The Flow

Okay, so this was interesting enough. I got a feel of, well, depression. Sadness. Pinch of anger. Something like rapture, but maybe closer to rupture. Something's broken.

That's good. That means that this could perhaps work. Emotion is the basis of all art, I think. Invoking it, that is.

The problem is, I'm not sure what you're quite saying. It's about humanity, our endless hunt for answers? I think so. But your presentation is a bit flimsy.

First off, you needn't capitalize the letters of every line. Think about how you write prose and apply it. Sometimes it's tricky with poetry, but use that as a baseline.

Now, in the first stanza, I definitely like the flow. It's sort of soothing, like waters breaking roughly at a shoreline. It paints that picture, which is good. However, something about how the questions are posed is off. It jumps from something physical to something mental. Are we still in the brain of the hunter? Was that a metaphor? Etc.

I suggest perhaps adding more detail to the first three lines, making it into its own stanza. Is this one person? The Jane and John Doe of humankind, the Everyman? I think being able to see a bit more, add a bit of physical description--not purple prose, but description--would help a bit.

Then you can transition into the hunter's mind. Show movement, if possible. Explain why these questions are important, right now. How are they important? You're trying to explain life, but you're leaving out a lot of humanity. It's not all just a mental game for us. Where did we come from? Where will we go? Etc. All those questions are in relation to ourselves, to the world we reside in, etc. Ground the questions. A lot of people might ponder them, looking out at the ocean, but why now? Why this hunter, or whomever he represents?

Basically, all those emotions? You threw them at me, but I had no idea what to do with them. I wasn't given much of a reason. Maybe the confusion was intentional. Here, have all the fearful worry of the human race, taste it, smell it, feel it--now go away.

I don't know. Anyway, the questions themselves had a bit of odd phrasing. It was set up to be as a general thing, right? Abstract can be good, but I've been told by many poets that, as I said, grounding is important. So, take the first question. Every person is asking, "Why life flows at the course that it does?"

Awkward. "Why does life flow at the course it does?" Better. A little. But why that question? We all wonder what would happen if we made different choices, were born differently, if the world was different, etc. But why now? What sparked this question?

"What am I bound for and how can I thrive?" Again, a bit awkward. You're trying to get in ideas of fate/predestination and, if it is real, how do you manage it into one question. That's some big stuff. I've spent, probably, hours thinking on that. It needs more.

"What is the meaning of this and how should it be understood?" Are we talking about life? Ambiguous pronouns need to be watched out for. The world? Society? People? I have no idea what exactly you're referring to. I'm assuming life, because going by the lines before it would make more sense, but I got hung up. And, again, this is a big idea. You could spend many poems dealing with that one question alone. I think you're trying to explain it with this one--life is as life is--but it seems, as I said, flimsy. A cotton sheet when you need body armour.


"Yet you can't know nor find the answer as it will always be misunderstood." Very much a downer. I assume that was the point. There's anguish there. Betrayal. I feel it. It hasn't been put into words.

Prey is already plural. Deer are prey animals. Rabbits are prey. Deer and rabbits are prey animals. Etc.

Metal and steel? How did they work themselves in? As I said, abstraction is cool, but you have to ground it physically. In ways that make sense.

Decay and destruction? Okay. Maybe. I need more explanation. What has been destroyed? The brain from its questions? A person combating life? I don't know.

How do all thrive under the cover of night? I have no baseline for this, either. Again, a physical thing that doesn't readily make sense.

The end line bothers me a bit. Okay. Life is confusing? Life is questions, hunting, steel, decay, and such? Maybe. Currently. But if that was the meaning of the poem, why wasn't any of these things expanded?

Reading between the lines and trying to make sense of something is good brain work. Trying to put the emotions given by diction somewhere is brain work. I like brain work. However, I also like to be able to read a poem and bask in that sort of heady rush you get from great poetry. This wasn't terrible or anything, but it didn't give me that.

So, I suggest you edit this. Revise it. Move things around. Ground it physically, transition better. Use better grammar.

Read other people's poetry. Not just on here. Try to find a anthology of poetry at your library or such. See what rather successful poetry looks like.

And the most important thing? Keep writing. I don't mean to be harsh, I just want your writing to improve. Practice makes perfect and all that. I've been writing for five years, read books on writing, and gone to writing meets and workshops. A lot of my writing is still rather shoddy. But I just keep trudging along. Don't let anything I said keep you down, okay?

-Cas