devoured

Spoiler

Thank you dearly, Azila and Bob. ^^

heavy caves cradle us in black,
black paws pressed to warm belly where
we fall into catatonic tonics,
sweet bees gathered into
taste of preparation,
when deer flee our burrowing noses that
seek flesh like sun to the snow.

we taste the pulse between our teeth, a gush
of rubies mined from sinew,
plunge of claws to heart and stomach--
there is warmth in the veins, summer in the
fire of the pulse, warmth in our mouth
where teeth clatter together like glass,
ice-filled bones, hollow in the
sweet melt of summer;

we have honey stuck brown fur
in a cave too dark to see the bones we
lap at, instead prowl colds walls
for marrow, rest
in the ribcage of a deer,
summer devoured.

Ooooh, graphic. Excellent description. I would say use capitalization. Lots of it. Call me a stickler, but I loooove capitalization.

Bear, right?

Persy! *snuggleglomps* I am here and I’m here for you!

So, I’ve got a couple of nitpicks right off the bat!

heavy caves cradle us in black,
black paws pressed to warm belly where

I’m going to take a guess and say that you can see what I’m going to point out here. *cough* Repetitive! *cough*

we have honey stuck brown fur

I think “honey stuck” would be better hyphenated as “honey-stuck” here.


I’ll be honest with you Persy, but this didn’t hit me with quite the power of some of your other stuff. It’s not bad by any means. I mean, you have a lot of great description in here like:

a gush/of rubies mined from sinew,

and

honey stuck brown fur

But at the same time, there seems to be a distance from the subject, bear. You’re so terribly sweet and warm that this chilly, dark imagery isn’t something you can connect with on a literary point. It’s why emo kids are so good at emo poetry and comedians are good at writing comedy. But I can’t imagine you writing something quite this dark. It doesn’t mesh well with who you are.

The only other comment I can make about this is that the line breaks seem a little funny throughout. I don’t know if it’s just something you’re trying out but it felt a bit clumsy.

If you have any questions, you know how to find me, Persy!
~lilymoore

It's been a while since I've given a review, so I'm just going to take this stanza by stanza. Sorry ahead of time for anything that doesn't make sense - if you have any questions, do let me know, and I'll do my best to go into more detail about anything I say that you don't understand.

Persephoneia wrote:heavy caves cradle us in black,
black paws pressed to warm belly where
we fall into catatonic tonics,
sweet bees gathered into
taste of preparation,
when deer flee our burrowing noses that
seek flesh like sun to the snow.

1. nitpick: catatonic tonics.. normally I'd say something like this is clever, but that's not the case this time. Having "tonic" repeated back to back like that just isn't flowing the way you probably intended. Perhaps that's just me, but do give it some thought, if you will.
2. This issue surfaced in each stanza, but I'll save your time and only address it here: bringing sweetness into a poem that's dominantly savage-like and animalistic really threw the piece off balance. Now, knowing you, there's probably a purpose to all the honey-sweet imagery, and I have a few ideas as to what you were trying to do (honey/bees clue reader into thinking the predator is a bear, bloody deer tastes sweet to the bear, sweetness balances the blood and gore, etc); however, it just contrasts too much with the "devour" aspect of the piece. Don't get me wrong.. I like what you were trying to do (or what I think you were trying to do - sorry if I interpreted it all wrong), just not necessarily how you did it.
3. I'm assuming the setting is cold, which is why you refer to the deer as summer, and in the last line of the piece, summer is devoured. Love.

Persephoneia wrote:we taste the pulse between our teeth, a gush
of rubies mined from sinew,
plunge of claws to heart and stomach--
there is warmth in the veins, summer in the
fire of the pulse, warmth in our mouth
where teeth clatter together like glass,
ice-filled bones, hollow in the
sweet melt of summer;

1. You know how I feel about too much repetition (summer, pulse, teeth - repetition of "warmth" didn't sound too bad). Make of it what you will, because whatever I say on this matter will be too biased in favor of my personal taste.
2. I do like the imagery here, especially in the first two lines. Fabulous.

