A stranger less fortunate (edited)

[SomeRandom]

Any and all help is appreciated; still very new to poetry.
Okay, I chopped most of it off and I think I'm in 2014 now:


New Title is: Life's Labyrinth. (open to suggestions though)

---

I awoke one day without warning,
within labyrinth walls-- stretching beyond measure.
Among timeless trees I crept,
dodging python roots in thickets dripping in darkness,

Eyelids forgotten, I groped the mossy walls; they were my eyes.

With dusty limbs and paranoid visions my journey met its end.
Surrendered,
at the foot of an oak, the universe enveloped me.

---

I awoke in a labyrinth, walls stretch beyond measure.
Timeless trees innumerable
I crept through thickets drenched in darkness
dodging roots that wrap round ankles like pythons.
Blindfolded neglected eyelids,
fears fed fire; time abandoned structure.

Suspicion grew
of my labour's scope and end,
like weeds unchecked.
Immobilized in thought,
I found myself surrendered,
resting at the foot of an oak;
I pondered the years, story and quest,
the uncertainty of existence,
futility of resistance,
familiarity of death.

---

Revised


I awoke in a labyrinth, walls stretch beyond measure.
Timeless trees innumerable, roots wrap round ankles like pythons.
I crept through thickets drenched in darkness,
Unblinking, eyelids lacking purpose,
As time abandoned structure.

Suspicion grew like weeds unchecked,
Of my direction and purpose,
Immobilized in thought I found myself surrendered,
Under this wise old oak.

I sat meekly twiddling my thumbs,
Pondering the years, story and quest,
The uncertainty of existence,
And the futility of resistance.

---

Starting point


I awoke in a labyrinth; it's walls stretched beyond measure.
Roots and trees growing everywhere,
I crept through forest thickets drenched in darkness,
Forgetting what use my eyelids served,
And time fell off the hinges.

Eventually I grew suspicious,
Of the voice which had whispered: “walk”
Hysterical, naked and still without light,
I found myself surrendered
Under this wise old bark.

I sit in meekness twiddling my thumbs,
Wading through all existence as time turns to crumbs.
I ponder the years, story and quest,
The science of uncertainty, unglamorous existence,
And the art of probability, which was resistance.

[milo]

Hello there and welcome to the site.

This poem seems overly driven by rhyme - convoluting much of the language in order to produce it. Rhyme is no longer considered necessary in poems and if you do choose to use it you want it to be accretive - adding to the pleasure of the sonic journey and meaning through the use of original, natural sounding rhymes. Also, couplets in modern poetry are mostly reserved for "light Verse" (funny poetry)

In this poem here, our narrator ambles along (for quite a bit) musing about he purpose of life in a quite dramatic (and possibly over-poetic way). While it is long on symbolism and metaphor, much of the usage is quite common and overused in the exact same way and, metaphor and symbolism need to be balanced through specifics and this poem is very short on specifics.

Any and all help is appreciated; still very new to poetry.
I.

Born into a labyrinth long have I laboured in this quest called life,
Long have I languished with cautious steps through the minefields of deadly strife,
Creeping through twisting corridors of forests thick,
Much have I puzzled at this divine scheme of wit,
Which has placed me here lacking map and even compass,
Lost in footsteps yearning forever little solace.

much of the language through here feels awkward and forced and the phrasing is overmodified in an attempt to sound poetic. For example: "long have I laboured", "minefields of deadly strife", "corridors of forests thick" (what exactly is a forest thick anyway? a thicket?), "much have I puzzled", "divine scheme of wit", "yearning forever"

this same problem tends to continue throughout the whole poem (though to be completely hones I started skimming after the second stanza and can't remember much from there to the end.)

[ChristopherSea]

Hi Random,

My first suggestion would be to drop the Roman numerals, as the stanzas are closely related. The numbers don't really add anything, they come off odd. They are typically used to compare or contrast two poems, to relate more that one poem, etc.

Second, I would trim this down. Many lines are too long and there are far too many queries. I like the existential pondering, but it wanders all over the place. Perhaps a more narrow focus would help. The same goes for the mythological references. I like them, but their use seems haphazard. Maybe you could use them better in constructing a central core metaphor.

There are some peculiar phrasings and reversals of language, presumably to 'shoe-horn' in the rhymes. One wonders whether the poem was written around the rhyme, when it should truly be the other way around.

