12-30-2017, 01:28 PM
(12-30-2017, 12:32 PM)dukealien Wrote:Blackberries is a metaphor for grenades. I would have said pineapples, the more colloquial expression, but felt that the imagery offered under the subtlety would be a bit more enjoyable to the reader.(12-30-2017, 08:51 AM)AttnAttack Wrote: In the Meadows where our bodies layIn basic critique, but also considering the author's related work ("Verdant") in For Fun.
Between the vicious thorns of blackberries
We hid and danced and ran so far away
When the clouds had read our histories
And when the rain restores the Life we burnt
I'll show you love in a handful of dirt.
First suggestion is to remove all capitalization except as required by grammar, that is, proper names and first word of a sentence. In part this is just the fashion on this site, but emphasis by placing words at the focus of a line (first or last word, for example) rather than capitalization may be worth pursuing.
Good use of white space after L4, which would only be helped by not capitalizing the first word of L5.
Another suggestion is to place each use of the word "the" under suspicion and ruthlessly remove it unless it refers to the sole and only example of what it refers to (the Pope, but not the priest). The following is an example of what could result from applying these two suggestions to your first stanza, NOT a rewrite:
In meadows where our bodies lay
pricked raw by thorny blackberries,
we hid and danced, and ran away
when clouds had read our histories.
(At first I didn't like rhyming "blackberries" with "histories," but it grows on one. In the end, I do like it.)
You might consider treating the final couplet in the same way: removing "the" can make a line more concise, or alternatively leave a spare foot or two to be shod with descriptive words. This could also make it possible to rhyme that couplet or conform its rhythm to the first stanza.
You have an interesting concept here, which will repay editing and a search for improving words.
"The's" were put there to keep the poem in iambic pentameter, though I may have buggered it a few times. I wasn't too strict; so long as I kept the right amount of iambs I was okay. Yours is in tetrameter, which I think is more natural—I wanted the heroic line. I do like your edit quite a bit, it gives it a bit of sing-songy innocence. I will take your advice in great consideration

