Version 2 (pher-o-moned):

My reckless foot uncovers butter-hued
caviar, cached in chambered soil. Thorn-jawed
soldiers advance, their mound blushing. Imbued
with pheromoned rage, the garnet pseudopod
swarms up my leg and wreaks a stinging pox.
I dance, spout smut, and brush them off my socks.


Version 1:

My reckless foot uncovers butter-hued
caviar, cached in chambered soil. Thorn-jawed
soldiers advance, their mound blushing. Imbued
with phermoned rage, the garnet pseudopod
swarms up my leg and wreaks a stinging pox.
I dance, spout smut, and brush them off my socks.

This piece goes from disgusting to downright nasty as it rapidly envelopes the reader Svan, just like the aggressive arthropods themselves! Nice job and I like the alliteration. I tell people that we have fire ants in New England, but they don't believe me. I have experienced this menace, here and in Florida. Your poem is vivid and effective.

Pheromone is misspelled and sounds better as a noun, as it should be. My second critique would be on the seemingly random line breaks or enjambment used that doesn't serve the poetry or the drama herein. Perhaps follow the natural line breaks or create more suspense with aptly placed ones. Something like:

My reckless foot
uncovers butter-hued caviar,
cached in chambered soil.
Thorn-jawed soldiers advance,
their mound blushing.

Imbued with pheromone rage,
the garnet pseudopod
swarms up my leg
and wreaks a stinging pox.

This scientist/artist/poet liked your piece a lot /Chris

Pher-O-moned! Doh! Now I have to fix the iambic pentameter unless I want it to be "loose". Note to self: when the online editor puts a red, squiggly line under a word, you might want to re-check it.

The line breaks are what they are because I was aiming for a sestet (six-liner) with an ababcc rhyme scheme. Maybe my enjambment was too aggressive and the rhyme doesn't stick out enough. I'll wait and see if anyone else thinks the enjambment is counter-productive.

However, I'm going to keep "pheromoned" as a verb, since I was thinking of pheromone as a parallel of perfume, which I've seen used as a verb; perfume, perfumed; pheromone, pheromoned.

Thanks for reading and replying,
Scott

(09-26-2013, 12:50 PM)svanhoeven Wrote:  Pher-O-moned! Doh! Now I have to fix the iambic pentameter unless I want it to be "loose". Note to self: when the online editor puts a red, squiggly line under a word, you might want to re-check it.

The line breaks are what they are because I was aiming for a sestet (six-liner) with an ababcc rhyme scheme. Maybe my enjambment was too aggressive and the rhyme doesn't stick out enough. I'll wait and see if anyone else thinks the enjambment is counter-productive.

However, I'm going to keep "pheromoned" as a verb, since I was thinking of pheromone as a parallel of perfume, which I've seen used as a verb; perfume, perfumed; phoeromone, pheromoned.

Thanks for reading and replying,
Scott

You know what you want and what you are doing Scott. Pheromoned works for me.

This is very well written, and yet I'm not sure what you were really intending to communicate with this image of an insect attack.

(09-27-2013, 12:42 AM)NewJerseyMan99 Wrote:  This is very well written, and yet I'm not sure what you were really intending to communicate with this image of an insect attack.

I guess since my previous poems are narratives, I wanted to try a "nature scene" poem that's sort of a snapshot of a common experience in the Southern US. Are you thinking it needs some kind of "hook" at the end, i.e. being only descriptive doesn't cut it, so the imagery needs to be a relevant metaphor for something else? I don't yet know the answer to that question.

(09-26-2013, 01:37 AM)svanhoeven Wrote:  Version 2 (pher-o-moned):

My reckless foot uncovers butter-hued
caviar, cached in chambered soil. Thorn-jawed
soldiers advance, their mound blushing. Imbued
with pheromoned rage, the garnet pseudopod
swarms up my leg and wreaks a stinging pox.
I dance, spout smut, and brush them off my socks.

for me, much of the phrasing seeks only to obfuscate the image without correlating back to any central metaphor.

Examples:

butter-hued caviar? - you found fish eggs? no o o o you found ant eggs, you present caviar as an image, but it is making the phrasing more complex without adding anything. I search the rest of the poem for some alternate meaning or reason for calling ant eggs caviar and can't find it. Disappointing.

"garnet pseudopod"
"pheromoned rage"
"thorn-jawed"

all of these seem like pointlessly complicating and distracting rather than being additive and saying more with less like good poetry should.

Thanks for posting.