There are dozens of cliche phrases in your piece that could be said in a more novel way.

See what you think and what others have to say. All the best with your next edit./Chris

[tectak]

Any and all help is appreciated; still very new to poetry.

Hi,
Let's start at the beginning....once upon a time. First problem. You have chosen a rhyme scheme (or it has chosen you) which is very restrictive and occupies your intelligence more than does the quintessential purpose of "poetry"; which is to draw on metaphor, imagery and to a great extent....newness. The latter is another way of saying avoid cliches.
Your use of language is not "novel" in that it is quite usual when you are starting out to believe that what you remember most about poetry is the "poetic" turn of phrase...a good expression but now is generally referred to as inverted phrasing. A little of this sort of thing is more than you need.
labyrinth long instead of long labryrinth
forests thick (?) instead of....well, you the idea get, do you not. AAAAARRRRGGGGGHHHHH!

OK. So look at each stanza. Forget the bizarre roman numerals, its 2014 for Chrissake (indeed), and extract the distilled thought you are trying to express. Please don't think for one moment that the next suggestion will simplify the shit out of your effort...but cut out the unnecessary words. Speak to the reader as you would in a conversation chronologically suited to your historical placement of the poem. In the very first stanza you will come a cropper. We have here some kind of medieval, ill-defined Don Quixote, to all intents wandering through a mythological place of thick forests, labryrinthian trails and yet aware of such advances as a compass and with the precognisance of god and his wars...wary of minefields! It don't gel so it ain't aspic. Where are we in time? You choose then stick with it. Onwards to the text.
I.

Born into a labyrinth long have I laboured in this quest called life, period. You have just written a sentence. End it.
Long have I languished with cautious steps through the minefields of deadly strife, How does one languish with steps? Nonsense but only because you did not think it through. You just wanted to rhyme with "life"
Creeping through twisting corridors of forests thick,
Much have I puzzled at this divine scheme of wit, What does this mean? I have no idea and the rhyme is dodgy, too
Which has placed me here lacking map and even compass, Way too wordy. Cut out the line start capitals. If you persist in this we may conclude the last poetry you read was 18th century only. Elitist idea then...now just pointlessly confusing. "Which has placed me here with no map or compass"; all other points notwithstanding.
Lost in footsteps yearning forever little solace. Gobbledygook. Lost in footsteps? footsteps yearning forever? yearning forever little (or any size) solace? What does this mean? I have no idea and the ryhme is dodgy, too. Cut and paste....has it come to this?

II.

Dazed, and nervous, hungry and frail,Dazed, nervous, hungry and frail.
What becomes of me should I fail? Rhetorical questions irritate the bugger out of most readers, don't you think? The rest of this "stanza" (I would scrap the stanza idea altogether. It is not helping to hold the piece together) is a rhyming verse victim. You do not NEED to rhyme....and if you do I don't want to have them thrust up my nasal cavity with a bloody great pulsing laser on top. Get out your metaphors and relinquish your rhyme....but not in this stanza. Scrap it. It says nothing and asks a lot.
To what depths shall I fall?
Till I meet the great wall?
That surrenders no souls beyond it's intangible wake, ...and that last comment is made more moot by this final line

Do I float forever down the deadly mythical lake?
Will Charon notice such a feeble soul as I? I would hope so or she's on a warning for dereliction of duty.
Or will weary limbs turn limp, convince me to die?
Am I to fall victim to one fatal mistake?
One moment, a sliver, not a person does make! Ditto. Sorry. You MUST think meaning, not medals...you get nowt for weak rhymes.

III.

And what if I succeed?
For must not all Kings bleed?
I do not know any of the script,
Power is not something I have gripped. Enough. i have said enough. Got to end if we are still talking

Must all champions be strong, must they be able and wise?
Surely even an Olympian dies, I dare surmise,
Those on top are lost too;
They simply stumbled and flew,
Onto hilltops and mountains, on the shoulders of Tyche,
Her judgement mirthless and icy, they know not what blights me;

My aimless descent into shadows dances in the back of my skull,
With each ensuing step I take, the risk that my mind may break, the hull,
Deteriorates with each passing day,
So if I may, suppose that even They,
Upon murky tops-- even Kings fail to see,
A clear landscape with foresight and liberty.

IV.

Yet I resemble no King,
I merely wander and sing,
Meek lyrics of one lost in the rushing waves,
In the ocean of time, the mother of graves,
She cares not for me.
Bitter destiny!

