Points:
Time spent:
IP address:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
Are you sure you want to delete this comment? This cannot be undone.
Mark this comment as a review? Points will be awarded to the poster.
Your comment was posted, but it wasn’t long enough to count as a review. Reviews need about four complete sentences (at least 250 characters). Try writing another review that explains your thoughts in more detail — the author will appreciate it, and you’ll earn points for it.
140,571 Literary Works • 673,516 Reviews
Very nice. Got a good sense of what the poem was about. Crystal clear.
It could do with a bit more emotion to it. It's about death. About a beloved place, time, people. Yet, it was all pretty, but not very staggering. I suppose I'm also not very emotional, so take that with a grain of salt.
All in all? I liked it. I've always considered moor and heather beautiful, and the time period was interesting if sort of terrible for prince and pauper.
The only problem I noticed was in stanza two, last line, wherein the tense changes. It shouldn't be are born, it should be were born.
Anyway, keep up the good work!
-Cas
I loved this piece and the sort of haunting air it had about it. The ending stanza brought so much emotion inside of me (I'm a sucker for repetition) and sent chills down my spine. I found nothing wrong whatsoever with this work other than in this stanza, I would remove some of the commas.
"Sing, of a long gone time
where men did rule,
with women by their sides
and where mighty battles were fought,
and myths and legends are born."
I would make it:
"Sing of a long gone time
where men did rule
with women by their sides
and where mighty battles were fought,
and myths and legends are born."
That's the only thing that bothered me with this piece. Other than that, this was amazing! I might have to review some of your other work! Great job and keep writing! BRAVO
Take me home, my love,
to the moors and the winter sky,
and lay me down beneath the heather,
where the lords of old do reside
and ancient stories do breathe life.
Sing, of a long gone time
where men did rule,
with women by their sides
and where mighty battles were fought,
and myths and legends are born.
Let the lingering, painful memories
of a long forgotten past drift
through mind, place and time,
as you lay me beneath the heather
and listen to the sky.
Take me home, darling,
to those ancient, most loved moors
and to my beloved winter sky,
so that you can lay me down beneath the heather
where my beloved ancestors do reside. You have a great opening and the second half reminds me of lord of the rings for some reason?This is not over descriptive or confusing.Overall great job!Keep up the good work sincerely,sockmonkey.
Hi, Scarlett~
. Whisperer here.
Anyway, I'm too lazy (or time-conscious) to read the other reviews right now so I might repeat some of the things they've already said. xD
Nitpicks:
- I think this is a good opener.
- The moors! xD That's why you were talking about them in chat yesterday!
- Anyway, I think the 'winter sky' adds a nice imagery (of blue and white) to the line. The 'moor', though, is not a very common word, I think, so it might have to take some vocabulary before the readers can imagine the line like I did.
- I like the connection between this and the first line. ^_^
- Nice rhyme.
- These two lines give us a good idea of a setting.
- Technically speaking, I think the use of comma there to separate/cause a pause after 'Sing' is wrong. Perhaps you could've written the 'of a long gone time' as a new line and removed the comma? I'm not sure.
- 'Lord Of The Rings'?? xD The women weren't that noticed there though.
- I love the imagery these words are giving me. XD
- I think the 'drift' should already be in the succeeding line. The pause implied after drift is rather awkward.
Overall, I think the poem is good, if not nice.
Never stop writing!
I would go one further than Lumi and say none of those 'do's have any function. Using reside again, I'm also not sure about, unless you repeat the same phrase, if you're going to use the word again, as it is so distinctive.
"where the lords of old reside
and ancient stories breathe life"
"where my beloved ancestors reside"
Much less cumbersome. I like the ideas in this poem, and I would also agree with Lumi in that they would fit a rhyming structure well, especially as it is already using a formal tone and is quite structured.
Likewise, another do. "Where men ruled with women by their sides." Wait a minute, when men ruled with women by their sides? First of all, but why? There are still plenty countries in which women are ruled over and subjugated, and it nearly always turns out not so good for we the yonically endowed, like being-stoned-to-death-for-being-alone-in-a-car-with-a-man-not-good.
And another thing, which time was this? We've had some pretty solid women rulers over the last couple of millenia, Boudica for one, she kicked ass. And why is that time gone? There are plenty of men ruling currently, most of them have wives. Also people are still fighting mighty battles. I'm guessing the gender thing was not the nostalgic part of the era, but then what else is the point of the stanza? What makes the era she is referring to distinctive, vibrant, real? There is the reiteration of the last line of the first stanza, with the myths/legends/ancient stories, but not necessarily what they are about, how they came about, how they are powerful
This stanza combined with the former is slightly odd too. "long gone time", and "long forgotten past" are almost synonymous yet refer to distinctly opposite things in the narrator's mind. Is this deliberate? Is it, take me back to [memory a] to make me forget about [memory B] or is the voice split. Why is she using the past to escape the past?
The reiteration of the heather and the sky is fine, but I just get the impression that there is just not enough meat to this poem currently. Go deeper. You have the chops, you have the depth, give us more of yourself, and it it will shine.
Scarling~
First off, it’s interesting seeing you take on a more rhythmic bone structure after reading your free verse. I have to admit that it’s a bit of a change for my tastes, but that’s totally fine. Anyway, you know that I’m not one to give much praise inside a review, so I’ll spend this helping you shape it into something potentially better.
First off, let’s talk about nitpicks.
These two lines flow much more smoothly if you remove “do” before “reside”.
