07-15-2016, 08:14 AM
cicade
you
offend the stones with your ladle (I understand the idea you are attempting to convey as I read your comments, but it seems there must be a clearer way to say this. It causes a major pause in the reading which is disruptive to the poem. Inscrutability is not a tenet of poetry.)
pale underfed
living in canes
in a land so bare
I look good to the gods here ("I" is the speaker, but who is "I"? It is a kindness to your reader to define these sorts of things. The images I get. Making your narrator an unknown undermines everything he says as there is no context for the reader to put the information in. )
I pray on a bead
something leaks from your silo
would lime on my scabs be too much
the sound of wax and liquor tasting (complete sentences would be nice. These lines are generally just dependant clauses that carry little meaning for the reader. They read as vague reference to the topic, but in many instances they are completely unformed. "would lime on my scabs be too much" begs the question, to much what? The other lines read much the same way)
decimates read loud
even think love and it's over (these two lines are clear and succinct, if one assumes knowledge on the part of the reader about grasshopper swarms)
you whisper wheat
not enough left to baptize
think wet and you'll drown me
they swear by the winter
to lord brown on a white coat
blasphemes the drone
delirious exile of the wicker waste
where you
have let a droplet
wide of your beak
it shatters the sun
_________________________________________________________________________
This seems more riddle than poem. A riddle confounds and a poem enlightens...or so it is to be hoped. Disregarding for the most part that this is a string of dependant clauses, it does little more, or so it seems, to use the swarm as a metaphor. As the narrator remains uncertain (the earth? a person?), there is no connection being made to the reader in terms of engaging the reader and causing the reader to care about what has been written. Poems are written for man, not locus. Why should I care about this poem?
Best,
dale
you
offend the stones with your ladle (I understand the idea you are attempting to convey as I read your comments, but it seems there must be a clearer way to say this. It causes a major pause in the reading which is disruptive to the poem. Inscrutability is not a tenet of poetry.)
pale underfed
living in canes
in a land so bare
I look good to the gods here ("I" is the speaker, but who is "I"? It is a kindness to your reader to define these sorts of things. The images I get. Making your narrator an unknown undermines everything he says as there is no context for the reader to put the information in. )
I pray on a bead
something leaks from your silo
would lime on my scabs be too much
the sound of wax and liquor tasting (complete sentences would be nice. These lines are generally just dependant clauses that carry little meaning for the reader. They read as vague reference to the topic, but in many instances they are completely unformed. "would lime on my scabs be too much" begs the question, to much what? The other lines read much the same way)
decimates read loud
even think love and it's over (these two lines are clear and succinct, if one assumes knowledge on the part of the reader about grasshopper swarms)
you whisper wheat
not enough left to baptize
think wet and you'll drown me
they swear by the winter
to lord brown on a white coat
blasphemes the drone
delirious exile of the wicker waste
where you
have let a droplet
wide of your beak
it shatters the sun
_________________________________________________________________________
This seems more riddle than poem. A riddle confounds and a poem enlightens...or so it is to be hoped. Disregarding for the most part that this is a string of dependant clauses, it does little more, or so it seems, to use the swarm as a metaphor. As the narrator remains uncertain (the earth? a person?), there is no connection being made to the reader in terms of engaging the reader and causing the reader to care about what has been written. Poems are written for man, not locus. Why should I care about this poem?
Best,
dale
How long after picking up the brush, the first masterpiece?
The goal is not to obfuscate that which is clear, but make clear that which isn't.
The goal is not to obfuscate that which is clear, but make clear that which isn't.