In the Abandoned Garden

[BlowMyWadsworth]

Very new to poetry, but extremely open to criticism!

In the Abandoned Garden

Nameless, shapeless, faceless,
society's blood red chestnut blight.
Darkness envelopes and coddles,
even moonlight ignores his plight.

Earthy mulch smudged tatters,
neglected gazettes, rested head.  
Blanket wriggles and scuttles,
inky plume-lined feather bed.

Vacant corpse, decaying tree,
a meager voiceless hermit.
A withering rose of consciousness,
once sown amongst the vermin.

[Jae Mc Donnell]

Very new to poetry, but extremely open to criticism!

In the Abandoned Garden

Nameless, shapeless, faceless,
society's blood red chestnut blight.
Darkness envelopes and coddles, I love this line
even moonlight ignores his plight.

Earthy mulch smudged tatters, should this have comma in the middle? Or should it be mulched?
neglected gazettes, rested head.  
Blanket wriggles and scuttles,
inky plume-lined feather bed.

Vacant corpse, decaying tree,
a meager voiceless hermit.
A withering rose of consciousness,
once sown amongst the vermin.

I love all the imagery in this piece. I think I get what your saying but even if I'm wrong I really enjoyed the read.

[Animal Riots Activist]

Very new to poetry, but extremely open to criticism!

In the Abandoned Garden

Nameless, | shapeless, | faceless, 6
so-ci|et-y's blood| red chest|nut blight.  9
Darkness | envelopes | and coddles, 8
even | moonlight | ignores | his plight. 8

Earthy mulch smudged tatters, 6
neglected gazettes, rested head. 8  
Blanket wriggles and scuttles, 7
inky plume-lined feather bed. 7

Vacant corpse, decaying tree, 7
a meager voiceless hermit. 7
A withering rose of consciousness, 8
once sown amongst the vermin. 7

Hi BlowMyWadsworth, welcome to the struggle. Here's a couple of things you should consider.

1. Rigid end rhyme sans poetic meter seems disjointed to the reader, and usually does not accomplish what you set out to accomplish. Meter, like the standard Iambic pentameter of Shakespeare (and many many others), involves patterns of stressed and unstressed syllables, and takes a lot of work to master. Here are the basics. First, lines should have the same number of syllables (pentameter has 10 syllables per line). You might think "well penta-meter sounds like it should have five syllables." That's because these lines are broken into metric "feet" which are usually either two or three syllables long. Thus, penta has 10 syllables per line, but 5 feet per line, hence the prefix. In the first stanza of your poem I broke it into (what i thought are the) poetic feet and bolded the stressed syllables. I also put a syllable count at the end of each line throughout the whole thing to get you started. For end rhyme to really function properly you want the same pattern of stressed and unstressed in each foot, and the same amount of feet per line.

2. Avoid abstraction. Abstraction is using large sweeping statements about the world in general. The reader cannot visualize them as well, and therefore has trouble interpreting them as images. It follows the same vein of "show, don't tell." When you abstract, you are telling the reader something, as opposed to showing it. An example of where you used abstraction is "society's blood red chestnut blight". I don't know what that means, I can't visualize it, I don't know/cant see how the preceding line augments it, and overall it confuses me.

3. Avoid cliche. Darkness always swallows or envelopes, corpses are always vacant, roses always wither or wilt, so saying those things are happening are almost like repeating yourself. They're just not very aesthetically pleasing.  There's no list of cliches and I'm sure if there was it would be too long to read, but they're not hard to point out. You know them when you see them.

All the best, and don't give up! Literally everyone here either is in the same place you're at, or started where you're at! I know I did.

-Em

[billy]

hi and welcome to poetry. the newer we are to poetry the easier it is to learn
it feels very full, too full. the titles tells us it's about a garden but really it's about a dead hermit. get something about him into poem earlier than the last verse. use your title wisely, at present the poem feels to much of an automated scroll quality that is throwing out words. loosen up keep how would you want a poet to write it if you were the dead hermit.

good effort on the rhymes; try and redo hemit/vermin.

here is a link on what meter is and how to use it, [done by our admin Leanne] it can take some working out but is worth the effort

Very new to poetry, but extremely open to criticism!

In the Abandoned Garden

Nameless, shapeless, faceless,
society's blood red chestnut blight.
Darkness envelopes and coddles,
even moonlight ignores his plight. his? who is his?

Earthy mulch smudged tatters,
neglected gazettes, rested head.  
Blanket wriggles and scuttles,
inky plume-lined feather bed. it read a bit list-like, try and humanize the poem make us feel something about it emotionally

Vacant corpse, decaying tree, what is a cant corpse?
a meager voiceless hermit. he's voiceless now, he's dead; why meagre,
A withering rose of consciousness,
once sown amongst the vermin.

[Rederex]

Very new to poetry, but extremely open to criticism!

In the Abandoned Garden

Nameless, shapeless, faceless,
society's blood red chestnut blight.
Darkness envelopes and coddles,
even moonlight ignores his plight.

Earthy mulch smudged tatters,
neglected gazettes, rested head.  
Blanket wriggles and scuttles,
inky plume-lined feather bed.

