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Forum Home » High Critique » Lend Me Your Ear, Nightingale.

For poets who want unrestricted constructive criticism. This is NOT a vanity workshop. If you do not want your poem seriously critiqued, do not post here. Constructive criticism only. PLEASE Only Post One Poem a Day!!!
4/16/2016 12:58:51 PM

Daniel Carter
Posts: 2
I've had this piece for over a year now but it still bothers me. I've revised it several times, and I would like another perspective on this one, since nobody comments on the regular page



Lend me your ear, Nightingale.
Procure me with a sing song tale.
For my voice does often fail.
Your voice made even Keats pine.
For no words, nor thoughts, nor powers can curtail,
your melody and pitch all too fine.

Lend me your ear, fowl of the air
Do not leave from here to there.
For your insight I wish to be heir.
In the east your tune made death delay.
Do not resign to your treetop lair,
Before the reaper can be held at bay.

Lend me your ear, fledgling.
Why for a human did you sing?
For beings no more fickle can emotions swing.
A rose, with you impaled on the thorn,
Was rejected for jewels meant for a king.
And for a pauper true love was never born.

Lend me your ear, Chick beneficent
For my mind is reminiscent.
of you violated so innocent.
In transformation you sung a lament,
for chastity no longer persistent.
And your justice Olympus did consent.

Who may have more renown?
Is there a king with his Crown?
Or a bride in her gown?
All of them in comparison pale,
to the bird cloaked in brown.
Now what did they see in you Nightingale?
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4/28/2016 7:31:08 PM

Andrea Edwards
Posts: 5
Hello DanielCarter,



I think one of the major problems in this poem is you're going for a singsongy tone using rhyme, which is making your words awkward, for instance the use of hail/fail pine/fine etc. What you do well is the beat of the poem, but you don't need a rhyme scheme to do that. I think it's coming naturally to you for that beat, and a beat alone can carry a poem without the rhymes. You just don't need them and that'll give you a better frame from which to work towards actually exploring what you want to say. That being said, I think one of the things this poem is sort of lacking is what it wants to say. You talk a lot about Nightingales but what're we really trying to talk about here? If it was about the bird, then it wouldn't really include the mythlore. I feel like you're doing a bit of namedropping and that's what you want to look at, how the Nightingale is used, not really the actual bird, so if you divest yourself from the rhyme, and rewrite this poem, I think you might find it easier to get at that issue. Also, having the constant periods or commas at the ends of lines really feels unnecessary with how well you wrote the beat.




So overall, I really think you should play with allowing the poem to flow because that's what you're really doing well here, and work away from a rhyme scheme towards something more, stable and less, caught up in using the right word.
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7/4/2016 10:54:50 AM

Daniel Carter
Posts: 2
I Very much appreciate your comment. I was waiting for somebody to give an honest critique
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