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10/9/2021 5:48:24 PM Kai Dawg Posts: 1	Love letter to the American Dream Time has not been kind to the Giantess Of American fame. With dreams they come Attracted to the bright beacon promise, Only to be dashed against the fear-dome Of freedom lost. The Sea-washed, sunset Walls Stand tall, guarding a crushed and crumbling Empire. Her ruthless eyes watch for any exiled souls That dare cross, clutching in hand a warning pyre. “What has happened to my American Dream?” The people cry, “Promised were we, a welcome-world For the tired, the lost and homeless.” “Whim, Were those words. Turn back. As lies you were told.” The titan glare glowed world wide, gates were shut. Hopes dimmed. But like Lazarus, would rise again. This poem is in response to The New Colossus. I kinda cheated with the sonnet format, need help in trying to fix those. Otherwise how does the theme carry out? Would love any kind of feedback. I'm learning to get better at writing so I don't mind harsh criticism. Thanks in advance.
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10/23/2021 11:57:05 PM Eduardo Richardson Posts: 65	I really like the sonnet you wrote. It is really very deep and the fact that you deceived the sonnet format seems to me to add even more effect.
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10/30/2021 11:50:13 PM Jack Webster Posts: 255	It looks like you’re doing a petrarchan sonnet, an octet (8-lines) followed by a sestet (6-lines), as per the poem you are responding to. I think the theme is great. I think portraying the statue of liberty in an iconoclastic image that reflects anti-immigrant nationalism is perfect for the theme, and as a response to the lazarus poem. You’ve done away with meter, but that is a common omission among contemporary poets (we can thank Mr Whitman’s nationalistic pride for that). As you’ve already noted, the rhyme scheme does need some work. I would go back to the Lazarus poem as it follows the petrarchan rhyme scheme very carefully abbaabba, cdcdcd. Your present rhyme scheme seems to be influenced by the shakespearean rhyme scheme of alternating rhymes. Your choice to have a dialogue in the sestet instead of a soliloquy is interesting. I would do an experimental draft making the sestet a solid soliloquy like the Lazarus poem and see if it feels more impactful. Making it a dialogue might soften the larger than life quality of the “giantess”. Having an image of refugees approaching in the octet without giving them a voice might really reflect the sense of voicelessness, mirror reality, a monolithic soliloquy from lady liberty in the sestet reflecting that feeling of power that cannot be challenged, etc... boat too small to even be heard vs giant statue’s booming rebuking across the water is a really dramatic scale. The bit at the end using lazarus as a double allusion, to the biblical lazarus and the idea of resurrection, and the author lazarus of the original poem is really brilliantly unified. My suggestion would be to change the title to Raising Lazarus - because that is the intention of the poem, raise the spirit of the American dream from the dead by creating a truthful and shocking image of the state of america’s attitude towards refugees and immigrants, something to provoke people into the feeling “it shouldn’t be that way”. And with raising Lazarus in the title, it frees the body of the poem to a more streamlined structure (if you wish to pursue the idea of a solid soliloquy in the sestet) so the image of the poem is dark by necessity, because it is redlecting a dark truth, but the image is ironic because the poem means to advance the opposite attitude. Pyre and empire are fantastic rhymes for the theme and must absolutely be kept. I think “with dreams they come” would be stronger as “they come with dreams” because it removes the inversion of syntax and it gives dreams the strongest position in the line. So, for the octet let’s say Pyre and Empire are your A rhyme. Aspire could be a useful word, Dire could be another useful word. Admire could be another, as could Mire. (Aspire Admire and Empire Pyre could make an interesting axis of rhymes) Dreams could set the B rhyme in the octet. Seems could be useful (the Giantess is not what she seems...) Gleams could be useful, or Beams. Teams (the ocean teams, the boat teams, the passengers team, on board hope teams). I would try an experimental draft where the first four lines describe the refugees/ immigrants, their hope, their certainty of relief, their approach, and the last four lines of the octet describing the statue in the dark iconoclastic image you have already cleverly made, then finish with a booming soliloquy that is an apocolyptic satirical refutation of the lazarus soliloquy. If you try it, it’s possible the first version will still be better, but it’s fun to experiment. Good luck. What you have is already really good. All this is just food for thought.
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11/1/2021 8:36:51 AM soikeo soikeotv Posts: 1	ke keEduardo Richardson wrote: I really like the sonnet you wrote. It is really very deep and the fact that you deceived the sonnet format seems to me to add even more effect. -- Soi Kèo TV - Soi kèo nhà cái, soi kèo bóng đá, phân tích tỷ lệ kèo hôm nay. Nhận định kèo nhà cái đưa ra tối nay, keonhacai hôm nay trực tiếp từ đội ngũ chuyên gia cá cược.
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