Poem about "The Fall"

[Anonymous No.15384119]

Sup /lit/
I'm currently working on a book of devotional poetry, and the opening poem chronicles the original sin, and the "Fall" of mankind from Eden
I'd appreciate your feedback on my poem thus far
(told from Adam's perspective)

Fall

Dost thou recall our final day in heaven?
A heaven on earth, that has faded since then
Solace subsumed to sin, the passing of time
Wasted every fern, berry bushel, and lime
Once bloomed sempiternally, upon them we fed
Their forsooth sweet nectar, through our fingers bled
As we cruelly crushed the pulp, snatched away the skines
And my wanton hand traced the breadth of your spine
Exhaling untouched air, through goosepimpling flesh
Tasting Gaia's sweetness on your every breath
While our red tongues wrangled, when our mouths did meet
Like scaled adders mating about our bare feet
As one on those grounds, to that mud we returned
Whenever, for each other's flesh, we did yearn
A bed of the grasses, your head on my thigh
I gazed into your eyes, you gazed at the sky
Then stole your stare, unmarred by mortal scruple
Was the baby blue haloing your pupil
Our days were not dirtied by lesser man's law
Nor the slander leaping from the liar's maw

That's it, thus far. I'd say I;m about a quarter of the way through.
Would appreciate any feedback, gents.
Also feel free to post your own pieces, I'll do my best to critique

[Anonymous No.15384148]

>>15384119
cmon, gents, I wanna see your poems

[Anonymous No.15384169]

>>15384119

Paradise Lost already exists

[Anonymous No.15384177]

>>15384169
never read it, lad
besides, if no one wrote poems about topics that had already been done to death, there would be no poetry. We've been writing poems for milennia. Just because love poems have been written since medieval times, doesn't mean today's poets can't write a love poem

[Anonymous No.15384364]

a few more verses. Gimme some feedback, yo

We spoke in hushed tongues not, ushered only truths
Spake by the hermit, whose sandpaper voice soothes
Emanating clear, from the depths of the grove
Whipping his great hares which, his chariots, drove
Of his tonsured head, we'd catch wondrous sight
Huddled 'neath the poplars, in shade of the night
Among his artful words, three reigned "thou shalt not"

[Anonymous No.15386031]

>>15384119
I'm scratching my head at how your language is quite decent but your rhymes are ridiculous. Clearly you read poetry or you wouldn't be able to write like that, but then how do you not realize that your couplets read like a parody of couplet poetry? The first, last, and only poet who succeeded at writing couplets was Pope; every other decent poet has been too smart to try.
The first two lines might be the worst example of your crimes against rhyme but there are so many more contenders. Yes imperfect rhymes have a long and established history BUT they're associated with the avant-garde and don't belong in traditionalist poetry. Your rhymes are rather in the style of Eminem's, the difference being that his aren't so profoundly cheesy.
This would be a good poem if it had consistent meter and didn't try to affect frivolous rhymes.

Of course you're allowed to write fresh material on any subject, but writing about the Fall without having read Paradise Lost is like experimenting with Italian-style cheesy flatbread recipes without ever having eaten pizza.

[Anonymous No.15386109]

>>15384119
If you're going to write in that style at lest try and copy the rhetoric of the period. Your language isn't doing anything; it's boring and barely imitative. Maybe read some Herbert for some specifically devotional rhetoric (or anti rhetoric!).
Also why 11 syllables? Feminine/masculine endings have their use and straight pentameter is boring, but it's used because it sounds nice with the language. Also a lot of it is trochaic where i feel like there is no point in doing so. This board usually has an autistic approach to scansion, and i'm not trying to be elitist in that way, i think it needs some work though.
The rhymes sound forced. Think about your syntax to change bits? It's not flowing well. Read it aloud maybe?

[Anonymous No.15386131]

Drop the rhyming and go all out with the language now you're free from the chains of rhyming would be my advice to you.

[Anonymous No.15386138]

>>15386131
Idk i just feel like someone has done that before?