(09-27-2013, 04:17 AM)milo Wrote:  for me, much of the phrasing seeks only to obfuscate the image without correlating back to any central metaphor.

OK, that's two votes for needing a metaphor. I guess I need to read more descriptive nature poetry to get a handle on including a metaphor to make it relevant to the reader.

Examples:

butter-hued caviar? - you found fish eggs? no o o o you found ant eggs, you present caviar as an image, but it is making the phrasing more complex without adding anything. I search the rest of the poem for some alternate meaning or reason for calling ant eggs caviar and can't find it. Disappointing.

They always looked like a light-yellow caviar to me. I stretched the meaning of the word too far I suppose, though sometimes people refer to escamoles as "ant caviar".

"garnet pseudopod"
"pheromoned rage"
"thorn-jawed"

all of these seem like pointlessly complicating and distracting rather than being additive and saying more with less like good poetry should.

Noted.

Thanks for posting.

True story about "ant caviar"- my workstation sits next to an exterior wall, and sometimes fire ants form a trail to a dropped crumb or something. One day, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a whitish mound on top of my laptop's power brick, which was resting on the floor. Upon closer inspection, it was covered with fire ants who were piling their eggs and larvae on top of it. They weren't bringing any soil with them, which would have made for a very strange mound.

Before I doused the area with bug spray, I decided to turn off the power strip that the laptop was plugged into. The ants immediately scattered as if a hypnotizing spell had been broken, and started grabbing their brood and taking it back outside. It makes you wonder if they use variations in the earth's magnetic field to pick mound sites.

Anyhoo, maybe I should've written the poem about that instead.

(09-26-2013, 01:37 AM)svanhoeven Wrote:  Version 2 (pher-o-moned):

My reckless foot uncovers butter-hued
caviar, cached in chambered soil. Thorn-jawed
soldiers advance, their mound blushing. Imbued
with pheromoned rage, the garnet pseudopod
swarms up my leg and wreaks a stinging pox.
I dance, spout smut, and brush them off my socks. The and them clashes


Version 1:

My reckless foot uncovers butter-hued
caviar, cached in chambered soil. Thorn-jawed
soldiers advance, their mound blushing. Imbued
with phermoned rage, the garnet pseudopod
swarms up my leg and wreaks a stinging pox.
I dance, spout smut, and brush them off my socks.

I value the effort in this. It mixes veracity verse with mirth verse in an almost cryptic way...but what the hell is a garnet PSEUDOPOD doing in this poem? Shome mishsteak, shurely? Polypod if anything
Best,
tectak

(09-27-2013, 08:18 AM)tectak Wrote:  I value the effort in this. It mixes veracity verse with mirth verse in an almost cryptic way

I think the difference between the beginning and the end of the poem is a transition of scale. At the ant's scale, they're a fearsome, consuming mass, but at our scale they're usually just a nuisance, so it gets lighter at the end.

Quote:The and them clashes
...
but what the hell is a garnet PSEUDOPOD doing in this poem? Shome mishsteak, shurely? Polypod if anything

When I see fire ants swarming, especially in a trail, it sometimes looks to me like an appendage of a fluid creature, such as an amoeba. The garnet pseudopod is made up of them. Though, if I have to explain then the poem has probably gone wrong.

(09-27-2013, 10:30 AM)svanhoeven Wrote:  

(09-27-2013, 08:18 AM)tectak Wrote:  I value the effort in this. It mixes veracity verse with mirth verse in an almost cryptic way

I think the difference between the beginning and the end of the poem is a transition of scale. At the ant's scale, they're a fearsome, consuming mass, but at our scale they're usually just a nuisance, so it gets lighter at the end.

Quote:The and them clashes
...
but what the hell is a garnet PSEUDOPOD doing in this poem? Shome mishsteak, shurely? Polypod if anything

When I see fire ants swarming, especially in a trail, it sometimes looks to me like an appendage of a fluid creature, such as an amoeba. The garnet pseudopod is made up of them. Though, if I have to explain then the poem has probably gone wrong.

...in which case I blame my laterally thinking self! It is good enough! Maybe a pseudomonopod would have covered my inadequacy.
Excellent.
Best,
tectak

I wish I could just for once do a detailed critique on a poem on this forum, but to be honest, you guys are all so good it is difficult to do anything other than praise---so here I am once again. I LOVE the extended sexual metaphor here, it made me giggle, even though, having been attacked by these beasts, I know it is anything but funny. Still, this is an example of smart writing in my book. Loved it fully!

bena