08-10-2026, 03:59 AM
"A giant struck with a club the giant sat on the cliffs" is certainly convoluted syntax; it almost sounds like a deliberate attempt at a "garden path" sentence
"Passing the ribs for braising and loins for frying to gluttons he called peers" similar feeling. The language is recognizably not modern vernacular. I read plenty of literature that sounds like this in school; it was all from before 1900, or at least before 1960.
"And should a slave be risked" is already somewhat arch. People just do not talk like this anymore, and have not for some time. "for which the free repine" ditto. There's inverted syntax all over this piece, which yeah, native English speakers no longer use inverted syntax hardly ever. So despite your claiming otherwise, I maintain that the voice is objectively not operating in the contemporary vernacular. It is hard to receive it as anything other than an affectation. This puts me off the whole work from the jump.
You ask "why poetry should be so eager to limit itself as a genre" but I think the project here is what's limiting. The approach to language doesn't feel new to me; it feels like a misguided attempt to put on the language of old, presumably because that is "appropriate to an epic" but I think what would be much more interesting is to write an epic, formally, in a voice that springs from a modern syntax and lexicon. Though to be fair, I am not super sold on the idea of a modern epic in the first place. I tend to think poetry "in this age" functions best when it's relatively short.
Anyway here are all the other moments where the diction feels strained or the voice feels affected:
the brains about the knot - unsure if this use of "about" to mean "around" is more common in, say, British English, to be fair
to himself leaving - inversion
the foremost right - modern only in the most formal of settings
any disputes that should arise - again, either mildly archaic or legalese
which all those later founders esteemed to grant them vigor - I swear I'm not tryna be difficult I just don't know what to say about a line like this other than "this is clearly not modern vernacular"
Rather, it proved the reverse - maybe some of the distance between our readings on tone is down to semantics; sure, sometimes "archaic" may be less strictly precise a description than "needlessly formal." For me, the two have similar effects, neither of which I enjoy.
the vessel stays its course - cliche
of beggared ghosts... and should a slave... so thought the men who first imbibed - People don't talk like this today
I was going to fulfill your request to do the whole poem but I am sorry, I don't really want to
it feels unnecessary anyway; hopefully what I'm pointing to is clearer now
"Passing the ribs for braising and loins for frying to gluttons he called peers" similar feeling. The language is recognizably not modern vernacular. I read plenty of literature that sounds like this in school; it was all from before 1900, or at least before 1960.
"And should a slave be risked" is already somewhat arch. People just do not talk like this anymore, and have not for some time. "for which the free repine" ditto. There's inverted syntax all over this piece, which yeah, native English speakers no longer use inverted syntax hardly ever. So despite your claiming otherwise, I maintain that the voice is objectively not operating in the contemporary vernacular. It is hard to receive it as anything other than an affectation. This puts me off the whole work from the jump.
You ask "why poetry should be so eager to limit itself as a genre" but I think the project here is what's limiting. The approach to language doesn't feel new to me; it feels like a misguided attempt to put on the language of old, presumably because that is "appropriate to an epic" but I think what would be much more interesting is to write an epic, formally, in a voice that springs from a modern syntax and lexicon. Though to be fair, I am not super sold on the idea of a modern epic in the first place. I tend to think poetry "in this age" functions best when it's relatively short.
Anyway here are all the other moments where the diction feels strained or the voice feels affected:
the brains about the knot - unsure if this use of "about" to mean "around" is more common in, say, British English, to be fair
to himself leaving - inversion
the foremost right - modern only in the most formal of settings
any disputes that should arise - again, either mildly archaic or legalese
which all those later founders esteemed to grant them vigor - I swear I'm not tryna be difficult I just don't know what to say about a line like this other than "this is clearly not modern vernacular"
Rather, it proved the reverse - maybe some of the distance between our readings on tone is down to semantics; sure, sometimes "archaic" may be less strictly precise a description than "needlessly formal." For me, the two have similar effects, neither of which I enjoy.
the vessel stays its course - cliche
of beggared ghosts... and should a slave... so thought the men who first imbibed - People don't talk like this today
I was going to fulfill your request to do the whole poem but I am sorry, I don't really want to
it feels unnecessary anyway; hopefully what I'm pointing to is clearer now