posted
Hey, folks. This is a first for me...I've never asked for feedback on a poem before (not that I've written very many, and those that I have written are poor attempts, at best).
I may incorporate this one into a story, or use it as a template for one...or both. It's vaugely 'fantasy' in tone, with hints of a near-Herbertian fascination with the desert. Ack, I'll just let you read the excerpt and draw your own conclusions.
Simple? Yes. Mediocre? Probably. But it's not meant to be long or complex...just to communicate specific imagery to the reader.
So? Any thoughts?
Inkwell ------------------ "The difference between a writer and someone who says they want to write is merely the width of a postage stamp." -Anonymous
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No...at least, I don't think it's a typo. The thought progression does run backward to fit the rhyme scheme (or rather, the rhyme scheme runs backward to fit the thought progression...whatever). If you ignore line 6 for a moment and focus on lines 5 and 7 (except the "with hide nor hair,/Or leaf" part) while connecting the two em-dash analog pauses, the grammatical reasoning is clear:
"Whose embrace stone, and tree, and bone cannot long bear...without a refuge stout."
Can you see it? If I put 'Who' instead of 'Whose' there it wouldn't make structural sense, and I haven't been able to come up with something else that fits the rhyme scheme.
Inkwell ------------------ "The difference between a writer and someone who says they want to write is merely the width of a postage stamp." -Anonymous
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The first stanza is really excellent, with natural meter and rhyme. I'm sure you've read it aloud, and see what I mean. But the second stanza falters and starts to feel forced.
Your beats are thrown off by "Whose embrace stone..." which wants to read, because of the first stanza "whose EMbrace STONE..." (caps for stresses) But it doesn't make sense when read aloud, because the natural stress in the word "embrace" is on the second syllable. The rest of the stanza struggles to get back to the easy meter of the first, but suffers because the first line already made the reader slip.
The second line of the second stanza is confusing, until you get to the third and fourth lines. I think some rearrangement would help.
I can definitely see this fitting really well into a fantasy work.
I'm no fan of the stuff, so taking that into account and that I'm not familiar with the rules of poetic license, I'll add my agreement to the confusion of "Whose embrace stone,"
After stumbling there, an re-reading it a bit, I thought it seemed readable with "Whose embrace, stone," though maybe that was just because I figured it out. Even then while I think it flows for readability, I'm lost about "whose embrace" and the subsequent nouns (stone, tree, bone). What is a stone/tree/bone embrace? I'm confused (which is the standard result poetry has on me).
I ask because the rhyming is so pronounced, I had to read it several times to get the meaning of the poem. The first time all I picked up on were the rhymes, and the second time I just stumbled over the wording.
My feeling is that if you need it to rhyme, because of the context for example, then that's fine, but in my mind, rhyming poetry makes me think of ye olde poets of yore
Also, when I read rhyming poetry, as I said, the rhyme can often dominate, especially so in short lines and with such prominent and heavy use. I get into a cadence, and almost start to chant the poem.
posted
^^^ Actually, I was going for a more antiquated tone to begin with, since the story I'm envisioning will be set in a fantasy world, the focal civilization analogous to ancient Egypt. I very much like the fact that you almost started to chant the poem in your mind. I can use that (if it's actually a general tendency and not an isolated result of the rhyme scheme) to shape the tone of the story, religion(s) involved, magic, etc.
I'm wondering if Kathleen will mind my posting a revision, since none of the 13 line-related rules mention poetry. This being a short piece, it fits in its entirety into an 11 line fiction framework (14 shorter 'half lines' of poetry). I think I recall others posting flash fiction that was complete in less than 13 lines, so I'll just go ahead and trim something later if Kathleen says so (or, more likely, she'll do the trimming and unintentionally make me feel guilty).
----------------------------------------------------------------- Under the feet and beating heat Of Helion’s might and heaven’s light Lie coarsened hands of shifting sands, Whose barest touch makes heroes hush.
The strongest fail where they prevail; In endless black these hands attack With winds’ embrace, and fast encase All flesh below in clouds of woe.
They scour bare the hide of hair As Man and beast become a feast, Then disappear with wordless leer At foolish pride, now cast aside.
Thus bleached remains the Gauntlet gains… Sad omens of a desert’s pains. -----------------------------------------------------------------
Better? Worse? Perhaps it's something in-between. As I said, poetry has never been my forte (which makes this experiment all the more challenging).
Inkwell ----------------- "The difference between a writer and someone who says they want to write is merely the width of a postage stamp." -Anonymous
posted
This one is a bit more improved because now there's a sense of story going on, and I found that it made it easier to read this than the last one.
