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Luna Upon Sulva
“Consider: Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such a one as thyself.”
She says, the younger sister standing
Somewhere between Then and Now,
Adjacent to Never and Resting like a ship in port above Forever,
Or, to tell it true,
I do not know where and when they were,
But that there were two of them
There are always two of them, in different guises across varied time there are
Always Two.
One, she upon the right,
A Proud mare and a Good one,
Her heart beat in her chest like a sturdy marching drum, her eyes
Like bonfires blazed with burning Charity, her
Lips tasted of Honey, her
Body was the Sun and her hooves were cast in shining bronze
Light, blinding and searing light pours from her unendingly, and
Here, past the furthest shore and beyond the sphere of the world she
Lets down her mane
And her glory is free, her body a ripple of the solar wind upon Arbol.
What heart can hide from such a light? What eye can see it? What mind could
If it were possible to see her for long
Bear it? There are terrors of the flesh and of the spirit, born of miserable things
But there is another Terror, and that is the knowledge, like knives at one’s throat
Digging in
That Someone has seen too much and brought too much of you into the light
And that there is nothing coming but some
Awful
Embrace--
To say it in short what horror compares to Love without Expectation?
That is what it is like to see the Sun, walking in the god’s playing field
Between one universe and the next.
Yet her sister was different.
See the moon,
See it, if you can--
Her form is nothing and no one, it is
Less presence. No presence, but the weight of the lack of Something
How dark is the night which knows no torch, no candle, no
Stars by which prisoners in baleful cages chart their coming escape
And yet that night which passes eventually can not compare to the Night Exultant
What revelries can soil the streets of the cities, what passion could lovers have, what
Torments could wrack lonely minds in the feverish valley between midnight and morning
That could compare to this deepst Night, which shrouds the Moon
For she too has let her glory unfurl in the safety of the space between worlds.
Her hooves are silver, her eyes are dark pools beneath the coldest mountains, her
Steps are measured to plum upon the wild beats of distant paeans. Her lips are wine and
Hemlock, her body is the formless darkness which sits in wait at the base of the skull
Patient for that last gentle Departure. To see her is to see
That last rendezvous with death that all things have, the clearing at the end of the path where sits
Some Other Thing
Different from all that came before it,
And if one could bear to watch
(If one could bear not to watch)
Perhaps she would turn her eyes on you, and then
If so
You would know what it is like not to be seen, not to be
Found out so much as Known.
It is one thing to have the secrets you buried deep beneath your house come
Awful into the light
And it is another entirely to have those secrets kept where they are
And have someone recite them by rote, their voice
Mocking and then Becoming your own, their cadance your cadance their
Tongue your tongue their heart your heart their flesh your flesh.
To be Known darkly and deeply is the most frightening thing.
The Sun laughed, and said:
“What is there that is alien to me? And to what do I find myself estranged?
“What could be so bound to me as you are, Moon Dearest Ours in Sisterhood
“And be foreign?”
(They walk side by side these Two, the world entire, and beyond them
(I think, are other worlds and times, the
(Roiling)
“Sister Sun, do not pretend that your light has addled your thoughts,
“Nor, as you love us, profess ignorance.”
“If I might--”
“You might not. Peace
“Be still, and listen.”
So spake the Moon and the stars appeared about them
A field in truth a
Shining Plain of Abrol, so they call it somewhere and so I’m told
These Two know it as.such,
Or,
Again--I speak only what I’m told, and have only that to offer--
Or, just so I’m told.
The Moon and Sun came to rest upon
A new world, another iteration of Being and Time
And rested in a garden there, which they found
Furnished with alabaster couches adorned with softest pillows
And other Earthly and Unearthly delights
And continued their long Argument.
Ponies came and went. Lovely ponies, their eyes bright with
Love, full of it like a cup poured by a cheerful drunkard runs over
And their talk would pause a moment
--I mean this less literally--
Until such ponies would pass, or leave, or find themselves too busy
To sit with the Sisters Two in their gardens.
Then the Argument would begin again,
Going ‘round and ‘round again.
“I am not as you are,” began the Moon again,
As the last of their friends parted with a peaceful sigh.
“Nor can I be--what alliance can Day have with Night? What
“Bond can thrive between the Fire and the Shadows which Dance at the edge?
“Can the commoner come into eat at the King’s feast?
“No, I think that we are altogether different. More than that--
“More I mean to say that we are a chasm which cannot be bridged.
“We must be parted, at some point, we must be
“And when that hour comes I fear there will be no chance of healing.”
“You are as I are,” the Sun sang softly into her cups as faceless servants brought wine.
A castle was being built now to wall the garden off. No ponies could
Breach it without consent. Only now could their glory be let loose, where their small friends
And fragile subjects might be safe, knowing the glow without losing their eyes to the light.
“You are flesh as I am flesh. You are blood as I am blood. You
“Live as I live, and walk as I walk. You said to listen, and I have always listened.
“If I might,
“Do you not care for the little ones who sit at our feet? And do you not teach them to sing songs
“Which echo in our stone halls, this castle living with their harmony, their voices bright bells?
“Sister, Dearest Sister, you and I cannot be kept apart. Even if Time were to crack
“And the foxes all faced the hounds at last
“Even if, my love, my heart,
“Even if all Being were split in two halves and we found ourselves truly on either side of the gulf
“Even if that were to come to pass, I tell you that we would be united again.”
“You have not brought an answer forward,” the Moon said, years later,
“And you have not answered my complaint. I did not expect you to, but
“I supposed you should hear so. My complaint, again,
“Put simply, again:
“We are utterly different. Oil and water. I, the oil, and you the waters of life
“I am the end and you are the beginning, and all your happiness in me finds its shallow grave.”
The castle grew taller, and around it sprouted up a town, bustling with life.
A principality was here which struggled valiantly with a world that had been accustomed to
Unkind deeds, and by gentle firmness was it softened and its edges blunted.
The Argument, which never dies, paused. Things there were to do, and foes to slay,
Friends to cherish, and lovers to submit to in joy together
But it could not die. Such things do not die.
It would be like saying that sadness was over.
Old advisors died, old heroes faded, and again there came a conversation over a dinner table.
“What is so different? I have answered you as I know your question. Logically,
“You are of the same sort of thing as I am. We wear the same shape.
“Our aspects are different, yes, but you do mean something so small as that.
“Our natures as they are physically you cannot mean, for that would be foolishness,
“And the night’s foolishness is a different kind of foolishness, more madness than anything else.”
“And what, pray tell, would you know of night?”
“Enough, I think, to last me today,” the Sun answered at length.
“And a bit of tomorrow. I know what it is like to sink into a soft bed at the close of day. I know
“The passion of the night, the mystery of it (from afar) and the contradiction of it. I know
“How dark it can get, how a thing can seem to be but not as the shadows change. I know
“The hollow feeling of famine after midnight, and the fear which stabs the heart and dashes it I know.””
“No, you know the surface,” the Moon said with a sneer.
“You do not know much, sister Mine. Not much! And not enough, not enough
“By half. What would I know of the sun after all?
“I know my shadow lengthening at noon and my stomach empty by mid day. I know
“The frustration of heat and the indignity of sweat, I know
“The alienation of one’s labor and the hardening of one’s callouses under arrogant fire.”
“Perhaps, sister, the problem is you do not know the Sun,” said the Sun, and meant it in more way that one.
“Perhaps you do not see that we are alike because you see trifles and imagine horrors.
“Has it occurred to you that there is more to the day than a shadow of your experience?”
War came, and with it all the woes that flesh is sadly heir to--
Famine, plague, and victory, Death’s fellow travelers
Circles around the principality like vultures.
But the tide turns.
Peace brings time, and time brings the space for talking, and these things breed Argument.
