has" would change the tense of the narration from past to present and would be inconsistent with the tense of the rest of the stanza and the poem. (I wouldn't have used "He has" anyway but instead would have used "He's" to keep the meter.)
Line 22: Same thing here. Your suggestion is present tense, but the narration is in past tense.
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You explained my errors to me just fine. One of these days I will be right though. And, An editor might say Wow This is a grand story for folks to read to people of all ages. Why not make a book for a relative or friend to read to them. called, " Have you Heard?" It could happen. Karen
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I'm going to see how well my 8-year-old grandson does reading the book to me and see how well he understands it. You made a very good point about reading it vs. having it read to you by a parent.
I could also try dumbing down the vocabulary so that it would be more understandable to a kid reading it
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Don't ever dumb something down. You insult yourself and the reader. I think a "Read it to someone" book is a grand idea. Nursing homes, caretakers, nannies, mom's and dads. Try "Parent's" magazine.
Christian publishers', they are screaming for works. Your stuff is lucid, clean, and has good morals. I will send you some links in regular email. Karen
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By "dumb down" I only meant change some of the vocabulary so kids could read it.
I do like your suggestion, though, and look forward to your email. Thanks!
Comment from Marilyn Hamilton
I wish I had a 6 left for you. This was quite the epic poem you wrote. I love trains and your poem did justice to this one. I wish you good luck in getting the book published.
reply by the author on 23-Aug-2024
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I wish I had a 6 left for you. This was quite the epic poem you wrote. I love trains and your poem did justice to this one. I wish you good luck in getting the book published.
Comment Written 23-Aug-2024
reply by the author on 23-Aug-2024
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No worries about the 6, Marilyn. I'm so glad you enjoyed it. Thank you.
