Verdunt

[AttnAttack]

The green hills where our bodies lay
were torn apart by blackberries
we hid & danced, then ran away
when clouds revealed our histories

and when the rain restores the life we burnt
I will show you God in a handful of dirt.


Previous Versions

In the Meadows where our bodies lay
Between the vicious thorns of blackberries
We hid & danced and ran so far away
When the clouds had read our histories

And when the rain restores the Life we burnt
I'll show you love in a handful of dirt.

[dukealien]

In the Meadows where our bodies lay
Between the vicious thorns of blackberries
We hid and danced and ran so far away
When the clouds had read our histories

And when the rain restores the Life we burnt
I'll show you love in a handful of dirt.

In basic critique, but also considering the author's related work ("Verdant") in For Fun.

First suggestion is to remove all capitalization except as required by grammar, that is, proper names and first word of a sentence.  In part this is just the fashion on this site, but emphasis by placing words at the focus of a line (first or last word, for example) rather than capitalization may be worth pursuing.

Good use of white space after L4, which would only be helped by not capitalizing the first word of L5.

Another suggestion is to place each use of the word "the" under suspicion and ruthlessly remove it unless it refers to the sole and only example of what it refers to (the Pope, but not the priest).  The following is an example of what could result from applying these two suggestions to your first stanza, NOT a rewrite:

In meadows where our bodies lay
pricked raw by thorny blackberries,
we hid and danced, and ran away
when clouds had read our histories.

(At first I didn't like rhyming "blackberries" with "histories," but it grows on one.  In the end, I do like it.)

You might consider treating the final couplet in the same way:  removing "the" can make a line more concise, or alternatively leave a spare foot or two to be shod with descriptive words.  This could also make it possible to rhyme that couplet or conform its rhythm to the first stanza.

You have an interesting concept here, which will repay editing and a search for improving words.

On a personal note, I picture Verdun as hills (overlooking the French lines)  with some woods (before the artillery reduced them to matchsticks and craters); meadows would be more the Somme.  Perhaps a battlefield could be suggested in the body rather than relying on the title.  Just a thought.

[AttnAttack]

In the Meadows where our bodies lay
Between the vicious thorns of blackberries
We hid and danced and ran so far away
When the clouds had read our histories

And when the rain restores the Life we burnt
I'll show you love in a handful of dirt.

In basic critique, but also considering the author's related work ("Verdant") in For Fun.

First suggestion is to remove all capitalization except as required by grammar, that is, proper names and first word of a sentence.  In part this is just the fashion on this site, but emphasis by placing words at the focus of a line (first or last word, for example) rather than capitalization may be worth pursuing.

Good use of white space after L4, which would only be helped by not capitalizing the first word of L5.

Another suggestion is to place each use of the word "the" under suspicion and ruthlessly remove it unless it refers to the sole and only example of what it refers to (the Pope, but not the priest).  The following is an example of what could result from applying these two suggestions to your first stanza, NOT a rewrite:

In meadows where our bodies lay
pricked raw by thorny blackberries,
we hid and danced, and ran away
when clouds had read our histories.

(At first I didn't like rhyming "blackberries" with "histories," but it grows on one.  In the end, I do like it.)

You might consider treating the final couplet in the same way:  removing "the" can make a line more concise, or alternatively leave a spare foot or two to be shod with descriptive words.  This could also make it possible to rhyme that couplet or conform its rhythm to the first stanza.

You have an interesting concept here, which will repay editing and a search for improving words.

On a personal note, I picture Verdun as hills (overlooking the French lines)  with some woods (before the artillery reduced them to matchsticks and craters); meadows would be more the Somme.  Perhaps a battlefield could be suggested in the body rather than relying on the title.  Just a thought.

Blackberries is a metaphor for grenades.  I would have said pineapples, the more colloquial expression, but felt that the imagery offered under the subtlety would be a bit more enjoyable to the reader.

