help me help a friend: feedback please!

[Lauren Hynde]

This was written by a friend of mine that asked me to give him some comments and help making it better. Title suggestions are also welcomed, but he mostly wants feedback.


Whistling wind blows across the tundra,
the tall grass bends in the breeze.
Your hair drifts across your face,
the erie calm betraying your mind.
The sun finally shuts it eye,
and the moon, filling the sky silver black
You straighten out of your crouch,
the leather creaks like old joints.
You turn your head and glance,
the crest of the hill so like a void.
Whatever passes across it,
so much different from now.
Then in the distance you hear,
the drums sounding out in the night.
Their booming laugh rattling
your bones as they draw near.
Filling your mind with pictures,
burning villages set in secrecy.
The screams of villagers aflame,
your lands razed at your heels.
Defenders slain, while the army
from out of nowhere advances.
Beasts freed from their cages,
roaming amongst the streets.
Swords are drawn amonst your group,
their sound searing the night.
From pver the hill birds soar,
panic sending them in all directions.
Over the rise come a cry,
and hundreds of dark black shapes flow.
You throw your sword forth,
it's bright glow like a lance in the night.
The men charge and meet in battle,
heads are hewn and limbs torn free.
Yet in the end all is right,
you stare at the blood soaked ground.
The uprising quelled in hours,
you walk back to your home.
Your people are free from these monsters,
their ideals so different from yours.
Thoughts of freedom from opressors,
these sickening you to bone,
You tend to your wounds,
and smile at the dead.
Your losses mean nothing,
people die and cultures end.
you live on the same as before,
and your people locked in misery.

 

[smithpeter]

for some reason I needed to reference http://www.reducedshakespeare.com/.

expanse, beating and wind-
beasts, freedom, fire-
when you are dead,
you are dead

 

[Rybka]

Feedback

I might start by eliminating alot of "the"s and thinking about changing the "you" and "yours". - Right now, at least to me, it reads more like prose than poetry.

Tell your friend not to give up, but don't be afraid to change things. With a piece I am serious about [and most can't be displayed on this site], I like to put a quasi-finished work away for a few weeks and then read it again. If it still sounds good then it is done. Usually though, it still needs a tweak or two.

Regards, Rybka

 

[smithpeter]

"quasi-finished"
please define

 

[Rybka]

You Like Faux-Finished Better?

"quasi-finished"
please define

I mean a poem or story that I am content with at the moment, but that I am not ready to lock in type yet. - I can't think how to improve it, possibly because I am to close (involved) with it, but that doesn't mean I won't want to rewrite something after a month or more away from it.
I am referring to serious work, not the humorous quickies I have been tossing off lately for Lit.

Regards, Rybka

 

[Star At Sunrise]

Review

Hey Lauren!

Okay, I'll try and give detailed feedback. My triumphant return to poetry reviews! Woo hoo!

Just kidding. I think poetry reviews are kinda like voting on poetry. It may serve some kinda purpose and be fun and flattering, but poems should be personal and universal.

Okay, I just hate saying anything that may discourage someone from continuing to try and express themselves through poetry. It's very thereputic.

First of all, the good stuff. It was a pretty good poem overall, but I like my poems broken up, at least a little. It's hard to read all in one block like that. I've been spoiled by the internet, but broken up text broken up into paragraphs or free standing lines is just easier to read, and for me helps "group" ideas in the poem, giving them their own beginning and end.

It was hard to grasp what the poem was about. First I thought it was about the land, then possibly cowboys and a frontier battle. Then there's a part about "Beasts freed from their cages, roaming amongst the streets" and then it seems to be science-fiction fantasy.

"erie" is spelled "eerie"

Hope it helps!

Star

 

[OT]

Review

Long passages of unbroken text tends to intimidate.
Consider breaking it into stanzas.

It's definitely too wordy. Look for places to simply eliminate words.
For example, the first line loses nothing by simply dropping the word "blows" (what else would a whistling wind do?), and lines like
"you throw your sword forth" might become "throwing your sword",
and as Rybka already mentioned, many of the "the's" could easily go away.

Sometimes it helps to boil it down to the point of being cryptic, then only add back where you need some clarification.

(Words: When in doubt throw them out, then only let them back in if they beg.)

Some of the "ings" might become plurals "calm betrays your mind"

It could be a very exciting piece when finished.

O.T.
my stuff

 

[Lauren Hynde]

Thank you all so much for the help. I'll pass it along and try to convince him to post an edited version himself.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

I'm a lousy friend. Never did send you this feedback...

 

[dr_mabeuse]

My opinion only:

(1) It's not what I usually think of as a poem. It's a story written to look and sound something like a poem, but it doesn't have the depth of a poem. The imagery is pretty flat and literal and kind of commonplace. It sure doesn't make me see anything in a new way or teach me anything or tell me anything about what the poet thinks about all this. It's like a description of a scene from some sword & sorcery movie.

(2) I might consider it as kind of Beowulf type thing but I don't hear enough music in the language. There is some good imagery in the birds taking to the skies, but on the whole the imagery is quite thin and trite. The battle itself is over in a couple of lines and everything's made right, which gives the whole a very hollow, "wha' happened?" feel. Putting in a bunch of blood and lopped off limbs ain't gonna do it. And despite the author's use of second person, we never feel that there's anyone he's really talking to.

(3) I balked at the opening where the picture is confused. Tundra (what a thud that word is!) doesn't have long grass: it has mostly moss and lichen. The tall grass blowing in the wind doesn't jibe with the "eerie calm". In the battle especially there's a lot of cliched action. I'm going to bet that the author is pretty damned young and doesn't really know what any sort of group struggle feels like, because he's obviously faking it. This is a cartoon fight.

You don't have to be a Viking to write a battle poem, but you do have to really imagine yourself there with honesty and acuity and then edit it down to the most poetically rich and meaningful moments.

My opinions only


---dr.M.