[Alessio Boni]

This is my first poem posted. I wrote it about two weeks ago. I'm quite the amateur in poetry since I've only been writing for 2 years, so please be brutally honest.

This poem is loosely formed of tetrameters and pentameters as I think some verses were made more solemn by extending them slightly.

(First Version)

I’ll follow you to mountain beds,
To shores, or plains, or farmer’s sheds,
And leave the material – rotten world.
I seek escape, and that is said, -

From all the linear models of our living,
Split by vice commodities are giving;
Imprinting all our life with vanity
And chains of sanguine sanity -

At length foreseen, but never to I,
Nor all the members of my ethnic creed,
But nonetheless, as loose the metric lays,
Dislodged by state, I search for better days -

As you did too, but I for different sake
Portray the wish adjacent to my will,
That is the need to flee modernity,
And find a transatlantic home or dell -

Within a woodland biome far from all,
And far from those who travesties foretell!


.................................................. .........................

(Revised Version) - I put a couple of anapaests and tried applying the corrections in regard to clarity and naturality as suggested by the critiques.

I’ll follow you to reedy beds,
To rills, to mountains, farmer’s sheds,
And leave this idle place behind.

I seek escape, and that is said,
From all the linear models of our life,
Just blessed by vices commodities give.
For such has spurred our lives with vanity,
And kept us chained to a sanguine sanity.

At a foreseen length, there’s violence and fear.
Not for the members of my ethnic clay,
But nonetheless, as flimsy metric’s here,
Conventions void of rule have marked my way.

As was for you! But I, for unlike sake,
Have found your dictum within my will.
My will that longs to flee the modern state,
And find a transatlantic home so swell
Within a woodland biome far from all,
And miles from those who scorn the 'cottag'd dell!'

.................................................. ............................................

(Final) I played around with Glenn's suggestion of adding some sort of lore so I put the poem in the guise of an Italian Jacobin simply asking to come to Pantisocracy.
The only archaic word I kept was 'oft' as I believe it fits.

When I can wake to sounds of kin,
And rise to see a people's vale,
With such demulcent breeze within,
Without the banes of purple gale,

When I can see myself enveloped,
In every morn, by rays of light,
I come to see what you've developed
Wraps your commune with delight.

If I could skip along the fields,
Outstretched aside the Susquehanna,
And build a shed, with rest to yield,
Devoid of rules like old Brahmana,

I'd live, by graces of your flowers,
An undogmatic life of glee,
In which a day would seem an hour,
As I'd frolic on your leas.

Although our creed might oft’ diverge,
I think it's good we flourish even.
In Buiano I had the urge
To build, with care, a second Eden,

But found myself debased to wine
For sires met but only twice.
And since my vineyards fell to crime,
I seek a plot of land for vice!

For virtue, love, and all I’d hook,
And all I’d feel for only me!
For man’s not man without his nook,
So take me with you S.T.C.

- An Italian Republican, 1795.

[Yves S L]

Hello Alessio,

I am going to make a comment on one feature of your poem: coherance.

It starts off with the common romantic trope of "I will follow my love to anywhere", and then transitions into some political manifesto about some kind of green utopia. The two aspects are not well connected, and so the poem does not really make much rhetorical sense, apart from other technical aspects.

Yeah!

[Hilary Biehl]

Hi Alessio,

I can't get past the fact that the language is stilted and unnatural in many places. I can give specific examples if that is helpful.

[Alessio Boni]

Hi Yves,

Thanks for the critique,

I thought the theme of connecting, whilst talking to Coleridge himself about his juvenile project, his Pantisocratical escape with my seldom wished escape from modernity into a rural type of life, as he himself avowed was his trajectory, was a good parallel to just note down as an opinion in verse.

I guess it doesn't really have any rhetoric apart from a wish.

But please, could you expand upon your critique, especially on the Technical side as well, I'm desperate of any feedback.

Thanks,

Alessio.

[Alessio Boni]

Hi Hilary,

Yes please I'd like that very much, anything helps!

[Yves S L]

Hello Alessio,

Okay, this is a conversation with Coleridge. Sure, given that context, the rhetoric makes more sense. The opening line is not talking to a lover! I don't know how many readers would create the connection to Coleridge though.

I don't think it makes much sense for you to chase an older English idiom while writing rhyme and meter, because at the moment you are struggling to rhyme convincingly, and the liberties you are taking with normal conventional word order look like expediances making up for lack of technique.

[Max Goodman]

Welcome, Alessio.

While I was reading this, already two others have responded. I agree with what they've said and they've given some helpful things to think about.

You've asked for examples of the stilted language. One is at the end, where normal word order is inverted: travesties foretell.

