03-08-2013, 05:18 AM
Brett, I've moved this to the Novice forum so we can offer you a bit of advice -- the "for fun" is just that, not for critiques but for mucking about.
Firstly, welcome and it's good to see you posting. You spin quite a good story and you have nearly mastered one of the golden rules of poetry: "show, don't tell". We know a lot about Iris from the things around him and his actions. To strengthen that, you could probably get rid of the second stanza entirely, because what you say there is implied by the rest of the poem -- especially the last stanza.
The biggest problem you have is one that will hopefully sort itself out with experience -- trying to be "poetic". Poetry can't really be forced. Changing natural syntax (grammatical structures), forcing in rhymes that don't fit with meter (rhythm), that sort of thing -- and that's just a matter of reading more, seeing how other people do things and shamelessly stealing their techniques
Firstly, welcome and it's good to see you posting. You spin quite a good story and you have nearly mastered one of the golden rules of poetry: "show, don't tell". We know a lot about Iris from the things around him and his actions. To strengthen that, you could probably get rid of the second stanza entirely, because what you say there is implied by the rest of the poem -- especially the last stanza.
The biggest problem you have is one that will hopefully sort itself out with experience -- trying to be "poetic". Poetry can't really be forced. Changing natural syntax (grammatical structures), forcing in rhymes that don't fit with meter (rhythm), that sort of thing -- and that's just a matter of reading more, seeing how other people do things and shamelessly stealing their techniques
It could be worse