VII

Wonderful poem.

The tale relayed is classical and simple (seems to be the tale of Helios' son Phaëtōn), yet none the less well-told for it. Great line breaks, and the ending is well-played out.
Haven't anything to say in criticism, so once again: good piece!

Hi Kyllorac! Reviewing time! DuhnDuhnDuuuun!

So, right off the bat, I want to say that 9 times out of 10, I get super excited to see when you’ve written something, especially in the poetry forum because, well, I just usually really enjoy your poetry.

But something about this fell flat for me for two reasons.

The first is the structure. A lot of the places where you end a line and begin another feel very out of place. Like:

The world below burns. Only
he remains unharmed.

This one especially through me off. ‘Only’ being kept with the line above it seems…weird.

The same goes for:

He
reaches for the reins, tries
to take control, but
those willful horses, they

The second thing that bugged me was the lack of imagery. It’s usually very tempting and the words are sort of…eccentric. But here, they feel generic. Like, they’re close, but they aren’t quite as powerful as they could be. Also, ‘willful’ should only be ‘wilful’ I think. They are both words, but the definitions aren't quite the same.

It could have had so much power and instead, I think it feels a bit more like prose, chopped up into stanzas. I don’t know. It’s close, it really is close to impressing the hell out of me, but it doesn’t quite do it.

But if you have any questions, please ask them. Because I know I don't usually make sense so I probably don't make sense right now.

Review will go here. Later.

Reviewwwww is here. Now bear with me, I am ill and not everything I say will make sense, so if it doesn't you know where to find me.

I assume you used the tale of Phaethon. Or however the Greek spelling is. The one where the boy begs his father to drive the Sun chariot, which he loses control over and gets too close to the Earth setting it on fire. So Zeus throws his thunderbolt to strike him dead. Yes? If not, boy did I misinterpret. Either way, I love you for using Greek/Roman mythology.

Anyways. I found this... boring really. You completely lack imagery, powerful descriptions etc. It's just action after action after action. It's on the edge of almost flowly prose that lacks descriptions.

For example:

He
reaches for the reins, tries
to take control, but
those willful horses, they
know not their master.

1: "He" = nothing
2: "reaches" = action "tries" = action. What do the reins look/feel like, the horses are galloping through the sky with control with the sun behind them. I'd definitely be feeling something.
3: "control" = noun. Still no description
4: "willful" = Finally, something that can give us an idea of the situation "horses" = noun. But what do they look like, I don't know, are their muscles pulsing from the excitement, the rush, fear of the hands that do not belong to their master?
5: "Master" = noun. No description.

You don't even have to say it. You can create it in your flow, your words. You can make your lines stretched, breathless and tense through the words you use. But your poetry remains stagnant and less then descriptive.

There's a difference in saying:
-> The horse galloped. The chariot crashed.
-> The horse galloped with mighty hooves, it's body urging forward. The chariot, streaked in silver and gold, thundered as it crash to the side.

(Bad description I know. But you get the idea yes?)

Another thing that is prominent in all your poetry. Your abuse of what I call filler words. The, he, she, or, for, since, at, with, only, a, an, by, etc.

Now, of course these are common words, but they seem to appear excessively in your poem. Your lack of description makes you use these words more, and they add a twinge of redundancy to your poem that is really difficult to get rid of.
It's like writing a proper, scientific lab report. "This happens, because I added this and this, then this happened. This happened because by this law and this law of whatever the result blahblah."

It's sterile, as it's supposed to be in a lab report, but poetry isn't like that.

The next poem you write, I suggest you to forget form, structure and storyline. Just take an idea and make it flourish in your head using connections, metaphors, similes, any other sort of poetic device. Just as an experience with descriptive details.

Good luck,

Kamas

Hi Kyllorac,

This is basically a loaf of bread.

What you've done is take some consumable elements, put them together, heated them up via some imagery, and then shoved the result towards the reader, saying "Eat this". Yes, I suppose I could. It's digestable, after all.

But eating a plain loaf of bread with nothing else would be a wholly unsatisfactory experience; it's the subtle undercurrents of butter, sugar, or spice that actually make eating anything in this world an enjoyable task rather than simply a chore to ensure survival. And you have nothing in this poem to make it different than others. It's like what other reviewers have already said - a scientific exposition stripped of emotion. You have a shadow of a flow, at least, and that goes a long way in a poem that has practically nothing else going for it. But a flow itself isn't going to help this piece without assistance.

Kyllorac wrote:VII
The horses run rampant in front of the chariot,
like unchained desire, unfettered and free
and running at cross-purposes.

"Like unchained desire". Is this supposed to mean something? Or is it a way for the narrator to pretend to be poetic while actually just regurgitating - as I like to call it - pseudoimagery? I'm highly skeptical that anyone who reads this will be able to see "unchained desire" and immediately conjure up an vivid description with which to compare the horses. In all poetic devices, start from the bottom. Feelings, touches, smells, etc. Of course you can deviate from that formula from time to time, but those are the safest ways of making sure that the reader actually understand what he's supposed to do with a simile or metaphor.

The driver holds not the reins; he is
lost in the turmoil that surrounds.
The sky stands
ablaze with fire from the car.
The world below burns. Only
he remains unharmed.

Don't be pretentious. Inversion of terms is a minefield in both poetry and prose, and mostly only succeeds in making the narrator look like he's trying to be pompous without actually delivering anything of substance. This is one of those times. I don't care if this is set in antiquity; it's still a useless gimmick. Get rid of it.

He
reaches for the reins, tries
to take control, but
those willful horses, they
know not their master.

Too many extra words here, trying to plug holes that are supposed to be filled in by actual quality material like poetic devices. "Tries to take control" means nothing, and only looks like a cop-out from you having to use description. "Those" doesn't need to be there, and it chokes up your flow. "Know not" - I've talked about this above, and the same applies here.

He despairs and prays for an
end to the destruction wrought
by his willfulness, and
an end comes.

It takes him with it.

---

The horses stand becalmed, their
passions reined in by a firm hand.
A father mourns for his child as
the world is renewed.[/center]

Blah blah blah. The main problem here is something I discussed in the beginning of this review; you have all the words down, but they are limp and helpless. Like others have said, it isn't enough to say "He's sad. He dies. The horses are calm. A father mourns." This is boring, a textbook description meant to simply inform rather than immerse. Don't come out and state these things as if they were facts. Imply them using poetic tools, connect them to each other through analogies, etc. Poetry is supposed to be a spiderweb and not a straight line from point A to point B.

The last line especially is terrible. "...as the world is renewed." Really? That's the best way you could tell us what happens? Not only is it devoid of any description, but it also sounds preachy. Read it aloud and see for yourself.

In general, the skeleton is there and looks technically correct, but I'm not feeling a pulse. Start pumping the heart of this poem and pray that it will come to life.

Hope that helped,
Galerius