Young Writers Society

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Hi, blackbird.

I liked this. Your similes and metaphors are beautiful. Especially "the air like an anesthetic accumulating in her lungs." It's something I'd never thought of before, but makes wonderful sense & adds to the narrative. The imagery took this somewhat cliche subject matter and made it really interesting to read. However, I still felt that the character was a little flat. How many times have we heard the unhappy 50s housewife business? You've creating such an interesting, promising start - I just want to know more about her.

"And she inhales deeply, smelling disinfectant, discontent." Beautiful.

It's probably just me, but I didn't really get the "sweet and frail in his nakedness" part. It didn't seem to fit. Also, the word "artifact" in "artifacts of attempted escape" seemed not quite right. It didn't match the vibe of the rest of the poem.

Last critique. As I said, I love your imagery because it all worked well to help me understand the character more, etc. Except at the end, "Her hands clasp like twin white shells." I didn't understand what you were trying to say by that.

It was really lovely, overall. You have great command of the language.
All the best.
Rachel

Holy fu-cow.

That was somewhat brilliant. Each description was perfectly thought out, and set the scene perfectly, a scene that we may have thought of before, but never with such originality or simple beauty throughout it. Every piece of imagery was understandable, was breathtaking with the thought behind it. You developed the character wonderfully, and her situation even better.
I'm in awe, and even more jealous.

Excellent write.

-Coral-

Hi blackbird -

Clearly, you have a wide vocabulary. Now, it's just a matter of knowing when showing it off has impact, and when you have more impact in simplicity.

I find this poem somewhat cluttered. Sure, there are some great lines, but there are also ones so tight with description that it jars the flow. Fluency can come about in two ways - concentrating on noun and verb use, or having description that aurally and visually is lengthened out. Also - in finding a balance between the two.

And, before I begin a line-by-line, another note - your title. 'Ennui' is a placeholder. It is not your real title. This poem does not deserve something as pretentiously academic and French as a title that tries too hard to be obscure and seems blatantly obvious to anyone who's taken French, or has a good grasp of English. Treat your title like an extension of your poem, rather than a summary of its main theme, and it will be appreciated more. Make the reader linger over it, think about it, try to connect it, rather than brush over it lamely and attribute every image in the poem to boredom and boredom alone - you want to leave some room for interpretation, an air of mystery. Also - boredom is boring. Why title it so?

Light cuts through the square window
and slaps her in the face, but she does not feel it—

This would be a lovely opening were there not the inconsistencies that make the light inaccessible to the reader. If light 'slaps her in the face,' how can she 'not feel it'? You either mean 'chooses not to feel it' or 'light blooms into her face' or something along those lines. 'Slaps' is too physical to be tossed away as lightly as 'she does not feel it'.

she remains silent and wifely, cigarette lodged in her lips,
the air like an anesthetic accumulating in her lungs.

'Wifely' - trying too hard. It clunks the line unecessarily, especially when compounded with the gritty 'r' / 'd' sounds of 'cigarette' and 'lodged'. This is a poem about boredom, fine. Is boredom smooth or cluttered? I'd argue smooth. Hence your lines, your flow would do well to mimic the thing your poem describes. Structure/style imitating content is what you could aim for. And the next line - anesthetic is air - gas - essentially. Find a better way of conveying the idea that even something like air puts her to sleep.

And this is something I've thought about countless times - how does one describe boredom without being boring? Is there an interesting way to describe boredom? Or are we confined to the mundane? Should style mimic content in this case? Attributes like the cigarette and the anesthetic properties of air are making her rather...interesting, even if she, herself, is bored. I am not getting a sense of her boredom here, as I am so busy being interested by her alone.

I'd say flow might help here. Were you to concentrate more on the sound of every word and go with rolling, long sounds that help our eyes skim over the text, we might grasp her boredom more easily. Just a thought.

The washer tumbles and whirls, monotonous,
while the kitchen walls glare in their immaculate white:
a dollhouse display to be proud of.
She can barely keep from gouging out her eyes.

So first you say that 'she does not feel [the sunlight]' (and hence imply that she is pretty neutral to it), and now she 'can barely keep from gouging out her eyes' at such things as washing machines and kitchen walls? There is some heavy character inconsistency here. Also, you are trying to stuff each line with too much here, without leaving enough room for the reader to read, care, digest, whatever.

