the fault is fed the belly full filled by
Mephisto and Zeus. to say its mine a
line ive heard back afore before the sly
glass bottle blurred your reason that day
overlook the fetters and unsigned letters
to find the drawer and unearth the score
Mephisto knows the bind not the betters
too blind to the Letter for which Zeus bore
two dead to weep a grave unreaped too Scar-
let A stream that flows its rage estranged for
those blue blood lines which imprison and mar
the crack down against the ceramic floor
to say its mine at this time is a line
made untrue by a devil with no spine
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Canary word: Present
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125,020 Literary Works • 672,861 Reviews
Hey there! Happy Review Day! C:
I haven't reviewed (or written) poetry in awhiiiiile, so please forgive me; I'm a little rusty. Usually my approach to reviewing poetry is letting the author know how the poem made me feel, what it made me think, and sometimes what worked for me and what didn't work.
I have to agree with Firerose in that I found this poem a tab bit confusing at times, and I wasn't entirely sure what it was about. Though to be honest, usually I think poetry is rather hard to understand- which is why I think people love love love to study poems so much. But the first line I do feel like could be a little clearer. And I do believe that is do to a lack of punctuation. And I know that in poetry it's absolutely perfectly fine not to use punctuation if it better gets across the feelings and images you're trying to portray. But in this case, the first line feels like there's supposed to be a comma in one spot and then it's not and so it's a little confusing. So let me try to explain what I mean a little better. Here's the line:
I'm really bad at explaining grammar, but let me try to explain this. So where I put the '[comma]' is where there's an expected pause by the reader. I think it's because there's one sort of statement: "the fault is fed" then another statement: "the belly fulfilled". Because they're like statements, and there's a natural spot for a pause between them, there kinda ha to be a pause of some sort or the reader gets confused, tries to read through it all in one go, and it just doesn't have a very natural flow to it at all. So there's two ways- well, more ways than that, but two main ones that I can see how to fix that. One way is to simply put a comma there. Another way is to put the two statements on two different lines- which is my personal favourite way to do it, but it's not always the best because people tend to tell me my poetry is rather choppy.
1.
or
2.
(I personally think #2 flows better)
This poem has a real sort of dramatic yet calm vibe to it- which I think is kinda like sonnets tend to be like, or how they normally make me feel? So I think you did a pretty good job of at least getting the feel of a sonnet down. It's kinda like a lullaby in a way- sort of soft and calming. The interesting thing though is it seems to be about fairly deep and serious topics- so it's quite a contradictory feel- which is what I love about poetry! You can be writing about the worst thing in the world and make it sound hauntingly beautiful in a way.
Anyways, I hope you found this somewhat helpful! Keep it up my friend! C:
-Holysocks
Hi there!
Okay, this poem seems to be pretty good, but I found it rather confusing. For one thing, you need more punctuation in it, and two, what is this about? You need to clarify things a little more. I honestly don't know what you are trying to say. I wish I could offer more, but I really don't know what, since I can't understand it.
Hello! Thanks so much for the review, I appreciate it! This piece is part of my Creative Writing Workshop and I wanted to post it to see what people thought of it. It's interesting to listen to people's reactions because for those who get the references and relate to the events occurring in the text its much easier to digest. But for others in my seminar, some of them don't understand the references because they are part of a different culture. I am a student at NYU Shanghai so half of the student body here is Chinese internationals. Now that you have also brought up the fact that this piece is rather confusing, what do you think I should do to clarify it. The original title was actually "your fault," but some students thought it then revealed too much. The goal was to also try and put it into sonnet form, but we weren't too strict about that. Should I break out of form and include more detail? There were certain words I omitted because they didn't fit within the 10 syllables. Also, I apologize for any spelling or grammar mistakes; studying Chinese 24-7 has me saying and writing all sort of weird things.
I think maybe doing something like this:
"The fault is fed, the belly full, filled by
Mephisto and Zeus. I want to say it's mine, but it is a line
line I've heard back before the sly,
glass, bottle blurred your reason that day
overlook the fetters and unsigned letters
to find the drawer and unearth the score
Mephisto knows the bind, not the betters
too blind to the Letter for which Zeus bore
two dead to weep a grave un-reaped, too Scar-
let a stream that flows its rage estranged for
those blue blood lines which imprison and mar,
the crack down against the ceramic floor
to say its mine at this time, is a line
made untrue by a devil with no spine.
I only changed a few words and added some commas. It is a good poem, once it is broken down. I think the biggest problem is that the reader doesn't read without any breaks or pauses. those can help a lot when reading a poem. I hope this helped!
Thank you so much for your review! I love that you wrote it out as well, because it really helps me look at what is being done to the tempo of the poem. Another thing that we played with in this seminar is the pace and tempo of a poem. When I had presented the poem, I paused after every for lines. Yet, our professor had someone else read it as one continuous line.
In the lines:
too blind to the Letter for which Zeus bore
two dead to weep a grave unreaped too Scar-
I had initially paused after bore, but my classmate continued. This created another statement entirely that changed the meaning of the poem.
Do you think I should try to constrain the poem to the typical sonnet format? Or would adding more words clarify what the poem means? My professor pointed out that sometime playing with clarity and specificity can change how a reader perceives the poem. I noted in an earlier reply that I had originally titled the poem "your fault." Does that change how you understand the poem? Some of my classmates thought it revealed too much while others did not understand it at all.
I would clarify a little, and I would leave the title the same as it is now. I do like the "air of mystery" and when you read the poem, things become clearer.