Please give me an honest assessment of this poem?

Question

The Mountain

The landscape drew me…

these immortal rocks rose at creation,

and here this moment

I stand mute…. my thoughts

as arid and brittle as foil

disintigrates.

These rock walls are monuments

to a vast eternal barrenness

that I can only feel but never know.

At least, I think,

the ocean before it

had a soul.

It writhed with life,

teemed with engorged

and pregnant beings.

Microscopic organisms,

whales, cells of whales,

anemones all swimming upstream

recycling the briny waters

that preserved energy

preparing them to be

in time

a mountain,

a monument to a vast eternal

barrenness that I can never know,

but only feel.

~ patsy mcAuley

Answer 1

Yeah, that comparison to foil (aluminum foil?) doesn't really make sense in this context. Can you build your comparison from images related to the poem?

What I was seeing in my head was walking along a dry and dusty rocky path. Arid and brittle as the rock beneath your feet? The dust? Brittle shale? etc.

Hmm.... isn't there a rock that's largely composed of mineralized fossils, something like that? Is it shale? I dunno... been too long since I did any research into that stuff.

Perhaps a different word than "before" if "the ocean before it"? Beyond it? Below it? I suppose it depends on if you mean that the ocean preceded it or if the ocean was in front of it. Maybe pick a different word to clarify?

I like the line "whales, cells of whales". Dunno why, I just like the way it sounds.

Maybe instead of having the anemones "all swimming upstream", since you don't mention a river and the term could be confusing, what do you think about substituting a different word... the first one that came to my mind was "current", especially since you mention energy two lines later.

I really like how you end it. May I also suggest (I'm full of suggestions today) incorporating the term "rock walls" somewhere in there? Earlier in the poem you mention how the rock walls are mountains... perhaps

preparing them to be

In time

rock walls

a mountain

a monument.... etc

Feel free to follow your heart on any of these suggestions, you've written very well and I do feel the poem as is. Except for the foil thing - gotta fine tune that. Good work, though!

You should share more. =)

Saul

Answer 2

I liked it, it had feeling. But maybe you could make it flow better between 8-21?

Answer 3

A very descriptive poem about time and our human inability to grasp it.  I like the contrasting imagery of the microscopic with the macroscopic elements of nature. It is not a poetic sin to have irregular meter in this type of poem.  I agree that all poetry should be read aloud, but singsong is NOT required.

Answer 4

Lovely, Kudos.

Answer 5

I like the word choice and overall feel of the poem, but you could maybe make it flow maybe, and sqeeze a few more rhymes (not asking you to change the whole format of your poem)

Answer 6

A poet of paleontology!  I found a trilobite fossil on a mountain in Colorado and I was taken back there again in your poem.  All the wonder of that day.  Bravo!

Answer 7

This is so vivid with evocative,visual imagery that I couldn't help but be drawn in. I love the repetition of the thought that you "can never know but only feel" the "vast eternal barrenness".  The poem picks up momentum and then crashes back down to this barreness in a cycle like that of the ocean that once was.  Very beautiful.  Thank you.

Answer 8

Yes, I like this very much.  It reads very well out loud.

One minor thing-

I stand mute....my thoughts,

as arid and brittle as foil,

disintegrate.

(it is your thoughts which are disintegrating isn't it - not the foil? So disintegrate must be singular and the commas help us to read it correctly)

The ocean section is superb.

It took me a while to accept the - "rocks/feel but never know" and the "mountain/know but only feel".... as I read it carelessless and thought you were repeating yourself.  Then I realised how clever that was.

Well done.