The Honey Mimics (3700 words)

[Erthona]

At the moment I am not going to give a full critique, I will try to do so later. That is to say a line by line. The first thing that needs to happen is to do away with center justify, unless this is for an old lady's coffee table book. In poetry, center justify is only used in concrete or form poetry. The reason? It makes it much more difficult to read. So I think if you want anyone to give this a serious critique, that is in its entirety you will need to change it to left justify. You also need to give up capping the start of each line as this also makes it more difficult for the reader. I will include the rationale for this below. Next, it needs to be determined if this is a song or a poem. This is important because they are critiqued differently. I cannot see this as a song. I have written some fairly long songs, but nowhere near this long. Unless it was sung really fast I doubt the audience would stay for the whole thing. Sure established artists have written songs that take up the entire side "B" of an album, or however that would be phrased today. I've played "Tangled Up in Blue" in clubs many times and that has always seemed about the limit for people attention, plus it requires a hell of a lot of energy. Also if this is a song it should be posted in miscellaneous, where lyrics are posted.

In terms of language, please really consider if different language is really needed, especially if you really don't have good control over it. In most cases, whether one has control or not, switching to a few words used 500 years ago really makes no sense, because it is not genuine, it is only playing at the language. Were you to use the actual language spoken during the time of Shakespeare, most people today would have a very difficult time making sense out of most of it. So actually all one is doing when using such words as whence and thence and the like, is lifting only a very small portions of the language as it was, so at its heart it is really disingenuous and should probably be left to satire or parody.

Best,

dale


As a service to your readers, please do not cap the start of every line. That was originally a necessity related to typesetting. Capping the lines in print went out in the 1950's, primarily because it was no longer a need in typesetting, and it was less confusing to the reader. Most people coming up through the school system tend to read poetry either in text books or in anthologies. The compilers of these texts prefer not to use copyrighted material (due to the cost), which leaves more of the older material that is typeset in the old way, giving the impression that is how it should be done which is an unfortunate misapprehension. As it does nothing positive to the poem, but in fact weakens it, it is not a style, but an affectation.