In war, victory is a vision

I disagree with lin night... this poem works well with the wordiness I saw a ton of imagery, the title caught my eye but I love how ya made the comparison between love and war. Only thing I feel was quite pompous:

because the war we are fighting is the world's greatest masterpiece
of invisibility. At night, I worry that when I send more ships

i think the line breaks were choppy. you could definitely improve the flow just by changing that.

as for the poem, i didn't really relate to much of it. the title was interesting, though. it seems to suggest that wars are fought but never won, that victory is an illusion.

and i'll agree with lin night about the wordiness. saying what you want it often most effective when you say it in the least amount of words you can.

overall, interesting, but nothing that really gripped me.

shame on you for using dickinson, too.

maybe there's an audience for this kind of poetry, but this really didn't speak to me in any way. it seems needlessly wordy without anything substantive or poetic to say. i'm not saying it HAS to be substantive. it's just that there's little else here in either words or structure to keep me from falling asleep.

I want to go out on my neck and review the poem in terms of how I understood and related to it. I think it's comparing the fact that ones who make the decisions in fighting wars often are very far away from what is real. You're contrasting this with how two people in love are really fighting to be closer to one another...is that right? Maybe the theme was to do with 'all is fair in love and war.' Maybe it wasn't. These are just my thoughts.

I might have made an absolute idiot of myself trying to understand this work. But if I were you I'd take it as a compliment: you are writing amazingly complex poetry.

I don't have much to critique; I felt that the overall structure was sound and that it flowed well. The imagery- especially of the sea was exquisite. Very nicely done.

Great issue to write about and awesome use of Dickinson.

Eimear

I liked this free verse poem a lot. It's a weak way to describe it but this poem that had erratic line breaks (or perhaps it only seems like to me) was powerful. I read the poem out loud and it flowed well.

Nice quote. Emily Dickinson is one of my favorite poets <3

Back to your piece. I loved the ending, especially the "a shadow faithless as you."

I have only two things to critique.

In war, victory is a vision of distances,

From the armchair,
spectators might wonder who is winning:

"My Heart ran so to thee."
-Emily Dickinson

Effective use of quote, of course. ^^
I like this... and I don’t... in a way. I think it’s pretty and touching and as always you’ve a grasp on the emotion and flow that’s rather fantastic. Yet, I did have to read it a couple of times. It may just be my brain right now, but when reading it, I’d get about five, six lines in, then forget what I’d just read. Actually, that sounds a lot like it’s just me, aye. ^^

It didn’t touch me in the way some of your poetry does (perhaps a good thing since that last one, aye. O.O) but I still felt it and find your descriptions to be fantastic. Some lines hit well, and kept in my mind, your ending is lovely, by far my favourite bit.

“At night, I worry that when I send more ships
you won't be waiting on the other side to fight,
and there will be only me and the sea that groans
and cries all alone; faithful as a shadow, my voice
wants only to be like you, o living sea—
a shadow faithless as you.”

That is just lovely. Really. Your use of the shadow and faith with the sea is a wonderful image. Definitely hit well, that bit. ^^

So, I love your writing as always, but this isn’t as touching as some others. Still a fantastic read. Nice work.

*Hearts* Le Penguin.