Ardea herodias

[Deadrise]

Great Blue (rev2)

An ancient creature hunts a stagnant slough
with onyx eyes he peers into the pool
in search of scattered quarry veiled from view.
 
Aloft on bony stilts he strides with grace
inspecting every likely hiding place
on watch for signs of movement out of place.

In time his patient stalking brings reward
prepared, his neck contorts in reflex mode,
one more primeval contest to behold.

Abruptly interrupted by a foe
the creature wary, spews a wretched sound,
a raspy “kraak” before he leaves the ground.

An attempt at smoothing things out both in sound and flow.

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Rev 1

Great Blue

An ancient creature hunts a stagnant slough,
His eyes of onyx peer into the pool
in search of scattered quarry veiled from view.

Aloft on bony stilts he slinks along,
In time his patient stalking brings reward,
His prey by movement gave itself away.

Prepared, his neck contorts in reflex mode,
one more primeval contest to unfold,
abruptly interrupted by a foe.

the creature wary, spews a wretched noise
a raspy “kraak” before he flies away
propelled by mighty wings in weighty beat.

My goal in this exercise was to assemble 9 or more verses written in Iambic Pentameter that made at the least some sense. (at least that was my goal)

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An ancient creature hunts a stagnant slough,
His eyes of onyx peer into the pool
in search of scattered quarry veiled from view.

In time his patient stalking brings reward,
His prey by movement gives itself away.

Prepared his neck contorts in reflex mode,
as bony hinged stilts begin to tense
one more primeval contest to behold.

At once interrupted spooked by a noise
the creature wary throats an ominous noise,
a gos a kraak before he flies away.

This poem was composed with the intent of learning meter.

[Brownlie]

Warning: I'm a schlub.

An ancient creature hunts a stagnant slough, - This line seems pretty good as far as meter goes.
His eyes of onyx peer into the pool - The meter seems ok here, but eyes of onyx is padding or inverted or whatever one chooses to call it. His onyx eyes saves you a syllable, at the very least.
in search of scattered quarry veiled from view.
In time his patient stalking brings reward,
His prey by movement gives itself away.
Prepared his neck contorts in reflex mode,
one more primeval contest to behold.
At once interrupted spooked by a noise
the creature wary throats an ominous noise,
a gos a kraak brfore he flies away.

This poem was composed with the intent of learning meter.

[Deadrise]

Hello Brownlie,

Based on your feedback I reworked
His eyes of onyx peer into the pool

This is what I came up with
His onxy eyes they peer into the pool

Does that sound/work better in your opinion?

Thanks,
John

[Brownlie]

Hello Brownlie,

Based on your feedback I reworked
His eyes of onyx peer into the pool

This is what I came up with
His onxy eyes they peer into the pool

Does that sound/work better in your opinion?

Thanks,
John

His onyx eyeballs? The problem with "they" (In my opinion) is that it doesn't add much except maybe adding a frightened tone in a speaker who has to return to the referent of the eyes. If it was me, I would rework it somehow.

[ellajam]

Hi, deadrise, inTO is problematic, I go INto the the house. This is exactly the kind of error I make all the time, it is so easy to hear it as correct, but if you isolate the word it is poetic wishful thinking, something I indulge in myself way too often. I'm a beginner at this but I think I'm correct in this case.

Oh, and I'd prefer the title Blue Heron or something else, I don't mind googling at all but I don't know what you gain by making the title a different language than the poem.

[Deadrise]

Hello Ellajam,

Thank you for the feedback, and for your time.

Hi, deadrise, inTO is problematic, I go INto the the house. This is exactly the kind of error I make all the time, it is so easy to hear it as correct, but if you isolate the word it is poetic wishful thinking, something I indulge in myself way too often. I'm a beginner at this but I think I'm correct in this case.

You are correct indeed. I caught that error yesterday while working with the piece (my heart sank for a moment) In have not been able to come up with a correction as of yet. On the bright side it still flows well enough for now when read aloud.

Oh, and I'd prefer the title Blue Heron or something else, I don't mind googling at all but I don't know what you gain by making the title a different language than the poem.

I am thinking Great Blue may be an improvement.

Take care,
John

[Erthona]

If your goal was 12 lines of IP more or less you succeeded. There are errors like has been pointed out like "into", however with my initial read it was not disruptive. If it isn't disruptive, let it stay. This line was problematic:

"one more primeval contest to unfold"

As neither "one" nor "more" are accented syllables it makes the line start weak.
___________________________________________________________________________________
There does appear to be some tense disagreement:

"In time his patient stalking brings reward,
His prey by movement gave itself away."

brings/ gave   no  --> brings/gives   yes

_______________________________________________________________________________
Overall I think the biggest problem is that the lines seem to be a struggle. There is no smoothness, the words seem to be fighting themselves.
Notice the following line:

"Prepared, his neck contorts in reflex mode,"

If one were talking normally, such a line would never be uttered. It would read either,

Now prepared, his neck contorts in reflex mode,  Of course this puts the action after the point where it was supposed to be already accomplished and so should read:

Preparing to strike  his neck contorts in reflex mode.

Of course what I think was meant was:

Prepared, his neck contorts in reflex mode and strikes at the prey.

This is a difficult thing for people to realize when starting to write in IP as they become so focused on the metrical pattern, they forget that they need to write in sentences that make sense by following the normal rules that apply to sentences. One does not escape the rules of grammar, and syntax simply because he is writing in IP.  