“And has it occurred to you that the same might be said of you? That my experience
“Is not as full as yours? That there is more to the Night than revels and song?
“You think that your light will shine forever, and maybe it will--
“You think your love will last forever, and maybe it will--
“But I won’t hold my breath. I won’t wait to see. You’ll snap or I’ll snap.
“Sisterhood, our love and our yoke, is not some immutable thing.
“You know that nothing lasts. We too will die.”
The Sun sighed long and loud.
“What is your motivation? Why do you continue this? Do you want me to leave you be?”
“No, I want the opposite.”
“Then why persist?”
“Because I must. Because if we do not know where the edge is, how will we be safe anywhere?”
The days were longer. The days were fuller, and not happier.
The Principality had grown. The ponies did not come often into the garden, and the Moon rarely left.
Sullen, she saw no one. She had all the time in the world for Argument
But the Sun was exhausted from growing duties.
Talk was turned down in favor of bed.
Again, again
Again
Like so--
“Sister, would you talk? Would you parley with us upon the green? We can talk of anything
“Anything at all, even if it is not our old discussion, anything! I wish to hear you speak.”
“I can’t. I can’t. I can’t, I’m--”
The Moon stalks the high walls around her garden and considers the nature of time.
The Sun slinks into her bed until tomorrow.
The Sun assumes the world is always a cycle. She assumes all things move from one to another,
She assumes that what works for me will work for you. She assumes that
The numbers add up and that the sentence scans. She assumes.
The Moon says
“Time, you
“Insatiable beast. You highwaymare of Being, you
“Shred all things and break their bones in the end. You catch us all.
“You catch even Us, my sister and I. Time always catches up.
“We came here to rest awhile before we continued in Arbol
“And bit by bit our stay extended. Tomorrow, we said, tomorrow we shall leave.
“We can go any time we want to,” she said and shivered in dark on the edge of winter
“That is what we said. We can go anywhere
“But I’ll tell you this, sister, and I’ll fill you in, Time:
“I hoped for this. I hoped that one day I would be right. I hoped because
“I will know one way or another by the end of it all which of us was right.
“Is love elastic? Does it bend under the weight of necessity, or does it snap?
“If I lose upon the field, or if I win, what then? What then?
“What then?”
She continues at length.
“Here are my truths, Night which I made. Hear them and write them upon your hearts
“Nothing comes from nothing, and from barren ground no seeds sprout into plants.
“Love is read by its fruits. Patient, kind, aye--but its the fruit we see, it’s the
“The outside that we need. We’ll
“Try again, if you find me. If you come after me, if you give chase
“For I’ll lead you astray a thousand years
“A chase after a wild goose and you’ll trip out among the stars and land on
“Cold and lonely Sulva, you know the place
“The moon above this world, the place that’s dead on one side and alive on the other.
“Time, you bitch, learn this: long ago we had our own trials and mine was Sulva, to live among the living there. My burden was to watch them die. My burden was to
“Lead them.
“My sister’s? I know not.
“But mine taught me this: that love is in the fruits
“And that if there is any endurance to a thing it must be tested.
“So I’ll test my sister quickly, when night is in its darkest core
“And we’ll know it all one way or another, won’t we?”
She says, the younger sister standing
Somewhere between Then and Now,
Adjacent to Never and Resting like a ship in port above Forever,
Or, to tell it true,
I do not know where and when they were,
But that there were two of them
There are always two of them, in different guises across varied time there are
Always Two.
One, she upon the right,
A Proud mare and a Good one,
Her heart beat in her chest like a sturdy marching drum, her eyes
Like bonfires blazed with burning Charity, her
Lips tasted of Honey, her
Body was the Sun and her hooves were cast in shining bronze
Light, blinding and searing light pours from her unendingly, and
Here, past the furthest shore and beyond the sphere of the world she
Lets down her mane
And her glory is free, her body a ripple of the solar wind upon Arbol.
What heart can hide from such a light? What eye can see it? What mind could
If it were possible to see her for long
Bear it? There are terrors of the flesh and of the spirit, born of miserable things
But there is another Terror, and that is the knowledge, like knives at one’s throat
Digging in
That Someone has seen too much and brought too much of you into the light
And that there is nothing coming but some
Awful
Embrace--
To say it in short what horror compares to Love without Expectation?
That is what it is like to see the Sun, walking in the god’s playing field
Between one universe and the next.
Yet her sister was different.
See the moon,
See it, if you can--
Her form is nothing and no one, it is
Less presence. No presence, but the weight of the lack of Something
How dark is the night which knows no torch, no candle, no
Stars by which prisoners in baleful cages chart their coming escape
And yet that night which passes eventually can not compare to the Night Exultant
What revelries can soil the streets of the cities, what passion could lovers have, what
Torments could wrack lonely minds in the feverish valley between midnight and morning
That could compare to this deepst Night, which shrouds the Moon
For she too has let her glory unfurl in the safety of the space between worlds.
Her hooves are silver, her eyes are dark pools beneath the coldest mountains, her
Steps are measured to plum upon the wild beats of distant paeans. Her lips are wine and
Hemlock, her body is the formless darkness which sits in wait at the base of the skull
Patient for that last gentle Departure. To see her is to see
That last rendezvous with death that all things have, the clearing at the end of the path where sits
Some Other Thing
Different from all that came before it,
And if one could bear to watch
(If one could bear not to watch)
Perhaps she would turn her eyes on you, and then
If so
You would know what it is like not to be seen, not to be
Found out so much as Known.
It is one thing to have the secrets you buried deep beneath your house come
Awful into the light
And it is another entirely to have those secrets kept where they are
And have someone recite them by rote, their voice
Mocking and then Becoming your own, their cadance your cadance their
Tongue your tongue their heart your heart their flesh your flesh.
To be Known darkly and deeply is the most frightening thing.
The Sun laughed, and said:
“What is there that is alien to me? And to what do I find myself estranged?
“What could be so bound to me as you are, Moon Dearest Ours in Sisterhood
“And be foreign?”
(They walk side by side these Two, the world entire, and beyond them
(I think, are other worlds and times, the
(Roiling)
“Sister Sun, do not pretend that your light has addled your thoughts,
“Nor, as you love us, profess ignorance.”
“If I might--”
“You might not. Peace
“Be still, and listen.”
So spake the Moon and the stars appeared about them
A field in truth a
Shining Plain of Abrol, so they call it somewhere and so I’m told
These Two know it as.such,
Or,
Again--I speak only what I’m told, and have only that to offer--
Or, just so I’m told.
The Moon and Sun came to rest upon
A new world, another iteration of Being and Time
And rested in a garden there, which they found
Furnished with alabaster couches adorned with softest pillows
And other Earthly and Unearthly delights
And continued their long Argument.
Ponies came and went. Lovely ponies, their eyes bright with
Love, full of it like a cup poured by a cheerful drunkard runs over
And their talk would pause a moment
--I mean this less literally--
Until such ponies would pass, or leave, or find themselves too busy
To sit with the Sisters Two in their gardens.
Then the Argument would begin again,
Going ‘round and ‘round again.
“I am not as you are,” began the Moon again,
As the last of their friends parted with a peaceful sigh.
“Nor can I be--what alliance can Day have with Night? What
“Bond can thrive between the Fire and the Shadows which Dance at the edge?
“Can the commoner come into eat at the King’s feast?
“No, I think that we are altogether different. More than that--
“More I mean to say that we are a chasm which cannot be bridged.
“We must be parted, at some point, we must be
“And when that hour comes I fear there will be no chance of healing.”
“You are as I are,” the Sun sang softly into her cups as faceless servants brought wine.