Each second, her husband flits into her mind:
statuesque in his suit and fedora,
sweet and frail in his nakedness

I assume she is the one who is bored. Why are thoughts of her husband not a source of entertainment / something to lessen the 'ennui'? Or is it, then, the repetiousness of these thoughts? And you give us an image of him fully clothed in line 2, and then bam, in line 3, he's naked. That rapidness of change is too quick - the reader will have no faith in your ability as a poet to manipulate their senses. I am picturing a man in his suit, then naked. What's the point of this? It's too disconnected to work...also something you should be aware of: most of your images are disconnected. This is annoying on two counts: (1) because it seems each individual image is an entity in itself and not part of a whole - like a random ingredient slotted in to a place on a shelf on the pantry for its momentary aesthetic value, perhaps in relation to immediate neighbours, but having no aesthetic charm collectively - collectively, the picture you are painting is very, very bitsy and (2) because logically, in boredom, our thoughts follow certain patterns, certain cycles, certain paths - slowly, languidly - and at the moment, her thoughts and the images are scattered all over, quick and fleeting and unmemorable.

Boredom is memorable, slow and cyclic. Hence the imagery in this poem needs to have a certain repetitiousness to it - subtly, of course - a certain pattern so that the images are not baubles of themselves, but actually fit in with a wider web of thought and rethought.

heat gnaws at her neck
and she inhales sharply, smelling disinfectant, discontent.

I don't understand. She can't feel the light, but the heat gnaws at her neck. The air is putting her to sleep (anesthetic) but the smell of air is sharp, like disinfectant, awakening her. Instead of a contrast, instead of a cleverly worked contrast, you've managed to clutter this poem with images and ideas that don't mesh with each other well at all. That last line about her inhaling could have been strong...but I rather think this no poem for feelings as strong as the smell of disinfectant - boredom has altogether a bland taste to it; or, at least, a repetitious taste/smell.

You need consistency, otherwise this poem is going to keep disntegrating further into a cluster of words and nothing else.

Her gaze lingers at the window, tracing
cracks in the glass like scars, artifacts of attempted escape.
Her children play in the neat green yard,
the sprinklers hiss and mufflers moan.

She shakes her head, flaps at the air to diffuse the smoke—
swatting away a fly, banishing the desire.
Her hands clasp like twin white shells,
and she composes herself for the evening.

And, finally, stanzas that have real potential and are not fraught with the same attempt-to-be-academic-and-suffocatingly-poetic/wordy-and-end-up-being-inconsistent feel as above. There is something very powerful here, when you say 'her gaze lingers at the window, tracing / cracks in the glass like scars, artifacts of attempted escape' -- it captures the hopelessness perfectly, without competing with itself. Although, were I you, I would change 'artifacts' to something less complex-to-utter, myself, to make the flow more beautiful.

'Sprinklers hiss and mufflers moan' seems childish. You've just conveyed a very mature sense of marital isolation, of motherhood and the poignancy of that repetition, the hopelessness of it. Please don't ruin it with overdoing figurative devices - they're too showy, here.

Last two lines - lovely. They mean something without being too overwritten. I say 'lovely' and not 'perfect' because of the 'twin white shells'. I want this image to be tied in more firmly with the rest of the poem. In fact, I would even ask you to consider making this a recurrent theme - boredom like wavefronts on a beach, like the lines etched into the sand/face, like the flatness of water, like the dullness of the single line that is the horizon - since (1) this is something new, something I have not seen before and (2) it will give your poem an axis to revolve around, as if the boredom becomes a single point of focus for her, the thing she keeps returning to.

Of course, you would need to delete certain irrelevant things and integrate it in, but it is possible. And the beach motif (even while talking of such things as kitchen walls etc) would allow you to capitalise on those long 'l' and 'o' and 'm' sounds, longer and smoother words that are characteristics of waves hitting a shore.

Treat this like a first draft and edit with that in mind. I would like to see the poem in all its glory.

PM me if you want to discuss any aspect of this.


Navita

Got down the everyday emotions of a labourious housewife to a T. I like how you play with the words, in a single poem you let us connect easily through feelings we can all recognize. My favourite line:

Her hands clasp like twin white shells, and she composes herself for the evening. (I know I didn't quote, this is a quick reply and I don't know the code.)

Hey blackbird -

So! A redraft, eh? Let's take a look at this:

Light washes through the square window
and seeps into her, unwanted warmth on her face

Good; you are introducing us to a beachy theme early on. 'unwanted warmth' is annoying me on a purely aesthetic level - you know what you want to mean; but this is not how you want to say it, all awkward and funny-tasting in the mouth. Work at it. Maybe even change the line if needed...actually, yes, change this.

