Source
r/OCPoetry•
thithiths

Assisted Feast

Feedback Received!
A rabbit joins the Dogtown dead
Of several dogfoodsworth or more,
They have procured it on their own,
Though never bred to feed themselves,
And so it lies uneaten still. 

And though I know the damage wrought
By several dogpacksworth of dogs,
I brought my knife to help them slough
Semantic barriers of skin
And thus bring peace to their cruel guts.

It does not help to make them tame,
They shy away from me, or worse,
Antagonize with blaring teeth,
That, if they knew what they could do,    
Would make me a redundant role.

I do not know if I am right
To let their lineage persist,
But I lend aid in spite of this,
The effort spent in tending life
While detriment remains unseen.

A dozen doglivesworth of life,
The territory they were taught
Belonged to them by fictive kin,
Who at one time were owned by men
And didn’t have to learn to eat.

1, 2

Posted Feb 6, 2016, 8:02 PM UTC

22
dylanmorchard•

I like it, a good piece. Only issue I'd raise is that in the instinctive use of language there's an occasionally overwrought sense of imposed eloquence. Some parts seem natural and vital, others seem like technical building blocks. With the dogpacksworth stuff you're playing with something that seems right, that flows well and resonates as a definite voice. If you extended that easy experimentation with words to cover more lines then I think it'd be stronger for it. Whereas words like semantic, detriment and fictive do the job of saying something but not necessarily with the same sense of self or originality.

2
gwrgwir•

The wording, especially 'dogfoodsworth/doglivesworth' and similar, confuses me. Some lines have a rough rhyme to them, but it's inconsistent throughout. The pronouns don't have any sort of reference point that I can see, and though there's a seemingly consistent narrative to the piece, the most I can understand of it is the raising of rabbits to be used in dog food products (and I'm not sure if that's even close to intent).

Overall, this piece seems like a good attempt at writing narrative poetry with the odd metaphor and descriptive language thrown in, but the barrier to understanding makes for an emotional lack.

1