This is one of my favorite serious poems from you, Kole. It's got lots of nice images that 'press the imaginative play button' as Todd says.
(10-09-2016, 08:44 AM)kolemath Wrote: [ -> ]The naked air ran off -- Naked air is an inventive way of saying dryer weather. Nice. I like 'ran off' because it both describes the haste which which it left, but also it's a nice play on 'run off' which is a water-related phrase.
as the rain clouds drop their water gowns, overflow the river mouth. -- I like water gowns. It doesn't personify the rain as good or bad, but almost elegant in a way. I like the assonance between gowns and mouth. I think that almost personifying the drops by saying 'their' gowns is a nice bit of interest -- I always like a bit of anthropomorphism when talking about the natural world.
The nearby town carved into the land
slides off the bedrock and memory. -- I like the idea of sliding out of memory -- this is a good connection of a concrete detail and a more theoretical notion.
The old woman sails away on shingles, -- I'd say 'An old woman' since you haven't referenced her before. Minor. Again, it's interesting that 'sails away' doesn't feel negative or positive. There's maybe a bit of sadness in sailing away, losing memory, but not anything that feels violent or unjust.
never found, burying debris. -- Buried in debris? It sounds like the woman is burying debris.
More hurricanes this year.
Too much rain
drowned the crop.
They'll pay the higher price
to make up the loss. -- I think that moving from the loss of life and memory to fiscal loss is a bit anticlimactic. But, I don't hate it. Again, it's minor.
Again, I say well done
The imagery is there all through this, I like the lead into those imagery "The naked air ran off as the rain clouds drop their water gowns, overflow the river mouth" but i wonder about the use of the word "and" in this part
The nearby town carved into the land
slides off the bedrock and memory
Maybe "now" or "into" the reason i wonder is, was that your first choice and did it suit the flow on your final edit.
Lovely poem and really great use of words, sadly so true.
It took me a second to piece together the naked air as it being dry. Once I got back this was very clear.
(10-09-2016, 08:44 AM)kolemath Wrote: [ -> ]The naked air ran off -- Ran off seem redundant. Off adds an extra syllable that sounds nice, but wouldn't ran mean the same thing?
as the rain clouds drop their water gowns, overflow the river mouth. Do you need as the or their? Maybe their more than as the. Can you use a more precise word like delta for river mouth? Not sure if you can.
The nearby town carved into the land -- Be good to get rid of into the if possible.
slides off the bedrock and memory. -- Do you need "the"?
The old woman sails away on shingles, -- An or the? This is a great detail.
never found, burying debris.
More hurricanes this year.
Too much rain
drowned the crop.
They'll pay the higher price
to make up the loss. -- Gives a life goes on kind of feeling.
Lots of hurricanes, and I believe sections of Florida are becoming flooded, so this seems like a great poem topic. My critiques were about tightening up language if possible. Thanks for posting.
(10-09-2016, 08:44 AM)kolemath Wrote: [ -> ]The naked air ran off
as the rain clouds drop their water gowns, overflow the river mouth.
This first stanza sets the stage for something serious. I like it.
The nearby town carved into the land
slides off the bedrock and memory.
The old woman sails away on shingles,
never found, burying debris. Going from the big-picture destruction to the loss of a singular human life was a nice thing to do here. To me, at least, it funnels the emotion from the abstract empathy one feels when seeing a disaster to the concrete sadness one feels when bodies of dead people, mangled, are displayed on news screens.
More hurricanes this year.
Too much rain
drowned the crop.
They'll pay the higher price
to make up the loss. Is this higher price money? Or something else? And who is "they"?
Is this poem about Hurricane Matthew?
Stanza 2 is my favourite. The loss of property and homes, then narrowed to the loss of a life was sobering, to say the very least.
Thanks for the comments folks. This is my first attempt at ecopoetry so the last line tries to implicate all people in the consequences without being didactic I hope
Thanks for the comments on conciseness and word accuracy Lizzy Brown and reflection. I was thinking Matthew and Haiti Alec.
trying out one of these alternating verse patterns for this edit..