04-06-2026, 02:21 AM
What parts signify prose rather than poem and therefore should be reworked?
The short answer is- all of it. This seems more of an essay than a poem. You take the very, very, very long around to your concluding lines.
I had a difficult time parsing this section:
Saints are for the people: when I was nineteen each region
where I lived had its own, and each cause a patron saint
alluded to, as if their mayors took lamp-black and fried it
to get the inkiness out, then wrote the maps.
I'm not at all convinced that the stanzas between the opening and closing lines constitute a poem. There's something you are trying to say here, but I just got lost...
You have these dreary religionists
and their lists of saints...
I think, in the end (oh ye of little proof): saints
consume the people who believe.
Perhaps use your idea of saints/religion to present a more compact version.
... Mark
The short answer is- all of it. This seems more of an essay than a poem. You take the very, very, very long around to your concluding lines.
I had a difficult time parsing this section:
Saints are for the people: when I was nineteen each region
where I lived had its own, and each cause a patron saint
alluded to, as if their mayors took lamp-black and fried it
to get the inkiness out, then wrote the maps.
I'm not at all convinced that the stanzas between the opening and closing lines constitute a poem. There's something you are trying to say here, but I just got lost...
You have these dreary religionists
and their lists of saints...
I think, in the end (oh ye of little proof): saints
consume the people who believe.
Perhaps use your idea of saints/religion to present a more compact version.
... Mark