Poetry Forum

Forum Home » High Critique » The Tell

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!!!

5/17/2017 2:43:32 PM Jerome Malenfant Posts: 26	The Tell The hill had stood on its plain for eons between the mountains and the Sea, Still, quiet, barren, As the wind blew across it And the stars shifted, When a hunter Eight thousand years ago Saw the spring at its base And lived for awhile on its summit Then died. Other people came and settled on the hill And built a village, And, after many years, A small city, And then, for unknown reasons, left. Many more cities were built on the hill: Walled cities that lived for a while But were in their turn burnt and destroyed By great armies from distant empires, Or were simply abandoned. Each destroyed city, Each abandoned city Left behind a layer of debris Of collapsed buildings and toppled walls. And so the hill grew. But each time a new city Was built atop the remains of the older ones By new peoples Drawn to the hill by its spring And its promise of refuge. Canaanite merchants, Hittite soldiers, Hebrew prophets, Assyrian generals, Greek stone cutters, Byzantines, Saracens, Crusaders; Each in their time came And left their imprint before passing on. But there came a day when the ground moved And the spring dried up. Then the people moved away, And no one came to build there anymore. And the wind blew across it And the dust settled And buried its streets and walls. And once more The hill stood still and quiet. Until Men and women from a distant university Came to dig through its layers To bring to light the ancient traces Of the life that once lived there. edited by zaq12wsx on 5/20/2017 edited by zaq12wsx on 5/20/2017 edited by zaq12wsx on 5/22/2017 edited by zaq12wsx on 5/25/2017 edited by zaq12wsx on 6/26/2017
	• permalink • reply with quote
5/18/2017 7:50:52 PM Elle Meadow Posts: 15	One of the first things to learn about poetry (besides the fact that it doesn't have to rhyme) is that every word must have a purpose and add something to the line. If you can delete a word without changing the meaning then one should do so. These words are known as expletives or 'empty' words. Expletives are words or phrases that do not add any structural or grammatical meaning to the sentence. These words and phrases are often referred to as empty words, meaningless phrases, or redundant pairs because they do not add any information to the sentence. Some common "empty" words are: all articles (a/an, the) all conjunctions adverbs It depends on context and the sentence/line, but one of the first things to do is go through your poem line by line and see which words you can delete without changing the meaning. Then delete them. This will immediately give your poem more punch. The Tell The hill stood on its plain for eons between mountains and sea, Still, quiet, barren, As wind blew across And stars shifted in their courses, A hunter returning from the hunt Eight thousand years ago Saw the spring at its base Lived on its summit then died. Other people came later; settled on the hill Built a village, After many years, A small city, Then, for unknown reasons, left. Many more cities were built on the hill: Walled cities that lived for a while But in their turn burnt and destroyed By great armies from distant empires, Or simply abandoned. Each destroyed city, Each abandoned city Left behind a layer of debris Of collapsed buildings and toppled walls. So, slowly, the hill grew. But each time, a new city Built atop the remains of the older ones By new peoples Drawn to the hill by its spring And its promise of refuge. Canaanite merchants, Hittite soldiers, Hebrew prophets, Assyrian generals, Greek stone cutters, Byzantines, Saracens, Crusaders; Each in their time came And left an imprint on the hill before passing on. But there came a day The ground shifted The spring dried up. The people moved away, No one ever came to rebuild there again. rebuild and again are redundant, use one or the other The wind blew across it, The dust settled Buried its streets and walls. Once more The hill stood still and quiet. Until Men and women from a distant university Came to dig down through its layers, To find and to bring to light the ancient traces Of the life that once lived there. There are still problems with whole phrases that are weak e.g. 'for awhile', and really the whole poem doesn't have any great meaning or emotional impact. It is not a good narrative poem either because it does not tell a good story. Think about the emotional core of what you want to say is. When you think of the tell, of the weight of its history - what do you feel? Try to convey that feeling to the reader through your poem.
	• permalink • reply with quote
5/18/2017 11:46:40 PM Jerome Malenfant Posts: 26	Elle Meadow: Thank you for your comments. I agree that it's a good idea to delete unnecessary words. However the 'feel' of your version isn't what I was trying for. Your version reads almost like a newspaper account, while I was trying for the feel of the slow passage of time and of events in the past that were separated by large expanses of time, written in almost a "biblical" tone (hence the And's). 1st and 2nd stanza: The hill is not standing between any mountains and any sea, but between THE mountains and THE Sea (i.e. the Mediterranean Sea). I used "The hill", "the mountains", "the Sea" to convey a sense of permanence; i.e. the hill, mountains and sea are the ones that are still there in the present time. "The hill HAD stood ... When a hunter.." describes the 'state' of the hill when the hunter arrived. "And lived for awhile on its summit/ Then died" I think conveys better that these two events are separated in time, an undetermined but possibly a long time. 3rd and 9th stanzas: I put the 'and's there to try for a biblical tone, and for a (hopefully) poetic repetition. 