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I'm not sure I get the meaning of this. The speaker wanders but always finds himself back home, yet resolves to leave, yet it seems like he's already been doing that. So is this saying he's doomed but unaware, or is he saying he's really, truly going to leave this time? The rhymes and rhythms all work well.
The rhythms and stresses are forced in places. I like the use of female rhyme, but the first time you do it, it feel like that extra syllable needs to go on the next line, since you'd always been starting them with unstressed ones.
As to the story, it's cute. Some potion students going to a lot of trouble only to have their efforts in vain, and some of the steps, like the underwear, are downright silly. I do wish I had a picture of how the failure manifests. Does the potion just fizzle and do nothing, does it have the wrong effect, does it explode, etc.?
As to the story, it's cute. Some potion students going to a lot of trouble only to have their efforts in vain, and some of the steps, like the underwear, are downright silly. I do wish I had a picture of how the failure manifests. Does the potion just fizzle and do nothing, does it have the wrong effect, does it explode, etc.?
Ah, a villanelle, one of my favorite forms. Line 14 comes up a syllable short (though a meter isn't required for this form). As to what happens in it, I'm completely lost. I couldn't decipher one bit of it. It seems like the speaker is outside observing nature, but a couple of the lines make it sound like he's inside, but a white-walled room with a sink and a mud floor? I don't know what that would be. Given the prompt, I guess it literally means the person is in a foggy place that eventually clears out? I don't get a message from it, though.
Not a form I can immediately name, but I think I've seen before. I like the interlaced and looped rhyme scheme, and the meter all works. Now this one I do get. A nice story of personifying the fog and making her a mischievous character.
Oh I absolutely adore this. It's so playful and whimsical <3
My highlights are the caterpillar lines (that 2-syllable rhyme gave me Dr. Seuss vibes) and the "Don't breath it" line (when reading I stumble over the rhythm here - in a way that works beautifully as a shouted interruption/warning)
My highlights are the caterpillar lines (that 2-syllable rhyme gave me Dr. Seuss vibes) and the "Don't breath it" line (when reading I stumble over the rhythm here - in a way that works beautifully as a shouted interruption/warning)
A person feeling like they are in exile in their own land or country. "Those dreary days/buried splinter-like inside my chest" is a stinging line of regret. And worst, and epiphany evaded... I feel this poem is reaching for a Dantean sort of irony with the inexorable feeling of its narrative, but something is missing to make it clear what the source of that irony is for the reader.
The weakness here is perhaps in the phrase "points and parsings". I think one apprehends, by the end of the narrative, that this could mean "my thoughts"; but the lack of clarity is a big price to pay for clever alliteration, and certainly such a contrivance is not strong enough on its own to hold up a villanelle, which depends on the reconciliation of its two main lines.
I think what is great about this personification is how neurotic the mist seems to be. She's clingy (naturally), and suffers "rheumatic distresses." As she expands she is aware of her own impermanence. And no one seems to like her, except for me!
I went ahead and performed this sequence, acquiring for myself all the necessary ingredients (including the gravefence pot) and the potion went off without a hitch, so I'm afraid this poem needs to be marked down for inaccuracy.