Quincunx Posted May 6, 2009 Report Posted May 6, 2009 The song of Mr. Flight Creature of habit. Yes, other people comment freely when something has been posted in the Library, but I don't. . . Feedback levels labeled, read down as far as you are comfy. 1. I read it. 2. Also I'm selfishly grateful to have another person around who understands meter and rhyme without working at it. Free verse outnumbers us. Good to set the "beeping" at the beginning of the meter too, so it sort of beeps along behind the stressed syllables. You could even play with that at the end, and did a little bit, with the two strong syllables of "goodnight", as if the beeps were slowing down, winding down, like the life. 3. Of course, most of it being effortless means that the line I have to strain to fit into meter (ending "into life's row"--awkward) stands out and not in a good way. The line above it is also not vital to the poem, so it would probably be quicker to cut out those two entirely than to try and shoehorn a substitute for "row" into place. A substitute has a low chance of easing that oddity. 4. The meter and rhyme came first, and the idea of the poem is secondary to them. That's a weak structure, which can be unraveled from where you wrote the first half of the line, then rammed rhyming words onto the end of the line until one fit--good for students studying a poem, not so good if you wanted to convey the image of death, or of the retreat before death, which the clearer images of the beeping, and the repetition of the angels approaching, points toward. This is probably more thought about what the poem meant than you gave to it, like dropping a 9volt battery into a D battery receptacle. It could be a 9 volt poem, but right now it's not. 5. This is the 'editing before publication' level and reserved mostly for stuff that IS destined for publication. I didn't get that impression from this poem.
Recommended Posts