Madeleine

[Erthona]

The idea of the "false lover" has been around for a very long time and has been approached in multiple ways. I was just reading a book I've had for many years, and poke at it from time to time to see if it's dead. It is called "Traditional British Ballads," and considering the writing which is easier to read than Chaucer, but less easier than Spenser, I would surmise the ballad "Sir Randall" at least in this version is probably from the 15th century. So at least for 600 years the "false lover" theme has been around. It has been done, and done, and done, then over done, then done some more. I find nothing in this poem that comes to the levels of the better poems of this style. It is bland, unoriginal, lacking in poetic tropes, and its use of white space is incomprehensibly. It lacks any rhythmic quality. The words are overly simplistic and evoke nothing. There are no strong images. It exposes the speaker as being fairly shallow although I suspect that was not intentional. One could find very similar pieces on any of the hundreds of the vanity sites that masquerade as poetry sites. At any given time I suspect there are hundreds if not thousands of very similar poems floating around the internet aether at any given moment. On top of that the writer seems to be frightened of using periods and still following the custom of capping the start of every line, which was put to bed over 60 years ago. The only reason to use the style is pure affectation as it adds nothing to the poem. The only positive I can see is that everything is spelled correctly. I would suggest for the writer in the future to write something other than a Love Poem, as they are beyond a doubt the most difficult poetry, along with religious poetry, to write.
So if you are disappointed that your poem got a poor critique you can think of it in two ways. You can pretend I'm just some old crazy loon who doesn't know what the hell he's talking about, and wait around for some soft touches to tell you they think it is wonderful and believe them, or you can try your hand at another type of poem and see if you do better. who knows maybe you will. I would suggest searching for the truth is much more difficult than your poem implies.

welcome to the site,


Dale