"Songs of the Downtrodden 1 (poem)" by Kate "Silverfish" Jennings

Beautiful! It somewhat reminds me of the poem in LOTR about Aragorn: "The crownless again shall be king." This is very lovely, and I like the repetition of lines to infer the fact that it is sung. A wonderful poem that I thoroughly enjoyed!

Kate "Silverfish" Jennings replies: "Thankyou very much! I hadn't thought of the similarities to that poem (although it is of course in my head) - I was writing after a night of singing scottish songs. But I see it now!Thanks for stopping by."

Excelent. It has a very singable quality. Although normally I would say shame shame for rhyming a word with it's self, in this cause that is acceptable, even advisable from time to time (mostly because you can point to about a million examples of it in this tradition of song). There is one part that I would open up for examination though.

"Country words on country lips
Once more be freely spoken,
The tyrant's grasp be broken."

that series of lines seems to be missing a verb to which they are all clauses too. I hate to get my fingers into someone else's pie, but my suggestoins might be to insert a "will" between lips and insert "when" between spoken and the.

That might throw off your rhyme though, so it's best if you look over it and figure out somthing your confratable with. I would really suggest modifying it though, because it stands out like a sore thumb.

Thanks for the great peice.

Kate "Silverfish" Jennings replies: "Yes - usually I wouldn't rhyme a word with itself, but as you picked it was deliberate for the style.
I see what you mean, and also the difficulty of fitting that word in now. The "will" was meant to be read-over from the first sentence of that verse, in which case there should have been an apostrophe, not a full stop, so:

There will be a King again
And the white crown be broken,
Country words on country lips
[will] Once more be freely spoken,
The tyrant's grasp [will] be broken.

Does it make better sense with the punctuation fixed?
Thanks for the criticism."

Just a quick answer; No, I dont think that fixing the puncuation will change my gripe with that section of the peice.

Not as good as second one but very enthusim

Kate "Silverfish" Jennings replies: "Thanks for commenting! I'm glad you like it - I know it has flaws but I'm torn between wanting it to sound smooth and polished, and loving old chants and rhymes which don't scan, and translations of chinese poetry which is so evocative.If this ever gets into a story it will be pruned and tended."

Good poem, I really like it! I'm really looking forward to reading the second one now
It's cool to see you're able to write something song-like. I tried a couple of times but didn't seem to get any rythm into it...

Kate "Silverfish" Jennings replies: "It helps if you take a tune you know and try to fit words to it. For example, another poem I wrote (not here yet) was taken from a slow sad Easter hymn. To me, the poem will always be bound up with that tune:"Red are the trees that sleep above the river,
The age-old river that's flowing out forever,
Never returning to your Autumn forest
Going before us".
And so forth."

I find that the repeated lines jar the rhythm a bit, but as has already been stated, it gives credibility to the idea that this is a song. I find myself wanting to hear the tune.

Also, in response to YOUR response to a different letter, I know that feeling! I once made up an eccentric love song to a MIDI I was listening to far too much, and I always remember bits of the words when I hear it now. Likewise, I often remember what game I was playing whenever I hear a song I first heard while gaming. It's interesting how memory works!

The repeated lines did jar a bit for me as well, but it would work nicely as a song. It was quite enjoyable otherwise, a feel of history to it.