a question for you

reader · #1 02-13-2003, 10:08 AM

Hello,

If you could answer the following it would help me a lot.

The criticism of the following is quite predictable.

Oooh, my poor orchid.
Poor MyTho,
river boats scorched on their pretty prows
with the shadows of four deep Eagles.

I would expect the word “deep” to be objected to: Eagles can not be deep, etc. But I am constantly drawn to a use of such unreal phrasings.

Also, I would like to see an eagle clinching its teeth, or raising its feather cuffed fist.

How can I justify this?

Thanks, Ted

Kevin Andrew Murphy · #2 02-13-2003, 10:50 AM

Ted,

I don't know if Tim is back yet, but my take is not that "deep" reads as awkward because it's a surreal image as because it reads as inversion: If "deep" came before "shadows" or at the end of the line, set off by a comma, it would read more naturally. Of course, "deep shadows" is a bit of a stock phrase, but because of "scorched" before, we know you mean that the eagles have been burned deep into the wood.

So I wouldn't fault it for being surreal so much as an inverted stock phrase.

If you want to keep the precise meaning, use "scorched deep" with deep as the adverb. Or else use "charred," as that's what "scorched deep" means.

Kevin

Tim Murphy · #3 02-15-2003, 10:06 AM

Actually I'm still on vacation, but looking in I have to comment that the Lariat Board is not for critique, and that we mostly discuss metrical verse here. This sort of work belongs on the non-metrical board.

Tim