Heads up- this is an progressive review. The way I like to review poetry is to write about what the poem made me feel after an initial read. I try to not scrutinize too much, but to just take the poem as a whole. Then I reread the poem for a second and sometimes a third time and delve deeper into the details. What follows is how I felt after one read.
Positives: The imagery was perfect. I could see a gracefully beautiful woman dancing catching everyone's eye. The poem flowed well which suits the subject matter.
Negatives: The 9 or 10 reference, although included I'm sure for the purpose of rhyming, stuck out. For lack of a better word, the chauvinistic classification almost seems to downplay her beauty to the rhealms of reality. Before that line I had her pictured as beyond beautiful.
Also "for her own kind sake!" stuck out as something I didn't quite understand.
Now I'm going to reread it and nitpick.
Stanza 1:
This is spot on, I wouldn't change a thing. Creates the out of this world beauty that I mentioned earlier.
Stanza 2:
This one needs some work. Structurally, you've deviated from the 11 syllable per line format you started out with in the first stanza. I'd consider rewriting the first two lines entirely to allow for the 9 or 10 to be replaced. Also I think you can replace "shaking and twisting" with more feminine adjectives. Maybe "Her body contoured ever so elegantly..."? Also, change the word "guys" in line three to men since you called them gentleman in the first stanza. "Guys" makes the males sound young and immature.
Stanza 3:
Love the flaming wax candle metaphor. However I think you mean that she is like the flame rather than the candle. Maybe you could rephrase it to "The flame of a candle, she's burning so hot;/ Ignited, she's giving it all that she's got." or something along those lines.
Stanza 4:
I'm conflicted about calling her a devil since you've described her as angelic. However, I like it because it kind of shows the lustful side of watching a beautiful woman dance well, which would make devil appropriate. Something else to consider, forwhatever reason I felt that the woman was single and dancing to have fun with her partner. So at the end I've reasoned that she was using the guy for a free drink. However, I still find myself slightly confused by the intended meaning of "for her own kind sake." To put it simply, I think you meant that she was looking out for herself?
Overall, I believe stanza's one and three are your strongest. The base of the poem is strong, powerful, and vivid so it is worth spending some rewriting the few parts I mentioned. I also feel it necessary to insert a disclaimer. I'm by no means a professional poet, or even a lit scholar. Above are my opinions and descriptions of how I felt. Ultimately poetry is about the feeling and it is entirely possible that I've interpreted your poem differently than other people. Keep at it regardless, this is a great start.
I had chills run through my body when I read this. You did EAP justice my friend. Now I've read the story quite some time ago, and I must admit that I'm not as familiar with it as I'd like to be, but the one thing I don't understand is how she got the dagger.
This piece was such an emotionally powerful one that I must admit that I didn't pay particular attention to the grammatical details. However, I felt as if I was experienced her Stockholm Syndrome yet her need to escape it. Once she lost her only connection to something living, I understood her acting the way she did. As I said, I felt chills on both first and second reads so you did a lot of things right.
Overall I liked the flow of the poem once I disregarded some of your punctuation and added my own. I'll remake the first stanza for you and you can apply it to the rest if you want.
Poetry should be read in accordance to the punctuation and not by line breaks. So the way your poem is read is,
"My muse sat with me, (pause) holding my hand the moon hung low, (pause) a sliver at best her steady breathing steadied me, (pause) too she helped my lay my fears to rest"
I think it should be,
My muse sat with me holding my hand.
The moon hung low, a sliver at best.
Her steady breathing steadied me too.
She helped me lay my fears to rest.
Aside from format, I did like your second stanza. Your muse allows you to write freely, openly and with inspiration despite the nervousness her presence causes. I implied nervousness from your mention of a "throbbing heart"
The fourth stanza makes me question the timing that you've included in your poem. A "moon hung low, a sliver at best" in your first stanza can mean a few things. First a sliver of a moon can indicate what stage the moon is in in the lunar cycle. Second and third, a moon hanging low can mean the night is ending or beginnign. Then in the fourth stanza you "the sun grew cold" Does this mean the sun is setting and you waited all night and day for your muse? Seems like an inordinatly long period of time to wait, but at the same time you could have intended it to show how much you longed for her return.
The "flowers began to wilt" kind of came out of left field for me. It definitly signifies the beginning of death and despair so it is appropriate, but you've never made reference to a flower and it seems late in a poem to do so now.
