Thread: A Mystical Place? (unsure of title)

Hey, this was my first attempt at poetry, and I'm really keen on getting feedback for it. I realise it's all over the place, and I'd love some proper critical commentary on how I can improve it thanks!

In the mountains exists a world
That perfectly imprisons darkness.
Bubbling brooklets yield to contours
Peacefully ambling through the valley.
Whispers of such a place lead them
Inadvertently to the edge of the world.

Nestled by the land, cradled by lush hillocks
That undulate into the unknown.
An opaque sliver of darkness
Pierces daylight, ever defiant.

The sky suddenly retaliates
Driving peaceful streams
Towards the yawning maw.
It engulfs them, uncomplaining.

Rivers coalesce to a misty miasma
Winding deeper, deeper, deeper
Deep into the bowels of the earth
To some anti-Eden, murky horrors

Regardless, torrents hammer unrelentingly
Livid that their radiance wooed
Having little impact on these dank caverns
That were undisturbed for eternity.

Firstly, excellent choice for an avatar. I've always liked the story of his death since I was a little kid. Also, I will have profound respect for you if you write a poem about Rasputin's beard .

As far your poem goes, I like quite a few things here. I'm a big fan of black/white imagery myself. I did feel like there was an issue with clarity:

In the mountains exists a world
That perfectly imprisons darkness.
Bubbling brooklets yield to contours
Peacefully ambling through the valley.
Whispers of such a place lead them
Inadvertently to the edge of the world.

The antecedent of "them" seems a little unclear until you reread it. A bigger problem I see is that it is difficult to understand here, and as you continue reading down, that the rivers are not already in this dark "anti-Eden". After a bit of head scratching I saw the story here, but it wasn't very understandable in that regard.

I wouldn't consider that to be a huge problem, but it may be getting in the way of your theme. Perhaps this piece is not meant to be metaphorical. I honestly couldn't derive any real meaning from it. Could you give us an idea of what you are trying to "say" with the poem?

WTG for your first poem. With some practice you will do very well. It is hard not to be intimidated when you read some of what the other writers on here post (I won't name names but some of these people are amazing. I keep promising I'm going to write some poetry discussing jealousy). Everyone on here started out with "roses are red" amaturish scribblings and has, over time, improved their art. Keep it up and you'll do the same.

Thank you for your feedback! I might actually write a poem about Rasputin, that's a pretty damn good idea

I realise it's not very clear, I'll attempt to straighten it out and leave you less confused heh. The "meaning" behind this is hardly something someone would be able to pick up...I initially wanted to write an abstract poem about collecting knowledge, and how it awakens parts of your brain that were before "un-stimulated" or whatever. I think I got a little carried away with the whole "caverns being your mind that traps information and knowledge (aka water)" metaphor, don't you think?

In that case I really like where you are going! The problem in your approach, in my thinking anyway, is that you describe collecting knowledge as evil. "Maw", "anti-Eden" and "murky horrors" all tell me that this place is some great source of evil. Moreover these lines:

It engulfs them, uncomplaining
...
Having little impact on these dank caverns


Imply that the place isn't "stimulated". If you want to get back to your original goal you could start by taking out the wickedness, imply an enlightenment of sorts, and use some neural diction: neural, cognitive, lobe, frontal, temporal, etc.

Welcome to Poetry, Hunter. And thank you for sharing your first poem with us! I hope you find yourself in your comfort zone here . We all play nice here and you'll also find that allot of fun goes on. But ever serious about our work. I can't tell you how much my work has improved since here. Better than any writing course. OK


This poem gave me an atmosphere of the Otherworldy. i.e.

In the mountains exists a world
That perfectly imprisons darkness.
Bubbling brooklets yield to contours
Peacefully ambling through the valley.
Whispers of such a place lead them
Inadvertently to the edge of the world.

The highlighted. Excellent. ...."inadvertenty to the edge of the world". Love this! And before I forget. Your images drew me in and I noted that you carried your imagery, consistantly, throughout the poem.

This image. My favorite. "Pierces daylight" Brilliant go!

An opaque sliver of darkness
Pierces daylight, ever defiant

Now here you have too many deepers. I think one "deep" should sufice, hitting home harder. Less is more, so to speak.

Winding deeper, deeper, deeper
Deep into the bowels of the earth

Like Flapjack, I found it difficult to understand. It seems to be lacking a theme. This is what I do when I begin a poem. I write down flavorable words that come to mind . Sometimes I slip in a sentence. My pad is full fo Stream of Consciousness. I get ideas, then more. Finally, I get the THE idea which becomes the theme. That's my crazy way. It may work for you, I don't know. I try to walk the balance bar.

