(Originally posted on LiveJournal)
I’m goofing around with that title. “Underground” because this fragment used to be “buried” in some boxes with ancient papers, and it was also going to be about Hades’ abduction of Persephone, taking her to his realm (under ground).
Way back when, sometime after I finished “The Marble Don” (about Don Juan), I got inspired to try tackling more narrative poetry. Well, maybe “inspired” is too big a word for it. “The Marble Don” was inspired. “Hades’ Bride” (the following fragment) only got as far as 18 lines. And I suspect, they’re rather over-wrought ones. I’m posting the fragment without having even really read through it closely – exposing my “youthful” follies (well, grad school follies) to the world.
I don’t even recall if I had a real vision or feel for the story I was launching. Somehow, I think not. The Don Juan poem had bubbled up from an idea that I carried around for me for some time, until I finally had to get it out. The story of Persephone, not so much. I think I just decided that it could make an interesting topic for a narrative poem, and so I launched myself into it. I don’t know that I had a sense of the core character, Persephone. That’s probably why it never got past the beginning.
Well, here goes, exposing the raw verse. I expect I’m going to cringe over this. But sometimes, writers need that sting of bald revelation.
****
“Hades’ Bride”
To Nysa’s Vale, where Hades from the dark
maintains a private gate, where sunlight shines
on flower jewels, each blossom petal bright
with silver dew, where sparkling water stands
in quiet joy, reflecting back the sky’s
bright sapphire light, to Nysa’s Vale did come
Persephone, her grain-gold strands of hair
adorned with crimson flowers freshly picked.
Perambulating flower, child of earth,
Fair Demeter’s one daughter, sired by Zeus,
as graceful as a reed by silver stream,
she bent and bowed before a dancing breeze
to gather in her arms the fragrant gems,
the blooming bounty of the fertile soil.
Away above on flying steeds of cloud
far-seeing Helios espied her there
within the Vale, and saw her gentle form
sight-echoed on the mountain-shadowed pool.
****
Hmm. Well, not so bad that I want to wad it up and toss it, but it does seem a bit… “much”. I’ll have to think about it. I’d certainly appreciate initial reactions. Having recopied it, I find the stirrings of interest coming up. A possible outlook and focus. A way to make something of it. But I need to think about it some more.
So what do you all think? 🙂
Comments
sartorias – Mar. 19th, 2009
I can’t write poetry any more than I can do algebra, so take what I say with a truckload of salt.
Basically it’s a setup, so it’s hard to see where it’s going . . . kind of an establishing shot, before we actually get much story. The pretty vale–P is gathering flowers–Helios takes a look and likes.
Getting more specific, I think it takes too long to set that up. There’s a lot of repetition both of words and ideas that (I think) might better be tightened, especially over-used phrases like ‘graceful as a reed’ and ‘sparking water’–especially when sparkling water usually doesn’t sparkle when it’s quiescent. It gleams, but the sparkle comes in its movement. Quiet joy I don’t think is effective–water isn’t joyous or anything else, it’s water–if you’re going to use joy, let us see the cause of the joy, then the reaction means something. I mean, it’s too powerful a word to use as a descriptor without motive, if that makes any sense.
I tend to think ‘flower jewels’s is almost too much, possible because ‘blossom petal’ seems way too much: blossoms are petals, so why two words when one will do? ‘bright with silver dew’ is another of those phrases that appear in a lot of poems–is there a way to get that lovely image with fresher word combos? Especially when we have ‘bright sapphire light’ right after, again, bright light being pretty common. and the word ‘bright’ doesn’t support a lot of repetition imo.
I love grain-gold strands of hair.
I love perambulating flower, child of earth
(so I don’t think you need the graceful as a reed)
dancing breezes and silver streams are more phrases we see a lot–and if the breeze is ‘dancing’ how is the water still?
I am ambivalent about fragrant gems, just because I’m getting the image of hard jewels with smells attached, but another reader might really like that. But I think you could get rid of ‘blooming bounty of fertile soil’ and not lose anything by it–we’ve already heard a whole lot about these flowers, and so that is implied.
I also think getting rid of ‘sight’ before echoed sounds and looks better, but again, I aint no poet, not me, so if a real poet comes along and says, “You’re totally wrong,” I’ll cop to it.
scribblerworks – Mar. 19th, 2009
Ooo. Ah. Ouch. (Walking on hot coals!) Heh.
Seriously, I appreciate this feedback! It is just as I thought, then. Over-wrought, and too facilely put together (hence all the trite usages).
“Fertile soil” I shall probably need to keep in some fashion, since once her daughter is kidnapped, Demeter stops paying attention to her job and crops, etc. begin to fail.
Heh. If I were evaluating this objectively now, and it was someone else’s piece, I might be inclined to think “the writer thinks she is too clever by half”. I guess the best I could say of this is that I can rattle off iambic pentameter without much labor. The manuscript for this has no corrections or changes on it at all. Very raw, very much “first draft”.
Thanks for the critique — it will be VERY usefull when I pick this up again.
sartorias – Mar. 19th, 2009
Definitely tie that fertile soil in, then, yep!