[Anonymous No.15386212]

>>15384119
This
>Was the baby blue haloing your pupil
and
>Nor the slander leaping from the liar's maw
sound weird. Your meter doesn't need to be wholly consistent but when it's not it should be for a reason and done very purposefully. Those lines just read strangely.
>>15384364
First two lines also sound weird when read.
>>15386138
Maybe

[Anonymous No.15386666]

>>15384119
>Solace subsumed to sin, the passing of time
>Wasted every fern, berry bushel, and lime
Anticlimax
>Exhaling untouched air, through goosepimpling flesh
>Tasting Gaia's sweetness on your every breath
Miscegenation of high and low
>While our red tongues wrangled, when our mouths did meet
>Like scaled adders mating about our bare feet
A very odious comparison
>baby blue
Extremely unpoetic
>>15384169
That only recommends the subject
>>15386031
Whence comes this huge antagonism against the couplet? Pope is of course supereminent above the poets of his time, but by no means the only good writer to use them - Dryden, Cowley, Chapman, Addison, &c.
I do agree that there is some disagreeable element about his rhymes, but can you please expand on why they are bad

[Anonymous No.15386675]

>>15384177
Imagine not reading the single greatest epic in English and possibly all languages? And having your poem be on the same topic? You have to outdo the greats if you want to be remembered, Milton knew this and that's why Paradise Lost is so great

[Anonymous No.15386956]

>>15386031
OP, here. I'm not chronicling the Fall beat for beat as it happened in the Bible, I'm giving it my own spin, with something of a conservative message (Adam and Eve consume to fruit to abort their first child, and this is the first act of evil, among other small changes)
And, as to your point regarding rhymes, you seem like you've read poetry yourself, and know your stuff. i might revise them, I think I just have a more musical concept of rhyme, maybe. I listen to a lot of music while I'm writing, and am heavily inspired by lyrics, and have been for pretty much every poem I write.
But thnx, anon. You've given me something to consider

[Anonymous No.15387016]

>>15384364
here's the rest of what I got done, today. Shall return to it on the morrow:

To his sandpaper symphonies, we begot
That purpling young bud, blossoming with thee
Soon seasoned our unfettered joy with misery
The cauldron a boiling the broth of our love
Soon blackened with hellacious heat from the stove
By hellfire from without, our love soup thus soiled
The delights we drew, from the garden, were soiled
The juice of the limes was as ash in our mouths
You turned from me, rotten, within and without
As though we were apples, bit down to the core
Driven to the poles, by this treacherous spore!
So long we lamented, the soul of this child
Had tethered two spirits, which once did rove wild
And your marble beauty withered with the days
With it, your bright vibrance did verily fade

[Anonymous No.15387023]

>>15387016
**our love soup thus spoiled

[Anonymous No.15387046]

>>15386131
But, anon, finding rhymes makes writing poems a joyful challenge. Poetry is my favourite pasttime, largely because of the mental exercise of fitting phrases, words, and couplets about a particular syllabic structure.
I appreciate the critique, but poems that don't rhyme bring me no joy - whether writing or reading them. The "music" in poetry is lost without rhymes, for me

[Anonymous No.15387053]

>>15387016
**blossoming thing thee

[Anonymous No.15387115]

>>15387053
**within thee
tired, lads, very tired

[Anonymous No.15387128]

Here is another recent poem, I'd also appreciate a little feedback if you wouldn't mind. This is from a former collection, and isn't strictly devotional, but has religious themes/metaphors
Pls excuse the retarded spacing, I pasted it here...

The Judgement of Hanged Men
Bind both my ankles, throw me overboard

Consign my soul and myself to the sword

Oh, cast me headlong, into the harbor

Dub me “hangman” with treacherous ardor
Cry to the captain, that I’ve mutinied

And maketh my bed the bed of the sea

Or string me up blind, with chains to the prow

Mark my pate, Pontius, with a thorny crown
Hang me from the sails, skewer me with sticks

Disembowel me, with your ire’s thorny pricks

Spread my innards, for their ravenous eyes

Will bore into me, the sun on its rise
Will bore down too, by it they’ll plot their course

To the Earth’s farthest reaches from remorse

Drag me to the edge, the ends of the world

And still I will rise, my spirit unfurls
Unravels whole, to unveil a new flag

Spearing the day with infinitesimal cracks

Sprawling to envelope all of the sky

That spiderweb spread is my godly eye
But, shipmates, dearest, it shall not judge you

Nor color you with my cruel chagrin’s hue

But it shall glare on, glare as you flounder

Drive your ship to the shallows, there, grounded
Then shall you cry, tear your hair, and gnash teeth

At your reckoning, you’ll violently seethe

Scream at the gulls, at your death, at the end

Predestined the day you begat judgement.

