Dear April Desiree-I'm back! ,
Apologies, I approached this review much later than intended. Now that it's here, I hope it will be of some help to you in the process of editing your poem. Thank you for your patience!
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I have to admit that on initial reading I was left slightly confused. The trouble for me lay in the imitative quality of your perceptions of medieval poetry, where honestly I found myself wondering whether as a reader we were meant to truly connect with this poem on an emotional level, or whether this was meant as a little hypothetical fun. It's probably a bit of both in all fairness, but your purpose for this poem remains unclear to me in that I don't know whether you wished me to feel moved, or to read it in a more light-hearted way. I'm going to approach this review under the assumption that despite the imaginative and fantastical background to the letter, that this was intended as a sincere romantic poem, passed on to a knight's maiden on news of his fall in battle.
The very first thing that struck me was your use of 'thee' throughout, as a replacement word for, 'you'. Personally, I found it quite obstructive to the effect of the poem as a whole. I very much understand your wish to date this piece back a few centuries, however, on doing a little research, it appears that usage of 'thee' and 'you' during the middle ages, an era which spanned an entire millennia up until the 15th Century, was really quite variable, and often the words were used interchangeably within the same passages.
In light of this information, I think it is worth really listening to how your lines sound. For example, "I would call upon thee to bid thee farewell", makes for a very bumpy read because of the repetition. I would actually suggest, "I would call upon you, to bid thee farewell", as a way to create better flow at least in this section. A similar case can be made for stanza 3; line 1, though I believe the first 'thee' might be a misuse. Also, in the first line of the last stanza, I'm not sure that you need it there at all. "Now go my fair one, and do visit me", makes perfect sense as it stands.
Largely though, I find this poem puts me at a great distance from the narrator. Perhaps this is my main issue. I'll just begin with the first stanza. I really feel the opening line should read, "I would that our memories drown thee in joy". Also, 'drown', seems to juxtapose 'joy', rather than compliment it. Whilst a person may describe themselves as drowning in the good things that overwhelm them, I think wishing that someone else would drown, takes on another meaning entirely, and perhaps doesn't quite work in the same way!
Your imagery in the third line, of the knight and his English rose chasing after each other with child-like innocence and teasing, is illustrated from almost a bird's eye point of view, as someone looking down on them both rather than actually being involved in the relationship they share. It serves up only a visual impression, one that an outside observer might have, yet this is written in the knight's intimate first person.
Again, your second stanza deals a lot in appearances, like a camera switching between their faces, but does it really get to the very heart of his feelings for her?
It is at around the third stanza that we receive hints in the body of the poem as to the knight's demise, most likely in battle. As mentioned before, the first line is strangely begun. Perhaps a reworking of, "My girl, how much I suffered without you", would work better. I like his concern for her, that she not crumble at the news, and instead pray for his well-being in the netherworld. The affection comes through in those last couple of lines. I do wonder, however, if your choice of diction could be improved upon to give more flow to your verse: 'must march', 'essay', 'gast' (word?), all these words judder your lines, and work in direct opposition to the softness of his thoughts. I wonder also if you might need a change of tense in the second line, as obviously he realises his duty as a knight is now over.
Having said that, you deliver some lovely places for contemplation as shown in the phrase: "Yet my soul died at that moment". In its honest nature, particularly coming from a war-hardened fighter, it shows a lovely depth of confession and tenderness.
The remainder of the poem deals with various aspects of war and the plights he had to endure. I have to wonder why he would choose to tell her all these things. He reveals pride in having faced down those many horrors, as there is much bravado to his language, interchangeable with sudden contrasting notes of vulnerability, which on occasion cause the purpose of his letter to become lost. Take these lines:
For what may become of me as I have wings/
Wings like a dragon, the one I have slain
In this battle, mad, so riddled with tombs
The abrupt flip from suggested wings of angels, to wings of a dragon, and then back again in tone as he talks about the tragedies of war, emotionally doesn't make sense. There is a lack of focus, and with it, the driving force and meaning behind this letter becomes lost also. I don't know whether he means to brag to his maiden, to reassure her of his bravery, to confess his hardships of which he had probably never fully recounted to her, or simply to say how much he misses her. There are elements of all these things floating around, but the leaping thoughts are not complimentary to each other. The main genre under which this poem is headed is romance, and yet for the most part, a lot of this romance remains an understated, secondary gear to the embittered realities of his sovereign wars.
The line, "For what may become of me as I have wings", despite what was mentioned above, is actually an extremely melancholy image, vivid and moving. It is suffused with tragic romance, that is articulated with a very fine touch. Nicely done!
In your closing stanza, perhaps it should be, 'lie', rather than 'lay'... throughout your poem there is that continuous sense of your needing to maintain the illusion of a medieval dialect, but this should never interfere with the working mechanics of your piece. A reader would always much rather engage with your work first and foremost, regardless of how well written your reflection is of another time and place through tricks in the language.
I'm not fully certain regarding the use of 'tax' in the third line. Why and how would she tax him in his current state? Surely he had meant to ask that she not be discomforted on hearing about the harsh events of his life.
The very last line is quite nice and rounds off the poem well, highlighting the things around which his life had revolved, poignant, considering these would be his last words, and thus much more set in stone than anything else he might have uttered before.
I see that you don't include punctuation at the end of lines, and even between some phrases, where actually I think a good helping of commas and periods would be of great benefit. Sometimes your lines appear to begin mid sentence as a result. I feel also that for this style of poetry, one of intimacy and personal connection, capitalising the beginning of every line is perhaps inappropriate. It reads more like a formal declaration otherwise, than a verse form of sincere love.
I enjoyed the idea behind your poem. It just requires a little attention and refining. I would go through it with a very critical eye, paying as much attention as possible to the flow, and perhaps employing a more sensitive diction to better marry with the poignancy of many of your lines. It would be lovely if you were able to bring out the real romantic potential of this body of work!
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I sincerely hope this has been of some use to you, and am fully open if you wish me to clarify any point made here. Apologies again that this has arrived at the eleventh hour. I was very honoured to receive your review request.
Write on!
Wyrd_Naos
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