Caliban

[cjchaffin]

*this is a piece i wrote a few years ago,
after taking a critical theory class where we looked at this character
from The Tempest through a postcolonial lens rather than the old
"Caliban = pure evil" view that i find rather shortsighted
and ignores the context in which Shakespeare wrote his plays.

i am a novice when it comes to rhyme and meter,
so i thought i would try blank verse in tetrameter to get my feet wet:


Good monster of the distant shore,
fear not! I am no Prospero.
I only wish to comfort you
in penance for my life’s regrets.

What would you have me do, dear sir,
to ease the ache of misplaced trust,
to salve the wounds of wizardry?

I’ve no resource you may desire,
no wealth or title to extort;
I trade in verse and images,
creating life from broken words.

My hands will craft a dream supreme,
a gift of vision with no end.
I'll sing to you a lullaby,
caress your brow with feathered quill.

Your tempest is away, good sir.
The time for sleep is now at hand.

[Forever*young]

For starters, I have to admit I am not at all familiar with the character of your poem which means I probably won't appreciate or understand everything you express; nonetheless, I will say that for being a novice when it comes to rhythm/meter, "Caliban" has considerable rhythm. It does not have much rhyming going on, but it still sounds poetic and has a nice flow although if you managed to get some more rhyme in there, I think this poem would be even more awesome. Maybe you could try that when you feel more comfortable with rhyme. In any case, there are a couple tweaks you might want to consider...

*this is a piece i wrote a few years ago,
after taking a critical theory class where we looked at this character
from The Tempest through a postcolonial lens rather than the old
"Caliban = pure evil" view that i find rather shortsighted
and ignores the context in which Shakespeare wrote his plays.

i am a novice when it comes to rhyme and meter,
so i thought i would try blank verse in tetrameter to get my feet wet:


Good monster of the distant shore,
fear not! I am no Prospero.
I only wish to comfort you
in penance for my life’s regrets. (The first two verses seem to rhyme somewhat so when you come to the end (regrets) and there is zero rhyme with "you", it feels like something's off.)

What would you have me do, dear sir, (This stanza has a nice flow. But why is this the only stanza to have three verses? It makes the poem seem unbalanced or random. But maybe that's just me.)
to ease the ache of misplaced trust,
to salve the wounds of wizardry?

I’ve no resource you may desire,
no wealth or title to extort;
I trade in verse and images,
creating life from broken words.

My hands will craft a dream supreme,
a gift of vision with no end.
I'll sing to you a lullaby, (I like how you said "I'll sing to you a lullaby" instead of "I'll sing a lullaby to you". Much more poetic this way!)
caress your brow with feathered quill. (You might want to consider changing the order of the words: "With feathered quill your brow caress" as it gives it more rhythm. Btw, this is my favorite stanza!)

Your tempest is away, good sir.
The time for sleep is now at hand.

Overall, it's definitely a great piece!

[cjchaffin]

thank you. glad you liked it. i originally began this piece trying to rhyme and it just felt too forced, so i abandoned it in favor of blank verse with meter.

[crow]

cjchaffin (and, Lord, I hope that handle gets changed to something easier )
has a fair instinct, here. A lot of my comments are merely amplifications. That said, cjchaffin , go read The Tempest *now*. It was Shakespeare's final play and the only one with a completely novel plot. I recommend the Folger's edition.

Caliban
--I'll be unhappy if this isn't a metaphor. Literature about literature tends to be the result of writers block, and writers block tends to be the result of a writer who has forgotten how to have fun.

Good monster of the distant shore,
--great direct address comma! Would've been easy to mess that up
--"Good monster" directs me immediately to what this poem will be doing
fear not! I am no Prospero.
--Lost me. What would calobam be fearing? Prospero, yeah? Well, say, some version of "Fear not, I can't hurt you." If I know the play, I'll get it, and I'll get it if I don't.
I only wish to comfort you
--misplaced "only." You mean, I assume, "I wish only to comfort you."
in penance for my life’s regrets.
--bad. As is, the line reads, "I'm going to give this monster a shoulder to cry on because life regrets things and must make amends."
What would you have me do, dear sir,
to ease the ache of misplaced trust,
--this is close to nonsense.
to salve the wounds of wizardry?
--this is nonsense, bona fide. I'm damn near certain you mean, "to help you recover from the wounds the wizard caused." That's not what this says.

I’ve no resource you may desire[needs a dash or a colon]
no wealth or title to extort;
--extortion takes an object. Extort from who?
I trade in verse and images,
creating life from broken words.
--this is a bizarre sentence. I just spent 15 mins trying to figure what it might mean, and I could g do it.

My hands will craft a dream supreme,
a gift of vision with no end.
--lots of problems here. Primarily, it's that. "Crafting a supreme dream which is an infinite vision with your hands" sounds more like a grandiose delusion than an actual proposal, and neither grandiosity nor delusion has been a theme so far
I'll sing to you a lullaby, [and?]
--this line is almost 50% redundant. Why not "my lullaby"?

caress your brow with feathered quill.
--you can't caress with a feather. You can tickle, but . . .

Your tempest is away, good sir.
The time for sleep is now at hand.
--nice closer.

[cjchaffin]

thanks crow. just "cj" will be fine in the future

i've read The Tempest many times using different lenses, so to speak,
and i get something different from it each time.

i purposely used blank verse with tetrameter
to give it a little musicality and lilt instead of
coming off prosaic, that might account for some
of the awkward phrasing you highlight.

i'm grateful for the close read and analysis, it makes me want to work harder.

[crow]

d'oh! I meant foreveryoung! all apologies

---

Let me take another go at this. My earlier edit was choppy . . .

[cjchaffin]

haha no worries. i'm all ears. and thumbs.