Winter Writing Contest 2021 Submission

The chill of Winter seeped into the den of the Beast;
It’s First Light
Each link of chain will hold unite;
To keep the Beast at bay.
United they bind to keep the Beast from the land of all;
Mother of many
In the past it would ravage the land to provide for it’s young;
Now bound to the Earth.
A future uncertain, the creation of man although not absolute, yet neither the will of the Beast
What will break first? The will of the Beast, the united chain of man?

Legends once said, the Beast devoured everything on the lands.
It did not discriminate from color or creed.
The power of man separated could not hold the beast at bay.
The world shook, buildings fell, mothers and fathers wept.
The Beast ravaged on.
Man united and created its chain, as the chain bound the Beast, it also bound man.
Will this unity one day break?

Each day the Beasts cubs visit, there’s one less.
The cubs soaked with blood and injured.
The Beast severs it limb to give them their meal;
Mothers job is never done.
The chain although fractured holds firm.

Man prepares, the time is now.
To prepare against the Beast once again.
It’s the final act, the chain splinters. It’s time to go.

Unity or Division? The World will continue to quiver.

I was trying to figure out if the Beast stood for something for a long time, but couldn't really come up with anything. Maybe it's just a mythical beast after all.

It's pretty cool though. Reads like something you'd find as a description for a secret final boss or something

The beast can represent many things, from natural disaster, nature itself, or anything that can push man to its limit. If man has struggled with it, it is the beast. The cubs of the beast represent the problems fostered from said problem.

I see. At first I thought it might have been natural disasters, but that part about the Beast severing it's limbs for its cubs threw me for a loop. Overall, pretty cool though

A nice poem with a good deal of philosophical meaning in teaching us that we must learn to cooperate for the sake of society as a whole if we want a world without beasts, whatever those may be. I think my favorite part about it had to be the final line which kind of points towards the inevitability of the world to struggle with cooperation, even in the face of a common adversary. It's all about the strength of the conviction. I hope we can find unity in the future.

More practically, there are several typos, and as far as the poetic method is concerned, it is so freeform that I'm uncertain if it's following much of a rhythm. To be fair, I am not any kind of expert of poetry, but it just sounds chaotic. It provides the setting for a grand story, but the literary voice speaks as it wills, and it just spills forth without meter. I can see some semblance of a pattern, sort of, but it doesn't really keep it consistent. Unless of course you formed something with great intent that I am unaware of. Not really a criticism of your style, so much as my preferences of form. I can still tell that a lot of thought went into it, and it certainly is worth being proud of. Thanks for writing this and submitting it for us.

I was up late while severely under the influence when I typed it up and thought it would still be fun to post it anyways haha. It was fun.

I'll echo ninebreaker's thoughts, I kept searching for some meaning/metaphor that the beast was alluding to but really it seems the poem is very single-layered and physical. I'm also no expert in poetry but I think you missed the mark if you were going for a deep/philosophical thing.

It would make a nice epigraph for an epic boss monster though.

I find poems hard to comment on, so I will just say it sounds pretty.