08-21-2015, 05:14 AM
Hello Sharramon, welcome to Serious Workshopping.
The art of allusion or even pastiche requires a light touch, rather like a quiet hyperlink to another literary work that you may or may not click upon -- it links to knowledge that is not required to understand the main body of the piece, but does enhance it if one is familiar with the reference. Your references, however, are a little more like those flashing pop-ups that insist you pay attention to them and are actually more likely to make one look elsewhere. It is admirable that you have read, enjoyed and attempted to share great literature -- but most people here would have understood your references without footnotes, because we have also read them, and if we haven't, it shouldn't actually matter in a good poem. One can read The Wasteland and love it without having read the seventy-six million other works that Eliot pays homage to within it. The other point I feel I must make about your Ozymandias reference is that by misquoting within quotation marks, you run the risk of irritating those who are familiar with one of the most famous lines in literature. Similarly, mashing it together with the Prometheus line is confused and could easily seem as if both allusions are there merely to draw attention to how well-read the writer is, rather than enhance the poem.
You say "the sky is empty", and yet you go on to say that there are city lights within it. Most people would consider "empty sky" to mean that it is unrelentingly dark -- if there is even a single drop of water in a glass, it is not empty.
Why does the car clutter? Is it a rust-bucket? Has the fender fallen off and is dragging along the road? Otherwise, I'm afraid cars simply don't clutter and it's clearly there just for the sonic link with "mutter", which is also a strange choice. You could just as easily use mumble/ rumble. Trek, too, is not quite right as it does imply a journey by foot, or one of some difficulty. And "some track"? Wouldn't the track be known, since one is driving upon it?
I think your last two lines are where the poem is truly at. You could cut the second stanza without damaging the piece at all, and work with the idea of isolation amid civilisation, or the self-centred city dweller's (blissful) ignorance of surroundings -- but your purpose must be made clear, and it must be yours alone.
The art of allusion or even pastiche requires a light touch, rather like a quiet hyperlink to another literary work that you may or may not click upon -- it links to knowledge that is not required to understand the main body of the piece, but does enhance it if one is familiar with the reference. Your references, however, are a little more like those flashing pop-ups that insist you pay attention to them and are actually more likely to make one look elsewhere. It is admirable that you have read, enjoyed and attempted to share great literature -- but most people here would have understood your references without footnotes, because we have also read them, and if we haven't, it shouldn't actually matter in a good poem. One can read The Wasteland and love it without having read the seventy-six million other works that Eliot pays homage to within it. The other point I feel I must make about your Ozymandias reference is that by misquoting within quotation marks, you run the risk of irritating those who are familiar with one of the most famous lines in literature. Similarly, mashing it together with the Prometheus line is confused and could easily seem as if both allusions are there merely to draw attention to how well-read the writer is, rather than enhance the poem.
You say "the sky is empty", and yet you go on to say that there are city lights within it. Most people would consider "empty sky" to mean that it is unrelentingly dark -- if there is even a single drop of water in a glass, it is not empty.
Why does the car clutter? Is it a rust-bucket? Has the fender fallen off and is dragging along the road? Otherwise, I'm afraid cars simply don't clutter and it's clearly there just for the sonic link with "mutter", which is also a strange choice. You could just as easily use mumble/ rumble. Trek, too, is not quite right as it does imply a journey by foot, or one of some difficulty. And "some track"? Wouldn't the track be known, since one is driving upon it?
I think your last two lines are where the poem is truly at. You could cut the second stanza without damaging the piece at all, and work with the idea of isolation amid civilisation, or the self-centred city dweller's (blissful) ignorance of surroundings -- but your purpose must be made clear, and it must be yours alone.
It could be worse