Her Magnificence

by manisha

Published April 29, 2012

In Poems go here.

The deity of light and shine ebbs
 away in a stretch of orange,
 irregular and far, hurling a
translucent grey all across the
 canvas sky, cloaking man under
nights first breaths in lovely form of dusk.
Men and ladies dotted in the distance
their dark silhouette well defined. 
Ghostly clouds hung above, casting
shadows on the water down.
 
Creators living creations stand enthralled,
in awe of the immense magnificence the
 world bestowed.  Eyes could not
beseech more, strained from the beauty
of the goddess herself- an artist,
a sculptor, an architect, a designer, a mother-
her name wildly known as Nature
Comments & reviews · 1
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Kale
Review
Kale wrote a review Review · Jun 25, 2012

So, the first stanza is chock full of adjectives, and yet, when I think about it, all those adjectives are rather common and bland, and so they do not actually describe anything. And as this is clearly intended to be a descriptive poem, this lack of actually describing anything is a Really Bad Thing.

Rather than using such common-to-the-point-of-becoming-almost-meaningless adjectives, try incorporating more uncommon (and therefore more fresh and lively) adjectives and descriptive phrases into the mix. What exact shade of orange is the stretch? There are a ton of different shades and hues, and so there's absolutely no excuse to not mine them in the name of more precise and vivid imagery. Just how translucent is the grey? Is it barely visibly there, or is it more substantial?

Asking yourself questions like these will really help you consider how much more vivid you can make your images and descriptions.

There's also the matter of how there's no real sense of unity between all the descriptions. The closest thing to a common thread is the mention of "man", but there needs to be more. All the threads of a lushly descriptive poem need to be woven together to form a tapestry rather than diverge into a tangle of mismatched threads, and this feels more like a patchwork than a finished, finely-woven piece of art.

Basically, what this poem really needs refining, starting with its rather generic (and therefore broad) vocabulary.



Obsessing over what you regret won't get you anywhere.
— Steggy