But the imagery created by the lighting of the fuse is powerful. I see your anger and the irrational behavior that anger causes us all to do.
In the fourth stanza I don't really know who "them" is. Perhaps your friends and family who came to help you get out of your depression? Also I think you meant "tired" instead of "tried" in the first line of the 4th stanza.
I did like how you used the "although I just..." in two successive lines. I'm not sure of the technical term (if there is even one) but doing so created a pleasant feeling when reading it and caused me to read those lines more rapidly which reminds me of how my mind races when I find myself lying to save face when I was crying.
The ending is pretty harsh. Maybe you mean your creativity died, but still it seemed almost too much.
Overall I enjoyed the changing rhyme scheme between each stanza. Its something I've never experimented with before. In your poem the changing rhyme scheme mimics the drastic changes the poem evolves through from the positive beginning to the negative ending. Tweak the punctuation a bit and determine if how I interpreted your piece was as you intended. Keep it up!
First and foremost, I really enjoyed your poem. At this point in my review I have read the poem once in its entirety, and will give you my initial impression. At first I thought it was going to be another love poem, but was pleasantly suprised by all the different aspects that you brought into it. I also enjoyed your numerous puns, ie "Rome" instead of roam. They brought a new level to the poem and made me want to stop and consider those lines further.
I do wish that you had some punctuation at the end of the lines. Periods and commas are so important in poetry since they can be used to separate thoughts, and ideas. On a logistical level they just let me, the unbiased reader, know how you intended the poem to be read. I roughly made every two lines a complete sentence while I read your poem.
Upon a closer second read, I found the first stanza to be without fault (aside from the punctuation). Your message is clear saying that you, which I am interpreting as a generic "you" rather than towards a specific "you", and I can do anything we set our minds to as long as we are willing to do anything in our power to make it happen.
Maybe since I took "you" to be generic, I would suggest changing the first two words in the second stanza to "Man is" instead of "Men are." Man is more generic to both sexes whereas "men" seems like you're refering to the male gender. I would also delete Caesar's first name for the sole reason that I think it hinders the flow of the poem and sounds better without. Or you could change that line to "Those who Rome in arrogance like Julius Caesar." Either way. As far as the "two Brutuses" are concerned, I have missed the reference. I understand the whole "et tu Brute" reference but not the fact that there are two. Maybe one of the "Brutuses" is arrogance (synonymous with cocky) and betrayal the other?
Third stanza. The first line seems clunky. I think the essential message is to not allow fear to keep you from trying something. Maybe "Don't be afraid to climb the ladder despite the fear of the Fall." Fall being capitalized represents the season rather the action, which I liked. Fall being a rather sad and ominous time where leaves are indeed falling fits perfectly with the emotions that someone stricken with fear would experience. The pun with spring and Spring again achieves the same effect (with the opposite emotions). I would change the letter 's' around to "mountaintops call." Furthermore you reemphasize the hardship with the winter season and the eventual glory that hard work achieves with the summer season.
Fourth stanza. The "one in million" line can go either way. It's kind of cliche which is unsettling. You're poem is unique and well written enough to where I feel that you could find a unique way to say the same thing. But if you want to keep it, I'd change it to "To be the one in a million..."
Having it all for free kind of contradicts what you have previous stated and implied in previous stanzas. You say that things may take hard work and hardship, which I wouldn't consider free.
Finally, I would remove the word "and" in the second to last line. You started a line in a previous stanza with "and", which I didn't have a problem with. I just dont think you should start two lines with it, especially since starting the line with "Like the King..." sounds just as good.
Overall I think this was a well written and empowering poem. Everyone, at some point, is held back by fear and this poem is just a constant reminder that you shouldn't be. You also make a note to overcome fears in an honorable way, which some power hungry people disregard.
Overall I liked the way it flowed. I had to read it twice before I found your poem's rhythm. My one suggestion would be to change the word "Fine" to "Okay." I think that improves the flow because that was the one place I got really hung up on.
In the beginning I felt the pace was really slow and methodical. Exactly as someone giving advice would deliver it. Then at the word "Although" I felt the poem's pace speed up, hitting its climax at "Rain..." The three periods took the poem to a screeching halt where you delivered the conclusion.
Punctuation has a powerful effect in poetry. Use it to your advantage to really bring out the tempo of your poem. The first 6 lines had no punctuation at all, which is why I had to read it twice and create my own tempo. The three periods as described above worked perfectly for the tempo I created but that may not have been what you intended.
All in all good job.
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