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Fleur Du Mal -> RE: Poetry Criticism (9/12/2009 19:06:32)
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Hi, Xirmi!
As I threathened, I read The Legend of Icearth. =P Here are some comments on top of my head; as always, they will be my opinions only.
The poem is indeed loaded with strong and captivating imagery. I don't feel as the imagery was hiding the story at all. However, does the strict rhyme-scheme occasionally force you to add unneccessary words? I got that feel at some point whilst other stanzas flowed quite naturally.
For example, these two stanzas are amazing with their unforced rhymes and wordings that couple with good. solid imagery:
quote:
Yet one still thrives amid our frozen land,
Unhindered by cold winds, untouched by grim cold,
This blight surely only he can mend,
Just as he did with the dark one, the enemy of old,
Amid the howling winds and freezing mists,
From frowning mountains, shrouded in snow,
He comes just as the old epic depicts,
Strong and mighty, our enemies he will bring down low,
The only word I'd nitpick about would be 'enemies' on the last line. The line is quite long already, so if you want to have a simpler word there, you could use 'foes' instead.
This stanza:
quote:
Lives taken swiftly and cruelly,
By ice cruel and heartless, as bad as death,
And some cry, “Find the sorcerers, end this folly!”
They march to war, and with death soon met,
is in contrast very choppy, imho. First, 'cruelly' feels a very choppy word by itself. This is further emphasized by repeating 'cruel' on the next line. Also, imo, the comma and 'and' on the last line add to the number of unneccessary stops.
If you want to edit it, I have some suggestions, but these are pretty crude and more for sparking ideas.
Since you have the rhyme 'folly' on the third line, I don't have any quick suggestions for removing the word 'cruelly'. However, I'd suggest removing the 'cruel' from the second line. I think that line would also flow better if the adjective for ice was preceding it and not following it, by that's just my view:
'By heartless ice, as bad as death'
or if you want to try out other adjectives, just an idea:
'By ruthless ice, as bad as death'
If these suggestions leave the line too short, then you could also keep the original word ording and replace the 'cruel and, as' parts (just an idea as well):
'By ice completely heartless, bad as death'
Regarding the last line, removing the comma + and part would smooth out the choppiness imho, but how to do it? My quick suggestion would be to rephrase:
'They march to war where death will be met'
This is however, far less prophetical than your original. Feel free to disgard it.
This stanza, however
quote:
Vengeful ice and terrible cold,
Cruel frost and dreary mist,
Feared enemies since times of old,
Ready for war, like a great silver-clad fist,
is enchanting and flows beautifully for the first three lines. The last one falls a tad behind and when compared to the ones jusst before it, I found it quite choppy. This is most likely due to the compound modifier 'silver-clad' which is preceded with 'great', building up a pile of adjectives in front of 'fist'. I'd suggest dropping most of them out. Once again, this is totally your call. I'd also suggest changing ready for prepared as the latter is in my opinion a stronger word. Not that you would need any stronger words, since your poem is already full of them...
'Prepared for war like a silver fist,'
As a whole, storywise, I think your poem is very mythical and skillfully composed; it fits to the purpose you made it for. The strict rhyme pattern might've brought some occasional rigidness to it, forcing you to add words or twist word-order for the rhyme. A problem I have stumbled across myself. =P Have you experimented what the poem would look like if there were an occasional non-rhyming last line or something like that to give you more room? I'm also wondering if the end when the fire comes to sweep all away happens a bit fast compered to the long build-up before that, but that is really a very very minor issue, anyways.
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