A castle was being built now to wall the garden off. No ponies could
Breach it without consent. Only now could their glory be let loose, where their small friends
And fragile subjects might be safe, knowing the glow without losing their eyes to the light.
“You are flesh as I am flesh. You are blood as I am blood. You
“Live as I live, and walk as I walk. You said to listen, and I have always listened.
“If I might,
“Do you not care for the little ones who sit at our feet? And do you not teach them to sing songs
“Which echo in our stone halls, this castle living with their harmony, their voices bright bells?
“Sister, Dearest Sister, you and I cannot be kept apart. Even if Time were to crack
“And the foxes all faced the hounds at last
“Even if, my love, my heart,
“Even if all Being were split in two halves and we found ourselves truly on either side of the gulf
“Even if that were to come to pass, I tell you that we would be united again.”
“You have not brought an answer forward,” the Moon said, years later,
“And you have not answered my complaint. I did not expect you to, but
“I supposed you should hear so. My complaint, again,
“Put simply, again:
“We are utterly different. Oil and water. I, the oil, and you the waters of life
“I am the end and you are the beginning, and all your happiness in me finds its shallow grave.”
The castle grew taller, and around it sprouted up a town, bustling with life.
A principality was here which struggled valiantly with a world that had been accustomed to
Unkind deeds, and by gentle firmness was it softened and its edges blunted.
The Argument, which never dies, paused. Things there were to do, and foes to slay,
Friends to cherish, and lovers to submit to in joy together
But it could not die. Such things do not die.
It would be like saying that sadness was over.
Old advisors died, old heroes faded, and again there came a conversation over a dinner table.
“What is so different? I have answered you as I know your question. Logically,
“You are of the same sort of thing as I am. We wear the same shape.
“Our aspects are different, yes, but you do mean something so small as that.
“Our natures as they are physically you cannot mean, for that would be foolishness,
“And the night’s foolishness is a different kind of foolishness, more madness than anything else.”
“And what, pray tell, would you know of night?”
“Enough, I think, to last me today,” the Sun answered at length.
“And a bit of tomorrow. I know what it is like to sink into a soft bed at the close of day. I know
“The passion of the night, the mystery of it (from afar) and the contradiction of it. I know
“How dark it can get, how a thing can seem to be but not as the shadows change. I know
“The hollow feeling of famine after midnight, and the fear which stabs the heart and dashes it I know.””
“No, you know the surface,” the Moon said with a sneer.
“You do not know much, sister Mine. Not much! And not enough, not enough
“By half. What would I know of the sun after all?
“I know my shadow lengthening at noon and my stomach empty by mid day. I know
“The frustration of heat and the indignity of sweat, I know
“The alienation of one’s labor and the hardening of one’s callouses under arrogant fire.”
“Perhaps, sister, the problem is you do not know the Sun,” said the Sun, and meant it in more way that one.
“Perhaps you do not see that we are alike because you see trifles and imagine horrors.
“Has it occurred to you that there is more to the day than a shadow of your experience?”
War came, and with it all the woes that flesh is sadly heir to--
Famine, plague, and victory, Death’s fellow travelers
Circles around the principality like vultures.
But the tide turns.
Peace brings time, and time brings the space for talking, and these things breed Argument.
“And has it occurred to you that the same might be said of you? That my experience
“Is not as full as yours? That there is more to the Night than revels and song?
“You think that your light will shine forever, and maybe it will--
“You think your love will last forever, and maybe it will--
“But I won’t hold my breath. I won’t wait to see. You’ll snap or I’ll snap.
“Sisterhood, our love and our yoke, is not some immutable thing.
“You know that nothing lasts. We too will die.”
The Sun sighed long and loud.
“What is your motivation? Why do you continue this? Do you want me to leave you be?”
“No, I want the opposite.”
“Then why persist?”
“Because I must. Because if we do not know where the edge is, how will we be safe anywhere?”
The days were longer. The days were fuller, and not happier.
The Principality had grown. The ponies did not come often into the garden, and the Moon rarely left.
Sullen, she saw no one. She had all the time in the world for Argument
But the Sun was exhausted from growing duties.
Talk was turned down in favor of bed.
Again, again
Again
Like so--
“Sister, would you talk? Would you parley with us upon the green? We can talk of anything
“Anything at all, even if it is not our old discussion, anything! I wish to hear you speak.”
“I can’t. I can’t. I can’t, I’m--”
The Moon stalks the high walls around her garden and considers the nature of time.
The Sun slinks into her bed until tomorrow.
The Sun assumes the world is always a cycle. She assumes all things move from one to another,
She assumes that what works for me will work for you. She assumes that
The numbers add up and that the sentence scans. She assumes.
The Moon says
“Time, you
“Insatiable beast. You highwaymare of Being, you
“Shred all things and break their bones in the end. You catch us all.
“You catch even Us, my sister and I. Time always catches up.
“We came here to rest awhile before we continued in Arbol
“And bit by bit our stay extended. Tomorrow, we said, tomorrow we shall leave.
“We can go any time we want to,” she said and shivered in dark on the edge of winter
“That is what we said. We can go anywhere
“But I’ll tell you this, sister, and I’ll fill you in, Time:
“I hoped for this. I hoped that one day I would be right. I hoped because
“I will know one way or another by the end of it all which of us was right.
“Is love elastic? Does it bend under the weight of necessity, or does it snap?
“If I lose upon the field, or if I win, what then? What then?
“What then?”
She continues at length.
“Here are my truths, Night which I made. Hear them and write them upon your hearts
“Nothing comes from nothing, and from barren ground no seeds sprout into plants.
“Love is read by its fruits. Patient, kind, aye--but its the fruit we see, it’s the
“The outside that we need. We’ll
“Try again, if you find me. If you come after me, if you give chase
“For I’ll lead you astray a thousand years
“A chase after a wild goose and you’ll trip out among the stars and land on
“Cold and lonely Sulva, you know the place
“The moon above this world, the place that’s dead on one side and alive on the other.
“Time, you bitch, learn this: long ago we had our own trials and mine was Sulva, to live among the living there. My burden was to watch them die. My burden was to
“Lead them.
“My sister’s? I know not.
“But mine taught me this: that love is in the fruits
“And that if there is any endurance to a thing it must be tested.
“So I’ll test my sister quickly, when night is in its darkest core
“And we’ll know it all one way or another, won’t we?”
September is the coolest month, reading
Ponies out of the Writeoffs, mixing
Poetry and philosophy, stirring
Hearts with blank verse.
Readers point out flaws, noting
"thoughtest" in line one, opening
weak with Ye Olde Englishe tongue-tangles, yet
In galleries the poems gather, elegant,
Echoing TS Eliot.
[Full review later, probably much later; there's a lot here to let sink in. But my impression already is that this is soaking with ambition and in places there's a lot of beauty dripping out.]
Ponies out of the Writeoffs, mixing
Poetry and philosophy, stirring
Hearts with blank verse.
Readers point out flaws, noting
"thoughtest" in line one, opening
weak with Ye Olde Englishe tongue-tangles, yet
In galleries the poems gather, elegant,
Echoing TS Eliot.
[Full review later, probably much later; there's a lot here to let sink in. But my impression already is that this is soaking with ambition and in places there's a lot of beauty dripping out.]
I think I need to abstain on this one.
I'm not much for unstructured, un-rhymed verse. I can't even tell if this is metered. I applaud your ambition, but this isn't for me.
I guess... contrasting to 'The Hollow Men', one of the few free verse poems I'll actually claim to enjoy, I'd like a faster pace. In T.S. Elliot's work, the imagery is packed much closer together, the lines are no longer than a few words, and the verses are terse with sharply varied content.
I'm not saying you should write that, because you should write exactly what you want. Just... I'm probably definitely not in your audience. I apologize, because I couldn't finish this.
