I, between memories and dust

I see the weight of God
weather wrinkled canyons to sand.

Each stoic cliff an edifice
pressed by omnipresent hands,
rocks gasping against torrential winds;
pleading for rain, pleading for rain.

I felt the weight of life
ruminate across this grey land;
I watched God crinkle, boil, bubble
under the sweltered sun, and
I scooped God up
in clumps of parched grass
quietly in the night,

left only with a soul drifting down rivers,
drowned, between memories and dust.

Honestly, this was quite confusing and hard for me to decipher.

I see the weight of God
weather wrinkled canyons to sand.

This sentence, this two lines, were actually incredible to read. I feel, however, that you should add a semicolon and erase the space between here and the next stanza.

Each stoic cliff an edifice
pressed by omnipresent hands,
rocks gasping against torrential winds;
pleading for rain, pleading for rain.

Again, the first two lines are genius. But again, grammar. Their should be a semicolon after "hands" and a comma after "winds". Also, could you explain to me why the last line is in italics?

I felt the weight of life
ruminate across this grey land

My only problem here (and this continues for the rest of the poem) is that you switch from present to past tense. From "I see" to "I felt".

I felt the weight of life
ruminate across this grey land;
I watched God crinkle, boil, bubble
under the sweltered sun, and
I scooped God up
in clumps of parched grass
quietly in the night

This is the main area where I had trouble following. Does this go on the principle that God is in everything? If so, well it still doesn't make sense to me... Again, I feel that this should be combined with the last two lines, or separated after "under the sweltered sun".

left only with a soul drifting down rivers,
drowned, between memories and dust.

These two lines also confused me, very much.

Sorry for not being able to give a proper review, I just don't really know what I'm reading.. PM me with and explanation for my questions if you wish for me to review this again, with a better understanding.
--Brandon
xoxo

So I've read through the poem again several times. I return to the title and glean the obvious hint. The challenge I gave you was, of course, to write a poem incorporating the pronoun "I" as often as convenience allowed and to stray from pluralized pronouns like we, them, us. I wanted you to remove yourself from your epic. And you know this. And, especially with this in mind, I find that you approached this poem rather literally. "I, between memories and dust" -- a poem about an elusive self, memory suggesting the intangible past, and dust a representation of the most intangible of physicalities. And the self mélanged betwixt the two, unfelt, unfound, untouchable. Despite being the prime objective, you've managed to excise the self as much as possible in this piece, especially in your decision to examine landscape, gods, and other various inhumanities.

The narrator does not see God. He sees God's weight, an expression of existence and all but existance present. A powerful opening couplet, deliberate and sure-footed. If I was to contest any word here it would be the word "wrinkled", which leaves something to be desired, regardless of the alliteration it plays off of. If we move on to the following stanza the pairing of stoic to cliffs is equally hollow. There is a more illumined word out there somewhere, I'm sure. The remainder of the stanza is rather gray, which, not inconsequential to the post's background, is the primary color I gather here. Often, a poem is reduced to a single color in my mind. This is the color of pits, moonscapes, sludge and dust. A rather noxious scene. If this was your intention, great. But keep in mind, especially with smaller poems, the colors that you mention and words incorporated have tremendous sway over one's gut reaction to a poem. If you are shooting for dissonance, keep this track.

The opening lines of stanza three aid in comprehension. Good job in tying this particular thread, and the couplet conjures a fresh image regarding the Grand Canyon. From this stanza, we gather further what/who God is -- in this case, earth, dust, mud, components of canyon. The concluding stanza reminds me of the lyrics to Pyramid Song by Radiohead.

So let me put this together. Here you are, attempting to insert yourself into the land and God, which you use rather synonymously, but little interface is allowed. Somehow, despite all the sensory interaction, the canyon, the cliffs, and God all remain fairly diffident to you even when you touch and feel it. To me, this is an anti-ecocritical poem, reflecting the current relationship status between nature and man -- a great topic. Man wants very much to be apart of the landscape, but finds himself too different, unable to truly grasp her intangibles in this modern age, these dusts and memories.