So now I sit and I listen,
As the grass here does glisten,
Under this oak tree, elder and wise,
To sunbeams burning, how he does rise.

I sit here in melancholy twiddling my thumbs,
Wading through all existence as time turns to crumbs.
Infinite thoughts stroll by at leisurely pace,
Strumming along, they insist that I would chase.
So here I have ceased my incessant travel,
Content with solitude I seek no angel.

Yet my meandering mind never does cease to adore,
The topics it seems so habitually to explore:
The science of uncertainty, unglamorous existence,
And the art of probability, which is resistance.

It is too long....too painfully contrived...too bleeding-heart poetic...too diffuse....too purposeless.
Find the meaning in it, write about it. You do not need to rhyme, especially in humpty-dumpty couplets. If you lucidly explain to me what this is all about in twelve crisp lines I shall ask you why you didn't do that in the first place.
You have made a start, I believe you enjoyed writing this. You are off the starting blocks. Dump all the weighty words, the excess baggage of the prattling poet....and write something clearly, pointedly and with a CENTRAL METAPHOR to carry you, and the reader, through the piece.
Well done for posting this. It is worth working on. There will be enough good advice coming your way to radically rewrite the piece. I wish you well.
Best,
tectak

[SomeRandom]

Thanks everyone, looks like I need to overhaul the entire thing before it is ready for any more critique. I think this is the result of me reading exclusively 18-19th cent. poetry for the past month or so. Hehe... whoops

Heavy editing to come.

[Leanne]

Just a quick reminder to our zealous critics that this is the Novice Forum -- do try to be a little less overwhelming / Admin

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SomeRandom -- you have enough to work with here without me adding to it, but let me just say thank you for your most excellent critiques around the site.

[tectak]

Just a quick reminder to our zealous critics that this is the Novice Forum -- do try to be a little less overwhelming / Admin

---

SomeRandom -- you have enough to work with here without me adding to it, but let me just say thank you for your most excellent critiques around the site.

Quite right,too. Someone had to say it.
Best,
tectak

[SomeRandom]

Just a quick reminder to our zealous critics that this is the Novice Forum -- do try to be a little less overwhelming / Admin

---

SomeRandom -- you have enough to work with here without me adding to it, but let me just say thank you for your most excellent critiques around the site.

Quite right,too. Someone had to say it.
Best,
tectak

So... any thoughts on the shorter edited version? I tried to do 12 lines but ended up with 15. Would love more feedback!

[tectak]

Any and all help is appreciated; still very new to poetry.
Okay, I chopped most of it off and I think I'm in 2014 now: Much, much better. Less is more. The nits to follow are opinion. Others will agree/disagree....but now it is your poem. The previous version was owned by a million others

---

1

I awoke in a labyrinth; it's walls stretched beyond measure. its. No apostrophe. That's a contraction for it is. Period after labyrinth as you have written a sentence. Use the semicolon to link clauses or contextually dependent content. Using "its" can be problematical and can often be eliminated . Try:
I woke in a labyrinth, walls stretched beyond measure;
roots and trees grew like serpents alive in the gloom.
Your poem....but try to "show" what you mean rather than simply telling.
Roots and trees growing everywhere,
I crept through forest thickets drenched in darkness, "forest" is redundant by context and superfluous by meaning.
I crept through thickets, drenched in darkness,
eyes wide and unblinking, eyelids unused.
Again, your poem...and the redundancy of eyelids (if that is your intent) is worth clarifying...a neat observation.

Forgetting what use my eyelids served,
And time fell off the hinges. Ah. Hmmm. This is a little precipitous. Where did it come from? What can you mean? Now, if you can work in to the line the metaphorical "door of time" you can bridge neatly betwixt "open eyes" and "open door"...complete with hinges. The door of time fell off its hinges. Yes?


Eventually I grew suspicious, Missed opportunities everywhere.
"Suspicion grew slowly, like a vine in the shade"...or something. You are just too bald and statemental but you WILL get the idea. Think metaphor, think imagery, think newness.
Of the voice which had whispered: “walk” This is a disconnect. You have not previously mentioned the voice but you talk of it in the past tense. Implication? You have just thought of it on the hoof. What bloody voice...I was here all the time and heard nothing? You heard it....it was important. Tell the reader something...as it is, only you know. So what is the point of the quick mention?
Hysterical, naked and still without light,
I found myself surrendered
Under this wise old bark. Now you know and I know that these last three lines are going to cause you trouble. You are hysterical...then you sit meekly twiddling your thumbs.Hysterical? You surrender yourself under wise (?) bark. Huh? You are under bark then you are wading through existence? Oh, and why the capital on "under". The problem you have is burgeoning thoughts...which with a little valium you could turn to your great advantage. Most aspiring poets suffer from pensive penury Calm down and think links.

