07-12-2012, 04:58 AM
Thanks for the reply, Erthona.
What do I mean by the lines being 'flat and prosaic'? Well, you're writing in free verse, so metre is eschewed, but that doesn't mean rhythm is, or that the poet has to pay attention to the music and sound of words in combination – in fact, they become more important, because the poet has to create his/her own music and rhythm.
The rhythm is flat because there is no consistent pattern established or maintained. This isn't helped by the parentheses of the first few lines; the lines of single words; and the seemingly arbitrary breaks of some of the lines. Eg. the last seven lines – a single sentence – read to me more like a sentence of prose than consciously chosen lines of poetry with strong line breaks. Why break line 16 at 'of' and not the stronger 'blade' which enables the reader to savour that image slightly longer before moving on? It seems arbitrary to break it on a preposition.
This rhythm is also at odds with a narrator who is meditating on an issue thoughtfully – this is one thing the parentheses do tell us – the narrator clearly has time to consider and reconsider his thoughts ('maybe…', line 2). This is historically, and still contemporaneously, where blank verse has come in, or longer lines of controlled free verse. So in all, it doesn't make for a satisfactorily coherent or rhythmically convincing poem.
As for the Jungian archetypes – as stated, the Fall of Man is certainly there. (The titles 'Legacy Lost' and 'Paradise Lost' are hardly a million miles away from each other.) I showed with evidence from the text how this reading works, so I don't think I'm projecting things onto the poem. If there are other archetypes, I can't see them; but I imagine the majority of poems do this unconsciously anyway.
But this also means there's a contradiction between saying you're alluding to a range of archetypes which you expect the reader to pick up on, then saying readers should infer only one specific meaning of a name – St Augustine – that is directly related to religion. The connotations of words are there whether you or I like them or not, and you can't avoid them just by providing a gloss.
And I take the point about the racial connotations of 'whitewashed' - but the word modifies 'my memories', so doesn't relate to the town, which I'm not sure is exactly what you mean to say.
Anyway, I hope that helps to clarify a few things. Cheers, dm.
What do I mean by the lines being 'flat and prosaic'? Well, you're writing in free verse, so metre is eschewed, but that doesn't mean rhythm is, or that the poet has to pay attention to the music and sound of words in combination – in fact, they become more important, because the poet has to create his/her own music and rhythm.
The rhythm is flat because there is no consistent pattern established or maintained. This isn't helped by the parentheses of the first few lines; the lines of single words; and the seemingly arbitrary breaks of some of the lines. Eg. the last seven lines – a single sentence – read to me more like a sentence of prose than consciously chosen lines of poetry with strong line breaks. Why break line 16 at 'of' and not the stronger 'blade' which enables the reader to savour that image slightly longer before moving on? It seems arbitrary to break it on a preposition.
This rhythm is also at odds with a narrator who is meditating on an issue thoughtfully – this is one thing the parentheses do tell us – the narrator clearly has time to consider and reconsider his thoughts ('maybe…', line 2). This is historically, and still contemporaneously, where blank verse has come in, or longer lines of controlled free verse. So in all, it doesn't make for a satisfactorily coherent or rhythmically convincing poem.
As for the Jungian archetypes – as stated, the Fall of Man is certainly there. (The titles 'Legacy Lost' and 'Paradise Lost' are hardly a million miles away from each other.) I showed with evidence from the text how this reading works, so I don't think I'm projecting things onto the poem. If there are other archetypes, I can't see them; but I imagine the majority of poems do this unconsciously anyway.
But this also means there's a contradiction between saying you're alluding to a range of archetypes which you expect the reader to pick up on, then saying readers should infer only one specific meaning of a name – St Augustine – that is directly related to religion. The connotations of words are there whether you or I like them or not, and you can't avoid them just by providing a gloss.
And I take the point about the racial connotations of 'whitewashed' - but the word modifies 'my memories', so doesn't relate to the town, which I'm not sure is exactly what you mean to say.
Anyway, I hope that helps to clarify a few things. Cheers, dm.