The Squash

Wow, quite an exposition as to the dark side of gardening. I have always thought that the eating of plants was just as bad as the eating of caged animals. These creatures may think and feel, yet they are given no chance to defend themselves. However, we cannot survive on your food for thought alone, so it is with a heavy heart that I will face my next salad.

Ranting aside, a wonderful poem. What style of poetry is this? I'm not sure that I recognise it. Minor grammatical errors aside, there's nothing I would change. Keep it up!

Thanks for sharing this poem which compares plants with sentient creatures and gardeners as waging a bloody warfare against them. Of course if this is taken literally it would make no sense except for a whimsical fantasy entertainment value. However, poems can be viewed symbolically as well and this one can be viewed as a metaphorical illustration of how humans treat other humans during war, as if they were unfeeling plants via ignoring the severe suffering that they are inflicting. Such cities as Dresden and Tokyo during WWII where civilians were incinerated indiscriminately as if they had been mere vegetation readily came to mind. This of course isn’t necessarily what the poet had in mind. But poetry lends itself to reader interpretation and this is one that I find very appropriate.

Looking forward to reading mre of your work:

Suggestions:

ad deadly
[....as deadly.... ]

A shovel's rusty blade becomes as deadly as a sword's, [iambic heptameter]


Because the poem is introduced by a heptameter line and in couplets, the reader expects it to continue that way. If it doesn’t, then it will seem to go choppy. So in reviewing it, I tried to give advice on how to generally keep it within the iambic heptameter parameters without losing its essential meaning.


. . . as it tears apart the cities of the unwelcome plants against which it wages war. [not]
[. . .as it destroys the cities of unwelcomed plants with war.] [iambic heptameter.]

. . . but to his shock when he presented it it was viciously cut out and eaten. [not]
[. . . but when he dared to offer it it was ripped out and eaten.] [iambic heptameter.]


One day it lifted its green head. . . .
[One day it raised its verdant head. . . .] optional

. . . .casting of. . . .
[. . . .casting off. . . .]
. . . and drank drops of rain.
[. . . and it drank cold drops of rain.]

. . . manifested a heart, . . .
[. . . displayed a heart, . . .] [iambic]

The shouts of war suddenly quiet, the frothy waters of blood still, . . .
[The shouts of war went silent then, the bloody waters still, . . .][iambic heptameter.]


[. . . it blindly fed on corpses and drank drops of putrid rain. ] [iambic heptameter.]

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