I sit in meekness twiddling my thumbs,
Wading through all existence as time turns to crumbs. "all" is superfluous. I much prefer your metaphorically unhinged time to the bird-feed demise. OK...you can't avoid the time-dust cliche by using crumbs instead You may as well say "...as time turns to sawdust" but you may like sand more. Sands of time allusion? I squirm, agitated, my head in my hands?
I ponder the years, story and quest,
The science of uncertainty, unglamorous existence,
And the art of probability, which was resistance. Look, honest comment here. I have no idea what these last three lines mean. The " science of uncertainty" sounds good but I can only think of fuzzy logic in this category. "Unglamorous existence"... nope, beats the shit out'a me.
"Art of probability" is a mix-up. "Science of probability" scrapes by...but art? Compound the art of probability with what was Ohm's law and we are off on a hotchpotch hike to nowhere. Help.

This is the novice forum and you have shown quite exemplary intent to improve. Critique is by nature pedantic and at once opinionated. Take from each what you will but remember that the poem is master only when you say so...and this is your poem. Critique is not about you...it is about the poem. Watch out for those sneaky line starts giving themselves elevated status.
Best,
tectak

[SomeRandom]

More revision. I THINK it can handle some fresh criticism once again considering it's changed significantly. Thanks for the wonderful feedback tectak! The poem is certainly sucks much less than the heap of words it spawned from and I can see why and how. I'll definitely remember these lessons in future poems.

[tectak]

More revision. I THINK it can handle some fresh criticism once again considering it's changed significantly. Thanks for the wonderful feedback tectak! The poem is certainly sucks much less than the heap of words it spawned from and I can see why and how. I'll definitely remember these lessons in future poems.

Good egg,
tectak

[billy]

Hi somerandom;

well done in how you accept and give feedback, i read the original and see you had lots of feedback on it already, i'll just give feedback on the edit which has improved a lot from the original.

the poem, for me the caps take a lot away from the write simply because of the preceding punctuation. the poem is better than the edit , a fair bit better in fact, but it still feels a little bloated, mainly because the narration is putting to much into it, a comparison would be a chocolate cake in a bowl of sugar, you do have some good lines and some of the metaphors are excellent, the main problem for me was the 2nd stanza, i had trouble getting through it because it felt disjoint. all in all a great edit, still a bit to do but your attitude is perfect. well done.

Any and all help is appreciated; still very new to poetry.
Okay, I chopped most of it off and I think I'm in 2014 now:

---

Revised


I awoke in a labyrinth, walls stretch beyond measure.
Timeless trees innumerable, roots wrap round ankles like pythons. while the latter part of the line is a good image, and the first part well narrated; together they feel too heavy i'd suggest splitting the line and add a small word to show they can wrap and that they aren't wrapping at the moment.

Timeless trees innumerable;
roots that wrap round ankles like pythons.

some really good assonance with the [T's] and roots/wrap


I crept through thickets drenched in darkness,
Unblinking, eyelids lacking purpose, for me it reads better without the comma after [unblinking] would lacked work better than lacking?
As time abandoned structure. this line works but i keep wanting to read something else before structure, a suggestion would be [all] or [the]

Suspicion grew like weeds unchecked,
Of my direction and purpose, this line needs more work
Immobilized in thought I found myself surrendered,
Under this wise old oak. i struggled with the continuity of the stanza

I sat meekly twiddling my thumbs,
Pondering the years, story and quest,
The uncertainty of existence,
And the futility of resistance.

[SomeRandom]

I wasn't satisfied with the second stanza either billy. What do you think of this revision with the 2nd and 3rd stanzas combined?

Suspicion grew,
of my labour's scope and end,
like weeds unchecked.
Immobilized in thought,
I found myself surrendered,
resting at the foot of an oak;
Pondered the years, story and quest,
the uncertainty of existence,
futility of resistance,
familiarity of death.