06-10-2017, 12:51 PM
Hi - not meaning to discourage you here, but this poem has all the characteristics of beginners' poetry: stilted, archaic language, inverted word order and lines forcefully stretched out for no other purpose than to fit rhyme and meter.
A few specific observations (they apply to virtually every line):
My will was like a scalding inferno that would fervidly ignite
And entice others with the alluring fragrance of titanic might
has a simile (your will was like an inferno) that leads nowhere - because an inferno doesn't "entice" anyone other than a volcanologist. So you began with a simile, but forgot about it and moved on to the next line. Moreover, an inferno doesn't have 'fragrance' and even if it did, the metaphor would become 'fragrance of might'. Might doesn't have fragrance. You can substitute any word or phrase that might vaguely go with 'alluring' - taste, thrill, feeling - and the line would be as meaningless.
Also, too many adjectives and adverbs, which are best used sparingly, and not at all, in poetry - scalding, fervidly, alluring, titanic.
At other places, you have metaphors that are equally poorly phrased, eg:
There arose a scorching cinder within an ancient soul
makes no sense, because a cinder doesn't 'arise' - a cinder is a dying product of combustion.
A few specific observations (they apply to virtually every line):
My will was like a scalding inferno that would fervidly ignite
And entice others with the alluring fragrance of titanic might
has a simile (your will was like an inferno) that leads nowhere - because an inferno doesn't "entice" anyone other than a volcanologist. So you began with a simile, but forgot about it and moved on to the next line. Moreover, an inferno doesn't have 'fragrance' and even if it did, the metaphor would become 'fragrance of might'. Might doesn't have fragrance. You can substitute any word or phrase that might vaguely go with 'alluring' - taste, thrill, feeling - and the line would be as meaningless.
Also, too many adjectives and adverbs, which are best used sparingly, and not at all, in poetry - scalding, fervidly, alluring, titanic.
At other places, you have metaphors that are equally poorly phrased, eg:
There arose a scorching cinder within an ancient soul
makes no sense, because a cinder doesn't 'arise' - a cinder is a dying product of combustion.
~ I think I just quoted myself - Achebe