Simple Reasoning

Simple Reasoning

Lines of fields,
Dressed with the frameworks of man,
Stretch from land corner to home

They grow and thrive
Upon the ideologies of life’s
Naïve and unexplainable existence

Yet they’re of mere
Object permanence as we –
Experiencing our slowly progressing lives –
Try ever so hard to
Guess their reasoning

We can inquire –
As naturally as the sun giving
Birth to a new day’s light –
Of their purpose,
But an answer is of precious
Mystery, a belief, a guess at faith

We tilt our heads another time;
Stroke our chins –
For no-one can offer the answer –
And we must resort to
Our innate conducts of reassurance
And, so naturally,
Guess their reasoning

Or be in awe
Of their simple mysteries


- Ben Franks, 2011

Fabulous. You use simple imagery and language to create a beautiful picture - or at least, an emotion. I think you might've accidentally misspelled the subject, based on the other title you have in italics above the poem. But it's not my place to scold you on that. It could have been on purpose.

All that said, I'll dive right into the critique.

Dressed with the frameworks of man,

I like this line, and I'm sure you'll call me incredibly nit-picky when I say this, but when you are talking about "Man" as in the human race, it should be capitalized.

Stretch from land corner to home

"Land corner" is a strange way of saying this. I know what you mean, but it's a little off-sounding and also sounds forced. That's just my opinion.

Experiencing our slowly progressing lives –

This little interruption would sound perfectly fine in a story, but it does not sound particularly poetic in this context. Let your thoughts flow onto the page BEFORE you start thinking about grammar. That's what I do, at least.

As naturally as the sun giving
Birth to a new day’s light

This line break is a little weird. I would put "giving" onto the second line.

But an answer is of precious
Mystery, a belief, a guess at faith

This is excellent. Do more of this.

Hope this review was helpful to you in some way or another.

-Kafka

Wow. I really, really liked this piece! It was fresh and something unique, especially the formating of it. I'm always scared to do something a little different when it comes to the format of poetry, but you seem confident and a fantastic enough writer to do something different like that. Extremely well done, I'm really looking forward to reading some of your pieces in the future!
Last two lines solidified how great this piece was.

Thank you for your comments, and yes, I have misspelt the title. My bad.

Hey Ben!

They grow and thrive
Upon the ideologies of life’s
Naïve and unexplainable existence

This stanza seems a little bit hollow - like you're trying to dress it up a little bit, but not really saying much at all. It's nice, but I'm not getting much from it at the moment. I don't know, I'm just iffy on these lines. Like I said, they do sound nice I just really don't know what you mean by them. Perhaps that's just me?


Looking over the rest of the poem, it's actually very nice. I think you overuse the dash slightly in your stanzas, they really break up the poem. For this poem you need a flow that is simple and easy, but you over-complicate it which detracts from your meaning. Try and fix that, just read through and where it doesn't sound natural edit your punctuation.

At times, I'm not such a fan of your word choice. Like mentioned at the start, sometimes it feels like you choose words to dress up your poem - sometimes that's fine and needed, but for this poem I'd recommend simplicity as the best course of action. The message you're trying to get across just really doesn't work with words that seem like they've come from a thesaurus - when writing about nature I always prefer directness.

That's all I really have to say! It was a really lovely poem. After reviewing the rest, I think that the stanza I pointed out should really be fixed, it doesn't go with the rest of the poem for me.

Sorry I couldn't be more help.

Hey Ben! First off, good title, I love the oxymoron and it sets the scene very clearly - your reader isn't in any doubt as to the general theme of the poem – while still not giving too much away. I think you could work with the imagery more in the beginning though and your flow can be a little halting and stiff in places.

Simple Reasoning
Lines of fields, [I think lines is the wrong word as you don't really get lines of fields. I'd suggest maybe, 'Crosswords' or 'Patch-work fields', something that's more a boxed image.]
Dressed with the frameworks of mMan,
Stretch from land corner to home [Land corner reads a little awkwardly and I'm not sure I understand your meaning.]

They grow and thrive
Upon the ideologies of life’s
Naïve and unexplainable existence

Yet they’re of mere
Object permanence as we – [I don't really like how this is phrased but neither can I suggest a way to improve it, but maybe take a second look.]
Experiencing our slowly progressing lives –
Try ever so hard to [The flow is very broken up and fragmented here.]
Guess their reasoning

No comments for the last two stanzas as I pretty much love them as they are and the poem in general is really good. In fact, I don't have any other criticism so I shall leave you to edit as you see fit (or not as the case may be). Thanks for the read!

Heather xxx