Immigrants

[Mark A Becker]

Swap the first two stanzas for narrative cohesion.

Then the main burr left from the original is, “hands full of steel.” Get rid of “steel” which was unknown to the Americas, and you’re closer to depicting the problem you’re depicting.

Hey crow- been a long while. I do appreciate your comments, and I made extensive edits/comments with regard to other critique to get this one where it is now. Absolutely, the language issue is nearly insurmountable.

I intentionally arranged the stanzas: ships/boats/men/hands. As far as I can tell from reviewing many sources, the 'immigrants' would use smaller boats after anchoring their ships beyond the breakers.

Though it is highly unlikely that native Americans would recognize something called 'steel' upon first encounter, I'm sure they got all too familiar with steel, and very quickly. I certainly intended this as colonizers coming ashore, yet I intentionally did not identify them as the first colonists in the final version (recognizing the steel issue).

The hardest aspects for me was trying to imagine how native Americans would have responded upon seeing wave after wave coming ashore, and the obvious language issues.

This is a long-winded response to your comments, but I wanted you to know that I appreciate your pointing to issues that I became aware of, and tried to resolve (while maintaining a self-imposed structure).

Thanks,
Mark

good to see you back