The king of the yard

[J.C. Fontenot]

An array of blue hues painted on his feathers,
a crown of similar color spiking from his head,
beauty bestowed by Darwin's theory.

his shadow demands respect from inferiors below,
soaring, screeching, moving about,
no algorithmic patterns for the king himself,
who dare lurk above him?

giving orders with song,
springing from his majestic organs,
who dare challenge the kings tongue?

perhaps he knows these natural laws,
for he is king Blue Jay,
king of the yard.

[rowens]

giving orders with song,
springing from his majestic organs,
who dare challenge the king's tongue?

That seems the best part.

A similar crown spikes his head might be something to say. Something could come out of that.

beauty bestowed by Darwin's theory is a problematic line, but it could be used in a more problematic way to benefit the poem.

[Owl]

I wrote some notes on the poem below.
Also, the word "king" is pretty darn prevalent within the poem. Maybe you could come up with a really creative way of telling the reader that this bird is a king of sorts, instead of just repeating "king"? Including the title; it is very direct . . . maybe something a bit more innovative could take its place? The concept doesn't have to change, the word choice just seems to need some revising.

An array of blue hues painted on his feathers, I like this, I really do, but I feel as if due to the nature of this particular poem, the whole work could benefit from a more original, in depth illustration of a/the blue jay (not necessarily a lengthy one, but a much more dense portrayal for sure). Also, this is the first line of the poem, which makes this line crucial to how the audience is going to read through the remaining lines of the poem. How else could you describe the beauty of blue feathers?
a crown of similar color spiking from his head,
beauty bestowed by Darwin's theory. To me, this doesn't sit too well . . . I think it's interesting that you're backtracking the origins of this bird's beauty, but it's also referencing a relatively redundant topic considering what this poem seems to be about.

his shadow demands respect from inferiors below, Did you purposefully not capitalize "his"? If so, why?
soaring, screeching, moving about,
no algorithmic patterns for the king himself,
who dare lurk above him? This whole stanza isn't a question (you also did this with the next stanza), therefore I feel as if the punctuation needs to be revised. I'm not sure if this is a style-type or not (if so, then you can kick this suggestion to the curb), it just seems disconcerting to me. Besides that, the ideas and mental images I got from this line are quite nice.

giving orders with song, Geez. Your capitalization choices! If this in fact a style I'm unaware of, or a writing technique, then I'd appreciate if you could possibly enlighten me. I'm totally serious, I'm still learning and I'd like to know if you've seen another writer do this.
springing from his majestic organs,
who dare challenge the kings tongue? Both this line and the line prior are definitely keepers.

perhaps he knows these natural laws, This makes me dislike L3 again . . . A law is different than a theory. Maybe you could reference part of this "law" that the bird might know in L3 instead of referencing a theory? Maybe say something interesting about aerodonetics-- paralleling the bird's precise movements somehow. Just a suggestion!
for he is king Blue Jay,
king of the yard. Hm. "Yard" seems limiting to what bird's are capable of. I honestly don't know much about birds, but I'm pretty sure that they're very adventurous animals, roaming from place to place. This bird is a KING! That's so amazing-- he deserves a much larger kingdom than just a measly yard. Plus, he doesn't seem incredibly humble, so a small kingdom would never do.

[billy]

moved to newly registered forum, posting in miscellaneous doesn't count towards posting in the novice, mild or serious forums/mod

[J.C. Fontenot]

Thank you very much Rowens and owl
Owl I will definitely take in account your critiquing of my lack of original details, I definitely can work on that. In regards to the lack of capitalization, I saw the blue jay in my backyard one day which made me write this poem, so he isn't really an important king and the poem is overall modest, I really try to experiment with different grammar uses and things like that. I was going for modesty with my lack of capitilaztion. It's just something I chose to do, because of e.e. Cummings totally experimental style. Try things out on your own! I chose to not try to follow any other writers techniques because then all poems would be the same and that's not poetry. Poetry is a personal thing in my opinion so make it unique to yourself!

[ray]

An array of blue hues painted on his feathers,   - blue hues is not good on the tongue. Just blue would do.
a crown of similar color spiking from his head,
beauty bestowed by Darwin's theory.                 - nice lines, I like the crown

his shadow demands respect from inferiors below,   - inferiors below is tautological. his shadow cows those below?
soaring, screeching, moving about,
no algorithmic patterns for the king himself,
who dare lurk above him?

giving orders with song,
springing from his majestic organs,
who dare challenge the kings tongue?      - you want an apostrophe in king's

perhaps he knows these natural laws,
for he is king Blue Jay,                          - the ending is very underwhelming. You'd do better without the last 3 lines
king of the yard.

[SimikPK]

Hello.

An array of blue hues painted on his feathers, no need for hues - array itself suggests plurality, in combination with blue it is obvious its more hues
a crown of similar color spiking from his head, the spiking is interesting word for showing the crown, it fits well with a bluejay, but this line is a too wordy, the biggest problem is "of similar color"
beauty bestowed by Darwin's theory. suggeston: Beauty bestowed by Darwin. everyone knows what Darwin is associated with, and this way it would enrich the poem with a metonymy. Consider also changing beauty into something different, beauty is very general, very common
his shadow demands respect from inferiors below, not entirely sure, but inferiros already suggest that they are below, if not physically, than at least metaphorically. And why is it his shadow that demands respect, when you dedicate your previous stanza to his colors?
soaring, screeching, moving about, i lke the feet in this line, the change to iamb from trochee at the end, it kind of makes an impact, but isn't moving about too lowly to be a characteristics of a king? to me, it evokes like vargants moving about in the streets when the kings processionis passing or sthg like that. considering the following line, what about trying to show that the king can move without patterns and yet majestically?
no algorithmic patterns for the king himself, too wordy, algorythmic and patterns suggest the same, one of these would be enough
who dare lurk above him? good shift from movement of the king to the movement of the subjects, also the choice of "lurk" is good - it suggest that when someone would be above him, it would be "illegal". but somehow I cannot come to terms with the overall formulation of this line, not sure why. maybe because "who dare" is a litte bit chlichee? but in general this line is good
giving orders with song, this line is nice. giving orders with song captures both the king-ness and the bird-ness, it combines well
springing from his majestic organs, springing is probably redundant. we know that the song goes out of his organs, so the point of this line is probably the characterization of those organs. come on, you surely can come up with something better, more specifc than "majestic"
who dare challenge the kings tongue? nice elaboration on the organs, since the tongue is one. why in the last line of the previous stanza the king reffered to as "he" and here is is already "the king"?
perhaps he knows these natural laws,
for he is king Blue Jay,
king of the yard. a strange mixture of everyday language (perhaps, yard...), academic language (natural laws) and poetic language (for he is), it just makes a mess. in this stanza, the only new info is that he perhaps knows these laws, the last two lines are already been strongly suggested in the poem. Is your point that the king is king because he knows he is the king (that he knows these laws?) if so, elaborate, make it more powerful, it is the end of the poem, the strongest point should be here!

Summa summarum, the good points of this poem are the selection of the topic and the characteristic of the special kind of king. try improving on those.

[J.C. Fontenot]

thank you all for these critiques, all very valid points. I am a very passionate aspiring poet, the more harsh critiques the better i will become. keep them coming! you will see lots of my poetry on this site along with my critiques.

[SimikPK]

Good. Nice that you welcome crit and are not offended.  keep up.