4th stanza: The 'were' in 3rd and 5th lines are for the passive voice; the cities were burnt and were abandoned. 6th stanza: Again, the 'was' in the 2nd line is for the passive voice, (the city didn't built itself). 8th stanza: Your version presents these 4 events as unrelated, coincidental events, but the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th are all the result of the 1st, the earthquake. I agree 'ever' and 'again' are redundant, and I might edit this, but I used both words for emphasis. I don't agree that there isn't a good story here. It's basically a very condensed version of Michener's novel "The Source", one of my favorite books that I read decades ago. The 'story' is the passage of time and of history and of the lives of some of the unknown people that lived before us. But again thank you for your comments and for taking the time. I will consider them further. edited by zaq12wsx on 5/18/2017 edited by zaq12wsx on 5/18/2017
	• permalink • reply with quote
5/19/2017 6:04:38 AM J-Mag Guthrie Posts: 11	I am trying to break this in parts -- it wouldn't "take" as a whole: zaq12wsx wrote: The Tell The hill had stood on its plain for eons between the mountains and the Sea, try swapping the two -- Between the mountains... the hill stood Still, quiet, barren, As the wind blew across it And the stars shifted in their courses, The stars shifting in their courses is very cliche ... are you sure you want that? When a hunter returning from a hunt Eight thousand years ago Saw the spring of water at its base And lived for awhile on its summit Then died. This is rather jumbled. Maybe say he was the first somewhere in there A hunter was the first to live on the summit and die there Eight thousand years ago after he saw a spring at the base Other people came later and settled on the hill And built a village, drop And And, after many years, A small city, try that grew into a small city And then, for unknown reasons, left. Say they left.
	• permalink • reply with quote
5/19/2017 6:10:01 AM J-Mag Guthrie Posts: 11	Many more cities were built on the hill: Walled cities that lived for a while But were in their turn burnt and destroyed then were By great armies from distant empires, Or were simply abandoned. drop simply Each destroyed city, Each abandoned city Left behind a layer of debris drop behind Of collapsed buildings and toppled walls. And so, slowly, the hill grew. leave out Of, And so, slowly But each time, a new city leave out But Was built atop the remains of the older ones By new peoples Drawn to the hill by its spring And its promise of refuge. Canaanite merchants, Hittite soldiers, Hebrew prophets, Assyrian generals, Greek stone cutters, Byzantines, Saracens, Crusaders; You might want to continue with the descriptors Byzantine [whats], Saracen [whats]. Christian Crusaders. Each in their time came And left an imprint on the hill before passing on. Try Each came ... and put a line break before before
	• permalink • reply with quote
5/19/2017 6:14:53 AM J-Mag Guthrie Posts: 11	But there came a day Drop But when the ground shifted And the spring dried up. Then the people moved away, Drop Then And no one ever came to rebuild there again. Try No one built there again And the wind blew across it, And the dust settled Drop both Ands. And buried its streets and walls. And once more Drop the And here, too. The hill stood still and quiet. Until Men and women from a distant university Came to dig down through its layers, To find and to bring to light the ancient traces drop To find and Of the life that had once lived there. Not of the life that as you mean of the people who and drop had I hope this is helpful ... I think I understand what you're trying to achieve and it's a good goal ... but you have a lot of extra words and some awkward phrasings that you can tweak to make this better.
	• permalink • reply with quote
5/19/2017 8:50:12 PM Jerome Malenfant Posts: 26	J-Mag Guthrie: Thank you for comments. Generally, my perhaps excessive use of and's and of propositions is an attempt to create a biblical or archaic feeling, and to slow the reading down by creating pauses between lines in order to reflect the slow passage of time. 1st stanza: The hill is the main character of the poem, so I think it's better to introduce it in the first line. Also the next three lines go together in telling something about the hill. I agree that the last line is a bit of a cliche, so I'll think about that. 2nd stanza: The phrase "returning from a hunt" is probably unnecessary. But the fact that he was the first to live on the hill is implied from the 1st stanza, so there's no need to state that explicitly. Also I want to keep five lines in each stanza for uniformity. 7th stanza: I did think of continuing with the descriptors, but I ran out of 'whats'. But then I felt that omitting more whats in the 3rd line had the effect of speeding up the reading of the list; the particular 'whats' in the first two lines seemed sort of interesting, but continuing them then seemed to be a drag. I'll consider your other points. Note added: As you suggested, I did change 'life' to 'people', but then I felt that 'people' was getting overused a bit, since I had used it 3 times before. So I changed it back to 'life' just for variety. edited by zaq12wsx on 5/20/2017
	• permalink • reply with quote
5/29/2017 11:57:54 PM Diane Belmont Posts: 3	This is my first time to respond to any poem here, but I have to say I really liked this one! I like that you did the Biblical thing and kept it's pace slowed down as time itself would have done. I'm not a true critic, but I do know what I like. Thank you for putting this poem up and way to go for expressing and explaining each of the reasons for your inclusions. I mostly prefer rhyming poetry, so this one hit me by surprise!
	• permalink • reply with quote