I'm not much for unstructured, un-rhymed verse. I can't even tell if this is metered. I applaud your ambition, but this isn't for me.
I guess... contrasting to 'The Hollow Men', one of the few free verse poems I'll actually claim to enjoy, I'd like a faster pace. In T.S. Elliot's work, the imagery is packed much closer together, the lines are no longer than a few words, and the verses are terse with sharply varied content.
I'm not saying you should write that, because you should write exactly what you want. Just... I'm probably definitely not in your audience. I apologize, because I couldn't finish this.
>>Not_A_Hat
I wanna jump into this thread to rebut this even though I get the feeling we'll probably end up podcasting about this one. Specifically, I wanna ask why you're looking for a faster pace in a story that spans years? Slow pacing is the better choice, imo, for reflecting that. Particularly in poetry, and especially in free verse, form that reflects content is almost always the right choice.
Like horizon, I wanna spend a bit of time with this before I post (or podcast) my full thoughts. Still, first impressions are important and I expect the author will benefit from hearing them (even if I come back later to contradict myself), so here are mine:
• That first sentence (after the dialogue, which is punctuated as a sentence despite the dialogue tag? aaaaaaaaaaa) is glorious and I adore it.
• Dubs poked me on discord while I was reading this about uncomfortable and awkward choices of line breaks and ever since I've been unable to not notice them. Sorry, author. [Edit: spoilered so I don't affect other people the same way Dubs affected me.]
• The heck is going on with dialogue punctuation? Like, I know in prose that carrying dialogue over to a new paragraph is done exactly as you have done here, but... these are line breaks in poetry. You don't need to re-open quote marks for every single one. Doing so, as I think you've aptly demonstrated, makes it really diffiult (not to mention exhausting) to read.
• Pro tip to people struggling: read it aloud. Oh my god. This isn't even pretty words: it's pretty sounds and pretty mouth shapes and it just feels good to say. If anyone wants me to, I'm happy to record a reading of this one (I know there are a bunch of folks here who struggle to read free verse, and I figured that might help them judge it. Plus it's pretty and I want to. So there. Nyeh.)
I wanna jump into this thread to rebut this even though I get the feeling we'll probably end up podcasting about this one. Specifically, I wanna ask why you're looking for a faster pace in a story that spans years? Slow pacing is the better choice, imo, for reflecting that. Particularly in poetry, and especially in free verse, form that reflects content is almost always the right choice.
Like horizon, I wanna spend a bit of time with this before I post (or podcast) my full thoughts. Still, first impressions are important and I expect the author will benefit from hearing them (even if I come back later to contradict myself), so here are mine:
• That first sentence (after the dialogue, which is punctuated as a sentence despite the dialogue tag? aaaaaaaaaaa) is glorious and I adore it.
• Dubs poked me on discord while I was reading this about uncomfortable and awkward choices of line breaks and ever since I've been unable to not notice them. Sorry, author. [Edit: spoilered so I don't affect other people the same way Dubs affected me.]
• The heck is going on with dialogue punctuation? Like, I know in prose that carrying dialogue over to a new paragraph is done exactly as you have done here, but... these are line breaks in poetry. You don't need to re-open quote marks for every single one. Doing so, as I think you've aptly demonstrated, makes it really diffiult (not to mention exhausting) to read.
• Pro tip to people struggling: read it aloud. Oh my god. This isn't even pretty words: it's pretty sounds and pretty mouth shapes and it just feels good to say. If anyone wants me to, I'm happy to record a reading of this one (I know there are a bunch of folks here who struggle to read free verse, and I figured that might help them judge it. Plus it's pretty and I want to. So there. Nyeh.)
>>QuillScratch I want faster pacing because I find this very offputting. Sure, form that reflects content might be great, but I don't think it's worthwhile if it makes the piece boring.
But then, I don't think I even agree that the slow pacing mirrored the content. Admittedly, I didn't get much farther than
But in the opening block, between Luna's opening question and Celestia's reply, there are sixty-three lines of poetry. I pasted this into a spreadsheet to count. It's full of florid description, ballistic capitalization, and vague stuff like
Make of that what you will. But sixty-three lines between the question and reply? Unless you're going to say that the response was years coming, I don't think that's 'pacing reflecting content'. It's just confusing.
Blergh. If you're right about people voting this up for the podcast... I should probably take another go at this tomorrow. Maybe when I'm better rested I'll have a higher tolerance, and can formulate some more worthwhile opinions.
But then, I don't think I even agree that the slow pacing mirrored the content. Admittedly, I didn't get much farther than
The Moon and Sun came to rest upon
But in the opening block, between Luna's opening question and Celestia's reply, there are sixty-three lines of poetry. I pasted this into a spreadsheet to count. It's full of florid description, ballistic capitalization, and vague stuff like
To say it in short what horror compares to Love without Expectation?
Make of that what you will. But sixty-three lines between the question and reply? Unless you're going to say that the response was years coming, I don't think that's 'pacing reflecting content'. It's just confusing.
Blergh. If you're right about people voting this up for the podcast... I should probably take another go at this tomorrow. Maybe when I'm better rested I'll have a higher tolerance, and can formulate some more worthwhile opinions.
>>Not_A_Hat
Yes, I am:
Unless you're going to say that the response was years coming...
Yes, I am:
“You have not brought an answer forward,” the Moon said, years later...
>>Not_A_Hat
True, but the implication from it and other quotes that I would find if I weren't walking to work is that this conversation quite literally spans centuries. There being no narration to specifically indicate that there's a time jump between the lines of dialogue you specify is no reason to assume there isn't one, in the context of the whole piece. I'll concede that it's a large gap when first reading, but... well, poetry does have a long tradition of being long-winded re:exposition (c.f. Paradise Lost), so I don't feel that's necessarily a bad thing.
Don't get me wrong: I'm not 100% on board with how the pacing has been slowed in several cases, here. But the execution being off doesn't mean that the poem would benefit from a faster pacing, given its subject matter: just a different approach to slow pacing, here and there.
(And given I still haven't spent the time with this one that I feel I need to, I'm not convinced I'm gonna be saying even that much against it by the end of the week.)
True, but the implication from it and other quotes that I would find if I weren't walking to work is that this conversation quite literally spans centuries. There being no narration to specifically indicate that there's a time jump between the lines of dialogue you specify is no reason to assume there isn't one, in the context of the whole piece. I'll concede that it's a large gap when first reading, but... well, poetry does have a long tradition of being long-winded re:exposition (c.f. Paradise Lost), so I don't feel that's necessarily a bad thing.
Don't get me wrong: I'm not 100% on board with how the pacing has been slowed in several cases, here. But the execution being off doesn't mean that the poem would benefit from a faster pacing, given its subject matter: just a different approach to slow pacing, here and there.
(And given I still haven't spent the time with this one that I feel I need to, I'm not convinced I'm gonna be saying even that much against it by the end of the week.)
>>QuillScratch ...yeah, not buying it. So, I did finish reading this, and you're right, there are indications that this conversation stretches centuries.
HOWEVER!
This can't apply to the first paragraph, for several reasons.
Firstly, the first clear indication that the conversation takes centuries comes in at
And this doesn't happen until the fifth paragraph. If the author intended the pacing in the opening to reflect the passage of time, that should be marked! Because in every following instance I noticed, the passage of time was marked, either by blank lines, or explicit numeration (like your 'years later') or some combination of the two. Claiming that the dialogue in the first paragraph takes 'x long amount of time' between the question and answer is as ridiculous as postulating the pacing is slow because Celestia and Luna speak reeeeeeeaaaaaallllllyyyy slllllooooowwwwwlllllyyy. Like, you might be right, but I can't agree that the textual evidence supports it.
