Mother

The crinkling of your face,
skin splintering beneath
the crashing ceiling before
our voices capsize,

and rise, the tide tight
in your soiled gut.
Even the throat of the doorway
is a dangerous cradle under

the dull flicker of your strange
and nuanced eyes calling to a
strange and nuanced god -
lonesome, lock-jawed,

that dry beat before you cried,
before I burned the Christmas tree
and all the pretty lights, before
the un-oiled, bushwhack crack

of black, steely words
that flung and clung to me
like iron filings to a magnet,
mother.

I'm going to review for you today. XD

I'm in awe of all people who can write poetry, I've bee trying to learn poetry for ages but I'm not very succesful but I know my stuff, so I hope this review won't be too bad. The problem is writing it, not reviewing it!

In your space for description you put; A poem about comeimg out

My first reaction to this is, you're talking about sexuality. If I'm wrong then please correct me, but I'll be reviewing the poem with that theme in mind.

The crinkling of your face,
skin splintering beneath
the crashing ceiling before
our voices capsize,

You started this off well, I love imagery and you really displayed your knowledge of words quite well here. The flow was easy and very clear, I got a lovely picture of, I'm presuming, the Mother. However In the third line, I lost you a bit. I couldn't really understand what you were trying to get at here, I came up with this: Did you mean that The ceiling was literally crashing down and crushing people? If not, I don't have any other theories. At first, I thought you meant by 'Skins splintering beneath' that the skin was creased in someway beneath her face. Now I get the idea that people are being crushed beneath a toppling building. I'm a bit confsued, all the same, I like how you pruduced the poem but I'm sure exactly what it is you're producing

and rise, the tide tight
in your soiled gut.
Even the throat of the doorway
is a dangerous cradle under

Again, your description is a credit to you; absloutly beautiful but I'm not exactly sure what you're descriping here. I still get the idea that someone is dying or struggling in some sort of building which doesn't really tir in to the 'coming of sexuality thing'. Unless you mean by ' A poem about coming out' that someone is coming out from a building or soemthing? I'm really not getting this I love how you describe the voices capsizing and sailing the tide. It's such a strong imagine, I can almost hear the rise and fall of their breaths. Your imagery must be your strong point. Good job.

the dull flicker of your strange
and nuanced eyes calling to a
strange and nuanced god -
lonesome, lock-jawed,

My only nit-pick in this stanza is your repetition of naunced. A variety in a stanza this short is vital, although it does get across the perfect picture you need here, I'd say, search out another word with the same meaning. I'm getting a different outlook on this poem as we keep reading. Now I understand, that there's no crashing building but maybe all of that was a metaphor to describe the Mother's anger about his sexuality or something?

that dry beat before you cried,
before I burned the Christmas Tree
and all the pretty lights, before
the un-oiled, bushwhack crack

This stanza is quite unclear. What do you mean by 'dry beat' ?
Also, in the third line, I'd take out before at the end, and place it at the beginning of the fourth line. It's more smooth and settled that way I think. Other then that, this one confused me the most, I kind of imagine this verse as memories or something. Burning christmas tree's, pretty lights but I'm really not sure.

of black, steely words
that flung and clung to me
like iron filings to a magnet,
mother.

Guessing again here, you're talking about the outrage that the mother had at the boy/girl's decision to 'come out'? Even though, I don't quite understand it, this is my favorite verse. I love your simile there; 'Like iron filings to a magnet'. That's so realistic and so vivedly ex[plained, I can't imagine a better way of explaining it.

All in All, I'm rather confused. Your style of poetry and your imagery is absolutly fantastic but you need to be cleaer on what it is you're describing. I'd love to know actually what it was, so I could read it again and understand as I do really like it somehow. Remember, even though poetry has to have it's sense of 'not knowing' there has to be glimpses of something familier so we know what's going on and way. That was your mian problem I think, not enough 'knowing'.

Good job, though.

Keep writing!
Kagi xoxo

The first six lines are great. The imagery and descriptions used work perfectly to convey a scene of a mother suddenly left breathless. However, what I really like about is the congruence in the descriptions of "voices capsize" and "tide tight." Too often, people jump around with their descriptions. By sticking to ocean terminology, you're giving the reader a place to hold onto. Moreover, it also brings forth images of being seasick, which works well for the first six lines.

However, from there it does go somewhat downhill. It starts off well with "the throat of the doorway" metaphor, which evokes a sense of entrapment. But the "is a dangerous cradle under" line just does not fit. At least it doesn't with the previous line.

The problem is that both lines essentially repeat each other, but they're also contradictory. "Throat of the doorway" makes the doorway sound foreboding, and yet it would seem that you are meaning to convey it as a place of safety that has now been rendered "a dangerous cradle." Moreover, the cradle metaphor doesn't work either, although I think this is because of your success with the prior lines. Having to use an adjective - dangerous - to describe the cradle is at odds with all your other descriptions, where you were able to evoke a sense of foreboding without resorting to any adjectives. Plus, there's no congruence in description between "throat of the doorway" and "dangerous cradle."

