hemlock

languages hidden somewhere under the salt of a dead sea crest
cross her arms into anemic histories and place thorns atop a crown;
her tongue twists through Greek and Latin in rhythms that you don't know,
but there are anthropologies in the curves of her hips and telescopes in the shape of her shoulders--
Galileo whispers love to her ears when she watches the planets move, when she wonders how
the world is round, where the sun goes at night if the earth
is tossing and turning about, wishing that it could dream with the stars:

she gathers them in a bottle, melatonin lights for a manmade mouth, but
hemlock burns her tongue when she sips too greedily, even though
religion has always intrigued her and the silver of arsenic is sweet enough on her tender teeth--
the Bible taught her letters and verses, but she
forgets the prophets like she forgets how to move her
fingers in the morning, when they're caught under the pillow and still
nestled in dreams, pulsing with constellations;

they write mythologies for the way Orion carries his broad shoulders,
mythologies for all the spots in between stars, because the skies are black, but she
lingers on the missing words kept in place by all the things out of reach, and
she knows that they're there, even when she can't see them.

You edited. Beautifully. Make me come back to this, please?

Perse.

You write poetry beautifully. But I think you already know that, don't you? I've always been somewhat mediocre at it, so try to take this review with a grain of salt.

This was a real pleasure to read, and you definitely know how to write a poem and create imagery that is both vivid and meaningful. However, I will say that you have written better before. On this site, whenever I like a poem, it seems to fall into two basic categories; one where there is a strong central theme that has weak imagery and one where this a weak central theme and strong imagery. Yours seems to fall into the latter; not saying that this isn't meaningful, though! It's just buried and hard to pick out within the rest of this.

Here, you seem to go into imagery overload. All of this seems to be too much for us to handle, and it bogs down the flow. Poetry should flow nicely, and, even if it's long, have a quick pace. Put this into paragraphs and you have elaborately written fiction. Have you tried reading this out loud? That always helps me whenever I write poetry.

One way you could do this is trying to cut back on some of the lines, and only focus on what is necessary to create an image. Then, you can develop your theme, and [perhaps even have some excess room for character work. This will make the poem more meaningful, but also worth remembering more.

Hope this helps you! Feel free to leave me a note if you have any questions; keep writing and good luck with your revisions/future writes!

~ Elinor

Hello dear

First of, this is beautiful. imagery and emotion perfect. (Yep I don't have to use the scales XD)

But that would just be pointless saying that. The problem I found is that it is very wordy. The sentences are long and complex and some needs simplifying, and then i think this will also add to the awe of the m.c.

I also think you should try and fragment it a bit more, not so much the first stanza but the second I think you should. I think it will make everything stand out more and people will be more deliberate over your words when reading it.

Other than that. . .nothing

~Retro Disco666

I reallly liked this and I hope to sincerely read more of your works!!! Keep up the good work. I didn't find any spelling errors at all with this!!! It was very beautiful and the emotion was wonderfully done!!1 Good job and keep up the good work!!! Good luck and best of wishes!!!! Happy Writing!!!!
Soulkana<3

This was great, Persephone. Great imagry, I can see it like it's real. You have impecable word choice, by the way. She's commiting suicide, right? Because hemlock and arsnic are poison, and...yeah, I'll be quiet now. Great job, wish I had your talent in poetry. Sincerly and love~Abby

At first I was like, "Meh.... where's she going with this?"

Then I read further and went "This is wonderful."


Seriously, I love the way you word things, the pictures you create, your style. Really good poem, and I can sorta relate to the Bible part. (I've grown up in a Bible belt, and though I haven't completely strayed from that yet, I know how easy it is to do.)

Good job! I really liked this piece. It was sort of..... ephemeral. (Is that the right word? I'm not sure.)

Seph,

Why are you writing this? What do you want me to get out of it?

I mean that as an entirely open, curious question. I've seen this style; tried it. It's soft, seamless, like a slur. I've seen you fall in love with flow, the dreaminess of it, the way it doesn't matter ultimately what you say as long as you say it in such a blur so as to have the reader glaze over the words -- and there is, of course, the effortlessness of reading that comes with that. It's easy to read.

So easy that it's like drinking water.

I want more colour here, more flavour. I want to be shocked, stunned, surprised, amused, horrified; I want to feel something significant on reading this, and, if I do, I want the time to grasp on to the feeling. This is a soft style. Fine. But is there not also intensity in softness? I'm not seeing that here -- I'm seeing a seamless river of words. I can read it in one go, and easily. Alright. So what have you achieved? What is the clearly overarching feeling from this? That last line, 'she knows they're there, even when she can't see them' doesn't confer a strong enough sense of, well, sensibility -- and by the end, it's too late anyway. We take it all in a breeze, so it melts into everything else.

All rivers slam somewhere -- floodgates, waterfalls, quake-torn creeks. Do things, in reality, pass in such a slur as this? To have me in a poem, you need to surprise me -- give me something I've not seen before, or not seen in that way, or not felt in such succession, or could not have anticipated to feel in such succession. 'anthropologies in the curves of her hips and telescopes in the shape of her shoulders' is great but it lacks any emotional impact whatsoever. That longing, that sense of 'wishing that it could dream with the stars,' or the loneliness she seems to have despite the multitude of languages -- it's so soft that it's a whisper. It gets lost in your near-perfect flow. There is no possibility of danger, despite mention of arsenic, hemlock etc - nothing to keep an audience on edge; just about to fall off the edge. Rivers are not perfect. Nor is life. Nor should the art that depicts it be -- otherwise, I'm seeing a cascade of imagery in an emotional vacuum.

Mess it up more. You've got perfect flow sorted -- now work at manipulating it, varying pace and tone and tune to manipulate the human emotion. No ghosts, please -- I want to see the innards of a poem as easily as you're showing me the epidermis.


Navita