Red Carnation

by avawitonsky

Published June 23, 2016

E - Everyone Violence Mature Content

In Poetry

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Whose child is this,

wearing a cap of red carnations and 

singing the Royal March? 

What bludgeon beat this babe from its mothers arms, its

tongue spinning tales of Córdoba, but falling flat

upon the old language? Who whispers the name

of the Lord in the dirt of St. Augustine?


Whose mighty sword sheared the best bearing

of a thousand American years? What New World

riches cut dark tresses where a mother’s hands once labored, 

where the free sun once bathed? Who treads there now, old

wooden city of León, that has cast a single prayer

to the red trail of a march long passed? Who now,

who now, hears the echoes? 

Comments & reviews · 3
User avatar
Aravind
Review
Aravind wrote a review Review · Jun 26, 2016

Hey Avawitonsky!


This is an interesting piece as you've incorporated cultural references. This has helped you in engaging your readers even more with your writing.

Content wise, you seem to be using your writing to describe this person/child and his doings and presence. You've made it dramatic by effectively describing his activities and so on. Though you're just describing this person, you're simultaneously providing extra information such as cultural references.

Grammar and Spelling wise, everything seems intact. You may want to check over the opening line, which I feel should have a question mark.

Structure wise, you've organized the content into two stanzas of seven lines each. This is a good start. Significance of both stanzas is quite unclear, but that doesn't matter much.

Poem is quite coherent as you're just describing the subject of the poem. I feel you are just describing rather than expressing and narrative. Poetry can be a descriptive, but poets often use a variety of connecting descriptions rather than just targeted at one subject.

Literary Devices are used in here as you're seen describing. I am able to find adjectives, metaphors, and personification.


My personal rating for this work is 3.3/5


Keep writing :)

User avatar
Werthan
Comment
Werthan commented Comment · Jun 23, 2016

I think you accidentally wrote the description of the poem instead of the actual poem. Unless, of course, this is supposed to be some sort of weird postmodern thing, where the poem is the line of text, because the horrors of colonialism are not very beautiful or poetic, im that case you should change the description of the poem to say that it's a postmodern anti-poem sort of thing so I won't be confused.

Ahhh thank you! The file I chose to upload must've failed :p I assure you it's not some postmodern mischief, although that would be really interesting. Thanks again!

User avatar
Werthan
Review
Werthan wrote a review Review · Jun 23, 2016

I think you accidentally wrote the description of the poem instead of the actual poem. Unless, of course, this is supposed to be some sort of weird postmodern thing, where the poem is the line of text, because the horrors of colonialism are not very beautiful or poetic, im that case you should change the description of the poem to say that it's a postmodern anti-poem sort of thing so I won't be confused.



The simple truth is that authors like making people squirm. If this weren't the case, all novels would be filled completely with cute bunnies having birthday parties.
— Brandon Sanderson, Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians