Quest

Five bootsteps is five more to the goal
Five footfalls more makes the distance closer
But what is five anymore?
Only a number to measure the progress;
a way to tell me I'm moving along

A world has felt my steps go round it
twice, nay, thrice, since I began my journey
The way of others through the ages
For what, it does not matter
Tis not the end I have in mind, but the quest itself

By my side, my sword and horn of elder days
Behind me, years of a hard fought path stretch back
Before me, an end of some sort lies shrouded
But what then is left around me?
Only dust and echoes, as my quest takes me on

Hey Conrad. I would've given this crit to your story, but you didn't post it on YWS (fail, by the way) and so you'll have to settle for my mediocre poetry-reviewing abilities.

Also, you might want to put periods or dashes or something in between stanzas, because the line breaks don't show up, and I always think formatting a an important aspect of any poem.

Basically, I liked this poem after the first stanza. I didn't like the first stanza because its tone seems so different from the second and the third. You use imagery in the last parts, but those first four lines give us nothing interesting to ponder. Nothing new. It seems like those lines are there to set up the mood-- the narrator just having to keep going, closer and closer to a goal that's hard to measure. I like that mindset, but I think you need to find a more poetic to go about saying it.

twice, nay, thrice, since I began my journey

I don't think the 'twice, nay, thirce' part adds anything to the poem, besides some extra syllables. I'm sure there are cases where it's good for a narrator to correct themselves, but I don't really see much of a point here. It doesn't reveal any more meaning, just more words.

Lastly, I think this could've done without the 'Tis'. In a way, it made the poem seem much more forced than needs to be. You've got this fantasy-esque atmosphere, with the elder days and horns and quests, but I do not think using that old language is necessary.

All in all, I liked the feel of this poem. It has a great rhythm and flow, so definitely no worries there. The last stanza was my favorite, especially the part about dust and echoes. ^^ You're great at imagery and poetic language, Con-- show us some of that, and spread it into the first stanza.

Best of luck! PM me if you need anything else.

~Evi

Coon,


I probably shouldn't pay so much attention to judging poems based on the genre they're posted in (which, by the way, it's horribly confusing to tell where to put what). In my opinion, though, this doesn't actually fall into the genre of Dramatic Poetry.

I believe that this is because it carries a more narrative tone than poetic. As I often find myself saying, distinguish between poetry writing and story writing by varying up your choice of language. Use more metaphor, more interesting words than the common everyday words we speak in. Give us more by defining the words in better language than you are using here.

Of other things, you carry a bit of repetition. The five footsteps thing is cute at first image, but as the poem progresses, dear, it seems to lie heavily on redundancy. We're not getting much of anywhere with this because this character that is relating this quest to us is walking, walking, walking with no sense of originality. Why isn't this quest something more for him than a tedious chore he must over come?

A lot of times in poetry, people advise against raising questions unless you can effectively answer the question without disrupting the greater pull of things and unless it fits your poem well. I don't think the questioning suits this too well, Coon, because it's bringing an unecessary feeling of doubt to the table, and it's not such a pretty slice to work with.

So, in closing, I have to say that these are bones you can work with and build on. I'm picky when it comes to poetry-- nothing personal, and I won't let that make me judge for no reason at all. It's not a poem I would favor, but it's good to begin with.

I would recommend building on metaphor; the blase narration of trivial events is lead in water. Drags it down, dearie. Kill that.

I would recommend personification; you have a first person narrative, another reason why I feel this is more narrative than dramatic. Because of this, it would be more interesting if the journey was alive, not just a dead thing to pull through.

I would also recommend expansion. It would be good to elaborate more on things such as giving subtle reasoning to the quest and its goals and such forth. It seems like a ground for subliminal messages, but there's not enough clues to come to a logical picture.

So! Hope I wasn't too harsh. Best of luck writing and revising, Conrad. I won't say it wasn't good, but it wasn't in my preferred range of poetry.

June

Well Connie, sorry it took me so long to get here.

Five bootsteps is five more to the goal
Five footfalls more makes the distance closer
But what is five anymore?
Only a number to measure the progress;
a way to tell me I'm moving along

Now this is a winsome opening. There isn't really anything wrong with it, it just isn't as appealing to me as I could be. It's not that there are things you could really improve, just the tone you take and your language is one I don't particularly love.
Don't take this to heart. It really depends on personal poetic taste, as I like to say.

A world has felt my steps go round it
twice, nay, thrice, since I began my journey
The way of others through the ages
For what, it does not matter
Tis not the end I have in mind, but the quest itself

Tis > T'is As it is a mingling of two words.
Another thing I noticed was the lack of punctuation in this poem. If a poem is one giant jumble of run on sentences the flow is nonexistent. That's probably my biggest problem with this. The lack punctuation and the way it just kills the potential flow.

By my side, my sword and horn of elder days
Behind me, years of a hard fought path stretch back
Before me, an end of some sort lies shrouded
But what then is left around me?
Only dust and echoes, as my quest takes me on

Decent closing but realistically this poem needs a good shove of editing and reshaping. It has hidden potential you really should bring out. It'll take some work but it has the consistency of a really great poem. Keep it up Connie. You just need to work on it.

Kamas