07-07-2019, 04:06 PM
(07-07-2019, 02:38 PM)Oden Prufrock Wrote:(07-07-2019, 06:41 AM)churinga Wrote: I don't think the short lines help, they give a sense of pace which is at odds with the setting, cemetaries are not busy places. The way you slip in and out of a rhyme scheme is for me a major problem. Is it rhymed or is it not?Look, the crickets thing is a personification, of course it’s silly, and choir is just a metaphor. Reverberate is used to connect the living to the dead as a metaphor to express the lifelessness and emptiness of the body. Sweet was used to give it a feminine tone and I haven’t seen it in a poem so it’s not cliché; simple word does not mean simple meaning. The image of raining tears of pitches is meant to embody sadness through their sound as a metaphor. It also gives it a secluded, natural tone. Black and white youth is referring to the past version of the dead person, looking at the cycle of mortality. Decomposing sinew refers to the dead body which was suggested by the grey picture being present, and that it was a funeral. Stone vitality is a juxtaposition and plays on the metaphor of reverberation.
Sound’s ephemerality:
Good opening line.
sweet graveside singing.
'Sweet' is a very weak word, almost as bad as nice.
Deceased, stone vitality
'Deceased' is stating the obvious 'stone vitality' is meaningless to me.
reverberates the ringing.
There is no reverbartion at a graveside, it simply does not happen, you would have to be in a crypt.
A choir of crying crickets
click in the dark thicket
This is silly, crickets don't cry, nor do crickets suggest a choir at a funeral.
The rhyme is almost comical and 'dark' is again a weak word, all thickets are dark.
raining tears of pitches
'raining tears' is cliche, pitches seems rhyme driven.
washing away the grey picture.
Not a bad line, the suggestion this is a photo.
Black and white youth:
decomposing sinew.
Seems to contradict the idea of 'grey'
It is too condensed, we have no context for the decomposing sinew, you imply that the the sinew belongs to the youth via the syntax. It is incoherent.
I'll leave it there. I think you have to totally rethink this.
Also nothing wrong with defending your poem, just don't address the critiquer directly as 'you', address the critique as 'the'.
all the best
Ross

