Assassin

Nice.

I didn’t read the other reviews for bases to touch because you edited after both of them were posted, so if I sculpt over anything they’ve said, just point and laugh and strum an E chord. Then a B chord. Then a D chord. Then an A chord. And then laugh more. This is my first time reviewing you, earendil. Did you know that? I knew that. We’ll have fun. >:3

Your poem.

In this review, you and I are the same person, We, and We are going to make our poem better, even though it’s totally yours. Totally.

Consider the space before the first word of a poem the universe before anything happened. It’s black and empty. Well, earendil, we spoke into the darkness and instantly have a momentum. You’re a music gal, so consider this first line,

I am ready, I am ready, I am ready, I am

an accelerating cadence of tribal drums. I hear it in my head; can you? And this works fantastically in my head because the drums suddenly stop, and we’re standing in a gray place because we’re colorblind. And there are soldiers advancing, shoulder-to-shoulder, across a barren land—

Let’s pause there. “Barren land” is pretty overused and drab. We can do better. We can consider putting an image here that may help us out in revealing our metaphor so it doesn’t take readers five times through to get it. We can clarify through this image, so let’s see what we can put in here.

Recap: Change ‘barren land’ to something more creative and helpful to our metaphor.

We see the soldiers smirk, grin, and watch as, at least in my head, a girl, shining and brilliant, rises from behind the trees.

||

After this image, the last part of Stanza 1, we enter this phase of nothing but superfluous imagery that doesn’t feed the plot, the metaphor, or the clarity; it’s just color imagery. In fact, we can remove lines 1 through 3 ¾ from the stanza and not miss a beat with what counts. Watch this:

to break of Dawn as she rises above the morning trees.

Her ascent is a
dirge; a desperate grasp at the tug of the hangman’s noose,

Not a beat missed. In fact, I think either changing the first half of stanza two, or removing it, would help us again in clarifying our metaphor, which may need a little bit of help. Do you see it? I hope so.

>>

Dawn is dying; she is dying and some voice in our ears makes things real in what she says. I imagine it’s her mother. She’s pleading with us not to tell her what’s wrong, and then Dawn is dead.

And earendil, we have here quite a chilling image. A girl hanging from a noose like an unhinged, creaking door. I can see the lifelessness in her eyes. Good job. Wonderful job, actually. But our image backtracks next, and we’re talking about chem—wait a second. Dawn had cancer! That’s our keyword. Suddenly, things can be pieced together.

However, it takes multiple reads to do so. I want to encourage you to clarify your metaphor a tiny bit more; every single bit of power in this poem depends on the word chemo to deliver it. And if that word is missed, everything is lost. Your secondary clue is ‘scar tissue’ above to give the personification of the cancer/soldiers.

And I think I know what I can advise you to do. The voice in italics in stanza two—give her a hint somewhere, but nothing too obvious. Just another grain of salt to tip the balance in the right direction. If you do that, I think you’ll be golden.

This was all a lot of superfluous commentary to just deliver you three points of advice, so I’ll stop now. I really did enjoy this piece. A lot. Keep it up, and sorry it took me so long to review you.

-Lumester

I think I said I was going to review this a while ago, so here I am to do just that. I'll take this stanza by stanza.

I am ready, I am ready, I am ready, I am

Colorblind-- the soldiers are coming, the soldiers are coming,
shoulder to shoulder they march across the barren land
like crawling scar tissue, gun barrels cross-stitched to their chests.
They moisten their lips with a silver smirk as men scan the horizon;
their eyes stare, entombed in their own ambition to bear witness
to break of Dawn as she rises above the morning trees.

Nice start. Lots of people have trouble finding a working beginning for their poem, so kudos on being able to draw me in so quickly. But there are some problems I have with this. First of all, the emotion in this stanza seems somewhat erratic. At first, I was expecting you to follow through with the sense of agitation, while instead you switch to, I'm guessing, something like grimness. Where did that come from? The first line, if anything, has to sit well in the reader's mind - and yours does, as I said - but, as I read on, I'm finding that you aren't supporting the emotion established there. So, what I'm getting at is that, although I like how it is, it might be less confusing to say that the soldiers are coming in a more solemn manner (not the soldiers - the way you say it). That way the reader can feel a bit more like they know what's going on. Another option would be to synchronize the feeling of the rest of the stanza with the first line, but that'd be a bit more difficult.

In a matter of seconds it's as if the sky is below her
and she is falling into it; Dawn's light refracts and bends
into colors from every corner of the spectrum, casting pale hues
along the skyline as the soldiers plot to assinate the sun. Her ascent is a
dirge; a desperate gasp at the tug of the hangman's noose, but
she is too innocent to sense the danger until
the rope draws her final breath and she is hanging

I love the first part. The imagery is splendid - very colorful, very imaginative. However, as soon as you hit line four, some problems begin to emerge. Specifically, it's the "soldiers plot to assinate the sun" that I think marks the transition between excellent and mediocre. After that point, you begin to say in such a straightforward way how the dawn is being hanged, how she's struggling with the soldiers, all that. I honestly think that part could be better. Try connecting it a bit more with the preceding imagery, as well. That might help. But yeah. That's my criticism.

suspended over the auburn hills like an unhinged door, creaking softly
in the wind. Her eyes are blank, colorblind-- the soldiers are waiting,
the soldiers are waiting, their fingers snake around the trigger like an anaconda
constricting its prey; if you listen closely you can hear them hiss, debating
on how long the chemo will keep her thrashing between life and death before
the night pulls her down and nothing can be heard, save for the sound
of artillery fire exploding against the stars.

It just keeps getting better. This is true of much of your poetry, but here it is especially apparent. I'm going to look mainly at flow, since it appears I've failed to do so for most of this review. Also, I'm seeing some issues with the flow that were somewhat lacking in the previous stanzas. Okay. So, in the first line, I'm seeing lots of articles, which are pretty disorienting when it comes to poetry. You want to stick to the juicy words. Readers get bored and confused with the smaller ones. In poetry, at least. In the second line, you've got not one, but two big flow breakers. The period, by itself, would not be much of a problem, but adding that second pause with the dash amplifies both of them.

So! Good job with this. Keep writing.

-Kafka

Hey earendil, finally here as I promised.

You have an intriguing poem here, but right now it's being jammed up by the lack of clarity you bring to the main conflict. Right now you seem to have 3 main players (Soldiers, Assassins, and Dawn) but it's not clear how each of those players relates to each other. My interpretation is that you were trying to create parallel situations with the Soldiers vs Assassins next to the Day vs Night conflict, but those parallel conflicts never form a larger picture. Take a step back and think about exactly what you're trying to say with this poem, and once you've decided, work on tightening things up so that the poem conveys that intent better.

My only nitpick:

In a matter of seconds it's as if the sky is below her

This is oddly worded and pretty bland, try to make the image stronger and clearer.

You have a distinctive voice that is really interesting. Please please please do not lose that personality. This is a very ambitious piece, and you have a nice start on it. The shortness of this review is a testament to that. You just need to clarify how each individual element in the poem ties together, because right now you have a bunch of hanging strings that aren't going anywhere. It's always a pleasure to read your work