[Matt Q]

Hi N,

This poem is somewhat hard to critique. Firstly, as others have said, because of the language: Is it genuine archaic English written by someone familiar with the rules and word-meanings of the time (16th century?). In which case, in my ignorance of such things, it's hard for me to critique those aspects. Or is it faux-archaic, in which case what are the rules? Does anything go?

Second, the poem is part of a larger work. I have certain expectations of a standalone poem and what it should achieve, but this poem may be functioning more like a paragraph in a novel, and it may its gain value more from how it fits the greater whole, something I know nothing of.

Disclaimers aside, on to the poem.

This poem is a portrait. It's of a woman, or at least, of some female being. That she has lives, plural, makes me wonder if this person is human, or someone more mythical, a goddess even. Someone who lives over and over, perhaps -- reincarnated -- and is unnaturally clever. On it's own the poem doesn't do too much for me, because I'm left with a sort of "so what"? The idea of a woman using sex/seduction as weapon is hardly new after all. But seen as part of a larger work, in which this character plays a part, maybe I'd like it more, maybe it gets its value in the context. Maybe the poem is primarily functioning to introduce this character?

The grammar of the first sentence has me confused. Is it comma-spliced? This is a complete sentence, with "as" meaning "like":

As whetted steel / in wanton war, she wields her beauty’s hilt.

But how does it attach to what precedes? The preceding part has a subject "A panoply of whispers, charms, and smiles" then never seems to get a verb. Also, I can read,

"A panoply of whispers, charms, and smiles [...] as [=like] whetted steel ..."

So maybe "as whetted steel ..." isn't attached to "she wields"? But either way, I'm still waiting on a verb that never seems to come.

Her wits out-legion all th’ embattled hosts
That soldiers trade their arms to beg for alms;

I like the word-play on legion / host (army), also sonically "arms" and "alms". I think you want "that" to mean "so that", in which case a comma after "hosts" would be needed, since you have two independent clauses. At least, in the 21st century it would. Without the comma, it doesn't make much sense to me.

A mortal arrow fletched with groans and sighs

This is hard to picture. I'd suggest "feathered sighs", but I think you want the groans for their sexual implications.

Her velvet arms, those slender instruments,
Which fan perdition’s flame with ecstasy,
Claiming usury’s interest for her loan
Of pleasures brief, which she demands in pain
With ev’ry idle bliss repaid to her
Times three, with jagged woes and barbed regrets.


I'm a bit confused here. I can see how her arms (and being in her arms) can bring ecstasy. But how/why do her arms, specifically, claim the interest on the loan? Why not also her lips, and so on? Plus, it seems odd to me that she (the whole person/being) demands the interest in pain, but only part of her, her arms, claims the the interest?

But then, given "instruments" (with its suggestion of torture which fits with the coming pain), I wondered if "arms" meant weapons, as does earlier in the poem (and her weapons are mentioned -- bow and dart), or "arms" in the sense of her upper limbs (to go with the earlier "lips"). If you mean in it in the sense of weapons, then I'd be specific:

Her velvet weapons, slender instruments,

"velvet weapons" is quite nice sonically too, I think. Though I'd still be unclear as to how the weapons (of seduction) claim the interest.

In fact, I'd say the poem leaves it unclear as how the interest is paid. The debtors are left in pain and woe, but how is that brought about by the same things that brought the ecstasy? Or if she brings it about some other way, then how? Does she blackmail them? Break their hearts? I guess maybe that's for the next instalment.

best,

Matt