Persephoneia wrote:we have honey stuck brown fur
in a cave too dark to see the bones we
lap at, instead prowl colds walls
for marrow, rest
in the ribcage of a deer,
summer devoured.

1. The cave appears to be a metaphor for the deer's ribcage... which I absolutely love. Made the poem.
2. I already commented on the "summer devoured" part. Again, love.
3. The diction and imagery in this stanza is probably the best out of the entire poem - everything is concise and deliberately placed in the perfect spot (minus the first line, which I already commented on earlier), and those two things hand in hand contribute a great flow between words/line breaks. I clapclapclap for you.

Overall, I like it. You tend to write on very simple subjects that are often overlooked - such as a bear eating a deer - and make these things into works of awesomeness, and that's one of the reasons I enjoy your work. On the other hand, like lily said, it's a bit dark for your style, but I'm sure you could make it work if you picked at the piece a bit. Though who am I to judge? Either way, nice work here, and sorry for the lame review. Still trying to get back in the rhythm of writing and all. Y'know.

Niagini!

So with this. This is almost slam poetry. Spoken poetry is weird, it flows in a way which is less kind to the visual reader. I've read the poem with the intent of a speaker, pausing at the final word in each line. It has power, a strong voice and a lovely tone which carries throughout the entire poem. You do push the sweet a little too strongly. You have almost (in all your poems) come to a point where you're not overcompensating in regard to content. I almost feel like you want meaning to be paramount in your poetry. This isn't going to happen properly if you push it too hard. Let us think! Free us from your specifics and let your reader wallow in ambiguity for a little while. What I really mean is that the desire to mean is overtaking your poem on an aesthetic level.

I'd love to see you write a poem where you say "Dash it all! Meaning is for scientists!" and just wrote a poem purely for fun, no alterior motive hidden in there. It's way more fun than it sounds, promise. Of course, you may be sitting there saying "Yo, Guin! I don't write with intent, I just write what happens" I can tell you it's not showing that way, your poems feel - I stress that this is a personal view and many others may and will disagree - that they're saturated in meaning and purpose. I want to see them breathe! But you know how you're progressing in this way. I also don't want you to try something you don't feel ready for. I'm all kinds of confusing.


All my Ittybit nitpicks are below.

fire of the pulse, warmth in our mouth < not feeling "of the pulse" here, it's too slow, for how I'm reading the lines anyway, halts you up.

sweet melt of summer; < You don't need "sweet" here.

we have honey stuck brown fur < I want this to say "honey suckle" because... that's what it should be. xD It's sticking at "stuck" here, which isn't what you want, despite the word and connotation. It's holding your flow back. The flow that you have by a typical lack of periods found in your poetry. (You have a good handle of the extended line, don't push it too much by entering pauses which fit oddly in your lines) But honeysuckle because it flows just right but has the same kind of feel to it. The sweet, light feeling, the colour as well as connection. Up to you, of course.

lap at, instead prowl colds walls < I'd like to see you lose "instead" and "colds walls" (plural cold a typo?) because "prowl for marrow" works much nicer.

I hope I helped somewhat! You know the drill if you have questions, want me to look again.

<3

As a general overview, I really liked it. I like your basic style. :]

For my dislikes, here they are;

1) The breakages were weird. As in:

we have honey stuck brown fur
in a cave too dark to see the bones we
lap at, instead prowl colds walls
for marrow, rest
in the ribcage of a deer,
summer devoured.

It was strange, and I had to really think about where to stop. Instead of using commas, hit enter. It sounded unnatural in certain places, which didn't make for a pretty, easy flow in my thoughts, or out loud.

2) You made this such a simple and animalistic poem, so the we's and the our's created a very human effect. It kind of cancelled out the beast factor, and took away the natural part of it.

3)

sweet bees gathered into
taste of preparation,

Maybe there should be a "the" after "into". Once again, it stopped in a weird place and prevented the natural flow of poetry to occur.


Now for my likes:

1) I really like the pure animality of it. It sounded simple, like what a bear's mind might sound like.

2) I'm a big visual person, so the great imagery really tied it together. It added to the feel of the bear.


Keep writing! Your style is great :]