The Greatest Show Off Earth

Hi Gally.

Sorry if this review doesn't make sense/ is a little lacking, I've current got a cold and my thought process isn't the most comprehensive.

I want to know what this poem is about. I can tell you the elements and I can see the smaller stories and what they're about, but I'm not sure about the poem as a whole. Occasionally the rhyme gets to me - I dislike rhyme in general - but for the most part I can't see it, so I'm not sure that your rhyming is consistent, and I'd look at that. If you're going to use a technique, it might as well be consistent over the whole.
I do find it a little sad that your poem isn't working as a whole - we'll not kid ourselves and pretend that it does, because the elements are there but the cohesive isn't.

I like a lot of your imagery, although I would say that most of it is easily forgettable. I might say that the use of the pottery maker as an image/allusion/whichever is perhaps overused, but then the image of God may be said the same thing. As I said, your imagery is good, but I think that the story you're telling - is it a story? - doesn't work. Mainly because by the end I want to know who "He" is - is he the pottery maker? Why didn't you use the capital to begin with? - and I've lost most of the poem in between.

I think you need to re-assess the poem. What are you saying and why. There's a message of some kind here, and you certainly have a lovely way of projecting that message, but it's getting lost in the telling. You have too many lines which add nothing to the poem, which could easily be lost either without affecting the poem at all, or making it clearer. I am by no means someone who doesn't like, or cannot usually understand, abstract poetry, but this feels to me like a poem which is intended as concrete. More concrete than abstract in any case. Instead the poem we have is a ramble of images wherein the start and the end connect but the middle muddles along.

As always, this is merely my own opinion, and you're free to do what you will. I do, however, seriously suggest re-thinking your poem's organisation. Your wording and imagery is beautiful.

*Hearts* Le Penguin.

Galeeerius!

So I'm finally here? Yeah. I did read this earlier! Like.. as soon as I got your PM! But after I read it once, I didn't understand it, so thinking I was just tired, I put it aside for later. xD Later meaning now.

Anyway.

You've used the space imagery theme a few times now, and I absolutely love it. You've an excellent grasp of what goes on out there, and it flows just beautifully. Maybe I just don't read enough poetry anymore, but I find this metaphor very creative, and you pull it off very well.

Unfortunately, I found myself zoning off in the bigger stanzas. Not because they were bigger, but because they seemed to drag. The beginning and the end were both very cool, and it made my heart happy how well they tied together. You even threw in some cool rhymes that really brought out those lines.

But when we get to the dragging stanzas that's full of your wicked awesome imagery, I don't feel as satisfied when I reach the end. I don't really see any message or anything I can get out of it, and the tone's too peaceful and quiet for me to read just to see space.

You threw in some neat allusions to some great deity(/deities), which did help your cause once in a while. It added a bit more to the space imagery you were using to keep it somewhat interesting. But it seemed... repetitive, I guess. I don't like that word, but it explains what I'm saying all right.

I think you just need to keep it from dragging. Yeah, keep it interesting for the reader. Unless your goal is for the reader to fall asleep like the guy in the poem, in which case, you're doing pretty well.

Keep writing!

Jabber, the One and Only!

Well, I suck, haha. But my reasoning is the same as Jabs' - I wasn't sure what to say.

Sure, your imagery is brilliant and you've trained the English language very well, but I'm facing the same trouble as Pengu. It feels more like a string of images and metaphors for things and people that I simply cannot comprehend than a story. It begins as a very strong, narrative monologue - but then the point of having two unnamed characters in the first place seems so diluted that it can only add to the broken chain of events.

I find the idea of having one image leading onto another, reflecting that eternal image we have of space, so well pulled off and so imaginative, that I can't possibly suggest you remove it - but it's when you do that that it begins to make very little sense. Image, image, image. At the end, it doesn't mean anything anymore, and we get the idea that it's just a pretty story about pretty things. You don't want that. You can do better.

I too was confused about who "he" was. At first, I thought it was God - but then you don't use a capital until later on. So you are referring to God but not in that particular image. Then who's the pottery-maker? My next conclusion was the sun - "he won't wake for another hour"; "I mean, the sun flares" - but then the whole idea of a pottery-maker was just carried on and I got kind of confused. So sort that bit out. I think we need a little contrast between the vague and clear so that we can at least formulate our own opinions about what the story is about. As it stands, it's daunting and muddled-up.

I hope that was of a little help? Anyway, let me know if you'd like any feedback if you choose to edit this.

Best,
Blinky

Okay Galerius Valerius Maximianus, time for me to stretch my fingers.

So content wise. If you cleared up the first bit as you said, it shows. The idea you have is close knit and easy enough on my brain to follow without forcing it. The linkage in the first few stanza is really smooth and can we say, brings out the flavours in your poem? Unfortunately, the tight-knit threads gradually loosen until even I am left slightly puzzled.

You lead into the mention of the planets and the pottery-maker with diligent hands but the grasp on it becomes slightly weaker when you bring in the image of the child. Then you barely hold on for the end. You cross the finish line with it about to topple over on itself.

Now, I feel like I've been talking about links a lot lately. But one more time will do the trick hopefully. I commend you on the excellent links, each idea flowed into another but it sometimes appears that you are making too many links and being to ramble off in a direction too far away from your main point.

Now the composer is the "He" in this I'm assuming. He's the one who orchestrated all of this to happen but I feel that though this is long, something is missing. If you think of this in a biblical context, God which we will label as the "composer" did not only make fear and the world. He made a whole lot of other things too. So I feel if you added a third creation, it would be more complete. But that's a personal thought.

Nitpicks:

This Is Creation:
(this is creation):

I don't think the repetition is of much use.

He left us(,) His clothes in the eye
of the blinking storm far too long

child in a mound of space
and time, now his to (only)

That comma and only in the brackets bothers me deeply. It seems like another gimmick that I notice in some poems. What is the point of having those brackets there exactly?

(with fingers of silver, slivers in the night)

silver, slivers? Please, no.


I'm done blabbering. I enjoyed reading that, thank you.

Kamas