Secondly!
What's going on in the first paragraph, between the lines of dialogue, is fundamentally different from what goes in the rest of the poem. What we have in the rest of the poem is dialogue and description of time passing; what we have in the first paragraph is dialogue and description of the sisters. This is important, because if you describe time passing, then it obviously takes time, but the narrator's description in stories usually doesn't. Like, if my character rounds a bend and stumbles on a glade, which I then narrate a lovingly detailed description for, it doesn't matter if the description is one paragraph or ten; it doesn't take up any of the character's time, because it's narration. That's what we have here; not descriptions of character actions, but narrative descriptions of the sisters themselves. As such, claiming there's centuries between the question and answer is like saying Celestia and Luna don't talk and reply at normal speed, when they obviously do; we see them talk normally all the time in the show.
What I mean to say is, the author would need to do more than they have to sell me on this, because it looks to me like an extreme break from narrative convention and show canon.
Thirdly!
In the rest of the poem, the pacing is less slow.
That is, in the parts where it explicitly takes centuries between question and answer, the lines are shorter, things are broken into paragraphs of reasonable length, and the author doesn't dwell on a single image or metaphor for more than a few lines. (Except for the whole 'nuh-uh, uh-huh, nuh-uh, uh-huh' thing Celestia and Luna have going... and this might be an artifact of length, but I'd have liked to see more development in their discussion) That is, if the pacing is supposed to reflect the content, then why is it faster-paced in the end, where the lengths of time are explicitly mentioned, as opposed to the opening, where the only support for 'it takes centuries' is inferred from later information, and weakly at that?
To re-iterate, I won't say the pacing is 'bad'; I don't think I can judge that. But it's definitely not for me. And... I just don't think I can agree with your statement that it reflects the content, no matter how it's spun.
Anyways, as I said above, I did finish the poem, and I found the bits I hadn't read rather more readable than the bits I did. So here's a bit of not-pacing-related critique. Author, your imagery feels rather too opaque to me. Things like 'unconditional love is horrifying' feel... too confusing, without enough payoff. I can't tell what you're trying to do by asserting something that seems like nonsense to me, so it simply feels nonsensical. Victory is a woe of the flesh? What? Some things like the explicit narrator (the 'I can only say what I'm told' bits) doesn't seem to be doing much of anything, either, except adding an extra layer of abstraction. The last section feels especially odd to me; I have no idea what Sulva is (googling got me something on a ww2 beachhead, or hindu scriptures for making fire altars?) but it's apparently really important here, enough to be in the closing and the title. ...I just have no idea what it means.
I still don't think I'm going to vote on this, because I'm probably definitely judging it too much like prose; I've been told I shouldn't do that in the past.
HOWEVER!
This can't apply to the first paragraph, for several reasons.
Firstly, the first clear indication that the conversation takes centuries comes in at
And their talk would pause a moment
--I mean this less literally--
And this doesn't happen until the fifth paragraph. If the author intended the pacing in the opening to reflect the passage of time, that should be marked! Because in every following instance I noticed, the passage of time was marked, either by blank lines, or explicit numeration (like your 'years later') or some combination of the two. Claiming that the dialogue in the first paragraph takes 'x long amount of time' between the question and answer is as ridiculous as postulating the pacing is slow because Celestia and Luna speak reeeeeeeaaaaaallllllyyyy slllllooooowwwwwlllllyyy. Like, you might be right, but I can't agree that the textual evidence supports it.
Secondly!
What's going on in the first paragraph, between the lines of dialogue, is fundamentally different from what goes in the rest of the poem. What we have in the rest of the poem is dialogue and description of time passing; what we have in the first paragraph is dialogue and description of the sisters. This is important, because if you describe time passing, then it obviously takes time, but the narrator's description in stories usually doesn't. Like, if my character rounds a bend and stumbles on a glade, which I then narrate a lovingly detailed description for, it doesn't matter if the description is one paragraph or ten; it doesn't take up any of the character's time, because it's narration. That's what we have here; not descriptions of character actions, but narrative descriptions of the sisters themselves. As such, claiming there's centuries between the question and answer is like saying Celestia and Luna don't talk and reply at normal speed, when they obviously do; we see them talk normally all the time in the show.
What I mean to say is, the author would need to do more than they have to sell me on this, because it looks to me like an extreme break from narrative convention and show canon.
Thirdly!
In the rest of the poem, the pacing is less slow.
That is, in the parts where it explicitly takes centuries between question and answer, the lines are shorter, things are broken into paragraphs of reasonable length, and the author doesn't dwell on a single image or metaphor for more than a few lines. (Except for the whole 'nuh-uh, uh-huh, nuh-uh, uh-huh' thing Celestia and Luna have going... and this might be an artifact of length, but I'd have liked to see more development in their discussion) That is, if the pacing is supposed to reflect the content, then why is it faster-paced in the end, where the lengths of time are explicitly mentioned, as opposed to the opening, where the only support for 'it takes centuries' is inferred from later information, and weakly at that?
To re-iterate, I won't say the pacing is 'bad'; I don't think I can judge that. But it's definitely not for me. And... I just don't think I can agree with your statement that it reflects the content, no matter how it's spun.
Anyways, as I said above, I did finish the poem, and I found the bits I hadn't read rather more readable than the bits I did. So here's a bit of not-pacing-related critique. Author, your imagery feels rather too opaque to me. Things like 'unconditional love is horrifying' feel... too confusing, without enough payoff. I can't tell what you're trying to do by asserting something that seems like nonsense to me, so it simply feels nonsensical. Victory is a woe of the flesh? What? Some things like the explicit narrator (the 'I can only say what I'm told' bits) doesn't seem to be doing much of anything, either, except adding an extra layer of abstraction. The last section feels especially odd to me; I have no idea what Sulva is (googling got me something on a ww2 beachhead, or hindu scriptures for making fire altars?) but it's apparently really important here, enough to be in the closing and the title. ...I just have no idea what it means.
I still don't think I'm going to vote on this, because I'm probably definitely judging it too much like prose; I've been told I shouldn't do that in the past.
>>Not_A_Hat
>>QuillScratch
The first paragraph's time seems to be wonky... perhaps because I'd say it's outside of time.
In the end we have Luna explicitly say that they "stopped over" in this world, and in the beginning we have the weird trippy thing about "then/now" and "forever" which makes me think the long first passage is that journey from wherever they were before the present world to come to rest in what would be Equestria. Guessing here, but unless the author is thinking space (which I don't they they are) then what's there? Sort of a formless chaos? Well--
So we're talking two alicorns trotting from one universe to the next. Through what? It's not entirely off base to say that what was envisioned was some kind of timeless pre-creation chaos situation. It can't be merely space, or with the way this intro goes it woulda been like 15 lines about stars.
I think it also might be a mistake to take the lines literally. I was just thinking about how the Greeks used to make up speeches to put in their histories. Everyone knewthat wasn't what was exactly said. But it didn't matter because the spirit of the thing was captured and that was what they cared about. Likewise, old testament texts tend to give that sort of "who knows what they said but this is pretty close" as well, where you have people fall in to hebraic poetry with the parallelism and such. Each argument could be a single snapshot, but it might also be a sort of summation, like this was where they sorta said over many days and hours around this period of time kind of situation. If that is so, then long gaps would mean not a strained conversation but merely a chain of island-like conversations.
Frankly parts of this read like someone half falling asleep. The first half reads like a tenth grader going for Milton and the second half reads like that same tenth grader switching over to Eliot. If the first half is too slow than the second is too fast by far. I'm actually going to say that the whole thing is too fast after the descriptions of the sisters.
