This is a critique of the original poem you posted, not the second part. Just so you know, I think this is one of the best poems in Words that I've read. I just wanted to offer a few ideas which you are more than welcome to ignore. Here goes:
What I like best about this poem is the interesting syntax. For example, L3-L4: “In this lost world can’t my way / bring me to love the grind...” In fact, those two lines are my favorite in this poem. “Lost world” and “the grind” are very cliché, and “love” is an unqualified abstraction, but you have made them all fresh and original due to the sentence construction. It’s interesting what you’re doing; I feel like I can learn something, as a poet, from those two lines alone. You should read Graham Foust’s book, “Necessary Stranger”. Throughout the collection he takes hackneyed phrases and idioms and turns them on their heads, which is kind of what you are doing in L2-L3.
Moving on:
The double meaning of “piece” is wonderful. Of course, “Fears” and “infinite piece” are very vague, which at first bothered me. On a second read, however, I recognized that you qualify the sequence with a bit of imagery. However, “Fears” could probably go; it is somewhat redundant considering you have already stated that the speaker is “afraid.” I recognize that it rhymes with “feast,” but that is a trite detail; if it is serving no other purpose, then I would cut it. However, this is a very complex poem, and I realize I might be missing something; please keep it if it has some other importance besides restating “afraid” and rhyming with “feast.”
I love how the poem moves from “soldier” to “Prince.” However, the identity of the latter figure isn’t clear. It might be interesting to have the speaker, who is originally a “soldier,” become a prince in the end. At the same time, it works perfectly fine as is. By
not identifying the speaker as the “Prince” at the end, you are providing a curious contrast. I like it both ways, I’m just throwing out alternative ideas in case you feel like changing it.
There’s some redundancy in L13. Saying “Into one” seems to be enough. Adding “only one” simply serves to further verify the number of the “eternal Prince,” which would work fine if you had previously shed some doubt as to how many princes there are. But, as the poem stands, there is no reason for the reader to doubt the speaker’s assertion that there is one prince. For that reason, I would rewrite L13 as either “Into one” or “Into only one.”
L1 is wonderful, and it really draws the reader in. However, upon several readings of the poem, I don’t find any significance in the speaker being “green”. That said, I wouldn’t necessarily cut that word out, because it’s interesting to use color in this poem. What I would do, in fact, is expand color - but that’s just me. Thematically, something so specific as color is an all-or-nothing deal. Either you should cut the word “green” out of the poem, or you should add other colors throughout the poem with some logical, schematic design. As I said, I personally favor adding
more colors to the poem. Even using it once more would do the trick. What if the “Prince” was described as being red? Red, in color theory, is complimentary to green. It’s green’s opposite on the color wheel, if I remember correctly. But it’s your poem, and it’s awesome as is, so you should decide this kind of thing on your own. I’m just throwing out ideas, not necessarily suggestions.
The line breaks are working very well throughout, which is a tough feat. Personally, I’m terrible with line breaks; I tend towards “suspension of meaning” in my breaks, which is important, but definitely isn’t everything. In this poem, your line breaks not only serve that function, but also increase the flow (for lack of a better word/phrase). However, they aren’t entirely supporting the imagery and other important elements, which is an aspect of line breaks that I’ve recently started to learn about (a new semester of writing classes began for me this past week). I don’t claim to be an expert in line breaks, but based on my limited understanding, I don’t think that either L2 or L11 work (by that, I mean that the breaks at the end of L1 and L10 are a bit off). Those two lines (L2 and L11), as stand-alones, don’t support the poem’s key elements, which, in my opinion, are mixed syntax, clarified abstraction, imagery, confused identity, etc. You want your line breaks not only to increase “flow” and provide "suspension of meaning," but also to support the poem’s stylistic intent - as well as the underlying meaning(s) and metaphor(s).
Also, I noted that L5 and L9 are the shortest lines; basic poetic teaching about line lengths is that the shortest and/or longest lines should be the most important, because they visually stand out to the reader. I don’t actually agree with that theory, but I’m mentioning it because this poem - aesthetically - is very scattered, and those two short lines do stand out. However, I don’t believe them to be more significant than the lines surrounding them. This is a minor point, and I’m just mentioning it in order to provide a thorough and fair critique. In my opinion, they’re fine as is.
The title confuses me. As an American, I instantly think of the Seinfeld character. So in order to avoid that bias, I Googled the word. I didn’t find anything that seemed to relate to the poem. Ted Kooser has an interesting essay about titles in which he refers to them as “windows” by which the reader is able to view the poem. But I hate Ted Kooser, I’m just referencing one specific thing of interest he has said; overall, his poetry sucks. What I’ve been taught personally is that you want your title to either clarify something about the poem (often the ending), or - like the Ted Kooser theorizes - provide an entry point into the poem (i.e. introducing setting, tone, a key metaphor, etc.). I’m not sure what work your title is doing for this poem. I might change it, but that's just me.
Overall, this is one of my favorite poems I’ve read in this forum in a long time. If my critique sounds very critical, it’s only because I think this is an
excellent poem. I want to give you ideas for your next draft. That being said, I could see this poem remaining exactly as is. I just wanted to offer some thoughts. Thanks for bringing some serious writing to Words