Nix the comma here after “Sing”, as it’s unnecessary and gives the reader a hiccup if he reads by punctuation intention. Furthermore, if you’re wanting grammatical correctness, long-gone needs a hyphen.
I feel that these two lines would flow more smoothly if you change “loved” to “beloved”. The problem with this is that you use “beloved” in the line below, which still does a strange number, seeing as how you have “loved/beloved” going on. Try to change this up and see what happens. You also used “beloved” in line 4.5, so consider changing the adjectives up a bit; I think you’ll be pleased.
Your fifth line in each stanza is a bit strenuous—that is to say that it pulls more out of the reader than it should because it’s added to a style that works well in quatrains. To make this work for you, consider the power each fifth line holds. If the reader has to work for meaning, he should get it; however, after comparing the fifth lines, there’s not a terrible lot that they bring.
This poem consists of a grand total of four imperative statements—that means that you’re giving four commands to the invisible “my love, darling,” and there’s no real evolution throughout the movement. In that regard, I believe that it’s hindering the aging of your meaning. From what I can gather thus far, you have representatives of the ache of missing old times—maybe childhood or the feeling that childhood brought you [simplicity, boundlessness, freedom], and you’re trusting in your love to bring you this again.
In this sense, your request that the painful memories go away brings in a bit of a haunting sensation that the past/present almost swap. Or perhaps there is a trauma somewhere in the Old Times that the narrator is scared of. I believe you could possibly increase on this if you focus in your meaning and ideas. This can come about my reigning in your language choice, eliminating unnecessary words and ideas, etc.
It’s interesting applying this interpretation theory to the poem knowing why you chose “heather” as a recurring theme. It translates into the narrator losing touch with herself, and trusting her love to return her identity. It’s a dangerous hope, but it’s something that most folks share, I think.
Let me know if you have any questions,
-Ty
Wow, this poem is truly great. Firstly I would like to point out how wonderfully unique your writing style is. I can honestly say I have never read anything else like this. It is almost seems like it was written a few hundred years ago instead of now. It kind of reminds me of shakespeare. I don't know If you were aiming for that style of writing but some of the words and the descriptions make your writing seem to be from around the same period.
Also, about your subject matter. I might be completely wrong here, but I was not one hundred percent sure of what it was about. To me it seemed like it was some one dying after some one they loved had died. Or it could have been just someone going home with the person they loved. All the talk of the winter sky made me think that the person was just going back to their house, but the talk of the lords of old and ancestors made it seem as if the person was dying. I might be completely misreading that, sorry, I do that a lot with poetry.
Lastly, this might be sort of nit picky, but in the last stanza, It seemed like you should change one of the beloveds to something else. It may be just a style choice, but I thought I should point it out to you. I know that I tend to use one word multiple times without realizing it when I write. I really think that you did a truly amazing job in composing this poem. The only major suggestion I could make is for you to review it for yourself to see if you catch anything that no one else would, because after all, no one knows your poem better than you. Great job!
SCAR!
You shall see me review this for what it is, and then you shall see me review this for what (in my opinion) it can become (because I'm just gonna push and push and push).
I love to see you write poetry, and I think your poems are unique in style as well. You have an old soul way about your voice that reminds me of the poems of 18th century England. It must be your tone/word usage, or maybe its your subject matter or both. Whichever the case, the funny thing about that time period is that writers often wrote nostalgically about a time period they weren't present for, so you get a lot of medieval themes and countryside values and just this overwhelming sense of nostalgia for things of the past - fairytales, and myths and the like. I get a sense of that here, and I can relate to that feeling. You evoke it well.
This poem in particular shows great use of rhythm and repetitive refrains, it's very songlike in that way. I can see something like this do very well in lyrics.
One nit-pick though: second stanza, first line, I would remove the comma after sing. Unless you intend for it to read: Sing! Of a long gone time -- (in which I would put an exclamation or a period) the comma there is gramatically incorrect and awkward.
Other than that, form/rhythm/imagery/tone - it all falls together well. What you have works! But one can always climb up the ladder of improvement, yes? So don't think of what I'm about to say as "faults" but rather, here's what you can do to give it an umph!.
This poem speaks of generalities and while the simplicity of this makes it beautiful, it also keeps it from impacting the reader in some significant way, it keeps it from being memorable. It's almost like this is a nice breath mint, I get this "ahhh, that was nice" feeling after reading. But I'm hungry for more. I want a full course meal. I want some spice!
My suggestion then would be to make this more personal, and more specific. Poetry is the language of precision. Here you only talk of loved moors, they're just a passing mention. But why are they loved? Why do you love them? Why not describe them in some poetic way instead, so that we as the reader might better experience this landscape. You briefly touch on how this scenery impacts your speaker. I want for this scenery to impact me too. Less lyrics, and more figurative language, Scar.
I want for the land to reach out and wrap its tendril-like-vines into my heart and squeeze the love out of me. I want for my blood to spill and mingle with the heroes of legend. I want for the moor to grow and continue on in my memory, taking a part of me with it too.
Now, that's a tall order, and I know. But I also know you can do it. Let me know if you have any questions.
~ as always, Audy
I like this poem because it is about a longing for times past, when legends existed. My favorite part is when you speak about your "love" in the first and last parts. I also enjoy the imagery used, particularly the part about the winter sky and the moors.
I'd give it a 4/5, and the reason for only a 4 is that the subject matter isn't as interesting to me as others.