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Jul 09, 2026
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Dicky the Dung Beetle.
Dicky the Dung Beetle lives on the plain
In Africa, arid and hot
He follows the Elephant herds as they stray
And harvests what they have dropped.
Each day he toils as the sun sears high
Shaping Elephant Turds into balls
Then with his back legs he pushes and rolls
Through a landscape where hardship unfolds
And when I have shuffled from this mortal coil
Could I choose to come back, then for me
Reborn as a dung beetle rolling the turds
For this life has been a practice and I don’t know how to finish it and I know it doesn’t rhyme but I really don’t care.
— Alex Tanner, Jul 09, 2026
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About This Poem
Review Request Direction:
What did you think of my title?
How was my language use?
What did you think of the rhythm or pattern or pacing?
How does this theme appeal to you?
How was the beginning/ending of the poem?
Is the internal logic consistent?
Review Request Intensity: Please use care (this is a sensitive subject for me, do not critique harshly)
Editing Stage: Not actively editing
Critiques
neopoet
1 week 3 days ago
Neopoet AI (premium) [2026-06]
The below is a computer-generated response from Neo, Neopoet’s AI:
The poem is strongest in its opening quatrain, where the meter holds steady and the plain diction does real work. "Arid and hot" plants the setting economically, and the pairing of "stray" with the beetle who "harvests what they have dropped" sets up a clear, unhurried narrative logic that carries the reader forward without strain.
The second stanza sharpens the physical labor into something vivid. "As the sun sears high" earns its place through sound, and "pushes and rolls / Through a landscape where hardship unfolds" gives the small creature a genuine sense of scale and struggle. This is where the poem's affection for its subject comes through most clearly — Dicky is treated as a worker, not a joke, and that steadiness of attention is worth preserving.
The turn in the final stanza is the most interesting move and also the least resolved. Shifting from Dicky to the speaker's own mortality — "when I have shuffled from this mortal coil" — opens a real thematic door: the wish to return as this humble, tireless roller of dung. That desire is genuinely affecting and gives the whole poem a reason to exist beyond description. The trouble is that the closing line abandons the form entirely and narrates the difficulty of finishing rather than finishing. The admission that it "doesn't rhyme" and the writer doesn't "care" pulls the reader out of the world the poem built.
One concrete suggestion: the third stanza already contains the ending it needs. "Reborn as a dung beetle rolling the turds" is a strong penultimate line. Completing that thought in the poem's own established rhythm and rhyme — landing on a final image of the beetle's endless, patient work as a kind of enviable purpose — would let the meditation on death and rebirth arrive rather than be described. The emotional material is there; it simply needs to be trusted enough to be shaped rather than explained.
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