Cargoes (after Masefield)

I wanted to like this, partly because I like much of your writing, and partly because I'm familiar with the original poem.

Well, I have to ask what you add to the discussion begun by Masefield? Honestly, very little, except perhaps that since his day, things have continued to degenerate - not a particularly revolutionary idea. The original poem wasn't exceptionally well-written, and he made his intellectual point by avoiding discussion of how the ‘commoner' lived. I don't feel you've carried his point to any real new height, nor have you revealed a new set of truths. I also feel this piece is not as well-written as the original, a problem when we write pieces that play off others' works.

Alcuin