7 Ways of Looking at a Saguaro

I originally wrote this for an English assignment. We had to write a poem describing a tangible object, so here goes! Tell me what you think. (Btw, when you're finished, reread only the bolded letters).


7 Ways of Looking at a Saguaro

I.
the desert giant feeds on love
yet is
unloved

II.
hope from afar
is betrayal's
disguise

III.
century-old tales,
waiting to be told.
wandering travelers
who have yet
to listen

IV.
a million needles
pierce
the saguaro's skin

one among is a flower of hope

V.
open arms
waiting, welcoming,
suffocating.

VI.
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost
are one

VII.
the encompassing barrier
lets no one in

Hey,
I like the idea of this, but at times I felt like none of the stanzas were talking about the same thing; were they suppose to be connected? Also, it was a bit tricky to figure out the bold letters. That kind of thing usually only works if you do it for every letter of the beginning word of every stanza or something like that. What I had to do was write every bolded letter on a piece of paper to figure out the message, and I don't know how many readers are willing to put that much effort into it. But, other than those nit-picks I liked this poem alot! If you have any questions or need another review feel free to ask.

Have a great day,
Tiffany

I have to agree with Rascalover — this felt entirely too disjointed, and there was nothing in each and every part that said "describing a saguaro". In particular, in one part, you call it a saguaro, which basically defeats the whole point of the other parts. Part IV is the only part where you state what the object is while the other parts all allude to it; this makes Part IV feel out of place. In addition, you also essentially say with that stanza that a saguaro is a saguaro because it is a saguaro, which isn't very descriptive.

Now, this isn't to say your poem doesn't have potential; it does, and quite a bit. You've got some interesting ideas in here, and if you could connect and develop them more, they would make for a very interesting poem.

As for the bolded letters, it struck me as a bit gimmicky and not very well done. As Rascalover already mentioned, piecing the letters together into a sentence is a bit difficult with how unevenly the letters are distributed throughout the poem. In addition, the uneven distribution looks very odd, especially since the last two parts have no bolded letters at all while all the other parts do. Lastly, the sentence itself adds to the feeling that Part IV doesn't fit in with the rest of the poem as Part IV stated outright what you were writing about, which is the opposite of "nothing is what it seems".

Right now, the hidden phrase doesn't add much to the poem and is more annoying than anything. You can try and fix this by making your poem less literal so the phrase makes sense and by making the phrase easier to find, like having entire words rather than just letters here and there. Distributing the hidden letters would also be a good idea since it would make the poem look better, more balanced.