My entry for the Hunger Games challenge, an acrostic poem.
“Carthage must be destroyed.”
Against my homes they
Railed.
Three wars they fought with me.
Hannibal was more than
A hero, he was a
God.
Everyone feared his elephants.
.
Hannibal’s elephants versus the
Alps? No match,
Nor Pyrenees,
Nor Trebia, Cannae, or Trasimene.
If any man should rule—Hannibal.
But that blasted desert scorpion,
Africanus,
Linched him in Zama.
.
Barca, bygone child of mine,
Athena would be proud.
Rome razed my home of
Carthage, because they could not face
A hero like you.
Points:
Time spent:
IP address:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
Are you sure you want to delete this comment? This cannot be undone.
Mark this comment as a review? Points will be awarded to the poster.
Your comment was posted, but it wasn’t long enough to count as a review. Reviews need about four complete sentences (at least 250 characters). Try writing another review that explains your thoughts in more detail — the author will appreciate it, and you’ll earn points for it.
137,507 Literary Works • 672,040 Reviews
Mr. Powers with the review! This is a great acrostic. Though I know nothing of Hannibal, and only a few fragments about the sack of Carthage, I can tell that this is an epic piece of work. You paint Hannibal in an immortal portrait, as someone who will live on for centuries to come.
The speaker is a citizen of Carthage and an admirer of Hannibal. He's saying how Hannibal was unstoppable until a scorpion came around and killed him. Which leads me to my one problem with this poem. Could you explain who or what Africanus is? And I think it should be "Lynched" with a y, because I've never seen "Linched" up until now (Google Chrome even thinks it's spelled wrong).
Anyway, the poem ends with the speaker commending the hero (Hannibal, I suppose) and condemning Rome, the soldiers of which razed Carthage.
This is awesome! We just learned about Hannibal in school
That's awesome! Hannibal's one of my favorite history topics. (Awesome avvie, btw. I'm going to watch The End of Time Pt. 2 for the first time tonight, hopefully.
)
Thanks!
Squire r4 here to review and help you half way out of the Green Room, Dragon.
“Carthage must be destroyed.”
I recomend that you remove the quotation marks that you inserted here.
"Against my homes they
Railed."
I believe that railed should go alongside they.
"Hannibal was more than
A hero, he was a
God."
You have the same problem right here. Also you should put a small "g" in God since Hannibal is not and was not the one true God.
"If any man should rule—Hannibal."
This is a fragment here. You should put "Hannibal should."
I hope these few nitpicks I pointed out help. I beg to differ with you in the third stanza of the poem. Hannibal's elephants were gone by the end of Trebia if I remember correctly. I know for certain that they were all gone by the end of Trasimene. However I still get the point of what you are trying to say. I suggest that you should change "Hannibal's elephants to "Hannibal's troops". It won't really change the intentional meaning much.
My overall impression was a pretty good poem though slightly innacurate. But don't take the historically inaccurate part personally. I am just extremely particular that everthing must be historically true. I hope this helps. Well I guess that's everthing I have to say. Happy writing!!!
Thanks for the review!
Quick notes: one, this is an acrostic, so "railed" is where it should be. Two, oops on accuracy, but Art isn't always accurate (no excuse, I know). Three, all the lines are capitalized, regardless of mechanics.
Thanks again! *blasts off to more replying*
Ok. I was a little bit confused about why you capitalized the "G" though that makes sense