Overall very well done. The music is lovely with the anaphora bookending every stanza, and the excellent chain rhyme of the Rubaiyat stanzas (like Frost's "Stopping by Woods...")
There is a very strong association with Yeats, obviously with the repeated phrase from "Lake Isle" (and even the way you extend the phrase by adding "now" in the final line), but also the use of hexameter echoes "Lake Isle," and the phrase "my heart is sore," which is in "The Wild Swans at Coole." The only question would be why there are such pervasive allusions to Yeats in this particular poem -- is there some kind of specific connection to the subject or theme?
Thank you for the thoughtful comment, Steven! I’ve learned some terms for things I do without knowing what I’m doing!
I don’t know whether there was more intentional association with Yeats than simply having the rhythms and emotions of his poem in my head while writing. There was some intentionality to inverting the places inhabited and longed for: in “Lake Isle” the poet declares his intention to “arise and go” away from monotony and to an idyllic world, while in this poem the departure is from the idyllic back into monotony. But that doesn’t quite answer your query.
That definitely makes sense: this poem’s “arise and go” is an inversion of “Lake Isle”’s yearning toward an idyllic home — here, a departure from an idyllic moment or vision. To use the opening phrase and the rhythms of a famous poem will undoubtedly call attention to the connection with the original. But this poem is not simply derivative, it has a lot of interest and beauty of its own.
I love this so much. My favorite bit, I think: " The glass upon the floor
clicks like the second-hand that ticks away the hour."
Also the toil that wears the speaker, the play on that whole concept. Quintessential Kilby. (I have to add that I'm incredibly impressed with the math. Numblers, bleh. But you make them magic.)
What a beautiful cadence! You've laced this with so much layered meaning that you might well be speaking of a someone else through the metaphor of Cinderella.
I love love the last sentence. What a perfect close.
I laughed when I saw the title because last night I wrote a poem that was a verse retelling of Hansel and Gretel. I know you didnt write this last night, but I still found it funny timing.
The consolation of fairy-stories, the joy of the happy ending: or more correctly of the good catastrophe, the sudden joyous “turn”(for there is no true end to any fairy-tale): this joy, which is one of the things which fairy-stories can produce supremely well, is not essentially “escapist,” nor “fugitive.” In its fairy-tale—or otherworld—setting, it is a sudden and miraculous grace: never to be counted on to recur. It does not deny the existence of dyscatastrophe, of sorrow and failure: the possibility of these is necessary to the joy of deliverance; it denies (in the face of much evidence, if you will) universal final defeat and in so far is evangelium, giving a fleeting glimpse of Joy, Joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief. - Tolkien
Never mind the shoe!🤣🤣🤣 I love fairytale retellings.
Overall very well done. The music is lovely with the anaphora bookending every stanza, and the excellent chain rhyme of the Rubaiyat stanzas (like Frost's "Stopping by Woods...")
There is a very strong association with Yeats, obviously with the repeated phrase from "Lake Isle" (and even the way you extend the phrase by adding "now" in the final line), but also the use of hexameter echoes "Lake Isle," and the phrase "my heart is sore," which is in "The Wild Swans at Coole." The only question would be why there are such pervasive allusions to Yeats in this particular poem -- is there some kind of specific connection to the subject or theme?
Thank you for the thoughtful comment, Steven! I’ve learned some terms for things I do without knowing what I’m doing!
I don’t know whether there was more intentional association with Yeats than simply having the rhythms and emotions of his poem in my head while writing. There was some intentionality to inverting the places inhabited and longed for: in “Lake Isle” the poet declares his intention to “arise and go” away from monotony and to an idyllic world, while in this poem the departure is from the idyllic back into monotony. But that doesn’t quite answer your query.
That definitely makes sense: this poem’s “arise and go” is an inversion of “Lake Isle”’s yearning toward an idyllic home — here, a departure from an idyllic moment or vision. To use the opening phrase and the rhythms of a famous poem will undoubtedly call attention to the connection with the original. But this poem is not simply derivative, it has a lot of interest and beauty of its own.
I love this so much. My favorite bit, I think: " The glass upon the floor
clicks like the second-hand that ticks away the hour."
Also the toil that wears the speaker, the play on that whole concept. Quintessential Kilby. (I have to add that I'm incredibly impressed with the math. Numblers, bleh. But you make them magic.)
Very impressed Kilby. Love your narration.
What a beautiful cadence! You've laced this with so much layered meaning that you might well be speaking of a someone else through the metaphor of Cinderella.
I love love the last sentence. What a perfect close.
I laughed when I saw the title because last night I wrote a poem that was a verse retelling of Hansel and Gretel. I know you didnt write this last night, but I still found it funny timing.
The kind beauty of memories of past gifts of joy and providence:
“ but treasure in my heart these hours of delight,
and when my hands are aching and my heart is sore,
I will arise and go back to this magic night.”
Lovely, I like that you’re using the clock forms in the structure, and the conversion with Yeats.
The consolation of fairy-stories, the joy of the happy ending: or more correctly of the good catastrophe, the sudden joyous “turn”(for there is no true end to any fairy-tale): this joy, which is one of the things which fairy-stories can produce supremely well, is not essentially “escapist,” nor “fugitive.” In its fairy-tale—or otherworld—setting, it is a sudden and miraculous grace: never to be counted on to recur. It does not deny the existence of dyscatastrophe, of sorrow and failure: the possibility of these is necessary to the joy of deliverance; it denies (in the face of much evidence, if you will) universal final defeat and in so far is evangelium, giving a fleeting glimpse of Joy, Joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief. - Tolkien