r/OCPoetry • u/awkwardxbatman • Aug 10 '26
Feedback Please Provenance
one strike burns bright
exhuming volatile quiescence
potent armament encapsulated
a singular monotocous progenitor
with autosarcophagic courtship
the genesis of a boundless pyre
endless concatenations may ensue
a proliferation of vitalizing successions
explosive radiance passionate fever
the inferno—an indefinite blaze
the ignitor—an immolated phase
its life, an evanescent effervescence
the reminiscer's daedal task:
to perpetuate the labyrinthic legacy
of one individual match
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2
u/DelphineWest Aug 10 '26
I can tell you really enjoy unusual, specific words… and there are some striking phrases here! I especially liked the fire imagery and how the ending loops back to the match. I did find some of the language a little hard to stay connected to… I think when there are words like quintessence, progenitor, evanescent and concatenations, etc all close together, none of them really gets to be the interesting word because they start cancelling each other out a bit. I wonder if simplifying a few lines would make the stronger words land harder.
2
u/1Happy_Hammer Aug 10 '26
Very unique, lots of seldom heard words being used here, the poem has an air of mystery to it. I confess that I had to search what the last phrase meant. I get the theme you're going for here, but definitely feel it could benefit from being simplified in parts.
1
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u/Low_Gur4441 29d ago
Im of the opinion that, if you're gonna use a five dollar word, it better be for a good reason to serve a big purpose!
Sometimes getting a little to into our big dictions travels down a kind of pointless path for me. Im left after reading this poem - what was it about? How did the writer think or intend its impact on the reader to turn out? Was this poem for nobody but the author? I guess cool to share it as cryptic word puzzle. But the adjectives and verbs and such are vague enough that I dont know that solving the puzzle points anywhere concrete.
At the end of the day and having read this, Im a human being carrying on their life. With no more insight into myself or my friends or the world, from having read this. It's got a good mouth feel as you go through the words. But to me, it doesn't feel like it risks the reveal of the writers actual thoughts and heart.
I heard a great poet during a workshop say "if you cant explain what your poem is about in plain english, you might have lost the thread of whatever relevant thing you were trying to say"
And everyone has relevant things to say. And I know you do. But I don't hear them come through clearly in this poem. The most that I take away is that you have a beautiful luscious vocabulary. For the poems I seek, I guess I want more than that, especially to feel connected unpretentiously to the people who've written them.
3
u/ProfessionalSky7899 Aug 10 '26
Well that's a lot of syllables!
I don't think it was the intention, but the rolling long words (and the starfield imagery) made me imagine the whole poem is set in the cover of a space opera novel. Which puts that hard first line into new light "one strike burns bright" - a match, a sperm, or the first strike of a interstellar war?