Can anyone offer a critique of this poem?

later12

I have my own opinions of where it is lacking and what needs to be further developed, but to keep me on track I was just hoping that some of you might be able to offer some advice:)

BONES IN RANNOCH

Everything is bones,
and white, and dry.
In Kinloch Rannoch,
they rattle down to the shops
and buckle in the street.
Mother says I look a little pale.
So she boils some bones in broth
and implores me to eat.

My horse in his wint'ry field is rattling bones.
It's cold.
When he wind blows,
it snows.
His bones crumble with the shiver.
Now he is rubble.
Daddy, come quick --
My horsely is a little bit sick!

Everything is bones,
but bones, and eyes.
When winter sails in with the Vikings,
Rannoch dies.
And skeletons tread ever softly
the white brimmed tide

pickarooney

I've no idea what it's about but I kind of like it. Not sure about the contraction of "wint'ry" or the use of tread without a preposition or immediate noun.

alfa beta

it's very good - I like it too

it's got a lovely eeeeery feel to it - Sylvia Plath meets Seamus Heaney!!

ok critique though.....something not happy about the second section maybe - can't put my finger on it - might be the 'daddy come quick' ref that feels a bit out of place with the rest of the poem...

why though....

Well, the narrator seems to show a good deal of controlled distance and indeed disdain in the first verse - that's good, it sets the tone....but the tone gets a little bit lost at the end of the second section and I think the poem would be better if it didn't. (read the whole poem and leave out the lines 'daddy come quick, my horsey is a little bit sick' and see if you think it reads better)

Love the place names (then again I always do) and the viking ref and the wonderful coldness that emanates from the words.

you've got talent!!

PurpleBee

alfa beta wrote: »

Well, the narrator seems to show a good deal of controlled distance and indeed disdain in the first verse - that's good, it sets the tone....but the tone gets a little bit lost at the end of the second section and I think the poem would be better if it didn't. (read the whole poem and leave out the lines 'daddy come quick, my horsey is a little bit sick' and see if you think it reads better)

I like the "daddy, come quick" line I see it more as a perspectival shift than an inconsistency and it follows from the mother feeding the child bones thread that runs from the first verse. It seems to me that the line is important in holding the piece together.

alfa beta

PurpleBee wrote: »

I like the "daddy, come quick" line I see it more as a perspectival shift than an inconsistency and it follows from the mother feeding the child bones thread that runs from the first verse. It seems to me that the line is important in holding the piece together.

I read that poem again this morning and I have to say I now agree with you

I actually think its an excellent piece of writing and I'd like to know where the writer thinks it's lacking - coz I really don't see it lacking anything!

The only tiny thing I'm now wondering about is the use of the word 'but' at the start of the second line in the last verse....it sounds wrong - would it be better if that was something like 'just' as in 'just bones and eyes...'

Regardless of that it is a wonderfully bleak little gem of a poem and it really conjures up some great images. Thanks for writing and posting Later10

later12

alfa beta wrote: »

something not happy about the second section maybe - can't put my finger on it - might be the 'daddy come quick' ref that feels a bit out of place with the rest of the poem...


why though....

Well, the narrator seems to show a good deal of controlled distance and indeed disdain in the first verse - that's good, it sets the tone....but the tone gets a little bit lost at the end of the second section and I think the poem would be better if it didn't. (read the whole poem and leave out the lines 'daddy come quick, my horsey is a little bit sick' and see if you think it reads better)

I think you may be right about this, and it may be because there was a third verse which I have taken out, which began with the lines to the (currently) last verse. I just welded the opening of the (missing) third verse onto this final verse to give the current result. I'm not entirely happy about it. I think I may have removed the poem of some of its context, which is one of my biggest problems with what the poem is lacking.

alfa beta wrote: »

The only tiny thing I'm now wondering about is the use of the word 'but' at the start of the second line in the last verse....it sounds wrong - would it be better if that was something like 'just' as in 'just bones and eyes...

Well spotted because as I said above, that probably came about through ripping "Everything is bones/ but bones and eyes" out of a stanza that I subsequently have removed and sticking it onto the last stanza, so the 'but' may have lost some relevance. I'm thinking I should just go back and rework the missing third stanza altogether, maybe i'll post it up here when I've finished if you guys would be willing to comment:)

Thanks pickarooney and purplebe for your comments as well. It's refreshing to get some clear pointers. You can really get lost in your own mind when you look at a piece for too long. I'm off for a walk to think about how to apply the changes. Thanks for your help.

PurpleBee

later10 wrote: »

Everything is bones,
but bones, and eyes.

Its funny how poems can be misread. I first thought the "but" was used in a weird negating sense. As in everything is bones except bones and eyes, in that nothing is as it is supposed to be.

Then I realised the other meaning and kind of liked the ambiguity that arose from my inability to decide what it really meant

Coffeeapple

Very nice. I can see a lot of Eliot in this.

I'm not sure about the line "When he wind blows." Is "he" a typo? It rolls off the tongue nicely as it is, but I can't find much sense in it.