01-31-2015, 11:18 AM
Thank you for the feedback, billy, Dale.
"my main problem was that i couldn't get a handle on the poem as a whole. i know the title tells of peace but it didn't help me much. of course it could be me that's not firing on all cylinders. wish i could be of more help"
I won't give the 'surprise' away, but the basic gist of it is that around the young man lies in peace in a "violently described" shore. The imagery of the first two stanzas may have overpowered this whole idea, however, but I can't really be sure until I see what others think of the whole.
"These are nice lines except for the fact they have no meaning because there is nothing to tie them to a real world object. If one used an "X" to represent these two lines it would not take away any understanding of the next two lines....
....I have no idea what the "flesh" of waters is. How is this different from saying "water tears into the shore"? There is nothing that "flesh" refers to that is concrete, nothing to clue the reader what "flesh" in this context means.
The writer has only included half of the metaphor. For a metaphor to work it has to include both aspects of a metaphor. The image (what the writer is saying the object is the same as) and the object itself. Without both parts there is no meaning/sense about what the dependent clause means...."
I was trying to be direct with the show of imagery; when I imagine those first three lines without any guessing, I see sea-foam (the boiling milk) scattering into a mist (shower of tin) as the waves break (flesh....into the shore), and the whole thing seems clear enough, especially with the furthered images of a coast, to convey this without having to be direct. If other people see it that way too (and I think maybe billy already does, so that's one), then I don't think I'd have to edit it--the whole point of those first two lines anyway is to reinforce this one image of the coast.
If your problem, however, is with the fact that the imagery of the stanza itself doesn't really seem to go anywhere, well, I'll have to review a few more poems to see whether I should out the symbolism. Anyway, I'd love to see your other comments on the poem.
"my main problem was that i couldn't get a handle on the poem as a whole. i know the title tells of peace but it didn't help me much. of course it could be me that's not firing on all cylinders. wish i could be of more help"
I won't give the 'surprise' away, but the basic gist of it is that around the young man lies in peace in a "violently described" shore. The imagery of the first two stanzas may have overpowered this whole idea, however, but I can't really be sure until I see what others think of the whole.
"These are nice lines except for the fact they have no meaning because there is nothing to tie them to a real world object. If one used an "X" to represent these two lines it would not take away any understanding of the next two lines....
....I have no idea what the "flesh" of waters is. How is this different from saying "water tears into the shore"? There is nothing that "flesh" refers to that is concrete, nothing to clue the reader what "flesh" in this context means.
The writer has only included half of the metaphor. For a metaphor to work it has to include both aspects of a metaphor. The image (what the writer is saying the object is the same as) and the object itself. Without both parts there is no meaning/sense about what the dependent clause means...."
I was trying to be direct with the show of imagery; when I imagine those first three lines without any guessing, I see sea-foam (the boiling milk) scattering into a mist (shower of tin) as the waves break (flesh....into the shore), and the whole thing seems clear enough, especially with the furthered images of a coast, to convey this without having to be direct. If other people see it that way too (and I think maybe billy already does, so that's one), then I don't think I'd have to edit it--the whole point of those first two lines anyway is to reinforce this one image of the coast.
If your problem, however, is with the fact that the imagery of the stanza itself doesn't really seem to go anywhere, well, I'll have to review a few more poems to see whether I should out the symbolism. Anyway, I'd love to see your other comments on the poem.