Do Not Hate the Raven

[Stalwart]

The little children fear the Death Eater
Known as raven, for one purpose bred.
Fated to scour the fields of Demeter,
He cleanses the Earth; rids it of the dead.

The raven is naught but nature’s blessing.
Superstition sullies his good intent;
He becomes symbolic and depressing
Because we dislike his genetic bent.

The raven did not choose his vocation,
Yet we see his labor as a foul sin.
Black wings above create trepidation;
Black birds remind us of death’s ghastly grin.

Though he is no evil apparition,
The raven is cursed by our tradition.

I wrote this as a sonnet for a creative writing course in college. I got an unsatisfactory grade on it, but the teacher didn't tell me why. His only written critique was that the last couplet was the best part. I thought the couplet was the worst part, so I don't think I'm thinking about poetry correctly.
Hopefully you all can provide a more detailed critique than my teacher's. I want to get better at writing poetry! I'm obsessed with it, because I never had spectacular grades on it in my creative writing course. It really burns me up.

[ellajam]

Hi, Stalwart, welcome to the site and thank you for the critiques you've given to others.

I'm no expert but I believe you were aiming for iambic tetrameter and have fallen prey to poetic wishful thinking, something I am expert at. I'll point out some inconsistencies for you below marking the beginning accents at the start of the first few lines. Try reading it aloud or recording it, that can help.

From what I've been learning a sonnet usually has two sides (a turn in the point view) and a concluding couplet. This poem seems a bit one note to me.

It also seems like a narrative with rhymes, for me it is lacking any emotion or action or even humor, just very dry. Aside from the mythological note at the start it seems to be short on poetic devices, the language used is not very interesting or pleasing, IMO.

My suggestion is to go to our Poetry Exercises forum and read Leanne's Sonnet explanation and thread on meter. She is an excellent teacher and may provide what your teacher did not.

The little  children fear the Death Eater
Known as raven, for one purpose bred.
Fated to scour the fields of Demeter,
He cleanses the Earth; rids it of the dead.
Can you see the problem?

The raven is naught but nature’s blessing.
Superstition sullies his good intent;
He becomes symbolic and depressing
Because we dislike his genetic bent.

The raven did not choose his vocation,
Yet we see his labor as a foul sin.
Black wings above create trepidation;
Black birds remind us of death’s ghastly grin.

Though he is no evil apparition,
The raven is cursed by our tradition.

I wrote this as a sonnet for a creative writing course in college. I got an unsatisfactory grade on it, but the teacher didn't tell me why. His only written critique was that the last couplet was the best part. I thought the couplet was the worst part, so I don't think I'm thinking about poetry correctly.
Hopefully you all can provide a more detailed critique than my teacher's. I want to get better at writing poetry! I'm obsessed with it, because I never had spectacular grades on it in my creative writing course. It really burns me up.

I hope this helps a bit, and that you enjoy working on this, sonnets can be fun.

[bena]

I tried my best to make it iambic pentameter, but that hurt my head because the stressing was all wrong. The change that Ella speaks of, is almost there in L9, where it belongs as we begin to see the raven isn't evil. It could be more profound. \

Love to see what else you come up!

[RiverNotch]

Here's a metrical read. Bolds=Stresses.


The little children fear the Death Eater I have read some sonnets with a lot of feminine (unstressed) endings, but usually the unstressed syllable is an addition. 
Known as raven, for one purpose bred. I don't think this is good form in any sonnet, missing the first unstressed syllable at the beginning. If done, it's usually trochee then the rest. Better: "Known as the raven, for one purpose bred" -- but then see next comment.
Fated to scour the fields of Demeter, A la this, but usually such a technique happens at the beginning of the stanza, as a punchy beginning. 
He cleanses the Earth; rids it of the dead. And this is just weird. The caesura (stop) at the middle sounds unnatural.

General comment: Fair enough, just wonky meter. Although both "Death Eater" and "fields of Demeter" sound pretty forced attempts at being poetic.

The raven is naught but nature’s blessing.
Superstition sullies his good intent; Weird line there. The rush at the middle feels unnatural.
He becomes symbolic and depressing Really weird line. I don't think anyone does a pyrrhus (two unstressed syllables) as a beginning, for a sonnet -- that would mean three syllables rushed up, hushed up.
Because we dislike his genetic bent. Weird, as in the fourth line. It's like this starts with ballad meter (is that what it's called?), then stops, then remembers what it should be.

Would be more beautiful if these four lines were more, well, concrete.

The raven did not choose his vocation, Actually, "did not choose his" is ambiguous to me -- that could either be filled with stresses, or with unstresses. Really, really weird.
Yet we see his labor as a foul sin. That beginning and ending is just awful in terms of sound.
Black wings above create trepidation; Although some poems do sort of alter the sound of their end words to fit (I remember reading one of those with Shakespeare's), but that would only really work if everything else was metrically consistent. 
Black birds remind us of death’s ghastly grin. Although "of death's ghastly" could also easily be read with the "death" unstressed, so this could work.

I think I sort of already saw the turn by line five. That last line would be better placed earlier, since it sort of muddies the whole stanza's thought -- it basically builds on how we're afraid of the bird, but that's already been said. I hope you got that.


Maybe try and unify the thoughts more? I sort of see making a sonnet as an artful exercise in lyrical argumentation, a tedious balance between formal logic and art -- on the one hand, you've got to be beautiful and sort of indirect with what you're saying, but on the other hand, you've got to present your arguments all nice and perfectly in blocks. Like, sort of plan what you want to say exactly with each stanza (the couplet, I suppose, is your thesis), then work out a more proper order for the whole thing.

Though he is no evil apparition,
The raven is cursed by our tradition 

I agree: this couplet is sort of the best part. It's clear, clean, and kinda novel. I would sustain this thought, but with this instead, for the sake of meter:
"Though HE is NOT an Evil AppaRItion,
the RAven IS acCURSED by OUR traDItion"