Take My Hand

A Poem by Dr. Alan Wohlman

A poem of bonding and support. Particularly relevant in these troubled times.

TAKE MY HAND

Take my hand and hold it tight

I’ll touch your heart, you’ll be alright

Tell me your pain, let it all out

Don’t be afraid, go ahead and shout

I feel what you feel, we are all sisters and brothers

I’m here to hold you, don’t mind the others

There are no secrets, we are friends

This is where the repression ends

You’re not alone, we’re tied at the hip

We’ll be ok, just get a grip

You can hug me if it eases your pain

If it helps you feel better, hug me again

I’ll open my arms, you can crawl inside

They are open for you, open wide

If you’d like, I will kiss away your tears

I’d do anything to overcome all your fears

Just take my hand and hold it tight

I’ll touch your heart, you’ll be alright

© 2021 Dr. Alan Wohlman

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Reviews

Cherrie Palmer

People need one another. We empower each other and motivate those around us. In a world more afraid of hugs than cancer I find your simple heart felt message refreshing.

Posted 2 Years Ago

2 Years Ago

Thank you. We certainly do need each other, particularly in these troubling time.

JayG

• They drag me to the hospital. “You must visit him before he dies.” No choice.

First: taking this, and breaking it into short lines doesn’t turn it into a poem. It’s a narrative, fact-based and author-centric, which is the nonfiction methodology we were given in school to prepare us for the needs of employers. From start to finish it’s a line of declarative sentences that may have emotional content for you, who have the story in your head before you begin reading. But for a reader? Someone unknown was unwillingly forced into an unknown hospital, in an unknown country, by unspecified people—for never revealed reasons—to visit a never introduced “he.” Meaningful to you? Perhaps. But the story that would give context to the words never made it to the page.

Unlike nonfiction, which has an informational experience as its goal, both fiction and poetry are emotion-based and character-centric, with an emotional goal. As E. L. Doctorow put it: “Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader. Not the fact that it’s raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.” And no way in hell can an emotion-free voice, reporting and explaining as an outside observer, do that. It’s meant to give the weather report, not make the reader feel the rain. We want to reader to feel and care, not be well informed.

Pretty much everyone who turns to poetry and fiction, not knowing the above, tries to “Tell the reader a story.” We focus on events and facts, reporting and explaining. In other words, tell the story from the outside in, in overview and synopsis. The problem is, it always works perfectly for the author because all the emotion is there, waiting for the words to evoke them.

But as everyone knows, my head is empty. Unless you place context so that it comes either before or as the line is read, I’m lost. And since there is no second first-impression, confuse me for a line and I leave. Bore me for a line and I walk away.

It’s not a matter of talent, or how well you write, it’s that we pretty well all leave our school years not knowing that we are precisely as ready to write poetry and fiction as to perform an appendectomy. That’s fixable, of course, but learning to tell your tale from the inside out is a learned skill.

Since your other posted poem is structured, take a look at the excerpt to Stephen Fry’s, The Ode Less Traveled, on Amazon. He’s not only one hell of a comedy actor, he’s a skilled writer. And what he has to say about the flow of words in language will make a huge difference in the way you look at the task of the poet—and make an also huge difference in your poetry.

For what it may be worth, the articles in my writing blog, while primarily directed at an overview of the differences between fiction and nonfiction writing, also apply to poetry, in many cases.

I know this wasn’t what you were hoping to see. Who would? But since we can’t fix a problem we don’t see as being one, I thought you might want to know.

Jay Greenstein
https://jaygreenstein.wordpress.com/category/the-craft-of-writing/the-grumpy-old-writing-coach/

Posted 2 Years Ago

• They drag me to the hospital. “You must visit him before he dies.” No choice.

First: taking this, and breaking it into short lines doesn’t turn it into a poem. It’s a narrative, fact-based and author-centric, which is the nonfiction methodology we were given in school to prepare us for the needs of employers. From start to finish it’s a line of declarative sentences that may have emotional content for you, who have the story in your head before you begin reading. But for a reader? Someone unknown was unwillingly forced into an unknown hospital, in an unknown country, by unspecified people—for never revealed reasons—to visit a never introduced “he.” Meaningful to you? Perhaps. But the story that would give context to the words never made it to the page.

Unlike nonfiction, which has an informational experience as its goal, both fiction and poetry are emotion-based and character-centric, with an emotional goal. As E. L. Doctorow put it: “Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader. Not the fact that it’s raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.” And no way in hell can an emotion-free voice, reporting and explaining as an outside observer, do that. It’s meant to give the weather report, not make the reader feel the rain. We want to reader to feel and care, not be well informed.

Pretty much everyone who turns to poetry and fiction, not knowing the above, tries to “Tell the reader a story.” We focus on events and facts, reporting and explaining. In other words, tell the story from the outside in, in overview and synopsis. The problem is, it always works perfectly for the author because all the emotion is there, waiting for the words to evoke them.

But as everyone knows, my head is empty. Unless you place context so that it comes either before or as the line is read, I’m lost. And since there is no second first-impression, confuse me for a line and I leave. Bore me for a line and I walk away.

It’s not a matter of talent, or how well you write, it’s that we pretty well all leave our school years not knowing that we are precisely as ready to write poetry and fiction as to perform an appendectomy. That’s fixable, of course, but learning to tell your tale from the inside out is a learned skill.

Since your other posted poem is structured, take a look at the excerpt to Stephen Fry’s, The Ode Less Traveled, on Amazon. He’s not only one hell of a comedy actor, he’s a skilled writer. And what he has to say about the flow of words in language will make a huge difference in the way you look at the task of the poet—and make an also huge difference in your poetry.

For what it may be worth, the articles in my writing blog, while primarily directed at an overview of the differences between fiction and nonfiction writing, also apply to poetry, in many cases.

I know this wasn’t what you were hoping to see. Who would? But since we can’t fix a problem we don’t see as being one, I thought you might want to know.

Jay Greenstein
https://jaygreenstein.wordpress.com/category/the-craft-of-writing/the-grumpy-old-writing-coach/

Rating /100