Heliokinesis

I am
swimming
in a complex of
cochineal. It
coats the carpals of
the spray I hold in hand
and drenches dendra all around me in
a brio brume. But all too soon, the
Hexaplex glides along and
bleeds its dye, and
all the carmine cast
is lost.

Heya Kyllorac.

I'm so sorry it's taken me a while to get to this... I've been very busy lately, but enough of my excuses! I'm not sure if I'm going to be much help here, but I'll try and come up with something.

As a whole, I actually very much like this. It comes across as a rather simple poem, but with your use of varied vocabulary, it ends up feeling more complex. It's kind of weird, but good. Very good. The structure you used for this was well suited for the poem as well, so thumbs up for that. After reading your poem, I can guarantee you that this review will be short and pretty pointless. I honestly love poems like this; I always find that I prefer shorter poems to longer ones.

The only negative I can find in this is that I'm struggling a little to find the theme and the general point of the piece. I don't even think that could count as a negative... Besides, in all honesty, I know nothing about poems, so maybe I'm just missing something. Considering I'm rather unsure about this, there's not an awful lot I can say about it. I get the impression that you didn't want this poem to be awfully clear, and I like that about it. I just think that you could maybe make it a little clearer, mainly for readers who would struggle to grasp the general idea of this at the beginning... *cough* me.

I feel terribly useless here because that's the only thing I can come up with, plus I'm not sure if you could even class that as a critique. Like I've said many times before, I love this. I'm not much of a poetry reader at all, and I know basically nothing about the subject, so I doubt that aspect helps when it comes to reviewing this. My opinion on it is great though, and I think you've got a seriously sweet piece of writing here. Sorry again for the lack of help... xD

Keep writing,

xoxo Skins

Jesus Christ, I'm conflicted.

I hate it when you do things like this to me, Kyll, and you seem to love doing them quite a bit. So, I'll give you this review and hope that I'm being dramatic in one of my assumptions. So, first-off, you get an absolute perfect score for your vocabulary. The images are vivid and alive, and it just seems to breathe through the words. I read this the first time and thought, "Man. I can imagine analyzing this in a poetry course one day." And then I smiled because it gave me an idea of how astounding my friends are. However, I read it a second, third, fourth, seventh time...and started diverging on my meanings. And that scares me.

So here's route one, the first route that comes to mind:

The imagery in the 'red zone' seems to depict a very fervent twilight scene. And the narrator enjoys this twilight intensely because it arouses so many feelings in the body and around him...like he's a part of the atmosphere. Even the title works very literally. And when that was the point of the poem, it was fantastic because I could feel everything from the warmth of the sun to the tingle in the nerves...everything coated in oranges and reds.

...and then I looked at the word carpals a little too much.

Almost instantly, the images melted from this beautiful, warming sunset into a poor soul on the brink...and soon jumping off the edge. After the word 'carpals' got examined, the entire sense of the poem turned to a very cloaked and metaphorical suicide note. And when that idea seeded itself in my head, there was no shaking it. Suddenly, the scene of a sunset--the entire poem--turned into a metaphor for death. And how did the person wish to die? By coated their carpals in a red dye. And there's a great sensation in the nerves as the dye is released, but it eventually turns to indigo...and all the beautiful red is lost.

I understand the fact that I'm too depressing and that I think too much about things like this. I just hope that you're describing twilight.

-Lumi

You're a dictionary in a human's body. My gosh. However I am torn between enjoying this thoroughly and not liking it at all.

And I will tell you why:

an elaborate vocabulary is greatly appreciated, at all times. The issue would be, almost baring it all at once. It overshadows anything you're trying to say. You can't create, in my opinion (as I'm contradicting Skins here) complexity through words. You want a complex story, a complex train of thought, or process of explaining, and flashing your vocabulary in those case is almost like an intellectual tease, that makes you keep reading to see if the meaning is buried through the rest of the story. It makes the reader search, try to understand what you're saying, it deepens interest and makes it generally more intelligent.

But when you take a basic story, and use big, complicated words every line, within the 48 words of this poem you lose your reader. (And trust me, I'm guilty of this too.) You lose any story that may have been told as the reader:
A: Paused to google the word
B: gave up reading
C: found themselves in utter confusion, or with a lack of understanding.

Though I understood this poem, I felt completely detached from it. I would pause to take a second glance at things like brio brume. Though being a clever alliteration, does not contribute to any imagery at all, though it tries. And that leads to my second issue caused by vocabulary.

Imagery, too, is lost. I can see what you're saying, but you let these big words create the picture for you (which they don't), they only create a tone and feeling. So words invoke a feeling, not really an image. Mending together what they invoke is how you float your reader along, if you conflict those intonations you have another problem to layer on top:

You start off with a title like heliokinesis, something, as Lumi said

I could feel everything from the warmth of the sun to the tingle in the nerves...everything coated in oranges and reds.

You take a word that evokes a feeling, but lose that sense by plunging into insects and a muddy red colour, that isn't appealing.

So, through the depending of big words and a contrast in feeling your poem falls flat. But it had potential to be something really interesting.

So for you, story before words, and learn to read the emotion evoked by a certain word to keep your poem from conflicting.

Nice try Ky. I haven't reviewed in a while, so I hope you found this okay.

Kamas