10-23-2021, 01:54 AM
Hey Tim-
Some comments:
In October 1862 I don't think the date matters, as it's implied by Antietam
less than a month after the slaughter
the Dead of Antietam opened on Broadway. Maybe a mention of Gardner, Brady's photographer
Confederate artillery men piled Maybe Blue and Gray ? Pleanty of non-artillery men as well, in the greatest single day loss of life on American soil- some 22,000. Imagine it and include it in this poem
like bags of grain about a caisson
in front of a pockmarked Dunker church, How to work in a bit of detail regarding Dunker Church ??
scattered bodies along a fence row,
or heaped together in a worn rutted road Nothing about The Sunken Road, aka The Bloody Lane ?? Nothing about The Cornfield: so named because of head-high cornfields that concealed troop movements ??
or even alone in the disordered pose
of a final moment, all awaiting shallow mass graves, good phrase, this: need more like it
the nameless enemy forever unburied
prisoners of death locked inside a frame Don't think this adds anything, and conflates prisoners with the dead in a way that (for me) minimizes the collossal loss of life. I think a period after "frame"
in a lush gallery with velvet couches If you start a new line here, you begin to contrast the living from the dead.
and lit by chandeliers
where the living bodies wander and gaze careful with tense: "wandered and gazed"
seeing for the first time displayed
like a painter’s canvases missed opportunity to say that it's probably the first time Americans saw pics of dead soldiers before they were even buried. Imagine the shock of seeing that, and put it in this poem. Gasps? curiosity? Use poetic license.
the aftermath of war’s artistry. "artistry" doesn't work for me, and seems disresepctful to the dead. Also, this was a single battle, not a war.
I have been to Antietam, and upon viewing the hills and fields of that terrain, it occurred to me just how brutal the fighting must have been, Even after 22,000+ dead and wounded in about 12 hours, it seems that the fighting just came to a "draw". Think of it, on average, over 300 casualities per minute, 5 per second. The will to kill and die just must've been worn all the way down: an unspeakable tragedy. Very hard to succintly convey in a poem, but since you picked the subject...
Contemplation of this exhibit offered you a great opportunity to draw the contrast between the living and the dead that I mentioned, yet you seemed to miss it at the end. Remember that this is a poem not a history lecture.
Some comments:
In October 1862 I don't think the date matters, as it's implied by Antietam
less than a month after the slaughter
the Dead of Antietam opened on Broadway. Maybe a mention of Gardner, Brady's photographer
Confederate artillery men piled Maybe Blue and Gray ? Pleanty of non-artillery men as well, in the greatest single day loss of life on American soil- some 22,000. Imagine it and include it in this poem
like bags of grain about a caisson
in front of a pockmarked Dunker church, How to work in a bit of detail regarding Dunker Church ??
scattered bodies along a fence row,
or heaped together in a worn rutted road Nothing about The Sunken Road, aka The Bloody Lane ?? Nothing about The Cornfield: so named because of head-high cornfields that concealed troop movements ??
or even alone in the disordered pose
of a final moment, all awaiting shallow mass graves, good phrase, this: need more like it
the nameless enemy forever unburied
prisoners of death locked inside a frame Don't think this adds anything, and conflates prisoners with the dead in a way that (for me) minimizes the collossal loss of life. I think a period after "frame"
in a lush gallery with velvet couches If you start a new line here, you begin to contrast the living from the dead.
and lit by chandeliers
where the living bodies wander and gaze careful with tense: "wandered and gazed"
seeing for the first time displayed
like a painter’s canvases missed opportunity to say that it's probably the first time Americans saw pics of dead soldiers before they were even buried. Imagine the shock of seeing that, and put it in this poem. Gasps? curiosity? Use poetic license.
the aftermath of war’s artistry. "artistry" doesn't work for me, and seems disresepctful to the dead. Also, this was a single battle, not a war.
I have been to Antietam, and upon viewing the hills and fields of that terrain, it occurred to me just how brutal the fighting must have been, Even after 22,000+ dead and wounded in about 12 hours, it seems that the fighting just came to a "draw". Think of it, on average, over 300 casualities per minute, 5 per second. The will to kill and die just must've been worn all the way down: an unspeakable tragedy. Very hard to succintly convey in a poem, but since you picked the subject...
Contemplation of this exhibit offered you a great opportunity to draw the contrast between the living and the dead that I mentioned, yet you seemed to miss it at the end. Remember that this is a poem not a history lecture.