I've found the poem "Beginning to End" by Sing Me A Story on "Please Review" . It deals with man's destruction of God's creation, starting with a strong reference to the creation story, as appears in Genesis, and continuing with the negligent behavior of mankind towards the planet years later. Its advantage, I think, is in the contrast, almost as a mirror, between the Godly creation story, depicted in the first half, and the manmade destruction in the second half.
The title of this poem implies of a story, perhaps a fairy tale, but my oh my, that fairy tale has a bitter end. It also takes the reader hand in hand, promising that it would guide him through this poem, and indeed it does – the poem unfolds with each stanza, from the promising beginning to the miserable ending. Not only that, but also the first stanza begins with the words In the beginning and the final two lines of the last stanza begin with the words The end.
The most prominent contrast was between the second and fifth stanzas. Using the same pattern, the poet substituted the words that described Nature, from prosperous and bright descriptions to grim and sad. This emphasized the damage man has inflicted on Nature. This was also the part with most imagery in the poem. However, there were some jarring descriptions, like fine valleys (How can the reader picture that?) and long seasons (Is that necessarily a good thing?) in these lines, so this could use a tweak.
The poem consists of six quatrains with an aabb rhyme scheme and no meter that I could tell. My impression was that these six quatrains were set in opposite pairs, and that was lovely – the first and the last stanza with the beginning and the end, showing God's point of view, the second and fifth with the description of Nature's finest and worst moments, and the third and fourth with the mission and the failure to accomplish it. The rhymes are not bad at some points, but there are some glitches. In one place, for example, the two first lines of the fourth stanza end with route and devote, which do not rhyme. In some other, the rhymes don't match because of different stressing, like all and downfall in the last stanza.
Regarding language usage, I have found some minor errors, like miraculous instead of miraculously and cleans instead of clean.
My favorite part of the poem was these two lines from the fifth stanza:
"The hills, they are sick and soon to die.
The trees we cut down, and rivers dry."
Nice job, Sing Me A Story , and keep writing. |