That clenched fist, as it came flying towards,
My chest. Felt like a dagger piercing my,
Heart. I fell, landing on the dark floorboards,
All feeling becomes lost. My mouth turns dry.
A blank screen of darkness, covered my eyes.
All noise seemes to fade into the darkness.
I try to gather my strenghth but my cries,
Just echo around the room, Loneliness
Is all thats left. My attackers are gone.
I've been left here on the floor. Left to die.
Then a light slowly shines. The light of dawn.
My eyes open but no to the blue sky.
But the ceiling of my room with my head,
against my pillow, lying in my bed.
I’m really sorry I haven’t commented on this sooner. I must have missed it due to the late submission – which is totally my fault, not yours, as Mr. S. explained why you were delayed with your response! Hope you’re feeling better now.
ReplyDeleteOkay: firstly, let’s get into the sonnet form. As before, there’s some lines that have a lovely iambic rhythm, which shows you CAN do it, but in places you haven’t mastered it yet. For example, to fit with iambic pentameter line one would have to be read ‘that CLENCHED fist, AS it CAME fly-ING to-WARDS’ If you read the line aloud, you’ll see this isn’t a natural rhythm e.g. in speech we’d stress flying as ‘FLY-ing’. There are other times when the rules of iambic pentameter aren’t regarded (for example, line three’s ‘HEART’, ‘land-ING’, ‘THE’). To get to grips with iambic pentameter, read your lines aloud, over-exagerrating then even stresses. If it fits, it’s imabic!
You also need to take care with punctuation, as it effects your rhythm just like stresses do. For example, the full stop on line two should be a comma, line five doesn’t need a comma at all, and neither does line seven. Try reading your sonnet as continuous prose, noting the punctuation marks, to see where it lacks flow. Also be careful of tense; try not to make it switch between lines (I’m think of lines five to six, the shift from ‘covered’, past tense, to ‘seems’, present tense’)
There are some good uses of caesura here; I like the short, punchy statements of ‘My mouth turns dry’ and ‘Left to die’. This is a punchy poem overall (ignore the awful pun), with some great physical details; I can feel those ‘dark floorboards’ as the narrator falls. You’ve made good use of the octave/sestet split. I quite like the twist at the poem’s end (I’m a sucker for a narrative), although the “it was all a dream” ending seems like a little bit of a get out clause. When the narrator first sees ‘The light of dawn’ I thought maybe he/she was realising how great and wonderful the world was in his/her dying moments… I quite like this kind of “life is GREAT!” revelation, which might have been why the dream thing underwhelmed me at first read. However, the fact that it is taking place in a dream adds new meanings to subsequent re-readings (“what does this dream say about this person’s unconscious? Their life?”). A poem that reveals new meanings on subsequent readings – that comes off the page and alive in the reader’s mind – well, you can’t ask for much more than that.
The use of enjambment and caesura, the complexity of theme, the use of the octave/sestet split – you’re clearly pushing to achieve more with each task, and the effort is paying off. This is, in my opinion, your best poem yet. But be carefully to still keep in mind the basics; iambic pentameter, punctuation, grammar, spelling. But you’ve got some really interesting ideas developing, and I’m looking forwards to reading your response to the next task!
Wow, Thank you for such a great comment. I didn't realise it was that good. To be honest I didn't think it was good at all. It was rushed and was written really late at night, when I was EXTREMELY tired. But thank you for the great comment and I hope you think my next task is even better than this one.
ReplyDeleteHi,
ReplyDeleteSorry this comment is late - I'm very pleased to see that you've already had some great feedback, and I'm sorry I've let you down.
It's cool to read your work again. There's a great sense of intensity to it, which I'm sure somes from more than sleepy writing.
I did want to talk about tense. There's past and present intermingling here. I can see that the opening could be an introduction, therefore making past tense alright e.g. 'Felt (present tense - feeling) like a dagger piercing my...'
Just to be clear - all this has a great sense of intensity and immediacy, thanks to the present tense:
My mouth turns dry
seemes to fade into the darkness.
My attackers are gone.
So I think you'd gain something by having the opening in the present too.
I think it's very cheeky of you to use the 'and it was all a dream' ending, but the fact that the action does have a dream-like feel to it really benefits it - maybe you could bring that out more even.
Anyway - it was great to read this, and I look forward to your next piece. Take care,
Andy