blindbee

SPARTANS?

Magnificent men,
Bidding boys to war
Resilient Women,
Inspired souls ignore

Constantly maintain justice,
Working as one
No time for weakness,
No time for fun

Efficient as an ant,
Wild as a Boar
Always searching,
To even the score

Beware of the future,
Gape not into our eyes
You’ll see pure evil,
Spawned by politicians’ lies

Do not grow bored,
There is more
Effeminate men,
Unworthy of lore

Men’s souls are void,
Without moral
Conquered masses,
Unwilling to toil

No fight remains,
In hearts of men
We’ve been consumed,
By our own sin

- S. Morrison

makalani_b

Seth,
First, I want to applaud you for your valiant attempt to write in verse. While free verse rules the day in modern poetry as I look around I see a resurgence of formal poetry which was almost put to death by the likes of Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams. Have a question? What verse form are you writing in? When I scan you lines I am getting approximately 5 feet every two lines, it is as if you are breaking up the pentameter, I am not familiar with that. I have heard of breaking up the heptameter as in Coleridge’s Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner: It is an ancient Mariner,/And he stoppeth one of three./`By thy long beard and glittering eye,/Now wherefore stopp'st thou me ?
So, I am not sure if it really works, but because of some of the really nice metrical work you have going on in this piece I am inclined to think that you could pull off the half pentameter lines. While we are on the subject of metrics, let’s discuss them further. Here is how I scan your poem: (stresses are in bold)

Magnificent men, (a)
Bidding boys to war (b)
Resilient Women, (a)
Inspired souls ignore (b)

Constantly maintain justice, (a)
Working as one (b)
No time for weakness, (a)
No time for fun (b)

Efficient as an ant, (a)
Wild as a Boar (b)
Always searching, (c)
To even the score (b)

Beware of the future, (a)
Gape not into our eyes (b)
You’ll see pure evil, (c)
Spawned by politicians’ lies (b)

Do not grow bored, (a)
There is more (b)
Effeminate men, (c)
Unworthy of lore (b)

Men’s souls are void, (a)
Without moral (b)
Conquered masses, (c)
Unwilling to toil (d) no rhyme here

No fight remains, (a)
In hearts of men (b)
We’ve been consumed, (c)
By our own sin (b)


The meter is kind of all over the place as you can see. In the beginning of the piece you establish a pretty regular iambic meter, but after the second stanza it pretty much falls apart. The abcb rhyme scheme gives the piece it’s song quality, but the meter makes the reading a mouthful sometimes. As the meter gets more erratic after stanza 4, it also becomes harder to understand the sense of the poem. I think the last 2 stanzas going into more of tetrameter than pentameter may have something to do with it. An example where you lose the sense is... Men’s souls are void,/Without moral/Conquered masses,/Unwilling to toil. (you also lose the rhyme scheme here, is there purpose for that?) What conquered mass? Are you referring to the Spartans? Or modern people? I am having trouble connecting the first 4 stanzas of the poem with the last 3. I can see that you are trying to switch gears and make a turn in what the poem has been previously saying, but you leave me in the dust. One little grammatical point in stanza 5, line 2 the verb should be 'are 'instead of 'is' to agree with the men in the next line.

In general, I might suggest going with a longer line. You already have a rhyme scheme instead of an abcb rhyme scheme, if you put your lines together you would have aabbcc etc., and instead of stanzas you would have couplets, no great loss in my thinking.

Once again I applaud your formal efforts, it is an excellent exercise in craft. I think what makes this piece equally hard to pull off is the subject matter. Poems about ancient Greek culture are abundant, so you stand in a long tradition that you have to stand up to, if you want to say something that will make your piece rise above the fray you are going to have dig deeper. As an African-American, I think one way a poem such as this could say something new is to speak to the ancient Egyptian antecedents of Spartan culture. When I clicked on the post to this poem I was actually hoping to see something along those lines. For more information on the subject, check out Martin Bernal’s Black Athena volumes 1 and 2, as well as Herodotus’ Histories Book 2. Finally, here is an online link to an article, scroll down to the bottom of the article and read the notes. I appreciate you sharing this piece with us, good luck with it.

mak

Nikos Tselepides

Seth,

A very nice poem indeed. I am Greek and can relate to it.

As far as the meters are concerned, I find them okay and needing no changes. In my view, too much meter and strictness in it is more detrimental than beneficial. Pound and Williams had some good points.
Pound tried to eradicate the mistake of poets of Milton's time who mistook rhyme for meter and wound up with the "sonority of the goose", as he called it, instead of using a metronomic meter.
Williams introduced freedoms unheard of previously.

Still, one is always free to choose whatever suits best.

You meter seems to flow well, and is not obstusive or overbearing on the reader and that is a great virtue.

Thanks again.

Mysty

I tend to agree with Nikos.... amazingly enough..... I read this out and had no problem with meter... I used to be in the Canadian Navy Cadets in my younger years... did LOTS of marching so I tried that with using this poem...... and it works.

I quite liked this poem Seth ...... good job I say !!

Mysty