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DispatchNA

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Posted: Fri Aug 13, 2004 1:15 pm

Please CC. Harsh critique is welcomed and encouraged.

Lily Eyes

I’ll sing to you of summer skies,
of faraway lands and lily eyes.
I’ll sing to you a song of swans,
of water droplets in the dawn.

I’ll sing to you of fairy tales
of hearts of gold and black-laced veils.
I’ll sing to you of pinpricked dreams
and of the days where love meant everything.

I’ll sing to you of times and trials
of wicked thoughts and blood-red vials.
I’ll sing to you of stains and shame,
of lust and lies and those untamed.

I’ll sing to you of tales untold
of a weeping tree and a world gone cold.
I’ll sing to you of beads and breath
and I’ll sing to you of death.

Posted: Sat Aug 14, 2004 3:33 pm

Heya. It makes me sad to see anything without reviews, so I'll tear into this work:

Legend:

Bolded lines/words - Awkward sounding. Consider rephrasing.

Italicized lines/words - sad worthy. Something I feel is either needless or just bad.

Underlined lines/words - Lines that are awesome and make me dance.

DispatchNA

Please CC. Harsh critique is welcomed and encouraged.

Lily Eyes

I’ll sing to you of summer skies,
of faraway lands and lily eyes.
I’ll sing to you a song of swans,
of water droplets in the dawn.

I’ll sing to you of fairy tales
of hearts of gold and black-laced veils.
I’ll sing to you of pinpricked dreams
and of the days where love meant everything.

I’ll sing to you of times and trials
of wicked thoughts and blood-red vials.
I’ll sing to you of stains and shame,
of lust and lies and those untamed.

I’ll sing to you of tales untold
of a weeping tree and a world gone cold.
I’ll sing to you of beads and breath
and I’ll sing to you of death.

Now, let's go in-depth, shall we?

First of all: wow. Your rhyming is, for the most part, free-flowing. Your language is bold and vivid without being flowery. But I have a few nit-picks...

Quote:

I’ll sing to you a song of swans,
of water droplets in the dawn.

Note the bolded part. While I feel these aren't bad lines, I do have a few reservations about them when it comes to flow. "song of swans" is obviously a little snipe at the classic "swan song" cliche - but it doesn't seem to fit. I believe you have two choices when it comes to this poem. The first is to ditch this line and keep it as a sort of dramatic spinning of a story. The second is to keep this line and modify some other lines to make this a play on standard fantasy cliches and such which you seem to swtich in and out of. And the second line jsut sort of sounds...odd. But this may be personal opinion creeping in. Woe.

Quote:

I’ll sing to you of pinpricked dreams
and of the days where love meant everything.

Forced rhyme here. sad

Quote:

I’ll sing to you of stains and shame,
of lust and lies and those untamed.

No offense here...but "those untamed" sounds...sort of stupid? My suggestion would be "Of lust and lies and beasts untamed" which may only sound better in my head - you're obviously the better poet than I, the lowly critic.

Quote:

and I’ll sing to you of death.

This is a weak ending, I feel. This entire poem seems to be leading up to this moment and you sort of pull out a "poetic buzzword". For such a epic feeling poem, the anti-climax almost feels like a cop-out.

So: congrats and kudos. You make rhyming poetry good!

Bane is on Fire!
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DispatchNA

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Posted: Sat Aug 14, 2004 4:13 pm

First of all, thank you very much. You've pointed out things to me that I realize now could be better, which is very valuable to me.

The song of swans thing: Hmmm...I'll have to edit that ^_^;;

Water droplets in the dawn: This line replaced another line which was, I promise much odder and stupider. Perhaps I didn't think it through while trying to replace the other line. I'll fix it so it'll (hopefully) be better.

By those untamed, I was actually talking about people like those who commit adultery. That's what the whole stains, shame, lust and lies come from.

The ending doesn't satisfy me either. It used to be 'hope', and I had this wonderful reason in my mind for it. But then I tried explaining it to someone, and it sounded very stupid. So I changed it to death, because that's what they said they'd expected. But I have been (and will continue) searching for a better ending, which may turn into another stanza.

Thanks so much for your critique. I thoroughly appreciate it!

Posted: Thu Sep 09, 2004 4:37 pm

I've edited the poem a great deal. I've gotten mixed reviews for it; soe people prefer the original edition, some prefer the new edition. Tell me what you think ^_^

Lily Eyes

I’ll sing to you of summer skies,
of faraway lands and lily eyes.
I’ll sing to you a rouge-red song
of water droplets in the dawn.

I’ll sing to you of fairy tales
of hearts of gold and black-laced veils.
I’ll sing to you of pinpricked dreams
and days where love reigned supreme.

I’ll sing to you of times and trials
of wicked thoughts and blood-red vials.
I’ll sing to you of stains and shame,
of lust and lies and beasts untamed.

