This is my first attempt at a nonrhyming poem. I'm not very happy with it, but have to start somewhere.
On Wanting to Enlist in 2003
The schooling finished. I am seventeen,
And have no choice but to return to school,
Wherein my worth is said to be. Thus deem
Progenitors: the donor of the seed
A balding peacock, graying plumage spread;
The mother but an ostrich, with her head
Held deep in sands of old religious lies.
I come to the recruiter, free by day
For this short span between the hated school
And its mature successor. Thus I yearn
To flee, to change my fate, to do by choice
As cousins do at gunpoint far away,
As ancestors, by direst need possessed,
Enlisted to oppose the fascist tanks.
From tyranny to tyranny I tread.
Today, the random justice of the state
Holds more appeal than that by birthright earned.
The hollowness of glory with a gun
Is fuller than whatever classrooms hold.
The uniform at least presents a risk
And flips the bird to birds from which I spawned.
My tests, my mental state suffice and more;
My health disqualifies. Goodbye, says he,
And with one word my budding hope destroys.
(If it had been another two years hence,
The flaw could just as well have been dismissed,
And I might stain the silica afar,
Another coffin added to the count,
Another tickmark given to the ticks
Who lust for power, seeking to replace
The swine that bathe, befouling it, today.)
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South Africa4316 Posts
On October 29 2007 05:23 defenestrate wrote:
On Wanting to Enlist in 2003
The schooling finished. I am seventeen,
And have no choice but to return to school,
Wherein my worth is said to be. Thus deem
Progenitors: the donor of the seed
A balding peacock, graying plumage spread;
The mother but an ostrich, with her head
Held deep in sands of old religious lies.
I come to the recruiter, free by day
For this short span between the hated school
And its mature successor. Thus I yearn
To flee, to change my fate, to do by choice
As cousins do at gunpoint far away,
As ancestors, by direst need possessed,
Enlisted to oppose the fascist tanks.
From tyranny to tyranny I tread.
Today, the random justice of the state
Holds more appeal than that by birthright earned.
The hollowness of glory with a gun
Is fuller than whatever classrooms hold.
The uniform at least presents a risk
And flips the bird to birds from which I spawned.
My tests, my mental state suffice and more;
My health disqualifies. Goodbye, says he,
And with one word my budding hope destroys.
(If it had been another two years hence,
The flaw could just as well have been dismissed,
And I might stain the silica afar,
Another coffin added to the count,
Another tickmark given to the ticks
Who lust for power, seeking to replace
The swine that bathe, befouling it, today.)
Ok, so I've got a few issues with this. Firstly, there seems to be no point or purpose to the poem. Is this poem a didactic poem? a descriptive poem? I honestly don't know, it feels more like you took a topic, wrote a story about it, and then added some descriptive words to it. What you need with poetry is some reason to make people want to read your poem. What makes your poem stand out from any random poetry? You need to do something to make your poem more than just jumbled lines strung together.
On to the more technical stuff:
The schooling finished. I am seventeen,
And have no choice but to return to school,
This reads very awkwardly. Firstly the schooling/school repetition is very uncomfortable, I'm not sure if you added that on purpose, or whether you just missed the repetition, but it doesn't work. Repetition of words must be used for a purpose. The repetition can serve as a rhythmic device (the dead man and his dead dog crossed the dead sea), to give the poem a beat, as a thematic device (the old man spoke like death, with death watching him), or simply for increased emphasis (the soon dead man raised his soon dead hands). The repetition you use in the poem breaks the rhythm, so it's not a rhythmic device, and while school might be seen as the topic of your poem, it is not a theme. Finally, there's no need to use emphasis at this time, especially not at the cost of the rhythm.
Wherein my worth is said to be. Thus deem
Progenitors: the donor of the seed
A balding peacock, graying plumage spread;
Now these lines just baffle me. Not just because of what they say, but also the way you say it. The tone of these lines is completely different from the tone you use in the first two lines, and also from the tone you use throughout most of the poem (although there are some other similarly out of place sections in the poem). The second line of the poem is colloqiual with phrases like "but to return to" while the third line suddenly starts with "Wherein", and ends with "Thus deem Progenitors". That sudden change of style is very uncomfortable.
Then the imagery in lines 4 and 5 are way too abstract for normal poetry (unless you are planning on becoming a metaphysical, which hasn't been a good idea since the 17th century!). When you are making use of symbolism, make sure that either the symbolism is well known, or that the symbolism is very obvious. For instance, you can make use of a heart in symbolism, and every will know what it revers to, or you can say something like a "car which with panther legs sprung forward" which, while not commonly used, everyone will be able to deduce what is meant. Using too abstract images, while giving your poem an "intellectual" air, will only annoy readers, intellectual and otherwise.
The mother but an ostrich, with her head
Held deep in sands of old religious lies.
These lines continue the confusing bird imagery (although I do like the ostrich with her head in the sand imagery, it doesn't really fit the poem), but that's not what I wanted to point out. You now bring up the topic of religion. Why? At this point I'm not even sure what the poem is about yet, and then you bring up a completely unrelated topic just to have a stab at it. I understand how religion could possibly be linked to the poem, but you're dedicating two lines in your opening stanza to mentioning it, and then you never continue with your discussion on the topic.
