11-27-2012, 05:03 AM
Oh dear, I think I'm going to be very unpopular - It seems I chose the wrong poem for my first critique, which is a pity as the poet can handle words very well; and there are some truly inspired lines conjouring up some very lively images, and despite my misgivings, I smiled all the way through, contriving to, inwardly, read it in a cod Robert Newton "Long John Silver" accent - The conceit is very well sustained.
Lines like this lift the spirit:
They seized the helm. Ditched the cargo,
and broke the mast as a trade embargo.
When all was lost; she breathed her last.
Then to the sharks the crew were cast. - Rip-roaring stuff, lovely rhythm, but
“What now of those who need to sup,
Beneath this roof, take from our cup?” - is a couplet straight from Omar Khayyam
Having tripped over the tautology in the first line I was then greeted by a poetic style which would have been passé in 1800. There is a core of a good poem in there struggling to emerge from between the inversions and anachronisms. If one is writing a poem about an earlier age, it is neither neccessary nor desirable to try and mimic the prose or poetic style of the century in which the poem is set as it is liable to become a pastiche, and the contrivances used to "antique it" impose themselves over the real poem and may obscure its true worth.
Of course, I could be totally wrong, and this was meant to be a sort of Pirates of the Carribean pastiche, but I would rather it were written in more contemporary language.
Lines like this lift the spirit:
They seized the helm. Ditched the cargo,
and broke the mast as a trade embargo.
When all was lost; she breathed her last.
Then to the sharks the crew were cast. - Rip-roaring stuff, lovely rhythm, but
“What now of those who need to sup,
Beneath this roof, take from our cup?” - is a couplet straight from Omar Khayyam
Having tripped over the tautology in the first line I was then greeted by a poetic style which would have been passé in 1800. There is a core of a good poem in there struggling to emerge from between the inversions and anachronisms. If one is writing a poem about an earlier age, it is neither neccessary nor desirable to try and mimic the prose or poetic style of the century in which the poem is set as it is liable to become a pastiche, and the contrivances used to "antique it" impose themselves over the real poem and may obscure its true worth.
Of course, I could be totally wrong, and this was meant to be a sort of Pirates of the Carribean pastiche, but I would rather it were written in more contemporary language.