Street Beat

[Erthona]

This seems very rhyme driven to the detriment of the poem. There is a lot of repetition. I was not that impressed with I Know "Why The Caged Bird Sings" by Maya Angelou, alluding to it twice and attempting to build a "ghetto equals meadow" metaphor causes the poem to crash under its own weight. Although not particularly mainstream there are a number of fairly trite expressions such as

"pounding pavement"
"pushing pestilence"

Despite that, I find the first stanza works fairly well rhythmically and sonically, and seems very different compared to the two stanzas that follow it. It seems as though the writers inspiration him through the first stanza, but then the next two stanzas lack that inspiration. It is though the poem is the first stanza, and then commentary follows with the next two.

Although there is good in this, a primary difference between poetry and rap, is rap is driven by the rhyme, and the words around the rhyme do not have to make a lot of sense, only pseudo-sense. In poetry the words can't be senseless or repetitive simply for the sake of the rhyme. It is a similar difference between poetry and song lyrics.

Anyway, welcome to the site,

Best,


Dale