Welcome everyone to another instalment of
The Critique with Dallas and Lissa (mostly Dallas) lol. Dallas has offered his services to all pub patrons as an honest and constructive critic of your poems and stories. If you'd like to read more about his qualifications and experience in this, please see this blog
here
This week we have a poem by
Bluerose, thank you for working with Dallas Bluerose! Here is their first draft together
I will make suggestions in the first rendition of your poem, and mark them with parentheses, then I'll make some of the corrections in the second rendition, so you can see what it looks like.
Remember, these are suggestions only. The final decision remains completely with you.
Your line lengths and breaks are, for the most part, well chosen. There are a few imagery decisions that are distracting to an outside reader, because they cannot see the direction in which you are trying to go. You must take them there, or lose their interest. I'll deal with just a few line changes first, then we'll talk about imagery.
You've chosen to use line breaks instead of external punctuation for the pauses. I will assume that this is the direction you wanted to go.
Gifted
youthful hair thick with power
and(omit the 'and'. With very few exceptions, one should never begin the line of a poem with a preposition or conjunction.) a voice written
with (enjamb the 'with' to the previous line to give this one more power) celestial notes
underscored with chords of callow (eliminate this break and add 'haughtiness' here)
haughtiness
her tiny frame climbs
an(omit 'an') ancestral monument
an(omit 'an') ancient stage carved with her heritage
searching through faces of history
for(enjamb 'for') the source of mystery and power
suspended center stage
a long sharp spear
once grasped, the(omit 'the') androgynous dancer
appears…(use a comma instead of an elipse here. The longer pause of an elipse detracts from the flow.) amusing and entertaining
until('enjamb 'until') self-indulgent curiosity(omit break)
pierces it's neck
it's(two problems here: first, I'd just omit 'its.' Second, the possessive form of 'it' is exactly the opposite of a noun. 'It's' is a contraction if 'It is.' the possessive form would not have the apostrophe) rabbit face distraught
turns ominously toward her
"What have you done, child?"
blackened balance
ends the dance in death
severing lyrics from melody
the darkened stage
keeps performing(a comma here. You need the pause) though,
materializing
an(omit 'an') over abundance of food(omit break and add the last line here.)
for her family
a score of negligent indulgence
is written(break the line here to give the ending more power) for her(omit break)
repertoire
Sincerely,
lori
Okay, let's look at the poem with the suggested changes. Remember, these are still all your words:
__________________
Gifted
youthful hair thick with power
a voice written with
celestial notes
underscored with chords of callow haughtiness
her tiny frame climbs
ancestral monument
ancient stage carved with her heritage
searching through faces of history for
the source of mystery and power
suspended center stage
a long sharp spear
once grasped, androgynous dancer
appears, amusing and entertaining until
self-indulgent curiosity pierces it's neck
rabbit face distraught
turns ominously toward her
"What have you done, child?"
blackened balance
ends the dance in death
severing lyrics from melody
the darkened stage
keeps performing, though,
materializing
over abundance of food for her family
a score of negligent indulgence
is written
for her repertoire.
______________________________
Now let's look at the imagery:
Gifted
youthful hair thick with power (I have difficulty with hair 'thick with power. Maybe it's just me. You want to make sure your readers understand what you mean for an image.)
a voice written with
celestial notes
underscored with chords of callow haughtiness
her tiny frame climbs (I could envision a person climbing, but not a frame climbing. This seems awkward to me.)
ancestral monument
ancient stage carved with her heritage (terrific line!)
searching through faces of history for
the source of mystery and power
suspended center stage
a long sharp spear
once grasped, androgynous dancer
appears, amusing and entertaining until
self-indulgent curiosity pierces it's neck
rabbit face distraught ('androgynous signifies a mixture of male/female. A 'rabbit face' does not work well for this image, since rabbits appear the same)
turns ominously toward her
"What have you done, child?" (I like this line)
blackened balance (evidently this is something that you see, that the reader may not necessarily see.)
ends the dance in death
severing lyrics from melody
the darkened stage
keeps performing, though, (a stage is a platform upon which to perform. It doesn't perform on its own.)
materializing
over abundance of food for her family
a score of negligent indulgence
is written
for her repertoire. I especially like this stanza.)
Okay, take a look at this and see if it makes sense to you. As I've already stated, these are suggestions only, and you have every right to accept or reject my advice. If you'd like to change a few things and resubmit the poem, I'd be happy to look it over again.
Dallas
Thank you once again Bluerose for participating with us! If you'd like Dallas to work with you, just send in your poem or short story to us here at the Harmony Pub, and someone will forward it to Dallas. Please be sure to put 'CRITIQUE' as the subject line so we know what to do with it!