Before the Arising

ARISE"

no"

not yet"

O MAN, OF WONDROUS STRENGTH UNPROVEN

FROM VOID"

Breath fogs in a sky with no edge,

Even echoes forget the way"

Your name never formed at all"

TO CRIMSON RED"

Iron burns against the palm,

Heat carves truth into the skin"

A scream tears loose"no owner"

TO EARTHLY GREEN"

Roots breaking stone beneath bare feet,

Life clawing upward through dirt"

Soil packed tight beneath your nails"

TO GRAVE WHITE"

All sound stills beneath the frost,

Even fire forgets its name"

The body is still. not empty"

ARISE.

"or don’t.

It makes no difference now.

YOU'VE ALREADY TRAVELLED THROUGH THEM ALL

Reviews

[JayG]

• I write whenever an idea hits — sometimes random, sometimes thoughtful.

Here’s the problem with that: Because you know what the “idea” is, the result of using it as inspiration makes sense. But...the story in your head never reached the reader, because you’ve not taken THEIR needs into account.

Look at a few lines as your reader must:

• ARISE"

What’s the quotation mark for? I can find no normalized usage for that, but you sprinkle them in here and there for reasons only you are aware of.

• no"
• not yet"

So someone unknown has been asked to either stand up or become apparent, for unknown reasons, but replies that they don’t want to? What can that mean to the reader who doesn’t know who issued the commend, why, or what’s going on?

• O MAN, OF WONDROUS STRENGTH UNPROVEN

So...the person being told to “rise” has amazing strength of an unstated kind that no one knows of? Seriously?

Sure, when you read it, it’s presented dramatically, as you command the protagonistof your wish-dream to spring into action. But, can the reader hear the emotion ringing in YOUR voice? Can they know to place it into that of the narrator? Nope. Always have the computer read your work to you to hear what the reader gets.

My point? Involve the reader, don’t talk TO them about what’s in YOUR mind. Place it into theirs. Don’t write poetry with the report-writing skills of school. They’re fact-based and meant to inform. Use the emotion-based approach of poetry and fiction. Instead of telling the reader that you cried, give the READER reason to weep. That change in approach, from telling to showing is what makes poetry what it is—entertainment, not information. Don’t use only sound and sight. Humanity has 5 senses. So make use of the reader’s to provide realism. Mention the smell of cinnamon, the feel of velvet, the taste and feel of chocolate on the tongue, and you pull up memories from the reader’s mind to make your words real and personal.

Poetry isn’t a lecture. It’s interactive between poet and reader, and must be. So...you have the desire and the inspiration. Add to that by giving your talent the tools it needs to add wings to your words by digging into the knowledge and techniques that poets have been refining for over a thousand years.

Read a good book on the basics of poetry, like Mary Oliver’s, A Poetry Handbook:

https://dokumen.pub/a-poetry-handbook-0156724006.html

And for metrical poetry, head over to Amazon and read the excerpt from Stephen Fry’s, The Ode Less Traveled. He will amaze you with things about language that you use every day, never noticing that you do.

[S€H@J]

Thanks for taking the time to give such a detailed critique — I genuinely appreciate it.
read moreThanks for taking the time to give such a detailed critique — I genuinely appreciate it.

I agree with your point about clarity and punctuation, especially the quotation marks — that’s something I’ll clean up. And I understand what you mean about making writing more immersive for the reader.

That said, this piece was intentionally written in a more symbolic, almost ritual/chant-like style rather than a narrative one. So some of the abstraction and lack of direct context was deliberate, not accidental.

I do see your point about avoiding overly familiar phrasing and making imagery more specific, though — that’s something I’m actively working on improving.

Thanks again for the feedback — it definitely gave me a few things to think about.

[FlatDaddy]

Jay makes some valid points BUT. For whom did you write this poem? If you wrote it for ME, you've left out some y'alls and cactus. You can't write for everyone. Personally, I write for ME. And whoever reads what I write is bound to get something from it I didn't put into it. That is one overriding trait and purpose of poetry whoever invented poetry didn't consider: everyone is different. Poetry is not written like a news report on the tube. It is written with passion and laughter, tears and angst, and all the other colors of emotions. Reading poetry is like looking at clouds: we all see something different -- and some people, sadly, see only clouds.

Write what you see and hear and feel, young Padawan. If we, the readers, get only a small portion of what you lay down for us, we will be lucky, and pleased. If not, well ...
Exactly.

FD