The Boy Called Atlas

Hi! Sorry its taken me such a long time to get to this, I've been moving house so a lot of crazy stuff has been getting in the way. Let's see what we have here though...

Burdens break the back
Like straws on camels <<< A very strong opening, I really like the alliteration of the first line.
They are still and heavy
Cold and dry
They leave blue bruises on his pale skin
And red tracks on his eyes [I'm not sure I like this line. The idea of tracks on eyes is something I'm finding it hard to get my head around and it doesn't sound as smooth as the previous lines. Maybe if it was tracks through the eyes that would work or you could lengthen the line to something like 'And red lines like railway tracks/ rumbling through his eyes'.]

But he does not complain
He does not look away from the eyes of his tormenters
The beasts of his burden
To him they are angels
Not yet fallen
Their robes still white as his soul [I like the last three lines but I'm not sure about the first three. They're a little bit too vague and verging on the dramatic. What are these burdens, who are these tormenters? It feels like I have more questions than answers, in fact I think I have no nswers at all. We need clues! Pieces of the puzzle and graphic images that can hold our attention. If you want us to feel his pain, we have to be able to see it, feel it, know it. There is a lot of difference between 'he was in a lot of pain' and 'the creatures burrowed into his back, digging through his flesh like it was soil.']

The stench of their drink and smoke
Their shouting
Their screaming
Their moaning
Their weeping
Dance around his head
Make him stagger and shake [Whose? There are a lot of perspectives in this poem and you need to make it clear when you move from one to another, surely it isn't his tormenters who are screaming? Obviously I know it's the people on Earth, but only because I've read the poem through a couple of times. You need to be less general.]

The beasts howl in pain
They flee and leave him on his knees
The burden off his shoulders and at his feet
He lies with blood and tears
He lies with pain
He lies with guilt
He trembles and shakes [I'm not sure that the repetition is helping you here. I prefered your first stanza with its use of colour and description. In comparison, this feels flat. It has a good rhythm and sounds good but the content and the imagery are poor.]

The day Atlas dropped the world. [I'd actually love to see you start with this line instead. It makes for a dramatic ending but would be an even more dramatic beginning.]

Overall, this isn't bad but I felt there was more you could do with it. You've got such a strong premise and yet you tell us nothing of Atlas or his story, how he came to be holding the world, etc. I've read the tale but others might not have and it's still nice to be reminded/ re-told. It would also help your reader connect with the character of Atlas more. I'd like to see some stronger imagery and less generalisations!

Let me know if you do a re-write/ have any questions,

Heather xxx

p.s. If you still want to review something of mine, maybe take a shot at this one.

I really love this... It's like you get a different meaning every time you read it, which is an amazing thing for a poem to do. I loved the repetition of "their" and "He lies". I really liked how the final line was isolated. Keep wirting, I really want to read more of your work!

This is really awsome!

So much descriptive writting is in this, and I bet it took ages for this amout of detail!
I love it, I truely do.
I don't think there are any mistakes, but some of it doesn't make sense.
But I'm a litlle confuuesed with everything, so thats okay.

Keep it up!

Hi River,
-The ending was a surprise, even though I read the title I didn't know it was about Atlas until the end! The ending was so suprising I had to read the whole poem again.

So Review:

I didn't see any big mistakes in grammar or spelling. In the secound stanza I would split up the secound line into two lines. Maybe between the words "away"& "from" or even "from"& "the". In the 3rd stanza I believe it should be "makes" instead of "Make"

This poem has some great use of aiteration. And some of the lines have almost end rhymes too. Some of the descriptions really make the story come alive like in the last stanza I can almost see the world rolling off his shoulders. And in the first stanza I love the lines: "They leave blue bruises on his pale skin / And red tracks on his eyes"

-Great job with the poem, it illustrates a whole story in a way that's easy to read and leaves an impression and image in your mind. Keep posting

~Alli-wa