We'll that's that about that. Keep writing! Laurie

Hi HunterT, and welcome -

First of all, outstanding verse for your first poem, or even for your tenth or twentieth, truly - no one writes about "lush hillocks that undulate into the unknown" without some poetic instinct, glad you have finally given it expression.

About the piece, it is itself lush with nature descriptions, which you wield well for your own purposes - I typically don't try to read too much meaning into a certain poem, unless the verses lead me there - one could write a simple piece about a newborn fawn stumbling through undergrowth, and that was all you intended, and then someone comes along and extrapolates all sorts of metaphysical meaning about the nature of man's struggle in the universe out of it - but I am all for meaning if the author intends it, and this piece does seem to meader towards some deeper hidden drama, which you confirmed in your comments -

A thought I had is to soften the bit at the very beginning: "imprisons darkness" - other than that the tone of the first stanza until the end of the second is fairly glowing and bright - the punch comes beginning with the "sky suddenly retaliates" (great phrase), and then from there it is a decent into darkness - make that contrast strong, by having the beginning bright, the end dark, the beginning tame, the end wild and tangled - then again, now that I think about it, and reading your underlying meaning, maybe let the flow go from light to dark, then show the light gradually bringing light into that dark region, as in bringing to life the unused parts of the mind as you said - a melting away of the shadows

it's all in there, you just need to shape it up and refine it a bit, orchestrate it for full impact -

Again, excellent work - I look forward to more of yours

---todd

I can only echo what's already been said, Hunter, an amazing effort, indeed. Readily apparent theme or not, (you may have obscured it just a little too much, Flapjack's suggestions ring true to me) you've a dainty and deft hand with your word choices. Your language is nothing less than beautiful, even if it had no meaning whatsoever, it would be a pleasure to read, you marry your sounds so well. With your explanation, I loved the concept. Perhaps interjecting some of the words Flap suggested would make your meaning a bit clearer. In any case, a superb effort, as Flap said, we all started somewhere and you're about ten paces ahead of most beginners in my honest opinion. Welcome to the forum, and I look forward to reading more from you soon.

Best,
Lisa

@ Flapjack:

I'll definitely try and do this. I got a little carried away when I wrote the poem initially, so I'll try and bring it back as you say to the original goal. Thanks for your help! Your suggestions will be used well

@ SilverMoon:

Thanks Silver, your advice is muchos appreciated. This idea stemmed from the original metaphor of "dark caverns" as the brain, and I kind of got carried away with it as you can see heh. Your brainstorming idea is interesting however, I might give that a go! Hopefully by the time this is redrafted, it'll have an apparent theme also, I've already found the forums to be great fun, a very friendly wee community

@toddm:

Really appreciate the suggestions, they're all very good. I think I'll follow the latter one, about knowledge being a "light in the dark" etc. As I was saying to Silver, I initially had this metaphor planned in my head, but got caught up in the imagery a bit. Thanks again, greatly appreciated

@ChestersDaughter:

Thanks for the encouragement! I'll hopefully have a redraft by today. Looking forward to knowing you all better, the forums seem very friendly and helpful.


Thanks to everyone, your input is really appreciated. One last thing, how could I make it apparent to readers that the water symbolises knowledge or wisdom, and the caverns are a metaphor for "unused neural pathways"? Or should I just let people play the guessing game?

I can only echo what had already been said by the people above me. This is truly a good piece, portraying an abstract, perhaps unknown theme that need not be unraveled, in my opinion. I'd rather let the reader itself interpret the text, or at least that's how I read poetry.

My little issue with this one is the capitalized letters at the beginning of each line. I don't know about other people, but I find it distracting at times, don't really know why. Keeping the proper capitalization makes the text more fluid to read, at least in my view. Here's a sample:

In the mountains exists a world
that perfectly imprisons darkness.
Bubbling brooklets yield to contours
peacefully ambling through the valley.

Notice that? The two sentence look more complete, and the flow looks smoother.

With regards to the thoughts and imagery brought about by the piece, I have nothing more to say. They were brilliant, and the alliterations you used were just great. "Bubbling brooklets" and "misty miasma" were great touches.

Overall, definitely not bad for a first piece.

There is quite an echo in this thread. Here it is again, lovely first effort. I just wanted to add my encouragement here and I enjoyed the read.

Compelling imagery-I am not a big fan of trying to find hidden meanings.I just want the poetry to take me somewhere...sort of like a good meal-I want to eat and enjoy-feel satisfied and not think about the process...thanks-Jul

Thanks guys! I'm happy that it was "to your taste" this time fire