[N. Matheson]

Are you insinuating I didn't write this, but an AI made it instead?

[Yves S L]

Hello N. Matheson.

Is this woman hating? I imagine you are civil to women in your life., which is the most important thing. Well, the verse exists within the self-enclosed world of insults/disparagement/back-handed-praise, which is generally not the most positive place in the whole wide world. I myself did not know what to comment about this, because I don't how it could be improved much. After all, it is not imitation that sounds immediately and distinctly off, but I have not immersed myself in that time period of verse, so I am not exactly expert. It is better imitation than what I am used to hearing where people are just making obvious mistakes all over the place and creating a mish-mash sound that does not sit easily in any time period but only in the imagination of the author.

Hopefully, I will have something more useful to say on your other poems.

Addendum: In the current political climate, things like woman disparaging a man would actually be okay, and not labelled misandry.

[Julie Steiner]

Originally Posted by Yves S L

Addendum: In the current political climate, things like woman disparaging a man would actually be okay, and not labelled misandry.

The current political climate is one of vehement disagreement, so I have no doubt there would be plenty of #NotAllMen responses if the shoe were on the other foot.

And I would also expect to hear opinions along the lines of "Hey, Snowflake, don't be so sensitive, this is the perspective of a character, not the poet, would you give Robert Browning a hard time for his 'offensive' dramatic monologues?" Which complaint could also be applied to my own criticisms of the narrator's attitude, although I hope it's clear that my quibble isn't with the attitude per se, but with whether it's been made new enough in this poem to feel like a fresh variation on an old theme. In my opinion, at least, the archaisms don't help in that regard.

[N. Matheson]

But you did not give me any critiques beyond the which and that. You simply derided it for existing and conflated the speaker's views with my own.

[Roger Slater]

That's not how I read Julie's comments at all. She said "my quibble isn't with the attitude per se, but with whether it's been made new enough in this poem to feel like a fresh variation on an old theme. In my opinion, at least, the archaisms don't help in that regard."

So the criticism, with which I agree, is that the choice to use archaism in combination with an old, familiar theme keeps the poem from seeming fresh and new. Do you only want granular comments, like the that/which issue, but feel that reacting to the overall tone and voice is somehow unfair or wrong?

I think poets should write in their own language. There's something that is fundamentally false and untrue and awkward about rejecting your own language and adopting one that you and your readers never learned to speak and have no fluency in whatsoever. I inevitably get the feeling that the poet lacks the confidence and craft to use modern language effectively in a poem, and uses archaism as a talisman to ward off other types of criticism. But it seems obvious to me that when you try to write a poem with language as spoken hundreds of years ago, you are consciously putting a distance between you and the reader and are providing no real motivation for the reader to traverse that distance or even meet you half way.

[N. Matheson]

That's a fundamental disagreement I have. It's difficult for me to take modern poetry seriously on account of how it sounds. Modern English is, in my view, anathema to poetry. It just doesn't work well for the medium. It comes off as vulgar, coarse, and a confused heap of syllables that have as much structure to them as a pile of gravel.

[Mark McDonnell]

It is hard to critique something like this, N. Because you are writing something that seems to be a sincere imitation of 16th century verse, with no sense of ironic commentary or comic anachronism, the only success criteria is 'does it sounds like it was written by someone who has been dead for 500 years?' In which case, the answer is probably yes. I'm no expert but I've read worse pastiches. But to what purpose? It makes me wonder about your fantasy world. Is it a sort of alternative universe Elizabethan England? Does everyone speak like this?

Edit : we cross-posted and I just read your above response. Well, I have so many disagreements and questions but I'll stick to one. What do you class as "modern"? What's your cut off point?

[N. Matheson]

There is a reason I do not have my full name listed. I would prefer you not use my given name.

Edit: Thank you.

[Mark McDonnell]

Fair enough. I edited my post.

Weirdly, I just guessed your name. I think I was confusing you with another newish member.

Anyway...

[N. Matheson]

The entire project was a mix of verse and prose, with certain sections in blank verse like old drama. Broadly, yes, this is a fantasy world and people more or less talk like this. There were many other writing styles I used but those are beyond the scope of the forum.