05-29-2016, 11:58 AM
To me, the coolest changes could come in with a differentiation of the human and natural voices--if you're gonna go Romantic with allegorical personification, why not add a little power?
That would probably mean revising the speaker's section to be more passive. The first stanza could describe the plaza and tree without mentioning the speaker, the second could build the emperor image, and introducing the speaker on the third will underscore how central the tree is in reality. The third and fourth can be combined, too--the idea of the lonely death shouldn't be dwelled over, it's strong enough an image to leave floating alone.
The tree section needs more images--"storm, drought, and famine" did not kill the tree, but all of them could kill the speaker and the readers. If you want to moralize, do it here and do it with extremely powerful imagery and syntax. Be blunt. Be concrete. I think the image of man's self-destruction is central to your intent--I'd keep it as is but move it to the end of the stanza.
The final stanza is fantastic. It elevates the whole poem to a new level beyond that of the Romantics and that of most contemporary poetry. The sentinel and speaker suddenly seem to have some parallel power and characteristics, and the final lines don't bode well for anything--the merely moralizing becomes apocalyptic. The problem, to me, is that one or two phrases throw that finality off. "A lick of warm wind" and "sentinel of hope" both detract from focus and power. I'd just steer clear of metaphors here and stick to imagery.
Really cool concept and strong ambiguity. Definitely worth using some archaic devices--really excited to see where it goes.
That would probably mean revising the speaker's section to be more passive. The first stanza could describe the plaza and tree without mentioning the speaker, the second could build the emperor image, and introducing the speaker on the third will underscore how central the tree is in reality. The third and fourth can be combined, too--the idea of the lonely death shouldn't be dwelled over, it's strong enough an image to leave floating alone.
The tree section needs more images--"storm, drought, and famine" did not kill the tree, but all of them could kill the speaker and the readers. If you want to moralize, do it here and do it with extremely powerful imagery and syntax. Be blunt. Be concrete. I think the image of man's self-destruction is central to your intent--I'd keep it as is but move it to the end of the stanza.
The final stanza is fantastic. It elevates the whole poem to a new level beyond that of the Romantics and that of most contemporary poetry. The sentinel and speaker suddenly seem to have some parallel power and characteristics, and the final lines don't bode well for anything--the merely moralizing becomes apocalyptic. The problem, to me, is that one or two phrases throw that finality off. "A lick of warm wind" and "sentinel of hope" both detract from focus and power. I'd just steer clear of metaphors here and stick to imagery.
Really cool concept and strong ambiguity. Definitely worth using some archaic devices--really excited to see where it goes.