You act as if words were children's building blocks
Stacking them up as you will, will-they, nil-they,
        rather than as what they are:
Powerful agents of an alchemy worked upon the mind,
Producing reactions called Imagery and Evocation.

I try to treat words as drops of Mercury,
Whose name indicates the Swiftest and implies Change,
And which can poison under the skin.

12 responses total.

The last line: it's so interesting.  it's like you chose to fletch your
words with poison or that you respect language as something that can be
put under the "skin" (into the person spoken to) puposefully in order to
cause change.  And, because I know you (it's an added advantage, to be
sure), I know that you mean it both ways. 

the first line of the last stanza is kinda weird to me; the inclusion of
"I" in a poem is a powerful thing, and I'm not sure if the way you've used
is to its full effect.  I need to chew on it s'more, though, before I
suggest you change it.

There's also the image of something "getting under your skin" -- an idea that
won't leave you alone.

Ah! That's it!  Use "i" by itself, don't hinder it with the "try to," it
weakens the statement.

"I treat words as drops of Mercury..."

Now look at the first stanza: you're used "You," and it stands alone, grabbing
the attention of the reader.  "I" unhindered redirects the reader's attention.

The "try to" was added because it came out of a rant, in the interests of
scrupulous honesty.  They can, in fact, go.  Thank you.
*G* Mercury getting under the skin is what made hatters mad, too, which is
also part of the allusion.

Nice.

Yeah, well.
Any more constrauctive criticism?

*little hopeful look*

Well....

I have to say, the first few lines don't do much for me.  The image that's
got real bite here seems to be the one in the last three lines, and that image
really is striking; the "building blocks" metaphor just doesn't startle me
the same way.

I'd say if you want to do some tweaking, you should focus on that first
stanza.  Either try to trim it -- you could give a sense of the debate that
the poem's a response to in maybe half a line, really -- or try to punch up
the images a little. 

Hmmm.  I'm really attached to my alchemy image, especially since it's sort
of a lead-in to the Mercury image (mercury was used extensively in
alchemy).  But maybe I can do something about the first image to make it
sharper.
Thanks.

Okay, here's how I altered the original, on the basis of Erinn's comments:

You act as if words were children's building blocks
Stacking them up as you will, will-they, nil-they,
        rather than as what they are:
Powerful agents of an alchemy worked upon the mind,
Producing reactions called Imagery and Evocation.

I treat words as drops of Mercury,
Whose name indicates the Swiftest 
And implies Change,
And which can poison under the skin.


And here's what I came up with, taking Ori's comments into account, and
just keeping the bits I liked:

Words are
Powerful agents of an alchemy worked upon the mind,
Producing reactions called Imagery and Evocation.

But you treat them as if they were
Base Lead, to be molded into the rough shapes of stories
And then you pray for some PhilosopherUs Stone
That will turn them to Gold.

But that is not the Great Work.

I treat words as drops of Mercury,
Whose name indicates the Swiftest 
And implies Change,
And which can poison under the skin.


Comments?  On either version?

Roight.  Now I'm gonna be a bitch and say I liked version 1 better.  :)
Not quite.  I like "as if they were Base Lead" and "that is not the Great
Work" a lot.  
Which do you prefer, out of curiousity?

I don't know yet.  I think they each express a variation on the same theme,
but I don't know how I feel about them.  I'll probably try another variation
or two before I decide something.

re 10 - everyone likes version one better, for some reason... in my
experience, anyway. (:

version one was a little more direct, the images sounded more stripped down
and direct to my ear.  if you could achieve that with version two, it might
appeal the same way as version one.

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