The title made me think of some female related to Herod as his second wife's name was "Herodias." After that brief moment of confusion. I quickly revised what I thought the title meant, but by then the damage was done. A title should not be something that causes confusion, it generally should be free of ambiguity. There are of course exception such as when the title is a double entendre. The general idea is that the title will not be a stumbling block for the reader. It is often easy for the writer to assume that the reader has the knowledge he has, especially when it comes to nomenclature that he knows well, or uses often as does all the people with whom he associates. It becomes easy to generalize that to the rest of the world. This is what happens when a person is part of a sub-culture, as are most people. The writer must be aware of this and compensate accordingly. In another vein, if a person knows the word heron, or here, "Great Blue Heron," but does not know the Latin classification name, he should not then go look up to use as a title in order to give his poem (in his mind) more gravitas (I'm not saying this is you, mainly I am including it for others who might read this). Or as my great aunt use to say, "People shouldn't go gettin' all highfalutin just to impress other people; it just makes them look like damn fools." 

Look forward to your future post.

Dale

[Deadrise]

If your goal was 12 lines of IP more or less you succeeded. Its a start

There are errors like has been pointed out like "into", however with my initial read it was not disruptive. If it isn't disruptive, let it stay. I agree!

This line was problematic:

"one more primeval contest to unfold" I replaced unfold with behold, I think it fits betters?  Need to think about the beginning of the line some?

As neither "one" nor "more" are accented syllables it makes the line start weak.
___________________________________________________________________________________
There does appear to be some tense disagreement:

"In time his patient stalking brings reward,
His prey by movement gave itself away." I dumped the whole line, couldn't get it to work

brings/ gave   no  --> brings/gives   yes

_______________________________________________________________________________
Overall I think the biggest problem is that the lines seem to be a struggle. There is no smoothness, the words seem to be fighting themselves.
Notice the following line:

"Prepared, his neck contorts in reflex mode,"

If one were talking normally, such a line would never be uttered. It would read either,

Now prepared, his neck contorts in reflex mode,  Of course this puts the action after the point where it was supposed to be already accomplished and so should read:

Preparing to strike  his neck contorts in reflex mode.

Of course what I think was meant was:                Prepared (properly expectant) when he receives his reward, his neck reacts by instinct making to strike.

Prepared, his neck contorts in reflex mode and strikes at the prey.

A title should not be something that causes confusion, it generally should be free of ambiguity. There are of course exception such as when the title is a double entendre. The general idea is that the title will not be a stumbling block for the reader. It is often easy for the writer to assume that the reader has the knowledge he has, especially when it comes to nomenclature that he knows well, or uses often as does all the people with whom he associates. It becomes easy to generalize that to the rest of the world. This is what happens when a person is part of a sub-culture, as are most people. The writer must be aware of this and compensate accordingly. In another vein, if a person knows the word heron, or here, "Great Blue Heron," but does not know the Latin classification name, he should not then go look up to use as a title in order to give his poem (in his mind) more gravitas (I'm not saying this is you, mainly I am including it for others who might read this). Or as my great aunt use to say, "People shouldn't go gettin' all highfalutin just to impress other people; it just makes them look like damn fools."  That exactly what i did  

This is a difficult thing for people to realize when starting to write in IP as they become so focused on the metrical pattern, they forget that they need to write in sentences that make sense by following the normal rules that apply to sentences. One does not escape the rules of grammar, and syntax simply because he is writing in IP.

I am very new to "attempting" poetry and even newer to meter. So far my attempts at converting a free form piece into Iambic meter was akin to pounding a large round ball into a small square hole. I finally got it to fit but there are still some filling and sanding to do.  I will say that all in all it has been a wonderful experience.

Overall I think the biggest problem is that the lines seem to be a struggle. There is no smoothness, the words seem to be fighting themselves. I agree

Based on your feedback I gave it another whack:

Great Blue (rev2)

An ancient creature hunts a stagnant slough
with onyx eyes he peers into the pool (eyes of onyx)
in search of scattered quarry veiled from view.
 
Aloft on boney stilts he strides with grace
inspecting every likely hiding place (new line)
on watch for signs of movement out of place. (new line)

In time his patient stalking brings reward
prepared, his neck contorts in reflex mode,
one more primeval contest to behold. (unfold)

Abruptly interrupted by a foe
the creature wary, spews a wretched sound, (noise)
a raspy “kraak” before he leaves the ground. (flies away)

_____________________________________________________________________

An ancient creature hunts a stagnant slough,
His eyes of onyx peer into the pool     (onyx eyes)
in search of scattered quarry veiled from view.

Aloft on bony stilts he slinks along, (strides with grace)

In time his patient stalking brings reward,
His prey by movement gave itself away.

Prepared, his neck contorts in reflex mode,
one more primeval contest to unfold, (behold)
abruptly interrupted by a foe.

the creature wary, spews a wretched noise (sound)
a raspy “kraak” before he flies away (leaves the ground)
propelled by mighty wings in weighty beat.



Look forward to your future post. Thank you for your informative feedback, it motivated me to try harder.

Take care,
John

[Rogue Yun]

Great Blue (rev2)
In time his patient stalking brings reward
prepared, his neck contorts in reflex mode,
one more primeval contest to behold.

I am not perfect at interpretation, but I get the image of a cat pouncing at a bird. Please forgive me if I am wrong! I consider this poem one of the better ones I've read. Very powerful language that leaves me thinking about the hunt and the hunted. The stanza I have quoted above I consider one of the weaker ones. I feel "reflex mode" just doesn't sound as powerful as the other lines and doesn't do the poem justice, but I will leave a disclaimer saying I don't think I could do this poem justice by critique. Well done! I like this one a lot.

Thank you for critiquing, but on the note "I don't think I could do this poem justice by critique", here we consider that you are doing an injustice by not offering critique.  This site is not built on compliments, but on solid feedback -- which need not be negative.  Please read this thread and some of the others around the site that assist you in providing helpful critiques.  Welcome to the site/ Admin