[Anonymous No.15387649]

>>15386956
>>15386666
I just don't see why you feel the need to make it rhyme at all. But maybe my initial feedback wasn't so constructive. Rhymes are supposed to aid the poet but it looks to me, tell me if I'm wrong, as though they're just a stumbling block for you. The repetition is supposed to tick along naturally, but many of yours are super contrived. "unmarred by mortal scruple" is a great line, but then you fish around for any old word to rhyme with it, and the next line becomes dead weight which contributes nothing.
However what really gives me goosebumps is when poets fuck with syntax just to squeeze what they want to say into a line's structure, e.g. "to that mud we returned". This is just making a mess of your own words. I think people think they can get away with it because people spoke that way in ye olde tymes -- but unless you've read enough John Donne to be able to capably navigate archaic syntax (which I know for a fact nobody on /lit/ has), you just sound contrived.

<----- Attached is the most technically perfect passage of poetry ever written in English. Consider how Pope selects his rhymes, how each rhymed word blends seamlessly into the meaning of its clause. Compare this to...

[Anonymous No.15387661]

>>15387649
Pic related, which is easily the most reviled poem ever written in English. How does the poet select his rhymes? What does any of them accomplish? Why did he feel the need to rhyme his poetry beyond some vaguely conceived adherence to tradition?

Keep writing bro, I really mean it when I say that your writing is good and your premise is cool.

[Anonymous No.15387712]

>>15384119
Use the language of your actual time. You can't imitate the style of something several centuries old and be anything but cheap and inconsistent. No matter how many lines work, there will always be some horrible anachronism like "baby blue" to ruin it. You stole "sempiternal" from Eliot's Quartets, so take his advice from 'Little Gidding':

'I am not eager to rehearse
My thoughts and theory which you have forgotten.
These things have served their purpose: let them be.
So with your own, and pray they be forgiven
By others, as I pray you to forgive
Both bad and good. Last season's fruit is eaten
And the fullfed beast shall kick the empty pail.
For last year's words belong to last year's language
And next year's words await another voice.

[Anonymous No.15387782]

>>15387128
Good shit. I don't know why but this style of poetic address really gives me the feels; I believe it's called 'apostrophic imperative' when you're addressing nothing or nobody "So take my bones and scatter them to sea," etc.
You've got a lot of great lines. Some such as "Or string me up blind, with chains to the prow / Mark my pate, Pontius..." are just plain good writing. The whole poem is weighted with irony which serves it well; I particularly like the 'scream at the gulls' inversion.
You're loose with your stresses which makes your rhythm all over the place, but that's not breaking any laws -- just be aware you're doing it. I don't write ballads myself because it's so damn hard to keep the stress/rhythm consistent.

Have you ever read 'Billy in the Darbies'? It's about a sailor getting hung; I am reminded of it.

[Anonymous No.15387814]

>>15387712
This is bullshit; you absolutely can do this. It's extremely difficult, yes, and 89% of fagboats fail when they try, usually because they like the sound of archaic poetry but hate reading it. The stuff is common in /crit/ threads and it's fruity with cartoonish anachronism, syntactical adventures, and outright fantasy.
There's a reason this stuff never gets published -- it's the same reason Gothic architecture never gets built. We all agree it's cool, but we also agree that there's no point trying play Frankenstein and revive something whose time has come and gone.
That being said, if somebody enjoys writing in X style, who the fuck cares. There's no difference between that and trying to sound like Eliot or Heaney.

