Kingdom of Nine

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*Poem from my novel, it tells the legend of how the countries came to be, it is just a fun way of putting a legend in there instead of having one person just tell in a long paragraph.*

In the lands of Dane,

in the throes of time,

there lived once

a kingdom of nine.

-

One ruled of fortune.

One ruled of face.

But quickly, quietly,

they simply fell from grace.

-

Peasants into the ruins!

Peasants out with the gold.

The true value of the treasure

has never been told.

-

The seven lords below

soon rose up to claim

what had been broken,

what many could not name.

-

Inside and out,

through the dungeon’s layer.

They searched and searched,

but it wouldn’t be there.

-

“To the fleet, then!”

The seven began to shout,

for what had been lost

would never be found.

-

With war they came

and with war they took,

but it would never equal

the kingdom that shook.

-

And so the earth swallowed

taking the ruins under its hills,

where they remain lost

and time stands still.

-

But again the seven rose,

Each took his own land,

captured the eyes of the people,

and ruled with kinder hands.

-

To the north went Salrane

To the east, Balgur and Ketter

In the west the sun would set

none would rule better.

-

But when the light was gone,

and the darkness came to take,

the four remaining kings

tightened defenses on their lakes.

-

They kept all their gold,

all their precious jewels.

“After us,” they had said.

“Not one will rule.”

-

But as the night swept the lands,

it carried something with it too.

The judgment of the gods

on the coming day to rue.

-

One they slaughtered.

Two they judged.

Three now taken.

Four holding grudge.

-

The last split the lands,

divided to conquer.

“Equal,” they said.

“To uphold our honor.”

-

And when the time came

for each king to lie still,

thier sons took their places

and carried on their wills.

-

Incardia, Haereth,

Mikalivier and Di-

Names shortened and twisted,

in the power of each man’s eye.

-

Yet now they stand strong,

now and forever more.

Characters’ stories sung

in the common tongue’s folklore.

Comments & reviews · 5
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User avatar
Raindeer
Review

Hi there!

Wow, fantasy poem! Love it.

The only criticism I have to offer isn't really criticism, more like nitpicks... So we shall start!

One ruled of face.
But quickly, quietly,


'One' and 'But' don't need to be capitalized.

Peasants out with the gold.
The true value of the treasure


Same goes for this one. 'Peasants' and 'The' don't need to be capitalized.

Those errors are really the only ones I found related to grammar - you have some in other places too. Basically, either have all the lines capitalized, lowercase, or the first line capitalized and the rest not (per stanza).
At least, I'm fairly certain that last one applies. Not sure. I'm rusty on poetry.

Next, I love how you made your story into a poem! That's creative and a nice way to get people to read your story. It's also fun to make a piece of poetry out of a novel. :P

Good luck, hope this helps, awesome poem!! Keep writing,

~ EternalRain ^.^

Thanks so much for the review! I guess I missed those... Maybe at the time I meant them to be their own sentences, but you have made me realize that they are clearly not working that way :) Thank you so much for your input!

Happy Writing!

You're welcome, happy wiring to you too!

User avatar
Dracula
Review

Hello and Happy Review Day! I love reading legends about fantasy lands, they're always exciting and magical, which is what makes them so fantastic! Your poem did not disappoint one little bit. It flowed perfectly in my head, each rhyme was perfect. The length of your poem is also good; it's long enough to create a complete story, but short enough to not get tedious. It was cool how the names you'd created rhymed with everyday words, it was also good just to have the names there. It made the poem less generic and more personalised to your story. I have no nitpicks, so that's all there is for me to say. Lovely job!

Thanks so much! Happy Reviewing!

User avatar
Rook
Review
Rook wrote a review · Thu Jan 08, 2015 5:48 pm

Hello!
I love songs used in novels. They have such an ancient and deep reverberating vibe.

BUT

you have to do them right.
I agree that poems like this should rhyme. It adds a great deal to the tone that I spoke of before. However, they need to rhyme in a way that makes sense, in a way that isn't awkward. Almost every single rhyming line in here is so forced, it wasn't fun to read. Most of the time, I had no idea what you meant by something. Let me give you a list of single lines that make no sense in context, or out of context. (Or, they might make a little sense, but if you weren't rhyming, there would be 0 reason at all for anyone to write them like that, and that is not a good thing.

a kingdom of nine. (A kingdom of nine... what? Kings? Citadels? Dragons? Magical harps? I have no idea, as the reader.)

One ruled of face. (what?)

what many could not name. (the reader has no idea what this is, and while that might be the point, it's important for the reader to know. Are you talking about the treasure that the peasants stole? I have no idea at this point)

the treasure of the nook. (when I first saw this, I thought you were talking about the e-reader. What nook are you talking about here? It doesn't fit in with your story, and all of these verses are rather vague)

in the power of each man’s eye. (what?)

Those are just a few examples.

also, some of your lines just don't rhyme. Which breaks the pattern.
for example:
layer and there
shout and found
etc.
there are times when you make one rhyme plural and the other singular as well. I don't think those technically rhyme. I would say you could do it once or twice, but you have it a lot of times. The same with the one instance where you have an "ed" rhyming with just an "e."

also, watch your tenses. There were a few spots in the poem where I wasn't sure if you were telling it in the past, or like a past-perfect things.