Vacant corpse, decaying tree,
a meager voiceless hermit.
A withering rose of consciousness,
once sown amongst the vermin.

Hi,
I really like the imagery used to describe the hermit and I think that it is a highlight of the poem. If you could, like others have said, introduce the hermit sooner it would improve the poem considerably. Also, I think you are trying to be to complected in the first stanza. Remember, simple is better! Take line two for example, "society's blood red chestnut blight", the emotion comes from the words themselves rather than the way in which they are combined. I think that (blood, red, and chestnut) are actually superfluous, you could say society's blight and give the reader the same emotion. Just an opinion though, take from it what you will.

[milo]

Very new to poetry, but extremely open to criticism!

In the Abandoned Garden

Nameless, | shapeless, | faceless, 6
so-ci|et-y's blood| red chest|nut blight.  9
Darkness | envelopes | and coddles, 8
even | moonlight | ignores | his plight. 8

Earthy mulch smudged tatters, 6
neglected gazettes, rested head. 8  
Blanket wriggles and scuttles, 7
inky plume-lined feather bed. 7

Vacant corpse, decaying tree, 7
a meager voiceless hermit. 7
A withering rose of consciousness, 8
once sown amongst the vermin. 7

Hi BlowMyWadsworth, welcome to the struggle. Here's a couple of things you should consider.

1. Rigid end rhyme sans poetic meter seems disjointed to the reader, and usually does not accomplish what you set out to accomplish. Meter, like the standard Iambic pentameter of Shakespeare (and many many others), involves patterns of stressed and unstressed syllables, and takes a lot of work to master. Here are the basics. First, lines should have the same number of syllables (pentameter has 10 syllables per line). You might think "well penta-meter sounds like it should have five syllables." That's because these lines are broken into metric "feet" which are usually either two or three syllables long. Thus, penta has 10 syllables per line, but 5 feet per line, hence the prefix. In the first stanza of your poem I broke it into (what i thought are the) poetic feet and bolded the stressed syllables. I also put a syllable count at the end of each line throughout the whole thing to get you started. For end rhyme to really function properly you want the same pattern of stressed and unstressed in each foot, and the same amount of feet per line.

2. Avoid abstraction. Abstraction is using large sweeping statements about the world in general. The reader cannot visualize them as well, and therefore has trouble interpreting them as images. It follows the same vein of "show, don't tell." When you abstract, you are telling the reader something, as opposed to showing it. An example of where you used abstraction is "society's blood red chestnut blight". I don't know what that means, I can't visualize it, I don't know/cant see how the preceding line augments it, and overall it confuses me.

3. Avoid cliche. Darkness always swallows or envelopes, corpses are always vacant, roses always wither or wilt, so saying those things are happening are almost like repeating yourself. They're just not very aesthetically pleasing.  There's no list of cliches and I'm sure if there was it would be too long to read, but they're not hard to point out. You know them when you see them.

All the best, and don't give up! Literally everyone here either is in the same place you're at, or started where you're at! I know I did.

-Em

All good stuff here and a good critique.  Just a mild correction - Abstraction is not large sweeping statements, that is generalization.  In poetry, abstractions are things that only exist conceptually (not in the physical world) like hope, beauty, love, truth, etc - and you are right to advise avoiding them.

[BlowMyWadsworth]

Hey all,

I appreciate all the critiques and advice, there's some really good stuff in there. Honestly, I didn't know squat about meter until Animal Riots Activist and Billy mentioned it, so that in and of itself is extremely valuable. The practice poetry seems like a great tool to hone your writing skills as well, I'll be sure to use it! I'm not sure if I'll edit this poem specifically, but I'll be sure to be writing, posting, and critiquing more in the future.

Much love.

[Tryingtobe_____]

Nameless, shapeless, faceless,
society's blood red chestnut blight.
Darkness envelopes and coddles,
even moonlight ignores his plight.

Earthy mulch smudged tatters,
neglected gazettes, rested head.
Blanket wriggles and scuttles,
inky plume-lined feather bed.

Vacant corpse, decaying tree,
a meager voiceless hermit.
A withering rose of consciousness,
once sown amongst the vermin.

When I read it out loud.. I don't feel like it flows off the tongue.
I envy your writing tho.
I am new to poetry as well. This poem seems like you put a lot of work into it. Which I think can be a good thing and a bad thing. I just want it to flow more. It feels too structured.
But again.. I am new to poetry. What do i know
Please dont take offence to this. I really enjoyed it.

[mgood]

In the Abandoned Garden Fantastic title for the poem

Nameless, shapeless, faceless,
society's blood red chestnut blight.
Darkness envelopes and coddles,
even moonlight ignores his plight.Favorite line from the poem, extracts the raw emotions felt when reading

Earthy mulch smudged tatters,
neglected gazettes, rested head.
Blanket wriggles and scuttles,
inky plume-lined feather bed. Would revise the last two lines, a bit unclear of what you are trying to convey

Vacant corpse, decaying tree,
a meager voiceless hermit.
A withering rose of consciousness,
once sown amongst the vermin.