12-27-2016, 11:53 PM
thanks for the feedback! some trims in the first post.
-- Babylon stole her architects -- I must say, I'm not keen on the em-dashes to start sections -- stylistic differences, obviously, but why?
basically to say the stuff's all quoted. i think i was reading Dubliners as i wrote this. plus, to bulk up some line lengths, and really, i love em dashes that much (insomuch as i used them to keep me from using em dashes anyplace else in the piece)
were grave old men, anxious Jocastas. -- I'm not sure that anxious is the best adjective here. Not that Jocasta didn't have good reason to be anxious, obviously -- but I feel this could benefit from something to set it apart from the run of the mill "rapist's wife who ends up shagging her son" kind of stereotype. Prozacked Jocastas?
gonna have to mull on this one. a fair point -- i suppose it's more a thing on my side that anxious stands out more.
and my father plagued me -- you don't need "my" here
trimmed.
how the knowledge of old age -- the "how" confuses this sentence -- I'd suggest a semi-colon after blessed, then straight into "the knowledge"
that may be the solution to my problem with these stanzas? or may be not -- i'll have to keep cooking.
on pacific currents concretized -- I feel that you need Pacific unless you're suggesting that the currents are calm and that would be a bit bland
woops.
are now the home to snake-like trumpet vines, just as your English -- you could try "snaking" instead of "snake-like"
perhaps, but i rather like the knuckly sound snake-like produces....
is no longer the same as mine, and your Bible grows -- grows or becomes... I like grows to link to the vines, but I like becomes because of the alliteration and metric effect
....sort of a compensation, perhaps, to not using becomes, with grows really being linked (in a loopy way, considering the next line) to vines.
to diabetic hell. -- diabetic hell really throws me out of the mood of the piece -- it's far too trite (sugary, if you will)
at this point, it's kinda key to what i read, so i'll have to keep it.
Teiresias the sex-changing cataract no man -- I think you're missing an opportunity to play up the unwelcome prophetic quality of Teiresias
agreed. that would be far more fun. i might move on from reconsidering the first two stanzas of the second section to the middle two stanzas of this one, because this feels a little too chimaera-like.
when he said fleshly woman is a child. -- there are two uses of "child" so close together, and without a significant shift in the meaning or context -- this really doesn't work for me -- either build the contrast, or lose a child
and so the chimaera-like. at least in the more obscure drafts, it was more consistent.
I am become an Indio Abelard, -- enter adoration, but here it is one of intellect only, separated by distance, an internet love? Allusion to this most tragic of love stories really shifts the mood
grafted to cursed flesh, to shattered stone,
and you remain afloat, a child of God,
a blinding angel, mute and genderless. -- "genderless" is an interesting choice of terms considering the allusory Abelard's un-sexed condition, enforcing Heloise's chastity (well, that's the theory I suppose)
that's the play of it, at least in my mind.
like pâté men across the earth. -- the "hermaphrodite" can be taken either as a deception, or as a fusion. I don't know which it is yet, but I'm leaning toward the deception. I am concerned by the phrase "like pate men" because of the extreme ambiguity which lends nothing significant to the meaning that I can tell. Are they "pate men" or are they "spread like pate"? I feel that clarity is vital in this last stroke of your pen.
woops again! i didn't realize that pate men could be read as pate men, instead of spread like pate. really quite careless -- well, much of this was pretty careless (carefree!) anyway. i'll parenthesize, in the hopes of clarity.
-- Babylon stole her architects -- I must say, I'm not keen on the em-dashes to start sections -- stylistic differences, obviously, but why?
basically to say the stuff's all quoted. i think i was reading Dubliners as i wrote this. plus, to bulk up some line lengths, and really, i love em dashes that much (insomuch as i used them to keep me from using em dashes anyplace else in the piece)
were grave old men, anxious Jocastas. -- I'm not sure that anxious is the best adjective here. Not that Jocasta didn't have good reason to be anxious, obviously -- but I feel this could benefit from something to set it apart from the run of the mill "rapist's wife who ends up shagging her son" kind of stereotype. Prozacked Jocastas?
gonna have to mull on this one. a fair point -- i suppose it's more a thing on my side that anxious stands out more.
and my father plagued me -- you don't need "my" here
trimmed.
how the knowledge of old age -- the "how" confuses this sentence -- I'd suggest a semi-colon after blessed, then straight into "the knowledge"
that may be the solution to my problem with these stanzas? or may be not -- i'll have to keep cooking.
on pacific currents concretized -- I feel that you need Pacific unless you're suggesting that the currents are calm and that would be a bit bland
woops.
are now the home to snake-like trumpet vines, just as your English -- you could try "snaking" instead of "snake-like"
perhaps, but i rather like the knuckly sound snake-like produces....
is no longer the same as mine, and your Bible grows -- grows or becomes... I like grows to link to the vines, but I like becomes because of the alliteration and metric effect
....sort of a compensation, perhaps, to not using becomes, with grows really being linked (in a loopy way, considering the next line) to vines.
to diabetic hell. -- diabetic hell really throws me out of the mood of the piece -- it's far too trite (sugary, if you will)
at this point, it's kinda key to what i read, so i'll have to keep it.
Teiresias the sex-changing cataract no man -- I think you're missing an opportunity to play up the unwelcome prophetic quality of Teiresias
agreed. that would be far more fun. i might move on from reconsidering the first two stanzas of the second section to the middle two stanzas of this one, because this feels a little too chimaera-like.
when he said fleshly woman is a child. -- there are two uses of "child" so close together, and without a significant shift in the meaning or context -- this really doesn't work for me -- either build the contrast, or lose a child
and so the chimaera-like. at least in the more obscure drafts, it was more consistent.
I am become an Indio Abelard, -- enter adoration, but here it is one of intellect only, separated by distance, an internet love? Allusion to this most tragic of love stories really shifts the mood
grafted to cursed flesh, to shattered stone,
and you remain afloat, a child of God,
a blinding angel, mute and genderless. -- "genderless" is an interesting choice of terms considering the allusory Abelard's un-sexed condition, enforcing Heloise's chastity (well, that's the theory I suppose)
that's the play of it, at least in my mind.
like pâté men across the earth. -- the "hermaphrodite" can be taken either as a deception, or as a fusion. I don't know which it is yet, but I'm leaning toward the deception. I am concerned by the phrase "like pate men" because of the extreme ambiguity which lends nothing significant to the meaning that I can tell. Are they "pate men" or are they "spread like pate"? I feel that clarity is vital in this last stroke of your pen.
woops again! i didn't realize that pate men could be read as pate men, instead of spread like pate. really quite careless -- well, much of this was pretty careless (carefree!) anyway. i'll parenthesize, in the hopes of clarity.
although now i'm not sure if it reads as smoothly. i might just jump to another sort of expression, though with the images and ideas still there -- the point should remain to be that sort of deception/fusion, plus meat and towers and such.