[W T Clark]

.
.
.
I will commit the Fall with cherries.
When I am Eve then the Tree will be a cherry
tree & I will eat & eat & eat.

Precisely weighed, each knowing plump will fill
my hand like God, each waxskinned as an eye.
I eat the eyes & spit their seeing stones.

Soon, I've learnt myself to see: to estrange:
to huddle in my I & keep the Not
Me at a distance like a pulsing frog:

until it opens two green eyes & stares
....................me down;
until we're fallen into separateness

like lovers. The serpent never talks about this.
.....Adam never understands: he's still
a bloodied part of it: he still eats meat.

The final glance will always grasp you in.
When I'm Lot's Wife it's just as it has been.
.
.
.

[Paula Fernandez]

Hi W T --

Having only recently (in the last two weeks) joined this forum, I find the prevalence of Biblical themes interesting... and here's another!

I liked very much your clever imagery around eyes and seeing: the cherry as an eye and the pit as a seeing stone; the frog's green eyes; and poor Lot's wife with eyes (presumably) of salt looking back. It's a powerful and surprising set of images.

As to the metric quality, I felt you hit a rhythm in the second strophe and I got a little momentum there. But the rest of the poem stutters quite a bit and is difficult to scan. In particular, I get stopped by the "to estrange" in Line 7 which is oddly set off between colons. I don't think that works.

Also, I struggled with "falling into separateness like lovers"... Of course, usually lovers fall the other way--toward each other--so this is unexpected and I didn't feel it worked (for me).

Overall, I think this poem is onto something quite exciting with the imagery and theme, but needs a lot of wordsmithing to get the meter right and clarify the meaning.

[Glenn Wright]

Hi, Cameron—

I like the central idea, which, as I read it, is Eve’s realization that her sin has awakened her conscience (Not-me) who sees and judges her. Her vegan diet, unlike Adam’s carnivorous one, suggests that she understands the wrongness of violence and is more evolved than Adam, whose animal nature at least partially excuses his sin. The “green eyes” belong to the “pulsing frog” of her conscience, but also to a jealous god.

A couple of nits:

1. “Learnt” in S3L1 sounds very colloquial. Maybe “taught?”

2. Like Paula, I didn’t see a regular metric pattern. I like the final IP couplet, but aside from that and a couple of far-separated rhymes (eat/meat, still/fill) it seems to me that this poem belongs in non-met.

Hope this is helpful—

Glenn

[W T Clark]

There is no variation in this poem which is not standard: anapestic, or headless. Can you show me a line which is not in its nature iambic?

[Carl Copeland]

Glenn and Paula haven’t been here long enough to know that this is the most metrical, musical poem you’ve written in two years (the time I’ve been here). You’ve been working in other directions, but this one appeals to me.

In your last blind-poet poem you treated language as an impediment to sight and a separation from nature (my interpretation, which could be wrong). Here you go a step further by treating sight itself as a separation and a fall. That intrigues me. I love the “pulsing frog” and the lovers “fallen into separateness.” Sadly, that’s been my experience.

I don’t yet understand the last two stanzas, but the meter and final rhyme give me something to hang on to while I’m thinking.

Oh, and one of the best opening lines I’ve read in a long while.

[Rick Mullin]

Very Good, WT.


I especially like the cherry/eye part.

This stretch is a weakness, I think:

....he's still
a bloodied part of it: he still eats meat.

Why? Hmmm. I guess I think that "Adam never understands" is a stronger way to deal/dispatch with Adam. Short. Says everything. Getting into the meat eating verges on a tangent. Or worse, a sideline chuckle. And "...he's still / a bloodied part of it" doesn't add much. Cutting frees up real estate, which would be something to think about.

There is also the consideration of my little understanding, but them's my 2 cents.

RM

[Carl Copeland]

Originally Posted by Paula Fernandez

Having only recently (in the last two weeks) joined this forum, I find the prevalence of Biblical themes interesting...

We do love to thump our Bibles here, Paula. Actually, I’m a little surprised myself, though I’m one of the culprits.

[Glenn Wright]

Hi, again, Cameron—

Unless you’re dealing with a form that involves varied numbers of feet per line, like the ballad stanza which alternates tetrameter and trimeter, metrical poetry should be able to be identified by a dominant foot (e.g. iambic, anapestic) and an indicator of the number of feet per line (e.g. tetrameter, pentameter). Your poem is almost all iambic pentameter (with quite a few anapestic subs) except for

Line 1 “I will commit the Fall with cherries,” which could be scanned either
/—/oo—/o—/o—o/ (headless iamb, anapest, iamb, amphibrach)
or
/—o/o—/o—/o—o/. (trochee, iamb, iamb, amphibrach)
Either way you only have four feet.

and line 11, “me down.” Is this supposed to be a separate line, or a continuation of line 10?
If the former, it is iambic monometer.
If the latter, it is “until it opens two green eyes and stares me down,” which scans
/o—/o—/o—/ ^ /o—/o—/ (iamb, iamb, iamb, spondee, iamb, iamb)
which is iambic hexameter.

[Carl Copeland]

Originally Posted by Glenn Wright

Unless you’re dealing with a form that involves varied numbers of feet per line, like the ballad stanza which alternates tetrameter and trimeter, metrical poetry should be able to be identified by a dominant foot (e.g. iambic, anapestic) and an indicator of the number of feet per line (e.g. tetrameter, pentameter).

Glenn, my opinion on this would be that a few hyper- or hypo-metrical lines don’t necessarily make a heterometric poem, and a heterometric poem is still metrical. But those are just definitions. More important, I guess, is how the verse feels.

[Glenn Wright]

I’m still pretty new here, and I didn’t mean to pontificate on the question of what is metric and what is non-met here. Having re-read the definitions given of the two forums, it appears that any poem written in metrical feet, even nonce form poetry, would quality as metrical. I defer to you, Cameron, and Carl. I’m glad to have the distinction clear in my own mind for future posting.
Thanks!
Glenn