Gothic BC

Don't ever feel pressured to explain your poems.  Remember, writing a poem is not the same as giving a dissertation of a thesis.  One of the brilliant qualities of poetry is that it’s open to interpretation.  That being said, I think the main obstacle in fully understanding this poem (IMHO) is the language barrier.  The poem appears to be rife with linguistic errors, so much so that it distracts the reader from reaching an understanding of the intended meaning.  One example:

That to be happy one might

One might what? If this line is intended to be “end-stopped”, rather than “enjambed” it does not express a complete idea.  This places the reader in a state of confusion, “leaving them hanging” as it were.

If it is intended to be enjambed (meaning when one line of poetry forces the reader to immediately follow with the next, sans rest), the following phrase “Reality exists”

doesn’t appear to make sense.  If I were to continue with the enjambed theory, I would think that the line was supposed to read “really exist,” suggesting that either one must be happy in order to truly exist, or that one must fully exist in order to happy.

This enjambed theory is put down when looking at the following line:

“But happiness never will”

which doesn’t make sense unless joined with the previous line “Reality exists,” giving the meaning – Reality exists, but happiness does not exist.

This problem is compounded by poor subject verb agreement - “souls feeds”, “love that make.”  The reader has to wonder if the subject is solitary, or part of some collective.  This subtle difference can have great impact on a piece, and any interpretation of the piece.  Not to mention that it is simply grating to read mismatched nouns/verbs.

On rhyming. 

In a poem, writing a sentence out of natural order for the purpose of achieving a rhyme can often be forgiven.  However, to do so when no rhyme is present is awkward and silly.  Example: “Yet in vain that search is.”  This line does not rhyme with any other lines nearby, and could have just as easily been written as “Yet that search is in vain.”  As is, it looks like something Yoda would say.  “Judge me by my size do you?” instead of “Do you judge me by my size?”

A similar problem occurs in the lines,

“Yet from the first sight

Of reality we have know

That this is a light…”

The specific problem here is with the word “know.”  It does not rhyme with anything around it, so there is no need to abuse the word as it has been.  The reader is then left to ponder if the word was supposed to be “known” or “knowledge” or something else entirely.  Or is the word “know” correct, and something else is amiss? 

So I hope you can see how with all this and more going through the reader’s head, it is difficult to get at the principal message that this poem is attempting to offer.

A general piece of advice to all (myself included): proof read your work, use vocabulary that you are familiar with, and have a decent dictionary at hand.

Thanks again for the effort.  Keep on trying!

I am with Swoop in not fully understanding the poem, but I, unlike him, do have one comment.  There are a few times where the lines seem very forced so that you have the appropriate rhyme at the end of the line.  Here are a couple examples I found:

"Why do we live?

Why do we fight?

Why do we believe?

That to be happy one might"

"For we know that one cannot leave

While in love we don’t believe"

You would not normally arrange sentences that way, and when read aloud, it sounds clumsy and forced.

Also, I do not know what this word is supposed to be: "wearied"

Like my fellow literary critic, I will go over this poem again and hopefully have a little more constructive criticism to give you, but perhaps, in the meantime, you could share a little more about the meaning of your poem.  A more in-depth explanation would be very helpful.