[Matt Q]

Hi Glenn,

Good to read this. I like the tet version more, it's just so much tighter, and seems to better fit the tautness of the original. I started commenting on the tet version, but I've run out of time. I'll try to come back for the sestet another day.

A general comment: I'd try keeping the original punctuation as much as possible. You've changed the full stops to commas and semicolons. I'd keep the sentence fragments of the orginal. It's more terse, more clipped. The mood changes a little with the commas. It softens things a touch, smooths the edginess a little.

I'd say S1L1 is trimeter, or at least ambiguous. "fire" is one syllable, albeit for a diphong -- a more pronounced diphtong for some speakers than others. You might get away with it later in the poem, but as a first line, before the metre's established, I'm less sure. You could put the "hungry" back in, I guess:

This LIGHT, this HUNGry FIRE that deEVOURS,

I guess some might want to read it as pentameter. But if that worries you, you could go with "flame" maybe?

I like the ocean image, whether it's in the original or not, and it gibes with the later "sea". But, for it to work, I do think the ocean needs to be "encircling" to be surrounding the N. Currently it's just circling: moving in circles, revolving. Though to fit "encircling" in, as the line stands, you'd need to lose "grey".

S2L1, I think you need a "that" to keep the sense and the grammar (this is a sentence fragment in the original and without the "that" you lose the fragment and have an active verb). You don't lose the metre by inserting one.

"this crush of waves inflicts such pain"

again, you switch to a sentence where the original has a fragment. Maybe go with:

this crush of waves that inflicts pain;

in the comments I saw you express disatisfiaction with a phyrric foot followed by a spondee, and since that's what I'm suggesting here, so I'll just point out that such a combination is known as a double iamb. A classic metrical move that's been kosher since old Shaky himself.

"this scorpion’s taint my heart has filled"

This seems to say that his heart has filled the scorpion's taint. Whereas in the original it seems to be the other way round: the scorpian has made a nest in his heart.

So shouldn't it be: "My heart the scorpian's taint has filled"?

I'd say neither of these versions in an inversion, because, again, this is a sentence fragment. There's no active verb. There's an implied "that" in each:

The scorpian's taint that my heart has filled

My heart that the scorpian's taint has filled


best,

Matt