Thread: A poem in a dream

When I was sleeping I made a poem in my dream. The most interesting thing was that it was in English. (I am native Russian speaker!)

Here it is:

The elephant is so big.
The fly is so small.
The first one's song is very loud,
The latter's one's not heard at all.

You wander through a vast desert
For many-many miles,
Until you come to this resort
With elephants and flies.

So I ask the native speakers, how do you think, is it grammatically correct? The first thing is this "latter's one's". First "'s", as I think, means a posessive, while the second is a contraction of "is". It is contracted for making a right meter. Then, in the dream it was "A many-many miles", like in "many a years" construction (or is it "many a year"?), but I desided replace it with "for many-many miles".
The third doubt concerns tenses. What is better, to say in Present tense, and this means that anyone may wander in any time in general sense, or
"You wandered...until you've come"?

Interesting poem.

The first thing is this "latter's one's". First "'s", as I think, means a posessive, while the second is a contraction of "is". It is contracted for making a right meter.

Works just the way you want it to. Totally correct.

Then, in the dream it was "A many-many miles", like in "many a years" construction (or is it "many a year"?), but I desided replace it with "for many-many years".

"Many a mile" sounded good, but "A many-many miles" sounds a wee bit better to me, if you were going for the less modern way of speech.

The third doubt concerns tenses. What is better, to say in Present tense, and this means that anyone may wander in any time in general sense, or
"You wandered...until you've come"?

Present tense.

And the last thing. May I keep "really loud" here, or is it too modern, and if I want to make it XIX-century like, they didn't use "really" too much? In the dream it was "very loud".

I think that "very loud" or "quite loud" would be better than "really loud", unless you wanted to keep the same number of syllables, in which case, you would want to use "very loud", heh . Those two sound less modern, and more 19th century.

Yes. I also thought so about "very loud" and decided to edit my first message before you have replied.

I don't quite agree with the above, but here's my take:

>The latter's one's not heard at all.

We would not say this. I doubt even that a Brit would say it.
It would be "the latter's song's not heard at all." No way "one's".
Also possible: "The latter's is not heard at all."

>For many-many miles,

Better would be:
For many, many miles
or
For many, many a mile.

David
Native American
(Wishing I could come up with such wonderful poetry in Russian!)

I had to change my "very well" to "very loud", heh. Silly me with that typo... in both examples I tried to give...

I would leave the poem as it is: poems do not need to be grammatically correct; rhyme; flow; or even make sense.

Just to talk about grammar, the apostrophe does a number of things that most English speakers don't know about and routinely get wrong - including me. But the main two roles are to mark possession and to indicate the omission of a letter. The latter case is easy, as in, "It's a nice day" for, "It is a nice day". And, "Here's something for you", for, "Here is something for you".

Don't confuse the possessive pronoun [one], as in, "One had a good day at the office", with 'one' referring to the song. Possessive pronouns do not require an apostrophe: She took [hers] and we took [ours]. Except there must be an apostrophe in [one's] when used as a possessive pronoun. Don't ask me why, it's just a rule! If she took her bag, then you can say, "She took hers". But if one took one's bag, you cannot say, "One took one's" and leave the sentence there, because it sounds like the sentence is not finished. In fact, using 'one' as the indefinite person is rare now in English use.

A song belonging to an Elephant is, "an elephant's song". The word 'Latter' in 'Latter one' is used as an adjective, which can't possess anything! So, we could un-pack the sentence to, "The song of the latter one is not heard at all". So I think the sentence becomes, "The latter one's not heard at all" - It sounds okay to me anyway.

The use of "quite loud", "very loud" or "really loud" isn't just stylistic but increasing in loudness form quite loud, to loud, to very loud, to really loud.

If I had to adjust the poem: please ignore the following bit, I simply couldn't resist the opportunity of ruining your poem: -

The elephant is so big,
The fly, so small.
The first one's song is very loud,
The latter's not heard at all.

You wander through a vast desert,
For many, many miles.
Until you come to this resort,
With elephants and flies.

Of course, I have used the word 'latter' here as a noun :-)

Indeed, have you seen e c cummings stuff? Joysof,er...excuse me, joysof, you remind me of him, what with the "I HAVE to have my name uncapitalized!" and all .

Anyhow I think it's very interesting - I've had a couple poems in my dreams, but they were in English. During the dream I thought they were incredibly beautiful, but when I woke up I realized they weren't that great Sometimes it interests me how we seem to know "more" in dreams.. I have dreamt up phrases and such in Russian that I've never heard before, woken up, and seen that they were gramatically correct.

Originally Posted by Pravit

Anyhow I think it's very interesting - I've had a couple poems in my dreams, but they were in English. During the dream I thought they were incredibly beautiful, but when I woke up I realized they weren't that great Sometimes it interests me how we seem to know "more" in dreams.. I have dreamt up phrases and such in Russian that I've never heard before, woken up, and seen that they were gramatically correct.

Yes, indeed. I had even the stories in my dreams and they also were more beautiful in dreams. But I remember several dreams that are worth retelling. About "Cow-fish and French Revolution", for example, or "A ride on camels through an Arabian Desert towards Pyramids in 1920-s, being a British officer". May be I'll post them later somewhere in "Only Russian" forum.
And sometimes I have dreams in English.

E. E. Cummings - exactly. What about Hills by Peter Finch - not English but near enough - and he gets all the J's.

As for me, I didn't even notice. You are right, of course, it should be Майк, but there's no going back now :-)

Reminds me of some kind of old Indian proverb..

'the Dharma is like a great river, in which a gnat may drink, and an elephant may bathe'

something like that.

Kudos to Propp

E. E. Cummings - exactly.

No: e.e. cummings.

Indeed, have you seen e c cummings stuff? Joysof,er...excuse me, joysof, you remind me of him, what with the "I HAVE to have my name uncapitalized!" and all .

Perhaps this 'ere forum ain't such a cultural morass after all: there was me thinking that the execrable kd lang would be the first point of reference...

No: e.e. cummings.

I don't know, but this bloke seems pretty keen on using capitals .... www.gvsu.edu/english/cummings/caps.htm

Originally Posted by joysof

E. E. Cummings - exactly.

No: e.e. cummings.

nope, it's e e cummings

nope, it's e e cummings

It's definitely not e e cummings.

I don't know, but this bloke seems pretty keen on using capitals .... www.gvsu.edu/english/cummings/caps.htm

This one is interesting. Americans, keen as they are on semantic controversy, have written several little pieces in this vein; I tend to go by what's printed on the spine of the volumes I own and I'm sure, if I was at home, I could find clarification one way or the other.

It's no secret that he used capital letters and plenty of them. See below.

I don't know how, in this Forum, to print 'r-p-o-p-h-e-s-s-a-g-r' by the poet we've been discussing but it does have something to say ;-)

http://www.poets.org/poems/poems.cfm?45 ... 0C07040177

The Academy's word is good enough for me.