[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!

[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.

[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.

[Hilary Biehl]

OK. Here are some instances of what I mean:

"Imprinting life of ours with vanity"

If you were having a conversation with someone, would you say "imprinting life of ours"? No, you would most likely say "imprinting our life."

Similarly, in the last line, you have the words in an order that we don't use in everyday speech. "And far from those who travesties foretell" - if we were saying this in conversation we would say "And far from those who foretell travesties."

I know this sort of inversion was more common in older poetry, but we don't live in the nineteenth century.

Part of the difficulty of writing formal poetry is working within the conventions of the chosen form while making it sound natural, sayable. It's possible, but it's one of those things - like ballet - where you have to work hard to achieve something that (if done well) looks easy. I hope this helps.

[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.