If I'm readin' this write, I would guess that the introductions of the sisters was more than just playing around but that it was supposed to set up the conversation. When they talked about to what extent they were alike/similar/inseperable I think we were supposed to have our answers in the first 35 lines or so, but it just doesn't hold up. There's some parallalels where specific things are described in similar language, both end in a sort of question-and-answer (Being Seen/Being known) but its muddy and confused. The quicker pacing only really helps, I feel, if the introduction had been more solidly going in one direction. Otherwise it's just snappy and short. That works for Eliot because every line is building on the one before in lockstep and he could make a line be exactly the length it needed to be every time. Here? I feel like you lose what merit this has if you get too frantic, even if it tends towards the ponderous (which it does. A lot.)
Lastly. Quotation marks. Argh. Next time, indent. In fact you could forgo them altogether and straight up do it like Milton does with the offset lines and stuff.
>>QuillScratch
The first paragraph's time seems to be wonky... perhaps because I'd say it's outside of time.
In the end we have Luna explicitly say that they "stopped over" in this world, and in the beginning we have the weird trippy thing about "then/now" and "forever" which makes me think the long first passage is that journey from wherever they were before the present world to come to rest in what would be Equestria. Guessing here, but unless the author is thinking space (which I don't they they are) then what's there? Sort of a formless chaos? Well--
That is what it is like to see the Sun, walking in the god’s playing field
Between one universe and the next.
So we're talking two alicorns trotting from one universe to the next. Through what? It's not entirely off base to say that what was envisioned was some kind of timeless pre-creation chaos situation. It can't be merely space, or with the way this intro goes it woulda been like 15 lines about stars.
I think it also might be a mistake to take the lines literally. I was just thinking about how the Greeks used to make up speeches to put in their histories. Everyone knewthat wasn't what was exactly said. But it didn't matter because the spirit of the thing was captured and that was what they cared about. Likewise, old testament texts tend to give that sort of "who knows what they said but this is pretty close" as well, where you have people fall in to hebraic poetry with the parallelism and such. Each argument could be a single snapshot, but it might also be a sort of summation, like this was where they sorta said over many days and hours around this period of time kind of situation. If that is so, then long gaps would mean not a strained conversation but merely a chain of island-like conversations.
Frankly parts of this read like someone half falling asleep. The first half reads like a tenth grader going for Milton and the second half reads like that same tenth grader switching over to Eliot. If the first half is too slow than the second is too fast by far. I'm actually going to say that the whole thing is too fast after the descriptions of the sisters.
If I'm readin' this write, I would guess that the introductions of the sisters was more than just playing around but that it was supposed to set up the conversation. When they talked about to what extent they were alike/similar/inseperable I think we were supposed to have our answers in the first 35 lines or so, but it just doesn't hold up. There's some parallalels where specific things are described in similar language, both end in a sort of question-and-answer (Being Seen/Being known) but its muddy and confused. The quicker pacing only really helps, I feel, if the introduction had been more solidly going in one direction. Otherwise it's just snappy and short. That works for Eliot because every line is building on the one before in lockstep and he could make a line be exactly the length it needed to be every time. Here? I feel like you lose what merit this has if you get too frantic, even if it tends towards the ponderous (which it does. A lot.)
Lastly. Quotation marks. Argh. Next time, indent. In fact you could forgo them altogether and straight up do it like Milton does with the offset lines and stuff.
>>Cynewulf
This made me laugh. :P
I will note, though, that googling 'Field of Arbol' suggests it's from C.S. Lewis; he apparently used it for the Solar System in his Space Trilogy. Since this and the stars doesn't appear until after that section, I'd say you're right; either they're 'outside space' somehow, or the narrator not knowing where/when they are (as he says) produces the same effect.
It can't be merely space, or with the way this intro goes it woulda been like 15 lines about stars.
This made me laugh. :P
I will note, though, that googling 'Field of Arbol' suggests it's from C.S. Lewis; he apparently used it for the Solar System in his Space Trilogy. Since this and the stars doesn't appear until after that section, I'd say you're right; either they're 'outside space' somehow, or the narrator not knowing where/when they are (as he says) produces the same effect.
There is some quite nice prose in here and some clever word use, but ultimately I'm left feeling pretty lukewarm by the end of this?
Ultimately my issue is that I don't think this does quite enough to really impress or entertain me. The only thing that really stands out is some of the prose and wordplay (and, to reiterate, there is some super good stuff there!), but it is... kinda dull, and unfortunately that dullness permeates the whole of the work. The pace is slow, the prose is largely quiet and soft spoken (even the potentially more intense bits still read pretty gentle to me), the conflict is fairly familiar territory all told, etc, etc, etc. This is not to say that you can't do these things, of course, just that doing all of them at once can be a problem.
Ultimately, I'm just not engaged. This is pretty, but I don't feel like it provides me a particular reason to care, if that makes sense.
That said, some of this might be poetry bias. I'm just not a huge fan, so take that with whatever salt you might. It does certainly seem like some of the poetry fans are responding way better than me!
Formatting actually made this one a bit tricky to read (it was hella hard on my phone, looks a bit better on PC, but still, it is worth noting).
Ultimately my issue is that I don't think this does quite enough to really impress or entertain me. The only thing that really stands out is some of the prose and wordplay (and, to reiterate, there is some super good stuff there!), but it is... kinda dull, and unfortunately that dullness permeates the whole of the work. The pace is slow, the prose is largely quiet and soft spoken (even the potentially more intense bits still read pretty gentle to me), the conflict is fairly familiar territory all told, etc, etc, etc. This is not to say that you can't do these things, of course, just that doing all of them at once can be a problem.
Ultimately, I'm just not engaged. This is pretty, but I don't feel like it provides me a particular reason to care, if that makes sense.
That said, some of this might be poetry bias. I'm just not a huge fan, so take that with whatever salt you might. It does certainly seem like some of the poetry fans are responding way better than me!
Formatting actually made this one a bit tricky to read (it was hella hard on my phone, looks a bit better on PC, but still, it is worth noting).
My biggest issue with this piece (as >>QuillScratch revealed before I could) is that your line breaks are almost universally weak. In free verse, there is an importance behind how your break your lines—what word and sound and punctuation ends the line, as well as what word/sound/punctuation begin the next. Line breaks should be purposeful, used to create double meaning, influence pacing to stunt thought or force out assumptions, etc. And yet, your breaks seem haphazard, random, like their only purpose is to exist. As such, your free verse form bores me. I don't see what makes this poem what it is.
Two tiny sections that I particularly liked, however, both for their breaks and sonic quality, were:
There's a great cadance and fearful hesitation with "And then, if so," and the abrupt break of that third line... a direct link between being known and existing. If no one sees you, no one knows you, do you truly exist? A poignant question for Luna.
Love the repetition here. Not enough, not enough... crazed, exhausted rambling.
But then, look at a section like this:
What's the point of ending the first line on such a weak connecting word like "that?" Wouldn't the line work so much better with That moved to the next, leading to the vertical and thematically relevant repetition and emphasis on "assumes?"
Or, oh man, this one:
As is, it's just sentences. Remove the line break, and nothing is added or gained. But move "or I'll snap" to the next line? Holy shit! Then the entire thing reads like a fierce threat! "You'll snap" becomes not an either/or statement, but a definite fact, a recognizable threat: "Celestia, I won't wait, you'll snap." And then the second line... but putting in that enjambment, the lines then also read as: "You'll snap, or I'll snap sisterhood, our love and our yoke." What a line that would be!
The narrative itself doesn't jump out to me either—not that it's bad, I think it's a rather engaging look at Luna's psyche actually, but the more archaic tone just isn't one that interests me. I'm sure that'll sit better for others. I largely agree with >>AndrewRogue on the pacing.