However, I got confused yet again in the second stanza. "The strongest fail where they prevail;" who's they? After I read it the second time, I knew that you meant the sands, but the problem was that I had to reread it. The desert is singular, and that's the antagonist I had in mind. When you said they, I was wondering who else was attacking the heroes.
posted
Gahhhh! I must be cursed or something, because that stanza keeps haunting me. Or rather, what seems to be a stubborn ambiguity that I thought I'd finally worked out.
Would this be clearer? I'm basically rearranging lines and playing with the wording.
--------------------------- With endless black these hands attack; Fell winds encase in their embrace The strongest soul, and swallow whole All flesh below with clouds of woe. ---------------------------
Inkwell ----------------- "The difference between a writer and someone who says they want to write is merely the width of a postage stamp." -Anonymous
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If you want the reader to feel like this is a poem from antiquity, or similar to one, perhaps you shouldn't use the extremely tight meter and almost obsessive rhyming scheme.
The thing is, I can't imagine for a moment that this poem is from antiquity. I'm too used to the fact that when you translate a poem, you must choose between preserving the exact semantics of the original and following a lyric scheme.
Not that it's impossible, particularly if you use several key words from the original language to make the rhyme work. Of course, that depends on those words having some meaning to a modern reader. But with your verse, I get the impression that the words are chosen, not for their exact fidelity to the original meanings, but for the simple face that they happen to rhyme in English.
Every single line makes it impossible for me to believe the poem was originally written in some other language, or at least to believe that this poem is remotely faithful to the meaning of the original. You also need to consider that rhyming in English is both more difficult and more noticible than in most other languages that are less etymologically and phonetically diverse. Because English is a mishmash of words borrowed from hundreds of other languages, this isn't surprising. But it does mean that we normally don't end up rhyming a lot when we speak naturally. In most other languages, making your sentiment rhyme isn't a great accomplishment that takes any particular effort, often the language structure forces sentances with similar modes to sound somewhat similar in the first place.
Now, it isn't impossible that an "ancient" civilization would have developed from a culture that spoke a mongrel language like ours, or even that the language would have successfully resisted the inevitable efforts of priests and scholars to force it into a set structure (grammarians have been fighting a losing battle with English for a couple of hundred years now, I don't see the situation turning around). But if you reveal that information to the reader, you want to do it on your own terms. This poem is just too impossible to imagine as the natural result of translation from an ancient tongue.
posted
Ah. So, basically it's too heavy-handed to function believably in any historical context (however analogous) that does not contain both a modern and rediculously strict metrical schema. Okay. Now I've gotta think of a solution if I want to actually use this in conjunction with fiction.
Ugh.
It almost sounds like something Yoda would say if he'd been a character in The Odyssey. Not that I'm saying it's up to Homer's standards (perhaps Homer Simpson's)...the whole point is, it's obviously not.
Ah, well. I'll have to think on it some more.
*Strikes 'Le Penseur' Pose*
Inkwell ----------------- "The difference between a writer and someone who says they want to write is merely the width of a postage stamp." -Anonymous
posted
From one poet to another, well done. I too was confused with the second stanza of the first draft, but your revision was great. I really liked it. I say toss it into a story somewhere. -Wren
Posts: 346 | Registered: Feb 2006
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posted
I also say use it. It's good. The last revision, especially. Actually, it's VERY good.
If you are creating a fantasy world, does it have to be a given assumption that English would not be the native language? Further, if English is not part of the world you create, then everything you write and everything your characters say is translation. But you don't necessarily want it to LOOK like translation, because that's hard to read.
So songs and poems should look like songs and poems...including meter and rhyme, because those devices were hallmarks of early poetry. (Have you read Isaac Asimov's editorial "Poetry" on the Asimov's website?)
posted
If the "fantasy" milieu is thinly disguised post-apocalyptic setting, I'd buy English.
Otherwise, I wouldn't. The poem you've written isn't bad or anything, it just doesn't seem to have any place in the story you described. There are lots of good examples of ancient poetry reliably translated into English. You should go to those sources rather than imitating poetry that was originally written in English.
posted
Also be aware that poetic and rhyming conventions differ from culture to culture and era to era. Your invented culture could have a completely different standard for poetry than our modern one, one that makes the poem look more like a Haiku or senryuu than a sonnet, for example.
It's up to you, but I'd like to see a completely convincing and original (okay, maybe not completely original) invention of poetry for your culture. Did ancient Egyptians have a poetic tradition? Perhaps you could borrow from their near neighbors to find some conventions that will ring true.
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