eighteen

Spoiler

Umm so the last two poems I've posted are spur-of-the-moment and need TONS of revising. For that I need your help, YWSers. Thanks a bunch!

I sip tea while night rain
erodes your dignity --
yes there is pride in poverty
and like hanging men
we cherish our threads

these days we reach
for dizzy heights, or treetops
depending on the mood

we are heirs in name alone,
some guilty scent tracked down
by our fathers.

(I caught the predawn train
to New York, chasing mediocrity,
that science-class skeleton
of a lover)

we are older these days
and when your wet drunken eyes
water my doubt, I forget to seduce,
I surrender.

what I know finally
is that affection is lovely and luckless
and our shame is better
left uncovered like patches of grey

Great poem. I liked the first passage

"I sip tea while night rain erodes your dignity -- yes there is pride in poverty like hanging menwe cherish our threads"
i have a question though. What does eighteen signify? Anyway you had little error if any at all excellent comparisons and you finished it off cool and smooth. your really good i encourage you to keep writing and get into the romance forum of this site i think you would do great with it. You seem as though you have an extraordinary vocabulary and a creative mind to go along with it. Keep up the good work!

Rooooose.

You are an awful person with evil intentions who makes me want to sit in the back of a jazz club and drink black coffee while you speak this onstage. There’s just something smooth and smoky about the flow of this piece, like the voice of an alto who smokes a cigar before singing. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise to you that I really liked this.

The only thing I really want to talk about is the distinct change in rhythm between stanzas two and three. It feels almost as if there was something there, once—something that does need to be there. I think it would also ease the change in voice between talking heavily about you/we and more about the narrator in the first person. So there’s something lost in transition here, I think.

Other than that, you have quite a quotable piece—and with smooth images to slide over it. So there isn’t much for me to tackle here, and I blame you for that.

Lovely piece, dear. Keep up the amazing work.

-Lumi

Hello Rose. I do not believe we have met before. I am here at the behest of another, but I'm happy to review your work nonetheless.

First, allow me to say that I like this one. I took the time to familiarise myself with your other recent work, and I like what I see. But enough ego-stroking.

Second, people often talk about your poetry being "smooth" or something to that effect. I mean, just look at Lumi's comment here, or briggsy's on (some months later). While I agree that it is smooth, I am hesitant to say that I like it as much as some others. Simply put, I think there is an issue with enjambment. There was more than one instance in this piece where I had to read the section two or three times to make head or tail of it.

yes there is pride in poverty
like hanging men
we cherish our threads

Here,

...chasing mediocrity
that science-class skeleton
of a lover

here, and

and our shame is better
left uncovered like patches of grey

here is where I believe the issue is most prominent. The first instance is a little ambiguous. While I understand that ambiguity can be an effective technique, here it just serves to needlessly confuse the reader. The second and third instances are less ambiguous, but seem to me to be rather unnecessarily disjointed. The images are brilliant, but are imperfect. Like a dropped picture frame, with an ugly crack through the centre of the portrait. Of course, there are plenty of ways to change this. Although I have noticed that you often eschew punctuation, I think perhaps a little could go a long way here. Other than that, perhaps a review of the spacing and line breaks?

Third, I must say that I thought this piece somewhat lacking that vital spark. It seems as if you're writing on auto-pilot, mumbling to yourself as you sit in traffic or something. Through the end of the first, second, and third stanzas there is something there, just outside the peripheral vision, waiting to slam its mark onto your audience. But just as you're about to reach that teeth-gritting, fist-clenching, brow-furrowing moment it slips away. It's tantalising, and I'm dying for more, but then you revert to that sighing listlessness that characterises the beginning and end of the piece. This subdued manner isn't such a bad thing - in fact, I quite like it and think it's very effective. But after having just worked me up almost enough to make it worthwhile it's a bit frustrating and disappointing to leave me hanging like that. In short, I would like to see you expand the emotions put forth (or at least implied) in the first three stanzas.

Finally, Lumi has already mentioned the rhythm, so I shan't repeat that. One question I do have though, why put "eighteen" at the beginning? Is it not already in the title? It seems a little redundant.

Well Rose, it's been a pleasure reading your work. Of course, feel free to PM me if you would like to chat some more

K.

Beautifully eloquent. Enlighten me, what does "eighteen" have to do with this piece?