Free Verse Diction
April 24th 2009 01:15
"Gravity"
Amoebic bits of weightless gray
Are wrested from the womb
And flung to face the world.
The naked fall freezes and forms
Defaulted pilgrims, heavy burdens
For airy heights to keep in check.
Pulled to their deaths,
These powerless harbingers
Molt their light while on the move--
In tombs unsung, their movement spent,
They’re moved once more
To break the seal
And taste the sun again.
This is probably one of the most obscure poems I've ever written. The poem is about raindrops, which I hope the title and imagery help to bring across. I was thinking of implicitly comparing raindrops to early Church martyrs, and Gravity being like "Fate" sort of (or divine will). And despite the relentless motion (which can be interpreted as Fate pulling them along, or their choice to accept their fate) they still molt their light. Just like how raindrops shimmer as they fall if the sun is out somewhere. The end of the poem is extremely ambiguous; I'm not even sure of the exact reason I made it that way. From the literal raindrop perspective, I think it means that they return to the surface in plants and other life. From the metaphorical martyr perspective, it means that they have life after death; going to heaven and such.
This is definitely a free verse poem. Aside from alliteration, diction (word choice) is the key for this poem. In all poetry--but especially in free verse--it's important to pick great words that fit the surface meaning of the poem, but might have various connotations beyond the obvious meaning. It helps if the word is a "nice" word, too, to fit in with the meter and make the poem flow. My keywords in this poem are "defaulted," "harbingers," "molt," and "seal." Defaulted can mean several things, including failure;neglection of action, or failure to appear in court or perform some legal action. A Harbingers is a person/thing/event that precedes something else; like an omen-bringer, or a herald. Raindrops can be harbingers of life or death, and the saints/martyrs were harbingers in a religious sense. Molt means an act of shedding or casting off in the process of renewal. A seal is something that keeps something shut, and possibly secret. So with these words' various definitons, and the levels of metaphor in the poem, it's possible to read quite a lot deeper than the surface and still have a valid interpretation. I love ambiguity.
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