Keratin

Heya, this is Jedi here for a review!

The idea of this poem is abstract, and it has potential, but the main thing I am about to nitpick at is the rhyming. So here goes.

Words rhyme when the emphasis rhymes, normally the ending syllable. For instance, writing and reading do NOT rhyme, even though the ending syllables for both are "ing". The emphasis here is on the first syllable. "Writing," and, "Sighting," rhyme because the stressed syllables rhyme. In the same way, "Canines," and, "Lines," do not rhyme, because the stress is not "ca" in "canines". I hope that makes sense.

After reading a few lines, I soon discovered you were rhyming every other line. But this pattern breaks when you say

And I run my tongue along my jaw,

which is between two four-line rhyme-sections, and if you had stanzas, it would be between two. I'd consider revising this section.

There are people that like rhyming poetry, and people that don't. I myself enjoy writing and reading poems that rhyme more than the latter. After all, Poe's famous piece, "The Raven," rhymes. But forced rhyming is something totally different. When you said,

And what's left, but to weep?

I was thrown aback. Was there something heart-breaking and dramatic that happened that I skipped over in the poem? This was my immediate thought, and I read it over, but no. Weeping isn't something you do when there's nothing left to do. Weeping is what you do when a family member dies, or your true love abandons you. Perhaps one might shed a tear or two if you had nothing left to do, but not weep. Breaking the rhyme pattern here would be better than using forced rhyming.

I used to struggle with forced rhyming, and still do, but I've improved. Another thing I do is I write the poem without rhymes, just a free-verse poem. I then change the words to rhyming ones that mean the same or similar thing as they did in the original free verse version. This goes for a weaker rhyme scheme, but a stronger poem.

Here is a list of all the rhymes that I felt were forced: strings, wings; (what does plucking strings have to with anything here? did I miss something?; sleep, weep; beasts, priests (Adding that line, "whether savages or priests," is random and irrelevant, just barely hanging on to the rest of the poem. Instead of rambling on about priests, why don't you expand on, "that primal song of beasts"? that sounded interesting.)

Anyways, there are a few more things that need revising I want to point out.

And then, to the scarred gums beneath,

this could do without the comma after, "then".

Even more important is the lack of proper punctuation. As it is now, the poem is one EXTREMELY long run-on sentence, and three normal sentences at the end. I suggest you read through the poem and find pay attention to where you naturally pause and consider placing a comma, period, or semicolon there. Also another trick, copy and paste this poem into another document outside of YWS and delete every white space separating the lines, making it one long paragraph, like this:

"I grind my tongue along my teeth, Feeling the crushing molars, the jagged canines, And then, to the scarred gums beneath, With it’s (btw this, 'it's' would be without an apostrophe) deep contours and rugged lines, And I know that this is keratin," you get the idea. Then you can read through it and easily spot the run-on sentences. Then place it back into the lines it was in before, but with better punctuation. Hope this helps, it helps me but everyone's different.

Well, that's about it, and sorry if I was a bit picky. Hope this helps! Keep writing!