Is it Abrol or Arbol? I saw both spellings.
Finally, I think you can format your long dialogue a bit better. While it is correct grammatically, I wouldn't put a quotation mark at the start of every new line. When the first thing we see on every line is the same punctuation mark, it quickly becomes repetitive.
Two tiny sections that I particularly liked, however, both for their breaks and sonic quality, were:
Perhaps she would turn her eyes on you, and then
If so
You would know what it is like not to be seen, not to be
There's a great cadance and fearful hesitation with "And then, if so," and the abrupt break of that third line... a direct link between being known and existing. If no one sees you, no one knows you, do you truly exist? A poignant question for Luna.
“You do not know much, sister Mine. Not much! And not enough, not enough
Love the repetition here. Not enough, not enough... crazed, exhausted rambling.
But then, look at a section like this:
She assumes that what works for me will work for you. She assumes that
The numbers add up and that the sentence scans. She assumes.
What's the point of ending the first line on such a weak connecting word like "that?" Wouldn't the line work so much better with That moved to the next, leading to the vertical and thematically relevant repetition and emphasis on "assumes?"
Or, oh man, this one:
But I won’t hold my breath. I won’t wait to see. You’ll snap or I’ll snap.
“Sisterhood, our love and our yoke, is not some immutable thing.
As is, it's just sentences. Remove the line break, and nothing is added or gained. But move "or I'll snap" to the next line? Holy shit! Then the entire thing reads like a fierce threat! "You'll snap" becomes not an either/or statement, but a definite fact, a recognizable threat: "Celestia, I won't wait, you'll snap." And then the second line... but putting in that enjambment, the lines then also read as: "You'll snap, or I'll snap sisterhood, our love and our yoke." What a line that would be!
The narrative itself doesn't jump out to me either—not that it's bad, I think it's a rather engaging look at Luna's psyche actually, but the more archaic tone just isn't one that interests me. I'm sure that'll sit better for others. I largely agree with >>AndrewRogue on the pacing.
Is it Abrol or Arbol? I saw both spellings.
Finally, I think you can format your long dialogue a bit better. While it is correct grammatically, I wouldn't put a quotation mark at the start of every new line. When the first thing we see on every line is the same punctuation mark, it quickly becomes repetitive.
>>horizon
Returning to this before prelims end. I'm honestly not certain I can offer anything resembling a review but I do want to get some scattered thoughts onto the page in a semblance of meaningful order.
1.
>>S.K.
Re opening with the direct Caliban upon Setebos quote:
I disliked the line before understanding the reference. Then, on superficial reading about the source poem, thought it was brilliant:
I mean, turning that into a direct meditation on Luna? You have my attention.
However, I think I'm wrapping back around the other side to being dissatisfied again on greater-than-superficial examination. Thematically, CuS is about a creation confronting that which he believes to be his creator; LuS ... isn't. Caliban is trying to comprehend, and/or imitate, that higher power he can't comprehend; Luna is having an argument with Celestia over whether they're the same or not, and they're on equal ground. And stylistically, this borrows much more from modernists like Eliot than from Browning (hence my original comment): particularly, this uses enjambments and ragged lines in a way that Browning never did.
And so I'm wondering what, besides a clever reference, this actually carries over from CuS. It's not recontextualizing the original's structure, nor meditating on its theme, nor stealing its style. Given that our first impression of LuS is a title ripped from CuS and a first line directly quoting it, this seems like an odd abandonment of the source.
(That said: This is not a request to change the topic of your poem, which works beautifully without the context of the source piece. In fact I think this works better as-is than it would have been if you'd tried to shoehorn a Luna/Celestia piece into the themes of the original.)
2.
>>Dubs_Rewatcher
I do agree with Quill/Dubs that one thing worth doing here is aggressively questioning your enjambments. To use one is to make a statement about the surrounding text; there are a number of places where that statement seems unclear at best. One random example:
Divorcing "her" from "steps" doesn't appreciably change the tone or meaning or context of line 2, and just leaves it a little fragmentary. Separating "wine and hemlock" arguably adds distance between the two, setting up a contrast, and additional emphasis on the hemlock; but there's no greater theme of duality there which drawing that distinction reinforces, and calling attention to that duality therefore seems out of place amid the more straightforward surrounding descriptors. You'd kind of be better off with no line breaks at all here, but if you break at phrase ends, at least you're not throwing in the erratic syncopation of emphasis.
I also strongly agree with Dubs re the potential of playing with the "you'll snap or I'll snap". That's a huge currently-missed opportunity.
That said, I do disagree with the specific example Dubs complained about; I thought it was one of the piece's best examples of effective enjambment:
n.b. I'm quoting the entire stanza rather than the two lines Dubs cited, because the first of several reasons that I think the enjambment works is establishing a rhythm to the repeated "She assumes":
(x)...X......
X..........X.
..........X
This lends the stanza a sort of textual balance, whereas totally un-enjambing it (ending at the sentence break) would throw out a sequence of left-heavy repetitions.
To answer Dubs' specific objection, moving "that" to the next line explicitly turns the first sentence of line 3 into a fragment. ... Though, here, on more detailed examination, I realized I was missing the "that" in line 3. I think it's a mistake; "The numbers add up and the sentence scans" is a powerful declarative statement, and "The numbers add up and that the sentence scans" stumbles midway through.
The benefit of trailing off with the "that" in line 2 should be that it leaves you closing the stanza with:
"The numbers add up and the sentence scans. She assumes."
That's big, and shows us Celestia's headspace in a way that the other lines in the stanza only tell or hint: confidence with a hedging footnote. First and last lines should carry that kind of weight.
3.
Why do we have interjections from the narrator, explicit "I"s? This adds an extra layer to the poem that very little is actually done with:
That's literally every "I" in the piece except for the ones in dialogue. Their sole purpose seems to be to ground the poem in a sort of mealy-mouthed third-hand retelling that I don't think benefits it; with those bits removed, the voicing becomes a conceit of the characters having the discussion rather than a conceit of a narrator who contributes nothing else; it would feel more appropriately mythic to me.
Anyway.
I'm kinda firing scattershot criticism here, so I'll go back to my original appreciation of the piece. The slow-motion argument, especially the back-and-forth over imperfect understanding of each other's domains, ties the poem together even as it spins out into long digressions. Taken as a whole, without nitpicking over line breaks, I do like the rhythm of the prose, and I'm catching a number of rich allusions and probably missing a ton more. Poetry cranks up the difficulty in Writeoffs, especially long-form poetry with its 2000-word minimum, and I feel like I have to give this one ample credit simply for on the whole realizing its ambition; just the mere fact of this reaching 2000 (and blowing past it to 2400!) without feeling repetitive or padded is a rare and laudable achievement in itself.
Tier: Strong
Returning to this before prelims end. I'm honestly not certain I can offer anything resembling a review but I do want to get some scattered thoughts onto the page in a semblance of meaningful order.
1.
>>S.K.
Re opening with the direct Caliban upon Setebos quote:
I disliked the line before understanding the reference. Then, on superficial reading about the source poem, thought it was brilliant:
Setebos, Setebos and Setebos!
'Thinketh, He dwelleth i' the cold o' the moon.
I mean, turning that into a direct meditation on Luna? You have my attention.
However, I think I'm wrapping back around the other side to being dissatisfied again on greater-than-superficial examination. Thematically, CuS is about a creation confronting that which he believes to be his creator; LuS ... isn't. Caliban is trying to comprehend, and/or imitate, that higher power he can't comprehend; Luna is having an argument with Celestia over whether they're the same or not, and they're on equal ground. And stylistically, this borrows much more from modernists like Eliot than from Browning (hence my original comment): particularly, this uses enjambments and ragged lines in a way that Browning never did.
