Position:Home>Poetry> Please Read My Poem!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!?

Honestly? The diction, especially the rhymes, seems forced and false, like you used a thesaurus to make it work. There is no subtlety; your poem's meaning is blatantly obvious, despite a lot of nonsensical stuff you have in there (how is being misunderstood and opaque like being a deadly snake? I never thought snakes were particularly misunderstood. I understand that they are vaguely cylindrical reptiles who don't have limbs. And sure, snakes are opaque, but so's my toothbrush.) I can see what you were trying to do in writing it, and the underlying metaphor is a good one (if you stop mixing it with ones about flowers. Mixed metaphors are deadly.), but you should let your imagery do the talking, not your talking do the talking. Also, if rhyme doesn't come naturally, don't use it. You have some potential, I think, but you need a lot of practice. Try reading published poets (a wide variety is best, everything from Shakespeare to Plath) to get some ideas.

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So-so. I like some of the imagery: the beautiful but deadly snake weaving hypnotically intricate patterns is nice. "Delicate flower soon will wither" is good as well, if you can find a way of separating it from the snake metaphor--right now, as Rachel said, you're mixing your metaphors in stanza 2, which is awkward and confusing (is love a snake or a flower?).

"Misunderstood and so opaque" doesn't bother me: for one thing, you didn't actually say that snakes are misunderstood and opaque, and for another, in your metaphor, the snake *is* misunderstood: its beauty is seen, but its venom is not. Its purposes/ultimate ends are opaque, as are those of love. So I think that works fine.

It might be better if you could make your poem more opaque instead of stating your thesis bluntly right at the beginning (Love is venomous). After all, the snake itself--and love-- are hard to see through: you could do the same in introducing your metaphor: talk about the beautiful, slithering snake, keep your intentions ambiguous. You don't even have to bring in venom until the final "fangs sink in".

As for that last stanza, I like the abrupt, fragmented end "fangs sink in/love's excursion". It's like a quick snake-bite at the end of the poem: fits very well with what you are saying (which is why I think it would be all the more effective if you hadn't started off by declaring "love is venomous like a deadly snake" and it came as a surprise to the reader). On the other hand, the first two lines are weak: they just restate what has gone before. If you do change the "love is venomous" part, that won't be quite as bad--instead of saying "love is beautful but deadly" and then repeating it in the last stanza, you would be repeating "love is beautiful" throughout the poem, and then shock the reader with the "deadly" part. It would still be repetitive, in other words, but there would be more of a purpose to the repetition.

One final point: "excursion" doesn't work. The word doesn't actually mean "exit" or anything else that would fit. (It's a questionable rhyme as well, since the rhyming part "cursion" is the same in both words. [You could argue that point, and say that you're rhyming "cursion" and "'scursion".])

In short: some good points and some bad points. I think you could make this into a very good poem, but it would take some work.

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