Need Feedback!!!

[Aelend]

I wrote this poem for my english class and me teacher loved it even thinking that i should send it into a poetry contest....but i'm really ambivelent about sending it in before i hear what others think of it:


Death’s Ecstasy

The hour approaches as the day comes to close
Judgment choice is seen far too clear
The sound has stopped, the soul no longer flows:
My gift was given but now is only returned in tear,

“Tighten,” says the Rope, which brings my heart to fear—
“Fallen,” says the Chair, that was my final line.
As the blackness comes like night; silent scream hear
Ecstasy reached – the point of no return.

Time stops. And memory begins to turn,
Her face, I see defined as I loved.
Our final caress passionate like Hephaestus burn
Our bodies together in harmony as we moved

But you have gone like the sun at dark
O, Death, now I choose Thee; listen, Hark.

its a spenserian sonnet so it was a little challenging but it wasnt extremely difficult...any comments would be much appreciated!

[blp]

There are some good things going on here and most of them are imagery - the rope, the chair, even 'gone like the sun at dark', though it's rather unoriginal. The reason I don't quite share your teacher's enthusiasm for it is the abstraction and awkward syntax of the rest, both basic poetic mistakes. There's too much verbiage that doesn't really do anything, e.g. line 2, which actually seems to be a pleonasm (surely you don't need both 'judgement' and 'choice'). The awkward syntax apears, as so often, to be a result of trying to force the lines to fit the rhyme scheme. I hate to be the one to tell you this, but that isn't the game with form of any sort. You've got to get it to seem natural, or you haven't really pulled it off. Also don't forget that rhythm is at least as important in a form like this. Some would even say it's more important - you get a lot more poetry that has rhythm and no rhyme than the other way around - so to let the rhythm go to hell so you can force in rhymes is a classic schoolboy error. I realise you are a schoolboy/girl, so that's all to be expected.

'The point of no return' is an out and out cliché. 'Bodies together in harmony' is close to being one too.

Hope that helps and doesn't seem too harsh.