[Alessio Boni]

Hi Max,

Yeah, as Hilary outlined in her critique, the inversion of such a verse was done in imitation of how Coleridge, (and most 19th century poets) would write on some occasions.

I can see it as being unnatural as no one would indeed speak like this, do you maybe think I should rewrite this poem in a more, lets say 'contemporary tone?'

Hilary,

For the 7th verse, I have no excuses, apart from the inexcusable fact that I must have been too rigid on myself for following the exact metric scheme and so I just thwarted the use of natural sayings in favour of something I faultily use.

Your comment did help, thank you!

Yves,

I guess the connection could be made by the title of Pantisocracy being his own project, but you're right, apart from that it can be loosely connected to different things.

Could I ask why, specifically, my rhymes are not done convincingly? I have the feeling myself of forcing (sometimes) those words in, but is that the only reason?


I know my question might be a bit annoying, but I'm really looking to see why is it so.

Thanks,

Alessio.

P.S

The first question is directed to all three of you.

[Yves S L]

The are numerous reasons why a rhyme cannot convince. But here, the thing to focus on is what Hilary and others have already said, that you are distorting the grammar to create the rhymes.

You seem to be able to write natural clear English, but when you don your rhyming cap you start saying odd stuff:

From all the linear models of our living,
Split by vice commodities are giving;
Imprinting all our life with vanity
And chains of sanguine sanity -

One of the ways that folk try to make rhyme and meter easier to to pack abstractions which compress the line, thereby making it easier to meet the syllablic and rhyming constraints. Notice you do not actually have to describe what is meant by "linear models of our living" or "vice", or "vanity" or "sanguine sanity" or how the actions of splitting and imprinting and chaining occur, which would be much more difficult to write the verse. Obviously, I am not saying that abstractions can never be used...

You get to have the feeling of saying something grand and important while skirting the actual difficulties of communicating a POV.


No offense, but you are just starting to learn how to do rhyme and meter, and you are at a stage where the sophistication of your tastes far outmatches your technical ability.

Bridging the gap is just going to take time and effort. You have to know how to practice. One thing folk have told you to practice is rhyming without messing with the normal grammatical sequence of words.

You are not going to learn all the skills at once.

[Alessio Boni]

Hi Yves,

To your comment on version 2, I guess the reasons for why I would have wanted to join Pantisocracy would be the fact that there is a lack of superficial vanity pumped into us by all forms of media in his rural utopia, thus against the 'Vices Commodities Give' and furthermore, with the total equality of such a society, the 'sanguine sanity' would have instead been thwarted by the lack of any conflict provided by such. So I guess, in a certain way, the theme has to do with Coleridge,

"Whilst pale anxiety, corrosive care,
The tear of woe, the gloom of sad despair,
And deepen'd Anguish generous bosoms rend;"

- S.T.C making 'general' (but much better than mine) laments on the state of his society before wishing to depart. (Pantisocracy in America)

That being said, I do agree with you on the fact that what has been said by me 'has been said before.' It is quite generalized and, especially in the guise of the first two versions, it could be interpreted as as a mimicked lamenting of similar minded people. So I completely changed the poem.

To your comment on the most recent version, I say that the philosophy of Rousseau's Natural liberty, therefore the freedom to do commit vice, virtue, and all you want, as long as it doesn't harm anyone else, is incapsulated in the poem, especially in S5, though by the helpful comments of Glenn, I saw it wasn't so clear. (Look at my response to him for further).

Although I adore Coleridge, his nightmare of being groped by men would make even 'textual' intercourse with another man an insult (in his opinion). - Source; Coleridge, a Bondage of Opium.

Thanks!

Hi Glenn,

I am glad you found the final version a bit more polished then the other one, especially for clarity, and even some musicality as well.

S5 was the Buianese vineyard owner who, living in Italy, wherein feudal laws were still in place before 1796 - 7, had his vineyard seized by "Sires (nobles or feudal property owners) he met but only twice" as was permitted by the lack of any functioning common law to either approach them with scruples on such theft, or withdraw your property as private. So, taking into consideration Rousseau's Natural Principle of Freedom, which was of course one of the driving ideologies behind Pantisocracy, the narrator asks for a vineyard of his own, or even just a plot of land, in which he can pleasure himself with all desires he wishes without the burden of Feudal oppression, which of course, with equality being paramount in Coleridge's commune, the former would not allow any traces of that antiquated system.

However, if that was not very clear to the reader, I shall apply your suggestions, on changing the rhyme maybe, or, at this point, I might rewrite S5 completely. I'll see to it tonight.

Thanks!!!

Hi Chelsea,

Thanks for pointing the repetition out, I will, in my next reworking, work on diversifying the types of words throughout the whole poem.

Thanks!!

Hi Trevor,

Which version of the poem are you talking about?