11-26-2013, 06:45 AM
First: I really enjoyed this, it was fresh and evocative.
We whispered together like children in outer darkness, --- I really like the suggestion of switching it around and opening with 'children of outer darkness'
a world of Absolute Nothing, --- I also like the idea of a full stop here (and I really do have ideas of my own to add, I swear!)
swishes of light penetrating as a knife through crisp blue air, --- I don't love this as it's currently worded - the image itself is great, and really immediately vivid. Part of it is that the rhythm doesn't work for me, or rather doesn't feel considered, if that makes any sense - it works as text, less so as sound.
and us, random beings, the fungal fringes of Creation, --- great line, I really like the halting, stuttering rhythms of the last two lines, especially because they're so symmetrical (three bursts, the last one being longest), and 'fungal fringes of creation' is delicious
caught in our trap, outside God, outside any love but each others'.
We whispered together, and we touched, --- one benefit of keeping the opening as you have it, of course, is this echo here, which I'm quite partial to. But it might still work as an effective call-back even if it doesn't fall in the same position in the line
animate flesh connecting, divisble souls collated
in this outpost of Divinity. The sensitive soul, --- capitalization of Creation and Divinity seems random to me (and to a lesser degree Grace below)
the rational soul, the vegetative soul... --- I don't think you need ellipses, and I find them kind of distracting. Maybe parens if you really want to explicitly set it off? On an unrelated note: as a Classicist, I was super into this Aristotelian reference - even better if its via Aldous Huxley tinged with Richard Burton!
Robert Burton's trinity, conceived as far from Eden
as Grace is from wolves... these three in two became six, --- great use of enjambment, and really fresh and surprising - but somehow clear and meaningful at the same time - comparison
one light flowing out from within, one wholeness,
one crude totality. God's dismembered limbs,
crawling across that sludge of His design, met one another --- another nice use of enjambment
and melded, to form a grotesque animal, a beast in esoteric love.
I quite like this poem. The imagery of the last stanza in particular is precise and interesting. My main suggestion would be to watch your rhythm, revise with an ear to it all. No need to get all formal or iambic pentametery or anything, but like I said above, it feels very textual, and I want more sonic impact.
Thanks for sharing this.
We whispered together like children in outer darkness, --- I really like the suggestion of switching it around and opening with 'children of outer darkness'
a world of Absolute Nothing, --- I also like the idea of a full stop here (and I really do have ideas of my own to add, I swear!)
swishes of light penetrating as a knife through crisp blue air, --- I don't love this as it's currently worded - the image itself is great, and really immediately vivid. Part of it is that the rhythm doesn't work for me, or rather doesn't feel considered, if that makes any sense - it works as text, less so as sound.
and us, random beings, the fungal fringes of Creation, --- great line, I really like the halting, stuttering rhythms of the last two lines, especially because they're so symmetrical (three bursts, the last one being longest), and 'fungal fringes of creation' is delicious
caught in our trap, outside God, outside any love but each others'.
We whispered together, and we touched, --- one benefit of keeping the opening as you have it, of course, is this echo here, which I'm quite partial to. But it might still work as an effective call-back even if it doesn't fall in the same position in the line
animate flesh connecting, divisble souls collated
in this outpost of Divinity. The sensitive soul, --- capitalization of Creation and Divinity seems random to me (and to a lesser degree Grace below)
the rational soul, the vegetative soul... --- I don't think you need ellipses, and I find them kind of distracting. Maybe parens if you really want to explicitly set it off? On an unrelated note: as a Classicist, I was super into this Aristotelian reference - even better if its via Aldous Huxley tinged with Richard Burton!
Robert Burton's trinity, conceived as far from Eden
as Grace is from wolves... these three in two became six, --- great use of enjambment, and really fresh and surprising - but somehow clear and meaningful at the same time - comparison
one light flowing out from within, one wholeness,
one crude totality. God's dismembered limbs,
crawling across that sludge of His design, met one another --- another nice use of enjambment
and melded, to form a grotesque animal, a beast in esoteric love.
I quite like this poem. The imagery of the last stanza in particular is precise and interesting. My main suggestion would be to watch your rhythm, revise with an ear to it all. No need to get all formal or iambic pentametery or anything, but like I said above, it feels very textual, and I want more sonic impact.
Thanks for sharing this.