Poetry / The Serpent

S1: I think the first stanza is solid now. No problems with it. It pulls the reader in with toothy eloquence.

S2: The repetition of ‘love’ on the first line sticks out for me here, merely since it was used in the last line. I don’t like the rhetorical question in this stanza, nor the use of ‘Not I’ here. I’m not sure what to recommend. I would actually remove this stanza if I were writing this poem. The next stanza is as strong as the first and this one feels to me like a hiccup. Up to you.

S3: Great. This is a strong stanza, esp. the last two lines, where I think you’ve nailed it. Maybe… a full stop after ‘Dives’ and a new sentence for the next line. The fourth line seemed like an ‘though’ was missing (i.e. ‘though I give more…’) but this would be too long a word for the stanza, even though the ‘and’ could be removed in the fifth line.

S4: Pruned down, I see. Excellent. Having Adam on one line highlights his importance and the biblical significance of his moniker.

S5: The last line seems to lack context. The reader has a vague idea of what ‘the cycle’ might be referring to but it struck me as hanging out there. Ideas? Have another line before ‘the serpent’ about the speaker? i.e. ‘the sower of seeds, the _ of _, the serpent?’ Then delete the third line? Up to you.

S6: Reminds of the alien drabbles. Which is a good thing as the alien element was missing in the previous part. This is a great revision also – it removes the concrete notion that a Godhead is speaking with the simple use of ‘many worlds.’ Last line is excellent.

S7: second ‘this’ could go? The space between ‘on their new world’ seems an error. I would lose the comma before this and delete the space.

S8: ‘they will know’ > ‘come to know…?’ This stanza gets the birth/death idea across quite well, dropping hints.

S9: both of the ‘each’(s) could go? The penultimate line ‘will call me vampire’ I think would work best with a specific name of this vampire. Will call me _ Vampire. Or ‘The Vampire’ would work well too. That would round off the poem nicely for me.

Terrific rewrite. One more and you’re good to go.

Claire

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February 11, 2009

by avedis

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More good input Claire.

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I’m not digging the repetition of words (rose used twice in first section, and rebirth used one line after the other later in the piece) because it doesn’t seem intentional and doesn’t happen anywhere else.

I’m struggling with the use of “Adam and Eve” in your metaphor. I understand what you are trying to do here, however you contradict yourself. Adam and Eve, the first humans in the creationism story of the bible. But your narrator admits these are not his first children. “the latest of my children”

I like the imagery of your narrator being considered God, Devil, Alien, Vampire (and who knows what else.) Oddly this makes him seem even more “human” as we all have a series of labels that are used to describe us, depending on who you talk to.

I also have a slight nagging irritation with the rose analogy. Every rose has a thorn, after all…

Over all well done. Any further questions, feel free to ask. I don’t want to waste too much of your credits.

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February 11, 2009

by avedis

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In the re-write, I’ll make ths more clear.

The clue was in ‘seeder’.

This alien visits planets, bites a man and a woman, then when they die and are reborn he places them on a fresh planet to start a race of humans. He has done this countless times before, and will do so countless times again.
Each time, what he does becomes part of that world’s religion – a genesis for every bible on every planet – the same story.
He returns once the race has matured to grab another couple of ‘Adam and Eve’s. Hence creating the legend of vampires.

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I have neither before nor after,
no place that I can I call my home”. This sounds too wordy. Perhaps you could say, i call no place home. The reader does not know what happened before or after and it doesn’t explain anything.

she will not be my Lazarus,
and I am not her Dives,  This could be clearer. What do you mean by dives? You might rework this.
?
Though death will be my first gift.” To her? Do you mean killing her is a gift? Make clearer who gets the gift you or her.

Adam.
He stands waiting, What or who is he waiting for?
?
and they will complete the cycle once again. Who?

“I will also be named the serpent,
the Devil.’

A serpent and a vampire are two different creatures. Perhaps you should take out serpent. It ruins the tale. It is like putting salt in a cake. It’s like you are talking about two different inhuman’s.

I like how you have framed this. Now all you have to do is tell the reader how all this comes about and give it a plot. Keep me posted Sandi

You asked for it… ;)

Though your punctuation style is amazingly similar to mine, it has a few weak spots:
designed for pleasure not pain, – comma after pleasure, for emphasis

I have neither before nor after, – comma after before, to give the reader a place to breathe

Before her came her brother – same, comma after her. Or -. Too many “her”s in this stanza. Also you go to past tense here and mess the space time continuum.

Thornless could replace “pure” in the first line to avoid repeating “rose” and eliminating line 3

plucked and left – by whom? Passive is a bad choice here. Moreso because later you say “death will be my first gift”, so I presume you are the one who “plucked her” – so she’s already dead (withering). Or I’m missing something.

designed for pleasure – whose pleasure? Too vague for me. Also, is any rose ever designed for pain? Especially a thornless one – unable to hurt.

“flesh” detracts from the rose simile. I’d use stem or something “planty”.

Would I destroy those I love? – “those” is plural and for now you talk only about her, so that’s quite a leap.

she will not be my Lazarus,
and I am not her Dives,
- will / am – the tense change lessens the strength here and takes away the moment.

for I give more than I take – this means everything and nothing. What is more than what? Life is more than death? Too preachy for me.

complete the cycle once again – what cycle? Eve is usually considered the first one, along with Adam, right? So how can the cycle be completed AGAIN? Who completed the cycle before?