[Anonymous No.15388248]

>>15386666
bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonnerronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthurnuk

[Anonymous No.15388259]

bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonnerronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthurnuk

[Anonymous No.15388344]

You aren't well-versed enough in antiquated language to consistently hold it up through the entire poem, so it's a gross mix of time periods from line to line. The result is so grating that I can barely bring myself to finish your piece. Grammatically it's all over the place in a bad way, you use words only half-correctly (their forsooth sweet nectar?). Trying to rhyme while not having any sort of consistent meter makes it seem even more clumsy than just free or blank verse would've been.
I highly, highly suggest that you write in your own contemporary voice. You are just not good at emulating early modern english. Either drop the rhymes completely or clean them up and pay much more attention to meter.

[Anonymous No.15389186]

>>15384119
Adam ate the apple, oh no!
Then God got really angry, so
He cast them out of the Garden of Eden,
So now they have to work for the food they're eatin'!
Because they sinned, you wouldn't believe
All the suffering that befell Adam and Eve
And it just goes to show, you will never win
If you choose to disobey God and sin.

[Anonymous No.15389479]

>>15384119
>Dost thou

Aaaaand dropped

Don't write like this, tone down the flowery side a bit, keep it simpler and the effect will be better

[Anonymous No.15389485]

>>15389479
Exactly. Please refer to my simpler interpretation here: >>15389186

[Anonymous No.15389549]

>>15389485
>oh no!
>really angry
>eatin'

It's more terse but it's not an improvement imo

[Anonymous No.15389607]

>OP never read Milton
>dumb discussion about poetry 101
>fake and heretic posts
This is the worst thread of this young decade.

[Anonymous No.15390460]

>>15389479
b-b-but, lads, I love being pretentious and extravagant ;( I always felt like it gave my poetry its own flavour
>>15389186
>Eden
>Eatin'
and you criticize my peculiar half-rhymes, anon I...
I understand what you're getting at, but this is far more of a stretch than any rhyme I've made
>>15387712
I've never read Elliot, not in my spare time anyway perhaps briefly in Sixth Form seven years ago or so. I actually got Sempiternal from an album title
>>15387782
thank ye, anon, that poem was intended as a self-empowerment message, if to no one else, than to myself
And nope, I've never read Billy in the Darbies, but I shall give it a lookover!
>>15387649
I have actually read Donne pretty extensively, lad, not for a couple years, mind, but I chose the Metaphysical Poets for study in one of my modules in Uni, and Donne was easily my favourite (Herbert being close behind). Perhaps I should get back into those poems, it was the flowery, extravagant verse of the 17th/16th centuries that really inspired me to write poems, I found their use of language and imagery (particularly in the philosophical sense of the metaphysicals) to be breathtaking, and wanted to write poems that would achieve a similar effect.
I rhyme, anon, because rhyme is a personal delight to me, poems, and songs that rhyme are so much more musical and flow so satisfyingly to me - poems absent rhyme don't nearly interest me as poems with. Rhyming is half the fun of reading and writing poetry, in my eyes
I shall give these poems a lookover, thank ye

[Anonymous No.15390604]

>>15390460
>I always felt like it gave my poetry its own flavour

Not all flavours are good friend

That kind of writing never comes across well, please don't do it

[Anonymous No.15392069]

>>15390460
You can absolutely rhyme, but most of your rhymes come across as shoved in because half of them are imperfect and all of them fuck up the meter. If you've studied poetry this extensively you should be able to read stress patterns in your own work. The same goes for flowery language, using it is fine, but you execute it terribly with your faux-antiquated "dost thou" shit. It doesn't work. Just use flowery modern language.
Also, the reason he half-rhymed there was because he was making fun of you, dude.