"The's" were put there to keep the poem in iambic pentameter, though I may have buggered it a few times.  I wasn't too strict; so long as I kept the right amount of iambs I was okay.  Yours is in tetrameter, which I think is more natural—I wanted the heroic line.  I do like your edit quite a bit, it gives it a bit of sing-songy innocence.  I will take your advice in great consideration 

I tried to delete that thread.  It wouldn't let me

[vagabond]

 In the Meadows where our bodies lay
Between the vicious thorns of blackberries
We hid and danced and ran so far away                   i think you could leave out "so far" because in the last part of the poem the subject (s) seem to build on exactly this bombed earth.
When the clouds had read our histories                      ok.. clouds might bring the rain that follows in the two last lines.. in that context you could write "the clouds soaked up our histories"

And when the rain restores the Life we burnt
I'll show you love in a handful of dirt.


i admit i did not get those blackberries being grenades.. so, good thing you explained, with that info it makes for a more interesting poem to a slow reader like me : )
but it´s a bit hard to believe this promise of love out of bombed earth especially if "the Life" was burned by the victim and the person adressed.
 if you´d could get rid of that "we" in the last but one line i would accept it more easily.
so i imagine something like "when rain restores the life that´s burnt/ we´ll try to raise love from a handful of dirt"

all this would probably turn your poem into something you didn´t want to say, but it´s the only feedback i can offer.

[AttnAttack]

 In the Meadows where our bodies lay
Between the vicious thorns of blackberries
We hid and danced and ran so far away                   i think you could leave out "so far" because in the last part of the poem the subject (s) seem to build on exactly this bombed earth.
When the clouds had read our histories                      ok.. clouds might bring the rain that follows in the two last lines.. in that context you could write "the clouds soaked up our histories"

And when the rain restores the Life we burnt
I'll show you love in a handful of dirt.


i admit i did not get those blackberries being grenades.. so, good thing you explained, with that info it makes for a more interesting poem to a slow reader like me : )
but it´s a bit hard to believe this promise of love out of bombed earth especially if "the Life" was burned by the victim and the person adressed.
 if you´d could get rid of that "we" in the last but one line i would accept it more easily.
so i imagine something like "when rain restores the life that´s burnt/ we´ll try to raise love from a handful of dirt"

all this would probably turn your poem into something you didn´t want to say, but it´s the only feedback i can offer.

I can't change the last line.  That one is supremely fixed and very rigid: it's stolen from Eliot but I've changed it slightly to make it hopeful.  

"I will show you fear in a handful of dust". Is the line; it refers to the savage brutality of war that left the landscape charred and ashen.  My reply, if you could even call it that, is that rain turns the ash to dirt, and dirt back into life.  It is a cycle.

The speakers are a soldier during the first world war, and a visitor years later, after the hills have turned green (present day)

You will find that the newest version fixes many of the issues with the poem.  I do like your suggestion for the 4th line.  I am torn because I enjoy the slight vagueness offered by it (clouds reading/revealing us instead of the opposite, histories referring to the history of the place/history of man, etc.). Feels a bit too open ended.

[vagabond]

rigid and changed into something hopeful at the same time? i don´t understand this reasoning yet, so it didn´t change mine.
but still, thanks for explaining. "i will show you fear in a handful of dust" is a powerful line, indeed.
yes it´s a cycle but maybe not that positive. i once saw a graffiti in prag, a lying figure 8 as a symbol for infinity and the figure´s shape was composed of tanks and excavators following one after the other.

[AttnAttack]

rigid and changed into something hopeful at the same time? i don´t understand this reasoning yet, so it didn´t change mine.
but still, thanks for explaining. "i will show you fear in a handful of dust" is a powerful line, indeed.
yes it´s a cycle but maybe not that positive. i once saw a graffiti in prag, a lying figure 8 as a symbol for infinity and the figure´s shape was composed of tanks and excavators following one after the other.

Meant that I can change a word or two, but I don't want to tear away from the allusion too much.  If I said "My God, it's full of Farts" you might still get the 2001 space Odyssey reference, but if I said "the room, by God, smelled of farts" it would be lost.  Kinda like that.

EDIT: Thank you everyone for your help! The final version is what i'll leave up here.  I am at the point where I am completely satisfied with the poem and do not wish to change it any further.

[Leanne]

I've read this poem through several times now, over many days, and I'm pleased that I still have a very positive response to it.  Initially, the meter was off but the metric changes you've made in your revision are exactly the ones I would have suggested -- rather Blake-ish now, which is ideal I think. 

I keep coming back to "the life we burnt".  It's different in meaning to "the lives we burnt" and I'm not sure which I would in fact prefer, but I tend to like "lives" purely because it makes the "we" into perpetrators who are aware of their guilt and penitent rather than simply resigned to "oh well, that's the end of that then".  Just thinking out loud.  I like when a poem forces me to do that.

