made from a sample of "To Build a Fire" by Jack London
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
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125,006 Literary Works • 672,797 Reviews
Hello hello!! ahhh, I love blackout poetry! As soon as I saw this, I knew I had to review it
let's jump right into the review:
I love the simple formatting. This is a very organized, blackout poem, probably because it's digital. In terms of the actual poem, I really liked it! I applaud you with how well you were able to tell a story for a blackout poem. Normally, it's really hard to have a consistent theme throughout the entire thing, because it's so hard to find words! You did a great job. You tell the story of this man, which seems to give a lot of different internal and external trials that he's going through, and it feels very reflective. I really liked the ending, or this man lies down, and he can feel cuts on his body being pressed against. In my interpretation, it seems like this man is struggling a lot, and he is definitely going through a tough battle of life. He seems to have struggled a lot and sort of lost his creativity, perhaps traveling thousands of miles to try and attain it again. It's simple, but it's beautiful! I just love looking at this poem as a whole. Fantastic work, have a great day, and keep on writing!
Your friend,
Ellie
Hey herb! This was an interesting piece, so I thought I'd leave a comment
I actually interpreted these lines as conveying how the man didn't see beyond whatever his present circumstances were. If the sun was out, he thought he was used to the sun. If the sun was gone or if it was cold, he thought that's what he was used to - and so being "without imagination".
This, followed up with the line "it did not lead him to immortality" creates a sort of melancholy mood for me, with the implied tragedy of the man's existence, swayed by circumstance.
I feel like "fire" is a bad thing in this context - since the man has the 'possibility' (hope, potential?) of coming home at a semi-reasonable hour, and then the poem contrasts the presence of the fire with this positive thing. That's interesting, since normally in winter fire would sound like a good thing, but maybe this fire also burns?
"lying against each cut" makes for a striking ending, I think.
It's also impressive how well the lines flow, given that you're creating them by cutting out words from the original extract.
Keep writing!
-Lim
Now this is one of a kind! I haven't seen a blackout poem in this site, until now. Let me see if I get the message right.
I have to applaud you for going through such feat and still making sense out of it. The story shows a man trying to survive a deadly winter. Although some parts didn't seem to connect, I'd simply like to interpret that as the "frost entering his head part", where I believe the cold was slowly driving him insane.
One comment though is that you said "the man was used to the sun." but you also said "he was used to he winter." which is a bit contradicting. but I'll let it slide.
Overall, this is a great work! Good job in piecing such vivid imagery together from bits of words around a page.
This is alpacaboss, signing off.
i mean is there not sun in winter
Yup but people tend to associate sun with brightness and warmth unlike winter which is bitter and cold (stereotypes ofc). That%u2019s why I said I%u2019ll let it slide since it%u2019s an understandable %u201Cinconsistency%u201D heh :>
Hello, my friend!
This is a fascinating format for a poem, and I like your choice of source material. I can tell it certainly gave you a lot of good lines to work with. Honestly, I'm surprised by the transformation; you really turned this excerpt from the original story, once the introduction to a hopeful adventure, into a gloomy-feeling poem about a man's struggle against the cold and oncoming winter. It makes me wonder what kind of pieces could be lurking in other works, haha.
Nicely done!