Mourning in the Moonlight

[Expendable Youth.]

Hello it's Evan here, if anybody is willing to critique my most recent poem, I'd happily appreciate it and apply it, I'm not satisfied with this and it's frustrating me to no end.. (And don't mind any potential cliche, I'll stamp that out as well.)




Mourning in the Moonlight


Within the cool night air,
biting into the wind.
Shuddering,
droplets gathering strength
as they're falling from the sky,
driven into the weathered concrete
and pelting into my back
when I'm in its way.
I'm becoming drenched,
the water dashing
tracing the seams of my clothing.
And dripping to the brick,
being taken in ignorant compliance
to the sewers, and to the seas.
These pieces of a storm,
forcing my head down
in an attempt to pierce my will,
inhaling, to calm myself
exhaling, visible breath.
It's an icy, bitter chill
clasping my nerves
and becoming entrenched in my skin.
I am drifting through the cold,
wind gusts carry my jacket neck
pressing it into my skin.
And whispering into my left ear
slipping through,
the wind brushing to the side.
I see the moonlight
dancing with the shadows
and the castings of artificial light.
Gleaming a sickly pale blue
only to be cleansed by the rain,
and cured through the moonlight.

[Erthona]

Evan,

This appears to be in a Modernist style (Imagism), however there are a number of grammatical and syntactical problems that obfuscate your meaning. I will use your first two sentences as examples of problems that seem to pervade the poem.

The first sentence is a sentence fragment:

"Within the cool night air, biting into the wind."

At best it is merely disruptive as the reader has to pause and ask, What is "biting into the wind?"

At worst it is non-nonsensical.

The next sentence suffers from lack of clarity due to being overly complex, and containing a number of redundancies.

"Shuddering, droplets gathering strength as they're falling from the sky, driven into the weathered concrete and pelting into my back
when I'm in its way."

Simple present tense would work much better here.

"Shuddering droplets gather strength as they fall from the sky, driving into weathered concrete and pelting my back.

"into" is superfluous, and "when I'm in its way", is redundant and overly obvious.

These are very common problems when people write in the "poetic form", i.e. short lines, instead of writing a sentence out long-wise. If we write sentences out as we would in prose, any problem with a line becomes much easier to see. Afterwards it can be put back into the shorter lines, of course it is a good idea to have a rationale for where to break the line, but that is another topic

Dale

[rowens]

This comes out well. Only it seems a little too controlled. Like you're putting too much effort into it, when it would seem better if it at least appeared a bit effortless. I think it's pretty good. It feels like something is straining inside it, but it's covered up pretty smoothly. The body has a forceful enough drive, while the thoughts and feelings get whirled and drained by the wind and water. It handles that sticky stiffness of walking or standing in a cold, wet coat during a dark storm with its own kind of logic. You have your own ideas about what can be worked on. I don't have any ideas now. But I think it's a good path.

[tectak]

Evan,

This appears to be in a Modernist style (Imagism), however there are a number of grammatical and syntactical problems that obfuscate your meaning. I will use your first two sentences as examples of problems that seem to pervade the poem.

The first sentence is a sentence fragment:

"Within the cool night air, biting into the wind."

At best it is merely disruptive as the reader has to pause and ask, What is "biting into the wind?"

At worst it is non-nonsensical.

The next sentence suffers from lack of clarity due to being overly complex, and containing a number of redundancies.

"Shuddering, droplets gathering strength as they're falling from the sky, driven into the weathered concrete and pelting into my back
when I'm in its way."

Simple present tense would work much better here.

"Shuddering droplets gather strength as they fall from the sky, driving into weathered concrete and pelting my back.

"into" is superfluous, and "when I'm in its way", is redundant and overly obvious.

These are very common problems when people write in the "poetic form", i.e. short lines, instead of writing a sentence out long-wise. If we write sentences out as we would in prose, any problem with a line becomes much easier to see. Afterwards it can be put back into the shorter lines, of course it is a good idea to have a rationale for where to break the line, but that is another topic

Dale

Quite.(Billy, please note. This is a comment on the crit...you may move it to discussion but I have nothing else to say. Unusually.)

[Expendable Youth.]

Thank you both.