05-04-2013, 07:35 PM
(05-04-2013, 06:36 AM)Brownlie Wrote: Brugmansia sanguineaWhat this poem needs, I think, is focus and drive. It's all very messy at the moment, attempting to evoke a classical atmosphere with little sense of structure or rhythm but more just an old-seeming vocabulary. Decide what this poem's about, how many verses it should have, how the narrative thread will roll from A - Z etc. You do have a lot of good individual lines and images here. They just need to be a married to a solid story/idea. My critique is all JMHO, of course. Thank you for the read
Weeping bell
Laden with moribund tears
Poison weeping bells a melancholy hell
A spectral seer This verse may be stronger and more flowing if you remove one or two adjectives. "Moribund" and "melancholy" aren't needed, for instance, as their nouns already imply them.
Stilled sorrow of the weeping bell
Tears caught in time
Moanings of a Belle
Solemn clangor, a tolling chime A problem with the poem so far is that it doesn't evoke much of a narrative. It feels like a list of adjectives and nouns without much connective tissue. Some of the individual phrases in this verse are good, though. I like "stilled sorrow". I also like the contrast between "bell" and "Belle".
To chant the rhythm in the wind
Howling and sighing as the rustling leaves hiss Good line.
A weeping ovary to birth green fruit spined Is "spined" needed?
Held by brambles weeping bells await an insect kiss
From these bells I have heard hell
Adders hissing in the windswept leaves Great line.
Vain satanic hope in tears of this bell Also good.
I would eat your spiny fruit with delirium in seeds Is "in seeds" needed? How can the delirium be in the seeds? Or is "in seeds" being used as a verb, unit of measurement etc.?
What spines did rend the flowers open? Nicely violent line.
Revealing lipstick smeared across your lips
Crimson lust of nightwinged gropes
Lolling tears will never drip
I must pick this bloody flower
Smeared in globs of lipstick
All the other boys will glower
Such power in this flower unpicked Rhyming "power" with "flower" is kind of corny. This and the previous verse remind me of how D. H. Lawrence compared women to figs in "Fig".
I have rolled you in a ball
Pills of tears to tear my strife from life Rhyming "strife" with "life" always makes me wince. Also, whose life? I may be nitpicking here, but it sounds like the narrator intends to remove his strife from all life on Earth, as though he's God.
Risked my death to be enthralled
In Delirium to spice the night Why is "Delirium" capitalised?
Such fecund tears of this Weeping Bell Why is "Weeping Bell" now capitalised?
Pregnant with such dreams and promise
Like a pitcher plant ending in my death knell How can a plant end in a death knell? That's probably nitpicking again.
Portentous in your weeping I tear at your bodice
[Image: http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=Brug...RM=HDRSC2#]
"We believe that we invent symbols. The truth is that they invent us; we are their creatures, shaped by their hard, defining edges." - Gene Wolfe