Instead, what I would suggest is keep with the throat theme, and replace "is a dangerous cradle" with something like "squeezes tight." That way, it would read like: "Even the throat of the doorway / squeezes tight under...".

In the third stanza, the repetition of "strange and nuanced" is, well, strange. However, I do like the rest of that stanza. From there, the rest of the poem is pretty good.

So overall, I like the beginning and the ending. Just work on the middle!

I love this! I think the sounds in it are very good, and the words are highly descriptive. It is full of emotion even though it is a little bit vague as to what you're exactly talking about. I don't mind the vagueness though; I thinkit only adds to the poem. We don't get so worried about why there's emotion, instead, the reader focuses on the emotion itself. I think its great and I wouldn't have you change anything major, but maybe play around with your choice of words and make the middle a little clearer.

Honestly, I can't really imagine this being a poem about "coming out" except for maybe the first stanza. After the first stanza it just goes into bizarre expressions that are unclear. Like 2 or 3 reviewers before me, I became totally lost in how you were trying to relate this to "coming out".

But despite, the confusion, you did a pretty good job.

The crinkling of your face, (love the first line)
skin splintering beneath
the crashing ceiling before
our voices capsize, (I like the idea of voices capsizing)

and rise, the tide tight (never heard that before, but it's very satisfying to the ear)
in your soiled gut. (a real punch, that line)
Even the throat of the doorway (Imagine if doorways had throats! Fantastic!)
is a dangerous cradle under

the dull flicker of your strange
and nuanced eyes calling to a
strange and nuanced god -
lonesome, lock-jawed, (love the use of "lock-jawed" but maybe you could find another word other than nuanced?)

that dry beat before you cried,
before I burned the Christmas tree (love this imagery)
and all the pretty lights, before
the un-oiled, bushwhack crack

of black, steely words
that flung and clung to me (this line is a tiny bit awkward, maybe you could adjust it?)
like iron filings to a magnet,
mother. (the last word is a tiny bit confusing, it seems a bit out of place. You could add more to it to make it clearer)

Great job!

Very descriptive, I love it!

Hi Inkwell.

I have this tendency to begin writing reviews in word docs and forgetting to finish or post them. Here we go:

You've tried so hard to get us to visualize this feeling of being trapped that you've spewed your words towards your reader without a sense of control leaving the poem to fall flat on its face in a big heavy heap. You've got a grasp on how to use words and how to bring them together to communicate a message, but you can't seem to put it into application. All together this sounds like it's trying, way too hard.

The crinkling of your face,
skin splintering beneath
the crashing ceiling before
our voices capsize,

Immediately I get the sense of what this entire poem is about. But as we move along you bring nothing new to the table. It's just the same thing over and over without you fully telling us what it is. It's one of those winkwink nudgenudge poems without the subtly it needs to be successful. If you give the reader immediately all the poem has to offer then there is no point in us continuing to read it. We immediately get that sense of urgency of closed in and tightness and the title "Mother" gives us the context.

You have no build up, you don't hook your reader. It's like reading the answers to your homework at the back of the book before you even start. It's completely counter productive to you or to me the person reading it; cause neither of us are getting anything out of this.

Also, you're more then capable of verifying whether or not a poem flows. Please don't disregard that ability for your own poem, as important as it is to point out to others. You've used a lot of hard words and sounds, and you've managed to make it work some places but in other places it like you're making me snack on a brick. Reread to yourself to point out where the line breaks are awkward.

Yours,

Kamas

PS. Good of you to write about this.

First off, I'd like to say that I admire the courage of this poem. Its outright as you clearly what to get the emotion across and for the most part, you do so effectually. But in a sense, you also start to lose that much needed control.

that dry beat before you cried,
before I burned the Christmas tree
and all the pretty lights, before
the un-oiled, bushwhack crack

For example, for a first bit and the last bit, we get almost a clear view of what you're trying to say, but here , we start to lose that as if you're searching for ways to explain a point that's already been made. We're dwelling on the same basic ideas without really bringing out anything new.

So what I want you to do is take the idea you have and expand on it not only emotionally but physically as well. Write not about how sad or disappointed you are with metaphor, or the simple, easy things to write about. Take this a little deeper. Make it powerful because you bring out the things people don't want to talk about. The things that made the situation so hard for yourself.

Dwelling on the same basic thought could make a good short poem, but this poem could have some more for the amount of stanza's you have.

Other than that, I found this to be really beautiful, albeit a bit on the rough side. Tighten up your metaphors, make connections, and you'll have something really amazing.

~Walker