Fleur Du Mal
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OKies, rest of the critique (part 2/2) as the response to your request in the workshop thread. Hope Springs Eternal in His Love Imo, this is quite beautiful poem on personal faith in all its simplicity. The only thing bothering me here is that there's no clue why the 'I' in the poem feels that he's in the darkness: quote:
Why must things happen this way? What things? Which way? What is wrong and why does that make him doubt, feel that they are 'utterly mistaken.' When the issues that cause this doubt are left totally in the dark, it takes away from the impact of the problems being washed away, imho. How can the power of the prayer be delivered / illustrated if what it clears is not even hinted at? One little typo: quote:
Hope spring eternal, so they say. An 's' has been accidentally left out. Tears For tears I left a short comment earlier. As to the combination of tears and rain on battlefield, this is just a so familiar image to me that I accidentally find it hard for me to name out all the books I've read it in. However, you could check out Lord of the Rings – The Return of the King, The Battle of The Pelennor Fields: quote:
A great rain came out of the Sea, and it seemed that all things wept for Théoden and Éowyn, quenching the fires in the City with grey tears. There are further references to rain and tears also in the following two chapters, The Pyre of Denethor and The Houses of Healing. Also, one story where it has been used can be readily found even on these forums: check out the start of Crimzon's Myrmidon, Chapter 1 The imagery of the sky mourning in tears of rain is just so powerful one that it'd be odd had it not been used also over an battlefield. I've used it only for an individual myself: quote:
He held her and cried, refusing to believe that she had parted and left him alone. But she hadn't breathed, she grew colder by the minute, and the clouds had taken a darker hue before the heavens joined to the wake, opening up. I'm not saying that there's anything wrong that you used it, it is a good visual and it suits your poem purrfectly. I'm just stating this out because you said you haven't encountered it in poetry nor prose. Sun and Snow: A Tilted Planet Again, I love the imagery here, and the peacefulness of the poem itself. I myself, rested as well as I read it. Going beyond nitpickerish, but in the first stanza, you have movement of the flakes in all other lines except in the second. quote:
A white blanket that on the land did rest. So I read the snow moving and falling, then it's fallen already and motionless on the ground and then it's drifting and moving again. Once again, this is a very nitpicky thing to say, but for me the second line would work better with the first and third if it portrayed the snow coming to rest as it touches down instead of it just lying on the ground, already fallen. Here's one suggestion -> 'A white blanket that on the land came to rest.' One downside of this would of course be, that it'd ruin the repetition of the ending of second line unless the line is changed in all three stanzas. As always, all changes are yours to call, of course. Journey of a Leaf After reading this one I took a peek at what you had written about it in the comments thread. I thought about the possible deeper meaning of dying myself, but actually I enjoy this poem most just through its vivid imagery and the feel of wind and leaves floating in the gusts I'm picking up here while reading. Another possible article left out: quote:
It grasps the branch with frail stem. I suspect that could do with 'a frail stem' or 'its frail stem' but I did already notice your response to my other similar comments, so I guess you chose to leave that article out of here on similar reasons as well and it's fine. Untitled This one I also commented previously. I'll just repeat here what I said, that quote:
Untitled was simply beautiful, simple yet intertwining both the experience of interpreting music and feeling emotion through it with poetry. I felt connecting with this one on several levels. I don't think I can add much to that. =) I do not claim to be a poet Heh, I found this little gem amusingly quirky. The wording/word order of the second stanza goes around quite a detour before the words 'flow out', in connection with the words you used in the previous row, 'meander aimlessly'. The punctuation seems a bit odd in the second stanza, though. Or purrhaps there is a verb missing from the first row? quote:
Something that I do in times of boredom Such as this very instance now. <- no verb in the first row, added 'do', and I'm also wondering if this period would be better off as a comma. When my mind meanders aimlessly <- I think a comma would fit in here as well These words from out my soul do flow. Insanity I guess the poem worked as I am quite confused by it. It feels very much like someone's thoughts were trapped in a circle that lead to no conclusions. Anyways, I think there are two spots with slightly hazy punctuation quote:
But if I think I am insane I am not, but merely could be. Mesuspects a comma would with at the end of the first quoted line, since if this were written out as one sentence on one row, wouldn't it go like this: 'But if I think I am insane, I am not, but merely could be.' quote:
I cannot tell, for don’t you see? That my mind has been consumed By tendrils of insanity. Here I think the question mark would be best placed at the very end of the poem because that's where the question ends. He's not asking the reader whether they in general 'see' or understand something but rather specifically if the understand his mind having been consumed by insanity. At least that's what I think is being asked. I’ll Find No Rest Once again, good, meaningful, strong imagery that makes quite an impact; I indeed am partial to it in poetry. =) I have to agree with ont about the 'restless'-part there though. 'They restless' sounds very peculiar to me. Also, the preceeding sentence seems a bit like a sentence fragment. Although sentence fragments by definition are not necessarily a bad thing in poetry, in my opinion, this makes the stanza a little choppy and unneededly so. So, here's one suggestion for you to consider: 'What once were men, but are no more, Restlessly roam the barren land.' I'm not sure if this break in rhyme is intentional or not: quote:
Alone I roam this barren land. I have no one for company. I know I must do all I can. To free the world from this disease. 'Insanity', 'Mutiny', 'Lunacy' wouldn't probably be the exact words you were looking for, but they'd rhyme (sorta =P) and the horrors of the roaming creatures could also be referenced with those words, imho. Just a suggestion, though. And here's another one, lol. Have you considered using repetition to add more impact to the closing line: 'I’ll find no rest, not till I am dead.' Without the second negation, the comma in the line feels somewhat out of place and unneeded, imo. Grief quote:
My heart with sorrow laden sighs. This seems a tad weird sentence to me. It would seem as if either the preposition 'with' is unneeded or, in case it's a sentence fragment, the words 'sorrow' and 'laden' would be a compound modifier and require a hyphen -> 'My heart sorrow laden sighs.' or 'My heart with sorrow-laden sighs.' quote:
The more I try not to recall. A single tear rolls down my cheek. And to the tear-stained ground it falls. 'The more' would seem to plead for continuance with another 'the more', like 'the more I tried, the more I cried' Now it seems to me as if the rest of that thought went 'poof' and I got sidetracked from the poem as I tried to find where the other 'the more' had vanished. My suggestion would be to edit the quoted lines to: quote:
The more I try not to recall, The more tears rolls down my cheek. And to the tear-stained ground they fall. This would also make the first and third lines rhyme. My last nitpickerish comment on this piece regards the closing stanza: quote:
This unmatchéd pain and sorrow <- is the 'é' there on purpose instead of a regular 'e'? Of burying son or daughter. Since the word 'This' is used to define the pain, which binds directly to losing a daughter, I found it odd to read from the next line 'son or daughter'. I'd use general words 'their child' instead, so that the line would still include also the pain of losing one's son as well, but without distancing from the emotion of losing their daughter as has happened here. If I'm making any sense here, lol. Despite all my butchering of the poem I did above, I found it very heartfelt and painfully beautiful. Thanks for sharing. =) As a general note, and as you might have already seen by reading my comments, I'm not here to offer any 'right' answers or definite errors in your poetry, just my view on them as a reader. I hope you found also this part two or the critique useful to you and I hope our occasional differentiating views and interpretations on your poetry didn't cause you too much headache. =P Thank you very much for taking the time to response to my comments with the depth you did. I really do appreciate it, especially since I was wanting to know your thoughts behind some of your wording choices, etc. I'll response to your response later in a separate post. =) Happy New Year 2010!
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