Poem

[MrOctopi]

I judged a seafaring man
A southerner by birth and raising
All the horrors that can be named
Though a southerner
He was captured

Evening light
Lamps we passed
Nearly out
Dark and cold
Rebel guards froze to death

Dead bodies remained until lately
Being exchanged with holes in the ground

In the stockade coming up with the rest
Guards would occasionally fire into our prison

Demonism has a wife and child
Army and frequent murder

Squads of deserters
Tramped along without order
I saw a huge huddling mass
Surrounded by the armed
Spectators laughing

Deserters are brought here
All sorts of rig
Some sickly
Most of them dirty
Despair has written to them from here
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This is the first poem I've actually finished. Feedback would be great. Thank you.

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[MisterRPG]

My gut reaction is to criticize; this poem look like it's been written piecemeal, possessing only a limited coherence.

Then I realized that there was a reason it looks so broken up - these "writings" are a collection of phrases copied from the works of Walt Whitman and mashed together. I think there was an effect you were trying to achieve, and you didn't pull it off. In fact, I'm not sure where you were going by using his works like this.

I also want to point out that by borrowing so heavily from someone else's works and not crediting them as a source, you are coming very close to plagiarism, as they are taken from Whitman's work, not your own.

[Deathcon7]

At 2/14/11 11:32 PM, MisterRPG wrote: I also want to point out that by borrowing so heavily from someone else's works and not crediting them as a source, you are coming very close to plagiarism, as they are taken from Whitman's work, not your own.

How do you know it's NOT Walt Whitman.

[MisterRPG]

At 2/14/11 11:38 PM, Deathcon7 wrote:

At 2/14/11 11:32 PM, MisterRPG wrote: I also want to point out that by borrowing so heavily from someone else's works and not crediting them as a source, you are coming very close to plagiarism, as they are taken from Whitman's work, not your own.

How do you know it's NOT Walt Whitman.

Because my friend Google would never lie to me!

[Deathcon7]

At 2/14/11 11:58 PM, MisterRPG wrote:

At 2/14/11 11:38 PM, Deathcon7 wrote: How do you know it's NOT Walt Whitman.

Because my friend Google would never lie to me!

OMG my argument is invalid :P

Good observation, by the way.

[MrOctopi]

At 2/15/11 06:04 PM, Deathcon7 wrote:

At 2/14/11 11:58 PM, MisterRPG wrote:

At 2/14/11 11:38 PM, Deathcon7 wrote: How do you know it's NOT Walt Whitman.

Because my friend Google would never lie to me!

OMG my argument is invalid :P

Good observation, by the way.

It is in fact all Walt Whitman. From Specimen Days, a book of journals that the poet composed near the end of his life. We had to do a poetry assignment in my English class where you take two pages from a book or novel, and create a poem from sentence fragments. And you can't edit the words at all. I guess I should have said that before. The them I was going for was sort of a 'prisoner-versus-deserter' sort of thing. I didn't really communicate that idea so well. Anyways, thanks for reading it.