[Anonymous No.15392623]

>>15389479
>>15390604
>>15387712
Ever read this super obscure poet called Spenser? Or that hidden gem Alexander Pope?
>>15390460
Don't listen to them, you're in the right
The problem is not in the invention, but in the execution

[Anonymous No.15392809]

>>15387128
this is much better, more austere barebone poetics works better for what you're saying than the lush, almost Renaissance stylistic of the OP poem

[Anonymous No.15392824]

>>15392809
The OP is not Renaissance at all

[Anonymous No.15392891]

>>15384119
I will take this opportunity to share my acrostic:

Adam ate apple. Bad boy, broke body. Can change? Duly doubt, don’t deny. Eke existence else end. Flowers, fall, family, frankly feverish fucking. Gander—God’s greatness; girl goads gonads gyniatrically, gyrating, good, good, goodgoodgood—gasp! Hearts, hurried heavy heaving, her hair his head her hmmmm him: If inevitably iniquity is invited I’ll imitate Isaiah, implying invisible iniquity in idle idolatry. Just joking, jester juryrigs justifications. Kid? Kine? Ka? Known knave. Lazy lout lost luscious land. Most men may mature; might Mister Master matriculate? No, never, not nearly, niggardly nag. Our officer offers other obeisances of offal onto ontologically-oriented outsiders. Prevents prudery, properly preempts Primordial’s paternity, posterity. Question: quite quiet? Rather, ravenous rapacity roars. Sexuality slides so, slinking since serpent spoke selling sin, sullied sots so slithering similarly. Truly the trustee tries, testing truths, toppling towers tyrannical, though thinking thoughts thanatotic, transgression tracking thick tar. Unless upturn, upon us undergrowth unending. Villainy vaunts vixen, vanity, vice; verity values valor, vision. Why we walk where we walk we won’t wit when we want waste wheeling wherever whores wink wishing we would wander woods without weakness where wile won’t wend. Xenophobe. Yes, yeasty yeomen yell: you, youngster, your yarn “yea,” you’re yellow. Zero zadok zone.

[Anonymous No.15392896]

>>15392891
Sophomoric and cringe

[Anonymous No.15392942]

>>15392896
Yep, wrote it for some dumb /lit/ project that went nowhere as usual. Had fun with it though.

[Anonymous No.15394457]

>>15392942
>>15392891
Hello, dad.
Why won't you accede to my attempts to open a dialogue with you?
I wish to understand you. The very notion that children can deserve to die is abhorrent to me, and I want you to make me see why this shouldn't be the case.
We could resolve this peacefully, but if it's tooth and nail, kill or be killed, I don't want to have to tell you what my choice will be.
Help me see
I want you to help me see

[Anonymous No.15394495]

>>15392891
>Eke existence else end
I was sort of working towards that particular end, but you have made this impossible now.
So again, tooth and nail.
>Duly doubt, don't deny
Change from what? Preying on people intimately, which I have only really done once in my entire life?
I've gone ten years since without hurting anyone again, how can that not be called change? If it were in my nature to do these things, surely I would have continued this pattern of abuse again and again, but I've have not hurt someone so egregiously again.
I can't comprehend how you can say that with such certainty
>Xenophobe
not inherently a bad thing, but eh

[Anonymous No.15394506]

>>15394495
and, I should add, I wasn't aware at any point that this act of abuse was even an act of abuse or that I was preying on anyone
it's like a 12 year old pointing a gun at someone and pulling the trigger, having never seen a gun before or been told of one, and being executed or imprisoned for the remainder of their life despite having no knowledge that they could possibly hurt anyone by doing it.
Seems a bit of an irrational response, no?
If that isn't the case to you, please inform me as to why this isn't the case, in a reasoned and concise manner, and then I could understand you and cease complaining whenever you conjure false allegations of abuse against me as you continuously seem to do

[Anonymous No.15394627]

>>15392891
oh god
thank you, father, for describing things so explicitly
I think, from your description, that this is the first time I've revisited the event in full
it's quite a bit worse than I have otherwise assumed it to be isn't it
Christ
I think I still maintain that children aren't fully cognizant or morally culpable for their actions, but it is quite a bit more severe than a bit of "groping" isn't it
mayhaps I can accede to the notion, mentally, that you will not reason with me
depending on how this next week pans out, however, it might very well be tooth and nail
perhaps you are not deserving of it, but I will pursue deliverance if need be
Godbless. I won't hound you again

[Anonymous No.15394723]

>>15387661

>"For the stronger we our houses do build, the less chance we have of being killed."

I know McGonagall is one of the worst poets of the English language
but I'd be lying if I didn't say I always enjoyed that last couplet of the Tay Bridge Disaster

The last couplet always makes me chuckle.