A compelling idea, but the poem doesn't match it, unfortunately. It's too bland for me. A watered epic. Here are the exciting words in your poem "weight, canyons, sand, bubble", the rest leave a void in my imagination. You asked me in chat whether this poem made me feel anything. I would answer that more often than not, it didn't. It did make me think, certainly. My suggestion would be to try and be more aware of the atmospheres you are conjuring. Sometimes the images and the words are the conduits to an emotional open sesame. Also, work on that "I". It is a hazy narrator. I want you vividly. And no one else. It is good in that the "I" is so singular, paired alone against a gray landscape, but inject more life and personality and voice into him.

Kylan

Personally, I loved this. I loved the imagery and just the sound of the words. This isn't English class; I didn't try to dissect it; honestly I don't care if I can't understand a poem, as long as I get some feeling from it, as long as I like the sound or the imagery or a specific phrase. As it is, I like the idea that the speaker can feel God's presence and see His weight but not He Himself, the idea that God is in everything, and more specifically in nature (which is probably more appropriate anyway, since that's God-made, not man-made). The only criticism I have is that you switch from present to past tense; it's a bit jarring, although I can understand that the first stanzas just sound better and seem more right in the present tense, while the last two seem better in the past tense. It's jarring anyway.

Otherwise, though, I thought this was a beautiful piece.

~Blue

Howdy, Cad! Walker here with a review, as requested.

And might I start off by saying this had a strangely interesting feel! I was a little bit confused on the ideology from start to finish, but reading it over a few times coupled with my quick scanning of Kylan's review made me a little more aware of the meaning and or relaying theme.

So why don't I start off with a question. Weathered wrinkled crayons to sand... what was the said point of this line?

I think that's what really caught me off guard. I thought the language was bearable. There was no real exciting diction, though it flowed well. I think, when it came to the imagery in that first two lines, I was kind of put off from the rest of it before reading it at all simply because the imagery didn't seem to fit. It almost seemed like, instead of drawing on a parallel, you simply threw in the idea of color and childish eccentricity to a poem that hardly suits such a topic. When I think of crayons, I think of life anew.

If the parallel was that you wanted to show the death of childish ambitions, then maybe this line could have worked, but I wasn't quite sure if that's what you were going for.

The second stanza also confused me a bit. As opposed to the third, I found your imagery to be a little jumpy. You go from the idea of hard, stoic, dry rocks to drowning, bubbling, boiling water. I don't know if I liked the jump all that much simply because connections should be made. Instead this felt as if with every new stanza, you were starting a new poem. That you wanted to portray emotion but you portrayed it with more than one idea. I'm not too sure if that worked out in your favor.

Literary wise, this was kind of a back and forth for me. You have very dynamic imagery, which was nice, and though your vocabulary was on the lighter side, your diction was rather nice. That and it flowed in a manner that wasn't too choppy. So, I suppose that would give you a thumbs up from me.

The only thing I really had anything to say about this was literal content.

PM me if you have any questions.
~Walker

Time/creation versus God? God is outside of time but the world is not?
There is so much here it really provokes some odd questions.
I believe it may be the 'narrators' perspective that is boiling in the heat of question like the hood of my stoic dash. god falls to the earth like a stone or a bird? but why? I thought it was the earth under God's weight, maybe that is the faulty device? The world can't hold God up? Death and life don't seem to be the matter of this piece, but simply endurance.

I actually have a lot more thoughts about this poem but something in my gut just tells me to leave it.

SUMMARY
- its good writing, i like the piece, but I believe I have a false understanding of it
- and that's kind of grande
- good writing
- complete imagery,
... and I don't get it,

and the bit about the soul going down a river lost my interest.


Keep writing such strong work,
-M.

Impressions:
- A whole lot of active 1st person for a poem where the speaker is voiceless and passive
- "God", "I", and "nature" all so separate? why?
- Everything is so brown and dead. Reading this, I feel empty, surrounded by a world that is empty. Is that what you were going for?

I want you to look at a blog by a YWSer (link). Did you do this on this poem?
Maybe that empty feeling was what you were going for; a comment on the impassable expanse between humanity, nature and god. It's really quite effective and the poem is well done, but I want you to think about how you relate to these words. What do they mean to you and do they take you somewhere you want to go?

I really wanted more depth in this. You present this scenario and these relationships, but I'm only wondering, "why"? It's a comment with no reason to be there, and so I'm left unchanged by reading it. I need relevance and context if you want to change me.

However, your tone and your words match each other beautifully, and you have an intriguing, rich idea here. It's on solid ground, I'm just left hoping for that little extra bit that will make it genuine and immersive in the way it needs to be.