And so I'm wondering what, besides a clever reference, this actually carries over from CuS. It's not recontextualizing the original's structure, nor meditating on its theme, nor stealing its style. Given that our first impression of LuS is a title ripped from CuS and a first line directly quoting it, this seems like an odd abandonment of the source.
(That said: This is not a request to change the topic of your poem, which works beautifully without the context of the source piece. In fact I think this works better as-is than it would have been if you'd tried to shoehorn a Luna/Celestia piece into the themes of the original.)
2.
>>Dubs_Rewatcher
I do agree with Quill/Dubs that one thing worth doing here is aggressively questioning your enjambments. To use one is to make a statement about the surrounding text; there are a number of places where that statement seems unclear at best. One random example:
Her hooves are silver, her eyes are dark pools beneath the coldest mountains, her
Steps are measured to plum upon the wild beats of distant paeans. Her lips are wine and
Hemlock, her body is the formless darkness which sits in wait at the base of the skull
Divorcing "her" from "steps" doesn't appreciably change the tone or meaning or context of line 2, and just leaves it a little fragmentary. Separating "wine and hemlock" arguably adds distance between the two, setting up a contrast, and additional emphasis on the hemlock; but there's no greater theme of duality there which drawing that distinction reinforces, and calling attention to that duality therefore seems out of place amid the more straightforward surrounding descriptors. You'd kind of be better off with no line breaks at all here, but if you break at phrase ends, at least you're not throwing in the erratic syncopation of emphasis.
I also strongly agree with Dubs re the potential of playing with the "you'll snap or I'll snap". That's a huge currently-missed opportunity.
That said, I do disagree with the specific example Dubs complained about; I thought it was one of the piece's best examples of effective enjambment:
But then, look at a section like this:The Sun assumes the world is always a cycle. She assumes all things move from one to another,
She assumes that what works for me will work for you. She assumes that
The numbers add up and that the sentence scans. She assumes.
What's the point of ending the first line on such a weak connecting word like "that?" Wouldn't the line work so much better with That moved to the next, leading to the vertical and thematically relevant repetition and emphasis on "assumes?"
n.b. I'm quoting the entire stanza rather than the two lines Dubs cited, because the first of several reasons that I think the enjambment works is establishing a rhythm to the repeated "She assumes":
(x)...X......
X..........X.
..........X
This lends the stanza a sort of textual balance, whereas totally un-enjambing it (ending at the sentence break) would throw out a sequence of left-heavy repetitions.
To answer Dubs' specific objection, moving "that" to the next line explicitly turns the first sentence of line 3 into a fragment. ... Though, here, on more detailed examination, I realized I was missing the "that" in line 3. I think it's a mistake; "The numbers add up and the sentence scans" is a powerful declarative statement, and "The numbers add up and that the sentence scans" stumbles midway through.
The benefit of trailing off with the "that" in line 2 should be that it leaves you closing the stanza with:
"The numbers add up and the sentence scans. She assumes."
That's big, and shows us Celestia's headspace in a way that the other lines in the stanza only tell or hint: confidence with a hedging footnote. First and last lines should carry that kind of weight.
3.
Why do we have interjections from the narrator, explicit "I"s? This adds an extra layer to the poem that very little is actually done with:
Or, to tell it true,
I do not know where and when they were,
But that there were two of them
(They walk side by side these Two, the world entire, and beyond them
(I think, are other worlds and times, the
(Roiling)
A field in truth a
Shining Plain of Abrol, so they call it somewhere and so I’m told
These Two know it as.such,
Or,
Again--I speak only what I’m told, and have only that to offer--
Or, just so I’m told.
And their talk would pause a moment
--I mean this less literally--
That's literally every "I" in the piece except for the ones in dialogue. Their sole purpose seems to be to ground the poem in a sort of mealy-mouthed third-hand retelling that I don't think benefits it; with those bits removed, the voicing becomes a conceit of the characters having the discussion rather than a conceit of a narrator who contributes nothing else; it would feel more appropriately mythic to me.
Anyway.
I'm kinda firing scattershot criticism here, so I'll go back to my original appreciation of the piece. The slow-motion argument, especially the back-and-forth over imperfect understanding of each other's domains, ties the poem together even as it spins out into long digressions. Taken as a whole, without nitpicking over line breaks, I do like the rhythm of the prose, and I'm catching a number of rich allusions and probably missing a ton more. Poetry cranks up the difficulty in Writeoffs, especially long-form poetry with its 2000-word minimum, and I feel like I have to give this one ample credit simply for on the whole realizing its ambition; just the mere fact of this reaching 2000 (and blowing past it to 2400!) without feeling repetitive or padded is a rare and laudable achievement in itself.
Tier: Strong
I agree with >>QuillScratch, this feels like it's meant to be read aloud. As I was going through it and I naturally fell into the cadence of Spoken Word Poets like this guy. I got to the point where I almost didn't register what I was reading and I was just feeling the words beating through my mind. It was almost meditative. Most of it didn't really sink in so much as leave an impression, though that could be due more to my needing sleep than anything else.
Edit: I will say that early on I kept looking for some hidden message in the script. Given the formatting I was trying to put all the first words together to form some message, and failing that the first letters. Eventually I gave up and just let it happen.
Edit: I will say that early on I kept looking for some hidden message in the script. Given the formatting I was trying to put all the first words together to form some message, and failing that the first letters. Eventually I gave up and just let it happen.
I wish this had made the finals. It was ambitious and original and I had it first on my slate (though it was a weak slate). Disappointing.
I know this isn't on the template anymore (a shame, like >>Cold in Gardez said; it might've been interesting to reread it a few more times), but I feel that I should comment on the T.S. Eliot connections a lot of others have mentioned. While I can certainly see the similarities in style, I think the author missed one important aspect of Eliot's style: the wandering mind. If you read "The Hollow Men" or "The Waste Land", there's lots of points where the narrator abruptly changes subjects, or goes off on a tangent before coming back to the original topic. This story didn't really have that: there's a pretty straightforward subject being talked about, and the poem more or less stays on it.
This isn't necessarily a bad thing (it's probably better the story focuses on something instead of going off the rails), but I just wanted to point out a small difference in the style.
This isn't necessarily a bad thing (it's probably better the story focuses on something instead of going off the rails), but I just wanted to point out a small difference in the style.
>>libertydude
>>Cold in Gardez
>>horizon
Hi! I did this one. Had I not done it high as balls in a single sitting, and had the site not absolutely destroyed my clever formatting, it would have been a bit better.
Few things: Yeah, it's not like Eliot at all. I didn't really want to be like him.
Setabos: I would blame it on the intoxication, but truthfully I just really liked the line and the title. I actually don't like the poem as much. also the moon line and the opening one.
"I" yeah had I do to do it again I would have removed the storyteller voice thing
As for enjambment, I offer a great and mighty shrug. I break lines as I say them. I guess that would be easier to demonstrate with a recording of myself reading it.
>>QuillScratch
I don't really know why I did that with the punctuation.
>>Cold in Gardez
>>horizon
Hi! I did this one. Had I not done it high as balls in a single sitting, and had the site not absolutely destroyed my clever formatting, it would have been a bit better.
Few things: Yeah, it's not like Eliot at all. I didn't really want to be like him.
Setabos: I would blame it on the intoxication, but truthfully I just really liked the line and the title. I actually don't like the poem as much. also the moon line and the opening one.
"I" yeah had I do to do it again I would have removed the storyteller voice thing
As for enjambment, I offer a great and mighty shrug. I break lines as I say them. I guess that would be easier to demonstrate with a recording of myself reading it.
>>QuillScratch
I don't really know why I did that with the punctuation.