01-16-2015, 08:06 AM
One of the quickest fixes is to get rid of any inversion, which I think has already been mentioned here.
(01-15-2015, 02:05 PM)Kubla Khan Wrote: The wind beckons the high branchWell, I'm no Sean Connery playing E.M. Forster, but I am possibly a guy playing Sean Connery and I'll give you my opinion (by the way, that means I'm crazy). There's some cool stuff, but the idea should be expressed more succinctly
The wind beckons the high branch -- I would focus on the actual detail of how the wind interacts with the branch.
Which awakens the shadow below-- The rhythm/meter seems off here.
Who with sharp beams of grainy yellow-light
Begins a checkered dance cadenced slow. -- There is something kind of cool here, but cadenced slow detracts from it for two reasons: one, it saps the power of a description that didn't need any more explaining; and two, there's a cheesy inversion there. (Not sure if I used the super commas right just now.)
The sun-drenched day and long warmth -- Sun-drenched and long warmth are essentially the same thing. However, sun-drenched arguably sets up a metaphor.
Fade to a serene twilight of brilliant, lucid gray; -- Too many adjectives. In my opinion, serene and brilliant are sapping the word twilight here.
The sepia sunlight with the pale, glowing ether -- Well, I suppose you could use sepia to make the day seem like an old photograph or something (old photos are hot with English people). You get the sibilance and what-not, but I'm not sure you need all these descriptors.
And dreary, lifeless air conjoin to close the day. -You definitely do not need dreary and lifeless.
But the spiraling, spangled night brings new animation -- To me, and this is just my opinion, too much sound without sense can act like a bad sweetener and you're left with a mellow cup sundae or something. Two adjectives and some sibilance seems too much to me.
With invigorating wind and the Moon's liveliest glow,
Which together in chaste wanton swirl through silvery canopies -- I believe the wanton moonlight is a trope, and you have a paradox here. However, this is too rich with "poetical language." I'm sure silver canopy has been used before. This is not to say you can't get away with dipping in the cup a little, but this whole line seems to rely on the poetical essence.
As the filtered moonlight dances with the shadows. -- I would say sunlight instead of moonlight. The moon has no light. However, the filtering is neat.
I'll profess I'm not so good with punctuation, so there may be errors there. And my meter, or Rhythm, are almost always off so I expect that as well.
This is a first draft, and there is most likely to be revisions made because there are other descriptive words I would like to include in it.
I actually kind of like this poem, whereas most things I write I don't.
On the last line I chose "filtered moonlight," I thought at first to have it "white-light" instead of moonlight to allude back to the first stanza, thoughts on that?
And I know, explaining something isn't supposed to be good, but "filtered" was used to reference the moonlight being a reflection of the sun, as if the moon acts as a filter. Just wondering if anyone caught that or if it was too opaque.
I was also thinking of using "checkered moonlight" as well as an allusion to the first stanza. Thoughts on that?
Thanks for reading