This smells like God/Devil is talking. “perform my task” – who has given you the “task”?

by the act of their creation – this lost me completely. Creation? When? Aren’t they about to be reborn? Weren’t they created before? Didn’t you designed her even before stanza 1? This time jumping phases me out.

And when I return – from where? Where are you now? You said “I have neither before nor after”. So how come you will return? That would mean you do have “after”.

and none will ever thank me. – this questions your entire motivation for creating them, rebirthing them and just about everything. Now I see a devilgod who is in mid-life crisis and adolescence combined. Questioning everything and answering nothing. Vague and not satisfying to this reader. It does create the “cycle”/ “no end-beginning” feeling though.

Vampire motive is intriguing. Vampires take. They take blood/life. But sometimes they also give. They give immortality, making its victim the same as the “creator”. And yes, no one thanks the vampire. IMO, you should focus more on this motive, than on biblical ones.
For my personal taste, this was to much thinking and guessing. Try to keep the message and atmosphere, but do crystallize it with more specifics, more places where the reader can grab onto.

Go team serpent!

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February 09, 2009

by avedis

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Thank you.

Food (blood) for thought.

I do want to keep some of the vaguary here (the magazine I am sending it to specialises in alien vampire stories, so much will be a ‘given’ to the readers.)

I also already have a short story accepted which is much more lucid. This, sharing many common elements, needs to be different.

Hmmm. Thinking hat on.

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Arresting first two lines. Personal and melancholic. This is going to be good.

Suggestions:

“rose, plucked, and…” > either lose the second comma here or replace the first one with an em dash. Not sure which one works the best. Test ‘em.

“thorn less” > thornless

I omitted certain words when I read the next stanza. I omitted ‘and’ in the second line, ‘own’ in the third and replaced the comma at the end of ‘piercing’ with an em dash. These are personal preferences – but perhaps test a few to see if they work for you. Losing the ‘and’ I don’t think is required.

The third stanza is the least successful for me. It has a forced romantic or Shakespearean feel to it, which upsets the natural elegance of the preceding two stanzas. I would suggest… first person? i.e. ‘Should I destroy…’

A contradiction in the fourth stanza… she rises again even though she isn’t filling out the role of Lazarus. Something clever I’m missing? I would recommend a full stop after Lazarus to make it a stand-alone statement. Perhaps ‘she will not rise again?’

“waiting,” > delete comma

“across this Universe” > ‘my universe?’ I don’t like ‘universe’ here. This poem is rooted on Earth and is about the creation of Earth specifically (as I understood it).

This poem is very serpentine. I struggled to find a personal meaning at first, then I took away with a sense of the regenerating circle of life, the process of death and rebirth, and Adam/Eve being an ill-fitting allegory for this. So it has an irreligious/philosophical tinge to it.

The Dracula/Nosferatu references seem misplaced here. I placed the poem at the beginning of creation… a while before Bram Stoker.

As for the extraterrestrial element… I should have used the ‘skip’ button as I only remembered this when I re-read the reviewer notes. For me this is an interesting jab at the God of Christianity – challenging His benevolence and drawing parallels between the Devil and God, blurring the difference between the two.

A concrete meaning still eludes me. I think focusing on ‘the daughter’ would give the poem more unity, then perhaps introduce Adam with less significance (giving the impression that Eve is the most loved of His creations).

Or the ET element. How this alien creature is making his beings to assimilate human characteristics. There are many strands here that require greater stitching.

Complex and interesting poem. I look forward to the redraft.

Claire

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February 08, 2009

by avedis

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Hi Claire,

many thanks.
I didn’t want to give the game away in my notes – but this poem has to fullfill specific criteria for a specialist magazine.
Alien vampire, placed historically, and exploring motives either of vampire, victim or both.
I’ve already had a short story accepted, and this theme was too similar to make another prose work – so I condensed it into a poem.
The idea (and what a failure having to explain it!):
The vampire is a seeder of planets. He steals victims from one, by killing them but granting rebirth. He then sets them up as founders for a race on another planet. In time, he returns to the established new planet and gathers more ‘seeds’.
In doing this, he sets up the creation myth – being both God and the devil/serpent.
On his return centuries later, he also creates the vampire myth.

The Lazarus reference:
Partly, reinforcing the biblical references.
In the Gospel of Luke 16:19–31, Jesus tells of one Lazarus, a beggar who lay outside the gate of a rich man, whom later tradition has given the name Dives— from the Latin for ‘rich’— who dressed in fine clothing and dined sumptuously every day, but gave nothing to Lazarus. Both men died, and the beggar received his reward in the Hereafter.
In my tale, the vampire is both a more generous Dives and Jesus the restorer.
Too bloody obscure eh?

Back to the drawing board!

February 08, 2009

by Claire_D

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I wouldn’t say it was too obscure. There aren’t any references to alien vampires… that’s the problem! Once the narrator’s ID has been established, or at least hinted at, then the rest of the poem can assimilate these ideas. So perhaps a little re-working in the first few stanzas will help establish the complex ideas in the rest.
Best of luck,
-C

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