I’ll sing to you of tales untold
of a weeping tree and a world gone cold.
I’ll sing to you of beads and breath
and I’ll sing to you of perpetual death.

I know the ending is still extremely sad and disappointing. I'm working on it ^_^;;

DispatchNA

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serpenteyes

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Posted: Fri Sep 10, 2004 10:06 am

I am critiquing the first one first. I didn't read the other critique so I don't know if I'm saying the same stuff or not. Ok, first I’ll sing to you of pinpricked dreams
and of the days where love meant everything. This line doesn't really make sense. All your other lines go together. How does a pinpricked dream and love go together? You could stretch it and say a dream of love, but none of your other lines are that much of a stretch. And I would say 'days when love meant' rather than where I’ll sing to you of stains and shame,
of lust and lies and those untamed. This line is good because it goes together really nicely. My only question is, what are 'those?' What is untamed? It needs to be clearer. And I'm sorry, but I don't like the last stanza at all. It needs major work. It doesn't really flow. Beads and death aren't really synonymous. And a weeping tree and a world gone cold are diametrically opposed as a tree is full of life, while your world is cold. But I would do something with breath and death because those do go together and I bet you could get something really cool out of that. But I really like your poem. I liked it a lot. My favorite lines were the ones with blood-red vials and black-laced veils. That is awesome imagery. And the title, lily eyes, is very good. You don't really ever think of soemone having lily eyes. Now I want a picture of lily eyes. Ok. Now I am going to read you're new version. And if all the stuff I just said doesn't matter, oh well. Better late than never. Nice job though.

Posted: Fri Sep 10, 2004 10:22 am

DispatchNA

I’ll sing to you a rouge-red song
of water droplets in the dawn.

I don't know about this part. I liked the swans. Swans and water droplets were just prettier and more mystical sounding than a rouge-red song. I'm just not feeling this change.

DispatchNA

I’ll sing to you of pinpricked dreams
and days where love reigned supreme.

I like this a lot better. I still don't know about the pinpricked part though. I think a different word might work better... But love reigning supreme is awesome. Very nice.

DispatchNA

I’ll sing to you of stains and shame,
of lust and lies and beasts untamed.

It's better as beasts, but I'm still not sure if that's the right word. hmmm... thinking... still thinking... what about fears or feelings or ooh ooh, what about hearts untamed? Yeah, I don't know. Just some suggestions. but it is still improved.

DispatchNA

I’ll sing to you of tales untold
of a weeping tree and a world gone cold.
I’ll sing to you of beads and breath
and I’ll sing to you of perpetual death.

Yeah, still the same problem as before. Perpetual death is better, but the rest of it is still lacking the same quality that the rest of your poem has. I'm not really sure what to tell you to help out with this one, but it just needs something. But I like the second one better, just cuz when you rework something it rocks all the more. And ooh la la, I figured out how to use the quote button. Sorry my last one was all crazy like. Still learning. But I really like your poem. It's oober good.

serpenteyes

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DispatchNA

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Posted: Sat Sep 11, 2004 7:33 pm

Again, thank you so much for critiquing. ^_^

I'm just gonna reply to the critiques for the new version unless the critique is for both versions.

Quote:

I’ll sing to you a rouge-red song
of water droplets in the dawn.

I had a few critiques on the swan song idea, and was told that this was better. Keep in mind that I'm still thinking of better words/phrases/etc for this poem.

Quote:

I’ll sing to you of pinpricked dreams
and days where love reigned supreme.

I always liked the pinpricked dreams - it was the beginning of the trail of hints of 'bad stuff' in the poem - you have black-laced veils (mourning), pinpricked (pinpricked finger produces blood), then the whole next stanza which I'll talk about later, and then the last line which, I know, sucks.

Quote:

I’ll sing to you of times and trials
of wicked thoughts and blood-red vials.
I’ll sing to you of stains and shame,
of lust and lies and beasts untamed.

For this stanza - it's all a little darker than the previous stanzas. The last two lines is talking about adultery, pretty much. Each stanza has their own little symbolism for a...thing. (Have you noticed that I suck at explaining stuff? ^_^; wink 'Those' and 'beasts' both talk about ordinary people doing horrible things, such as commiting adultery.

Quote:

I’ll sing to you of tales untold
of a weeping tree and a world gone cold.

Okay, I don't know if you'll be able to follow my train of thought, but...

I'm talking about tales untold. As in, the bad things no one ever hears about. A sad, lonely person (or tree) in a big, cold world that doesn't give a s**t. I'm not comparing the size of the tree and world - I'm showing cause and effect, of a sort. And the weeping tree came from weeping willows, who always seem depressed and lonely to me, as if they've been let down by the world.

And I know the ending is absolutely horrible, so I'm not even going to try to defend it. I'm trying to make it better, though ^_^

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