I come to the recruiter, free by day
For this short span between the hated school
And its mature successor.
What does this mean? On about fourth reading I can figure out that you are talking about the army recruiter (I think), and if this is so then I can perhaps link the recruiter to the mature successor which would then be the army. How am I supposed to know this on reading it the first time though. You've never even mentioned the army, and now you are using abstract terms to refer to it. Now, if you wish to have the identity of the recruiter remain secret (to build tension) then that is fine, but this does not seem to be the purpose in your poem.
Thus I yearn
To flee, to change my fate, to do by choice
As cousins do at gunpoint far away,
As ancestors, by direst need possessed,
Enlisted to oppose the fascist tanks.
Once again, you are being to vague here. Which cousins do you refer to? Your actual cousins? How should the reader know that your actual cousins are fighting in the war. Or are you referring to the world as a great big brotherhood, and cousins represent people fighting in the war somewhere far away? If so, then cousins are once again very abstract ("brothers" would be the more widely understood image), and then your mention of facists seem to contradict the image of a universal brotherhood.
You make use of inversion again in this stanza ("by direct need possessed") and it seems out of place again. The style of your poem is mostly relaxed, except for a few lines which seem to be purposefully stylized.
A final note on this section: You can take out the "the" in the last line of the stanza. At the moment you are saying your ancestors were enlisted to fight THE facist tanks. Which facist tanks? THE facist tanks. It could be made more general by taking out the "the" and simply leaving it "enlisted to oppose facist tanks". This changes the feel of the line a bit, from a very specific statement to a more general statement about their roles in the war.
From tyranny to tyranny I tread.
Today, the random justice of the state
Holds more appeal than that by birthright earned.
The hollowness of glory with a gun
is fuller than whatever classrooms hold.
The uniform at least presents a risk
And flips the bird to birds from which I spawned.
The first line also makes use of inversion, but I don't have a problem with that. The inversion doesn't seem forced, perhaps because it is the first line of the stanza. I do feel that the line makes another purposeless statement. The lines that follow that opening line (which sets the tone for the stanza) do not make it clear why you tread from tyrannny to tyranny.
Just another example of the conflicting tone found throughout the poem. You have the inversion again in line 3 of this stanza "that that by birthright earned.", now contrast this with word "whatever" in line 5, and then the phrase "flips the bird" in the last line. These style contrasts confuse the reader.
The middle lines of this stanza are ok, they're still a bit too abstract, but I can figure out, without too much effort, what they are trying to say. The last line is too abstract again though, as you make use of the bird imagery again.
My tests, my mental state suffice and more;
My health disqualifies. Goodbye, says he,
And with one word my budding hope destroys.
This stanza is overly stylized (and thus, dramatic). I find the "suffice and more" and "my health disqualifies" phrases to be too stylized. It's as if you wanted to say something, but then thought about how you could say it so that it sounded poetic. The phrases don't fit in with the poem, especially not the last line. Remember, inversion is used mainly for three reasons: Rhythm, rhyme, and drama. Now, the rhythm is not clear enough in the poem to make the the inversion of the last line serve a rhythmic purpose, and there is no rhyme for you to worry about. Thus the inversion makes the last line very dramatic, and in this case, overly dramatic. You spend the whole poem clinically describing how you wish to enlist, and then in the last line you say that he "your budding hope destroys".
(If it had been another two years hence,
The flaw could just as well have been dismissed,
And I might stain the silica afar,
Another coffin added to the count,
Another tickmark given to the ticks
Who lust for power, seeking to replace
The swine that bathe, befouling it, today.)
"Hence" is too stylized again, especially when followed by the phrase "just as well", and the same can be said for "stain the silica". The imagery also becomes very abstract in this section "stain the silica", "tickmark given to the ticks", and "swine that bathe" are all examples of symbolism that I can grasp, but that are too personal for me to properly understand.
So, I know this was a lot to read, and it might seem very negative to you, but it's not. The poem wasn't bad. You just need to get used to freeform a bit more. Many of the mistakes you make are excusable in rhyming poetry, where the rhymes are sometimes more important than the things I pointed out. In freeform though you don't have rhymes to detract the attention, and thus each word becomes vitally important.
Now, the criticisms I raised against the poem aren't there so that you can fix this specific poem. Rather read the criticisms as general guidelines for you to write by, and try to avoid making the same mistakes in future. My two biggest tips for you would be:
1. Say what you want to say concisely, and make sure that everyone understands what you are trying to say.
2. Find a "voice" that you are comfortable with. This includes style, rhythm, diction etc. Find a way of writing a poem that is consistent throughout the poem.
3. Keep your poem on topic. Do not add unnecessary information to your poem. Once you've decided on a topic (and thus, what the poem will "say" to people) write the whole poem around saying that. Your poem must have a point (even if the poem is absurdist, and the point is to have no point).
4. Do not stop writing poetry! In the beginning I find writing many poems to be more useful than writing one "good" poem. Focus on writing multiple poems. Once you've written a poem, read through your poem and take out what you can be taken out, rewrite what must be rewritten, and keep the other hints in mind. You will find that you can improve quickly by studying your own poems, and constantly trying to improve them. Once you are happy with a poem (and you struggle to find any faults in it) ask for more outside criticism. People are always willing to find fault with a poem 
Good luck, and I hope this helps!
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EPT
