Frigid Death

Next in the poem series I'm writing...

Frigid Death

As I walk home,
From tasks unwanted,
The wind begins its blowing,
As monstrous clouds
Begin their snowing.

I hurry on,
Pushing though wet mounds
Of freezing white.
Light begins to dim,
And swirling particles
Blur my vision.

I am lost,
Wandering in a world
Of blank cold.
Seeping into my body,
The soft, cool fingers
Start me shivering.

I stumble on and on,
Slowing every second,
Until finally, I cannot go on.
A warmth crawls up my body,
And eventually-Freedom.

Hi.
I'm new to this site and am now going to write you a big comment, but only because I have to get my work ratio up so I can write again!

Wow! I loved it. I presume it was Winter? If it was you said it in so subtly a way that I felt cold myself!
It is beautifully written.

The only grammar mistake I could find is that at the end you put
"-Freedom" with a capital F but. hey, whose going to notice that apart from a snob like me!

Fab work,
All the best.

Hey RedBird! Nice to meet you. =P

You have some great imagery in this poem. I particularly like "wandering in a world of blank cold". On the other hand, it could do with some good spicing up and patching. First of all, you don't need a capital letter at the start of every line - as with prose, just the start of a new sentence as well as proper nouns.

As I walk home,
From tasks unwanted,
The wind begins its blowing,
As monstrous clouds
Begin their snowing.

"from tasks unwanted" doesn't mean a whole lot to me. Is it necessary? Perhaps an example would be good, a brief line of description thereafter. "begin" is such a plain verb - and you repeat it, including "as". Grammatically, it's fine, but the flow is greatly interrupted by the commas and repetition. Use more exciting vocabulary. Currently, all you're doing is introducing a snowfall and not a lot more.

If that doesn't help, try simply cutting down on sentence structures, rephrasing things. For example, "the wind begins its blowing" could come to "the wind blows". This just shortens poem, keeping things blunt and retaining more effect. Another way to bring in more conflict and imagery would be to describe the effects. Do cars get cased in white? Are animals thrown backwards in the wind? It's different ways like this that add some subtlety.

That's quite general advice, I hope, because I'm going to suggest that you get rid of the first verse. The rest then reads more actively as we try to work out what's going on. "I hurry on" is a much stronger way to start.

Anyway, yes! Good work, but there could be some more activity in the poem. Right now, it's just someone going through some snow and getting warm again. Well, dying, but regardless. There could be conflict in the snow - I suggest adding some personification to the frost, or at least a little more. Give winter a much more menacing look, get inside its head, describe its intentions.

PM me if I can be of any help. ^^

Best
Blinky

Hi RedBird,

RedBird wrote:As I walk home,
From tasks unwanted,
The wind begins its blowing,
As monstrous clouds
Begin their snowing.

What is the point of "tasks unwanted"? The only reference I can see to this later on in the poem is when you mention that dying is freedom; however, that concept of freedom could be applied to so many things - the obvious pain of the cold, for example - that it really cannot be used as justification for this tasks statement. If a line has absolutely nothing to do with nothing, then don't keep it. If this line actually does have something to do with something else in the piece, then clarify, for right now it looks as a wandering star, disjointed and without purpose.

"Monstrous clouds" says nothing; a monster can be any one of a billion images. In addition, "begin their snowing" is completely bland and in no way lives up to the electricity of your earlier "monster" image; it sounds weak. Refine your descriptions.

I hurry on,
Pushing though wet mounds
Of freezing white.
Light begins to dim,
And swirling particles
Blur my vision.

I am lost,
Wandering in a world
Of blank cold.
Seeping into my body,
The soft, cool fingers
Start me shivering.

A multitude of problems in these two above stanzas. I do not like the seperation of lines you have used in the first one. Why should there be a distinction between "and swirling particles" and "blur my vision", for example? It looks spontaneously cut, and needs to be at least analyzed and considered if not revamped entirely.

What does "blank cold" mean?

If you're going to personify ideas, like the fingers of ice, then you should let the reader know why you chose that particular description. Right now, the fingers don't mean anything; they don't touch, grasp, choke, or anything that one would expect fingers to do. They just "start me shivering", and that is too vague.

I stumble on and on,
Slowing every second,
Until finally, I cannot go on.
A warmth crawls up my body,
And eventually-Freedom.

The third line brought crashing down any orchestra of imagery that your previous stanzas might have generated. "I cannot go on". Really? That's devoid of any picture. Try picturing it in your mind; it is either too foggy or doesn't conjure up a visual at all. Why have that in there as a roadblock to any imagery that you've been building up? Remove it and replace it.

In general, not a good poem at all, and the message escapes the reader entirely. So this is just about dying in the snow? That is a narrow-minded theme and leaves the reader wondering why you wanted him to read it in the first place, if just to illustrate a nameless man's death.

Hope that helped,
Galerius

nice poem little red riding fro. NICE HORROR POEM

Hello RedBird. Here is your critique!

Frigid Death

I'm looking at the title and already I'm hooked. It gives the reader a promise of a dark and chilling (no pun intended) tale. However, it is a tad generic, and gives away the fact that the narrator of the poem will die. Wouldn't it be better left as a surprise

From tasks unwanted

'tasks unwanted' doesn't really sound quite right. The peaceful flow of this poem is broken with that line. I can tell that you're trying to sound fancy, but it's not working. Sometimes things in their simplest form work out the best. In this case, that would be 'unwanted tasks.'

The wind begins its blowing,

its is not necessary here, as 'its' refers to something that is possessive. The wind does not possess blowing. It just blows.

Begin their snowing.

Again, clouds do not possess or own snowing. They snow, so 'their' can be deleting.

Pushing though wet mounds
Of freezing white.

I know you mean snow, but you should probably mention that your narrator is trudging through snow so this part doesn't seem as awkward.

I stumble on and on,
Slowing every second,
Until finally, I cannot go on.
A warmth crawls up my body,
And eventually-Freedom.

=(
Sad ending.

Alright, now for my overall impressions. I thought it was good, but there were some sections where your flow and word choice were a little awkward, but that's nothing that can't be fixed. However, my major problem with this poem was that I could not see a moral. A person is walking home in the cold, and then they die. Sad, but what's the point? We don't want the read an artistic form of a news story. We want to walk away with greater knowledge then before. There needs to be something that made your poem worth reading.

Ta Ta.

The only thing I find that's troubling in this piece is the lack of punctuation. Sure, you don't need a lot of punctuation rules in poetry, but if each sentence starts with a capital letter, it's a little confusing, especially when you use multiple lines for a single sentence. It's slightly distracting and confusing. You don't need to play with many rules, but using some of them is never a bad idea.

Aside from that, it's very well done.

Hey Red!

So, this is a nice little poem here. It's very seasonal! And pretty cool because it's snowing for me right now!

One thing I would like to point out is your use of imagery. Sometimes it's good and I like it. But, other times it is non-existent, or just doesn't feel right for the context. I'll give you some examples.

Light begins to dim,
And swirling particles
Blur my vision.

Now, these lines have a *lot* of potential. A lot, I tell you! Think of all the similes and metaphors you could use here! There are so many possibilities for these lines, that I advise you to take them away and make them quadruply awesome.

And:

Seeping into my body,
The soft, cool fingers
Start me shivering

Now, the idea of 'soft, cool fingers' is nice, but does it really fit in with the idea of 'freezing' cold? It sounds a little too gentle for this poem!

But, the rest is nice! You've done a good job.

Hope this helps!

~Amy