The green hills where our bodies lay
were torn apart by blackberries
we hid & danced, then ran away
when clouds revealed our histories

and when the rain restores the life we burnt
I will show you God in a handful of dirt.


Previous Versions

In the Meadows where our bodies lay
Between the vicious thorns of blackberries
We hid & danced and ran so far away
When the clouds had read our histories

And when the rain restores the Life we burnt
I'll show you love in a handful of dirt.

[AttnAttack]

I've read this poem through several times now, over many days, and I'm pleased that I still have a very positive response to it.  Initially, the meter was off but the metric changes you've made in your revision are exactly the ones I would have suggested -- rather Blake-ish now, which is ideal I think. 

I keep coming back to "the life we burnt".  It's different in meaning to "the lives we burnt" and I'm not sure which I would in fact prefer, but I tend to like "lives" purely because it makes the "we" into perpetrators who are aware of their guilt and penitent rather than simply resigned to "oh well, that's the end of that then".  Just thinking out loud.  I like when a poem forces me to do that.

The green hills where our bodies lay
were torn apart by blackberries
we hid & danced, then ran away
when clouds revealed our histories

and when the rain restores the life we burnt
I will show you God in a handful of dirt.


Previous Versions

In the Meadows where our bodies lay
Between the vicious thorns of blackberries
We hid & danced and ran so far away
When the clouds had read our histories

And when the rain restores the Life we burnt
I'll show you love in a handful of dirt.

That is the exact word and line that I continually come back to.  I have told myself to make that change several times; and then rebuked myself.  No, I think I like life better.  It implies many different readings which I enjoy.  It can be personal, as in, the life of the speaker (lives would put it as distant).  It also refers to the nature (and by extension, the world) that was burnt by the cataclysm of WW1.  At the same time, lives would put more gravity towards how many were killed so carelessly; endless waves of youth slaughtered—entire lineages wiped out; the bravest and best of of mankind chocked to death in ash and gas and fire, leaving behind the cowards and the infirm and the lucky idiots.  War is the anathema to evolution.  With Fascism, the ideal man is the aesthetic warrior; the obsession with Ubermensch, but war kills that man and leaves behind those who would not be fit to inherit the world designed by that.  Thus, the life we burnt.

Sorry, got a little carried way. I am glad you liked the poem!

[Leanne]

It's that kind of subtlety of meaning that makes a poem worthwhile. I can't tell you how happy I was to see that you didn't use the horrendous hyperbole of "world" instead of "life", which so many would have been (and have been) tempted to do. This way, each time we read the poem we can debate it further

[QDeathstar]

The green hills where our bodies lay
were torn apart by blackberries
we hid & danced, then ran away
when clouds revealed our histories

and when the rain restores the life we burnt
I will show you God in a handful of dirt.


Previous Versions

In the Meadows where our bodies lay
Between the vicious thorns of blackberries
We hid & danced and ran so far away
When the clouds had read our histories

And when the rain restores the Life we burnt
I'll show you love in a handful of dirt.

Hi. I think this is a good poem. I can't decide if i like love or God better in the second stanza, but that stanza is just about perfect. I think if you said Love it would say god without explicitly saying it. Maybe God is better, but i like love better. Just an edit after reading some crits, i prefer life over lifes. It's far better acoustically and i think it places more weight on the poem, being singular.

My least favorite part of the poem is "we hid & danced, then ran away". I hate the ampersand. It's jarring and distracting. The wording... it's kinda like blah blah blah blah... the rough in the diamond. Then we and.. so many boring words in one line.

[therabbitisme]

Very effective, your point is put across rather powerfully. This might just be a stylistic thing, but I find "blackberries" to be a relatively weak rhyme, and I'm not sure its meaning comes across well.

[yimbus]

I’ve read it many times and am consistently pleased with its simpleness. It really hits home and the tone is great. I expected blackberries to not work well, but I think that is one of my favorite parts. It doesn’t seem to be an awkward rhyme to me when I read it and the imagery of that is much better than pineapples. It aids the darkness and somberness and imo emphasizes the “torn apart” line as blackberries are thorny bushes. Honestly, I can’t find something I’d like to edit in the newer version

[just mercedes]

Have you tried putting the first trope in the present tense as well?