Valus

I made sure to read this poem as slow as I could because I wanted to read every single word of it. When you say this is going to be a series of Cantos, I'm waiting to read every single one of them. When I get the chills, that means I want to know what happens next.

With the Cantos, the style reminds me a lot of the Dante's Inferno style. I happen to like that because of the comparison of it all.

The language that you used for this poem had me glued one hundred percent. There is nothing I can say that you have to edit or fix. This is a very nice poem. Keep it up and continue the cantos.

Hello Audy!
This poem reminded me of nightmares. It might just be that way because chat was talking about it, but I have this little shiver that's running down my spine.

I don't know what shadow of colossus is, but I recognize many references to mythology in here, so I assume it has something to do with that.
So I looked up Valus, and it matched up with shadow of colossus as a huge awesome beast. I also looked it up and apparently in Estonian it means painful. In latin it means "the valley where" This is interesting to say the least.

Your first stanza is a great introductory stanza. I drew me into the poem and made me want to keep reading.
Throughout the whole poem you use this subtle tempo that I'm not even sure if it was on purpose or not but it make reading it very enjoyable.

One little nit pick was that I didn't understand your use of the word "surrounded" in the second stanza. What's she surrounded by? At first I read that as she was surrounded by air and sea, but I kept rereading it that way, and it didn't work, so I assumed you meant to end that line with surrounded.
Also, plums are purple on the outside and yellow in the middle... they aren't really pink. But your use of that word did give the line flavor, I just couldn't imagine plum pink, unless it's really a purpley-pink.

I wonder at the narrator's feelings toward this girl. Was she special to them? What was their relationship? How are they connected?

In the fifth stanza, I feel like "dinner" is out of place. It's up to you though.

I also don't know why strength is in brackets, and I'm not sure why forbidden has to be capitalized.

The last stanza was beautiful, but I didn't really understand it as it relates to the rest of the poem. I get the mythology and stuff, but I'm not quite sure where and on what note the poem ended, and that's not good. I can see the narrator is realizing something about forgiving himself... I don't know.

I really don't have much else to say for this other than heaping on praise. You did a fantastic job with imagery, and you also stirred something in me. Your word choice made this very emotional. It was written deftly and not too over-eloquently. I think my favorite stanza was the first one. It made it so the rest of the poem could be anything, but it also set the tone and the theme.
The rest of this was just as lovely to read, like a song in my mind.
Great job, keep writing! I'd love to read the rest of these!
~fortis

HI!

I feel like you only post occasionally, but when you do, you hit YWS with something pretty powerful.
And I feel that about this work.
I couldn't quote the work the normal way because you put it in as an image. Clevver.
So basically...
I am impressed with the bit that looks like stairs and the whole layout in general. Very experimental.

I like the references, to Theseus and the capitalisation of Shame and FORBIDDEN in bold just makes interesting points and draws a point of focus for the reader.

I think my favourite part was this:

plum-pink buttresses thrust up into the clouds.