Also, watch your rhythm. I could tell you were trying to have a consistent rhythm, but it just didn't pan out in a lot of places. It felt as forced as the rhyme, and it didn't work.

Another major problem (that probably stems from this rhyming problem) is that I have no idea what's going on.
Let me summarize for you what I think is happening, so you can see it from your readers' eyes.

So there's this kingdom that for some mysterious reason is called "of nine," and for some other mysterious reason, it fell into disrepair, and I assume the king died. So when the villagers heard that there was no one in the castle, they stormed it and took the treasure, and no one to this day knows how much they stole. But then there were some noble men in the land who were like "hey wait a minute, isn't there something important in the castle?" So they visited the castle, but they couldn't find it. So they went to other lands (even though it was probs the peasants who had taken it, amiright?) to see if they could find this missing thing that no one knows what it is there. But they couldn't. So they went back to the kingdom, split up the land, and ruled like nice rulers. But then they wanted more land, and the other kingdoms were afraid, and locked up their treasures and were afraid to relinquish the throne. So then the 7 noble men who had split up the kingdom of 9 attacked the other kingdoms (of which there were 4) an apparently now there are 11, I guess that's adding 7 and 4, so the gods (of which we haven't heard about until the middle of the poem) did various things to the kings. And then someone, maybe the gods, maybe the left over kings divided up the land again, and the sons took their places, and now everything's okay.


Do you see how confusing that is? Do you see how long it is? I think this would be better told as a story, like, a long story. Not the kind you put in quotes, but the kind that you say:

Joe stood next to the fire, peering into its flickering flame. "I have a story to tell," he said, "about anarchy."

Toby looked up at him with his green eyes and whispered, "tell it."

so Joe began, weaving the beginings of a history.

---

Long ago, there was a kingdom called the kingdom of nine...
etc.
And to this day, legends are told.
---
Joe's eyes remained transfixed on the fire.

Or something along those lines. I just don't think one poem is cut out for telling that really long story. The rhymes confuse it and after reading it, the audience has no idea what's going on, and is probably more confused about the history of the kingdom than they were before.

On the other hand, you could simplify the history into something much easier to understand, and then perhaps you could do a song. c:

I hope you understand, and I hope this helped.

Great try, Keep writing!
~fortis

I understand how you are confused, and I hope that this will clarify a few things for you:

There were nine kings of some relation to one another, I only named where 2 went because they were the oldest and most prominent, but each person had their own place and lands. One of those ruled only for the money "ruled of fortune" and the other ruled only for looks and attention, lying to get his way "ruled of face" but soon they died and only seven kings were left. Those seven kings went to explore the castle after they heard, but the citizens had raided it first and so the seven waged war against the people who they blamed took the treasure, but they never got much back. Everything settled down and they split the land into sevenths, taking back what the two had left behind. Then the gods come and take away 3 out of the 7, "One they slaughtered. Two they judged." The "three taken away" is referring to the total that the gods took, then, "Four hold a grudge." is referring to the four left alive. Those four split the lands again and there are now only 4 countries that my story centers around.

I'm sorry if this still seems confusing, writing doesn't make sense to everyone. I appreciate your feedback, it's always good for me to know where I've missed the mark. As for my rhyme scheme, most of those rhyme inside my head, but I don't know what else i would put in their place right now. Lastly, "nook" was a problem for me to even put down, but I couldn't think of another word there that might rhyme. I will look into the areas you pointed out more closely.

Once again, thanks for the review :D

Happy Writing!

Hm. yeah, I didn't get that outcome at all from the poem. I still suggest you put it in more of a prose-type thing. Maybe you could have the verses of the poem echoing through out the story though, like, after every paragraph, one stanza of the poem.

I know not everyone understands these things, me included, and that some people do. However, these background stories are supposed to clarify why things happened the way they did, not confuse them more. So I'm going to really recommend that you don't use this poem as the only thing to tell that story, because I'm guess most of your readers won't understand it.

Thanks for your explanation. ^-^

Okay, I understand- thanks so much!

User avatar
Tay01
Review
Tay01 wrote a review · Wed Jan 07, 2015 10:12 am

Hello, Tay01 here with a little review. No, not to show you how to improve, but to admire your great work.

As I have just said, I am only admiring this poem. Your lines rhyme good in the verses, making it more fun to read. Perhaps if you, I do not know actually what to say. It's too good for me.

Your rhythm is smooth. Making it easy to use it for a rap, or a presentation to the final round in a competitions.

Next, your line is neither too long, nor too short. The number of syllabuses in each line is perfect. I sometimes wonder, how long did you actually take to make this entire thing perfectly? If a minute or two, you are too high level to continuing reviewing from here. If you took quite a while, a day or two, it is still great.

The only thing is, I do not get it dramatic. It is fantasy and spiritual. That is more like it, since you wrote a few beliefs in there that only certain people believe in. But other than that, it's awesomely great! (is that even a word???) Haha! :D

That is all for this review of admiration from Tay01, lover of Finding Nemo!!!

~~Tay01

Thanks! That means a lot to me. I actually took about 5 minutes total for it hahaha. And I always struggle with what categories to put my works in. I can certainly move it if that helps :D Thanks so much for the encouragement!

Happy Writing!

Haha. But five minutes is still fast though *said in shocked voice*



It's not nice to roast people when they're out of comebacks.
— Atticus