Thunder and ice! Across the Alps
Gray stones hail, thundering down
In a living, ivory flood.
Across the backs of the Alps ride
Hannibal and his men, seated
Across the backs of elephants.
Hannibal and his men ride down
Into Italy, driving Latins like leaves
Blown beneath a maelstrom.
Thunder and ice! Crusted tusks
And tunics glide down like fog,
Enveloping Liguria in their shroud.
Across the backs of Latins beat
Hannibal’s elephants’ trunks, as
Across the land of Etruria ride
Hannibal and his men to Rome.
Thunder and ice were not enough
To slow the flood of Hannibal.
Though beasts and men fell,
Hannibal stood on Latin soil
For fifteen years, until Scipio sailed
Across the Sea, to Carthage soil.
Hannibal and his men returned
Across the sea, to Carthage soil,
No longer on their elephants.
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137,476 Literary Works • 672,034 Reviews
Hi~
After realizing how much repetition you have in this poem, I started to look at it a lot closer to see if there was a pattern or a structure I was missing. It seems almost like you've made it into a lyrical device to repeat the idea of "Hannibal.../Across the.../Hannibal.../Across the..." as a chorus to this, or a warped refrain where you don't repeat everything, but you do repeat some of it. It's an interesting idea and I think in some ways, it worked well, in others, it's almost in there too much.
I'd like to show you this just because it's how I sort of figured out what you were doing. I put your poem into colors of repeated words. I don't typically put the entire text of a poem in the body of my review, but I would like you to see what your poem looks like with the colors highlighting all of the places where you have repetition.
Spoiler
Now then, I understand that this is some challenge for the Hunger Games on YWS. I also understand that it has to be history oriented. I'd like to say that it doesn't have to be structured in any way, but I'm not sure about that. What I do know is that you could make this a much stronger poem by doing a few quick things
If you take out most of the repetition, and just leave the areas of this poem that are black with whatever leading phrases you need, you've got a quick snap-shot of Hannibal in a shorter, more concise poem that says basically the same thing.
You might lose the invasion of Rome, but you don't need to cover everything, from what I understand. You just need to cover a historical event. Well, any one of these things is a historical event. Hannibal raiding somewhere is basically a historical event, or his death. They are expanded and taught in less detail in history books considering they are moments in history, and we know a lot of history, but we don't need to get into particulars about how much history needs to be in one of these poems, It just needs to be enough that it is clearly a historical event and not just a historical figure, in my opinion.
Otherwise I'd say your poem has too much repetition in it, as a poem.
If you're going for a lyrical poem, you could make the bridge "Though his beasts and men fell/.../For fifteen years, until Scipio sailed/" a little more obvious about what happened. It's a complex sentience and I'm not really a history buff. Did Hannibal stay on Latin soil trying to kill Scipio? Also if beast and men fell, then why are they mentioned in the last chorus? If this is a historical event, they couldn't have returned from the dead because dead people don't walk among us, so how does this work? Was it just part of his raging army that fell?
I'd also encourage you to expand a bit more, as a lyrical poem, on in verses one and two because I feel like they're really hiding behind all of the repetitious words. It might help if you broke this up into stanzas for us to clearly see there is something that you meant to happen with the chorus.
I think the last thing I would comment on is keep an eye for repetitious words in your chorus that aren't just tying things in, such as the use of "soil" in the bridge.
So overall, consider carefully what you intend to do with this. Right now you've practically got a lyrical poem, which is perfectly fine, but I'd suggest expanding on the verses if that's what you intend to do. If you intended for a poem with some repetition, cut back some, and just include repetitious ideas instead of straight up repetition. It will make the poem feel stronger and make it more interesting.
-Aley
Squire r4 here to review, Dragon. I guess it's up to me to get this work out of the green room.
I thought that you could have made a few of your sentences a little bit shorter but I really liked the terminology.
I must start of by saying that I normally don't like to read poetry; but this is quite interesting. This is probably partly due to the fact that I am a history buff and love Hannibal! But it is a good poem nonetheless.
One of the things I like about this poem is that you used some good metaphores which made up for in not rhyming and the partial lack of rhythm. You also used Hannibal almost like a pronoun I place of the Carthaginians which is good since this Is poetry. This almost sounds like an epic poem such as Beowulf (that is aside from using modern English).
So overall I must say you did a really good job!!! I would give this poem four to four and half stars out of five. I am off to read some more of your poetry. *rubs hands in anticipation* Well I guess that's all I have to say. Happy writing!!!
Greetings, my green-scaled friend.
Once again, I have heard your call-to-arms and I shall do my best to ensure your survival!
I understand that you can only use one name for a specific mountain range, i.e. the one that has been given to it, but could you perhaps exchange Alps for mountains, considering that you have already established that and it avoids repetition. Grammatically, it is correct, I simply think that there is too small a gap between the first Alps and the second. It is a matter of taste, however, so do as you please.
Enjambment is obviously abundant in your poem, but the place where you decide to end the one part of the sentence/phrase/clause needs to be logical. I therefore advise moving seated to the next line.
You see, this is an example of how enjambment should be used.
I really like this comparison.
Thunder and Ice is your title for an obvious and appropriate reason, but I also appreciate how you repeat it throughout your poem and then use it here as part of the climax. Brilliantly done.
Your entire last sentence is well-chosen, in my opinion, but your last line is a superb conclusion.
Usually, I do not review your works because I search myself to exhaustion to simply find a single error. Though this one contained a few more, it is still undoubtedly a great poem. I am confident that you will join me in the final challenge.
Rating for this text: four stars