The Hour of the Wolf

[rowens]

I liked the shape of the original poem. It might not be very important, I'm just saying how I felt about it. The first three lines now lose that shape, though the rest of the poem retains it.

I like what you're trying to do with this. I like the hour of the wolf, which I personally call the Wolfing Hour, the last hour of darkness before the sun begins to rise. And I hope you'll be able to get the poem across with your words, while I have so many ideas about what I would like to do.

The new version still has many of the lines that just lie flat. Lines that aren't really saying anything that anyone couldn't assume for themselves. And lines like:

again to him, who cannot win
nor, evade the wicked claws


He can't win. That could work, it could even stand out. He just can't win. But at the same time other lines like:

Then clouds of screaming woes
let free, disburse to fill the musty air

shine badly on the lesser lines. It feels like you got carried away and lost balance. There's less of that in the new version; but the poem still feels sketchy to me. I mean certain things could feel a little less generic. I do like the simplistic, fairy tale like phrases you have in places throughout the poem. As a whole, though, it just doesn't seem there yet.