03-11-2026, 05:18 AM
You're right about length of the poem turning some readers away. You could go through and try to decide which parts are necessary to tell your story, then make them stronger while phasing out the non-essentials. This is always difficult, and (in Basic) I haven't suggested deleting whole sentences or aspects of the work. It's already strong and (in individual phrases) lean.
I guess there's one example: two squares and a mule. It's a really good concept stand-alone and as a title, and ties in to the chess metaphor. But that widely spoken grant came *after* slavery - it was not a promise that drew people from Africa like immigrants to the West from Europe. It would be a good intro to Reconstruction and Jim Crow, but I doubt many slaves expected or were striving toward manumission and a plot of land. The eleven years of Reconstruction showed how unserious the Abolitionists really were about what was to happen to the slaves they had freed.
Sorry, lost in history! Advice: if it seems long, see what you can remove while maintaining your vision.
I guess there's one example: two squares and a mule. It's a really good concept stand-alone and as a title, and ties in to the chess metaphor. But that widely spoken grant came *after* slavery - it was not a promise that drew people from Africa like immigrants to the West from Europe. It would be a good intro to Reconstruction and Jim Crow, but I doubt many slaves expected or were striving toward manumission and a plot of land. The eleven years of Reconstruction showed how unserious the Abolitionists really were about what was to happen to the slaves they had freed.
Sorry, lost in history! Advice: if it seems long, see what you can remove while maintaining your vision.
Non-practicing atheist