Concert Day
By: Samhitha Venkat
I emerged from the soft comforts of backstage,
To see flashes of cameras,
In the hands of proud parents,
The lights lit up the stage so bright,
Stinging my eyes,
Masking the cold, hard stare of the judges,
Hidden in the darkness of the audience,
The band filed onto stage,
Loud applause filled the room,
Like fireworks,
The instruments shined brightly,
But to me,
They seemed to yell,
‘Don’t mess up!’ they said,
A cold, small bead of sweat drips down my forehead,
Making me want to itch,
And as the conductor lifted his hand,
Instruments flew to faces,
For a brief moment,
The entire room was silent,
Pin-drop silent,
Not one sneeze, shuffle, or cough,
My hands filled with sweat,
Uncomfortable in this awkward pause,
The cold, hard material of the instrument
Tasted sour and metallic,
Finally… BAM!
The music filled the room,
For a moment, the judges’ hard stares and
The impatient eyes of the audience disappeared,
I got lost in the beat of the music,
Fingers flying of soft, bouncy keys,
And as the music faded away,
I was left with a warm, soft feeling,
And a wide grin lit up my face,
I stood up for the audience,
And left the stage,
More confident than I had ever been
- I chose to publish a sensory detail poem.
- I chose this event as the basis for my poem because it was very important to me. After working hard for months, this moment presented all the hard work I had done, and I felt that I could write in detail about my experiences. This moment lets me provide lots of insight and use lots of figurative language to describe my experience.
- I would describe the tone of my poem to change from a nervous and anxious beginning to a joyous and comfortable tone by the end.
- The theme of my poem is that even when you are nervous, hard work and passion will push you to do well.
- “They seemed to yell at me, ‘Don’t mess up!’ they said.” This piece of figurative language is personification because instruments cannot literally talk. This quote helps build a very tense tone in the poem. The line shows how the narrator feels a lot of pressure to do well. My second piece of figurative language in the poem is a simile. “Loud applause filled the room, like fireworks.” This quote helps the reader visualize the loud sounds of the applause by comparing it to fireworks. The use of the word ‘like’ shows that it is a simile, but this quote is also a piece of imagery that appeals to the sense of sound. In a way, this quote creates a pressured situation for the narrator by showing that many people in the audience support and expect the narrator to do well.
- One revision that I made in this poem was adding the line, “tasted sour and metallic.” I added this line because I felt that it helped the reader visualize the narrator’s position and how their instrument felt. It added detail and imagery to the poem, which is very important in order to give the reader a clear and vivid image. Another revision I made was adding the line, “fingers flying off soft, bouncy keys.” I decided to add this line because it gives the reader a sense of how the narrator played their instrument. The line adds extra descriptions about how the instrument felt, which helps the reader visualize the narrator’s position.
- This poem was not easy to write, but I wouldn’t say that it required immense amounts of concentration. In order to write the first draft, I had to think a lot about the phrasing and types of figurative language to use. Revising the poem and adding figurative language was a little easier to do because I already had a format to follow. This experience contains a lot of emotion for me, which made the figurative language very easy to write.
- I am quite satisfied with my final draft. I feel that I have worked a lot to write this poem, and the end result is satisfying. While I feel that I have done a good job, I think that I could write a better poem about a different experience that holds a lot of value to me. I feel that I did not get enough time to write poems to the best of my ability, but I have worked hard to write, edit, and revise this poem.