The first line has light going 'through' something (washing through it), and then we have it 'seeping into her' (a similar idea of movement 'through'), but then we get 'warmth on her face,' which is making light not seem a part of her and within her, but instead on her and outside of her...the distinction here is messy and serves no purpose. Something like, 'and seeps into her, like sea through sand' ...or, you know, something more creative, but you get my meaning. Expand on that image of 'through' and don't truncate it so quick.

By the way, I am only this pedantic when I see someone with real potential.

She sits silent in her shell, cigarette lodged in her lips,
the air an anesthetic accumulating in her lungs.

I appreciate that you are sticking tight to the motif. That's lovely to see. But 'sitting in a shell' is cliché. It's not even an image worth expanding on, as I would have you do later on with the kitchen walls being like the shell walls, and the turn of sky beyond being like the gurgling, muddled sound of water etc etc. And also - I liked how you said 'twin white shells' much later on in the poem rather than the unceremonious 'scallops' that throws all eloquency out the window.

Eloquent. This is what this poem needs. Eloquency in tone, fluidity in reading - this is hard to discern as the writer. As the reader, I can tell you that your poem has rhythm...which is not what you want; at least, not this kind of jumpy rhythm that I am seeing, something altogether akin to the iamb. 'Cigarette lodged in her lips' - read it aloud; can you hear the da-de-da beat of this? The childishness we associate with that?

Ha. I would argue enjambment would sort that out, make the poem move slower, since the four-liners are arbitary, really -

Let's try:

light
washes through the square of the
window

seeps into her, sea through sand --

murmurs in silence, lips an O around
a cigarette the way the sky mouths the clouds -

the air
an anesthetic
in her lungs

Some more lethargy in these slower lines. I'd expect you to fiddle with it to your satisfaction, of course - that's just an idea.

Also - the proximity of 'cigarette' and 'lodged' and 'anesthetic' and 'accumulating' was jarring; these are not words that roll off one's tongue easily. Get your thesaurus out.

The washer whirls in waves while
kitchen walls glare in sterile white:

The flow is stunning in the first line, but it's still got a slight jump to the rhythm (and I am a tiny bit dubious about the 'waves' part...our washing machine tends to whirl like a funnel and jump up and down while doing so!). Can we be more oceany about the kitchen walls? Yes; all metaphors can be conquered I also want the impact of the 'glaring' and the 'sterility' less sharp, more muted, otherwise you lose that blandness associated with the boredom...maybe soften the description? 'The walls / of the kitchen are / white as bone pulled from / water.'

Upto you.

a display worthy of Betty Crocker,
the plastic woman she despises.

Ha. You had this beautiful surreality going and you flung it out the window with mention of Betty Crocker, bringing us into the world of here and now. This age. This Western - American - society. Media. No, no, no - see here; your themes are timeless and universal. What married woman does not face the problem you are describing? What housewife is not subject to the mundaneness of repetition, of watching the world go by and grow up and leave and never look back? You want us to identify with her, yes? So make us connect with her sadness, rather than distance us with her momentary and irrational hatred.

You may consider, then, evoking a certain, poignant and impossibly beautiful sadness throughout your piece, rather than mere annoyance at petty little things, although there is, of course, that too.

Her husband floods into her mind—
solemn suit, smooth looping grin,
glint of liquor in those lust-lacquered eyes.

This stanza is moving too quick - he 'floods' her mind (nice expansion on the motif there BUT) - and this flooding is too fast, out of nowhere, with no transitional preparation, no slow moving wave beforehand to signal it. And the short, sharp descriptions, 'solemn suit, smooth looping grin, glint of liquor' etc are destroying the sluggishness, the laziness of a beach scene. It's rapid fire and means nothing. He floods her mind - so what? Make me care about this; give it some emotional depth; expand inwards rather than laterally into description. All tangential exposition is expendable.

I can see you getting excited about 'lust-lacquered' but feel this phrase, please. Feel it in your mouth. You will argue that it sounds alright from the 'l' sounds...and I would reply that the 'st' and the hyphenation (that makes the description bitsy, in any case) distorts it.

She inhales, smelling vanilla, craving Valium.

I want this to work, very much. It's such a strong sensation - of smell - but in part the 'anesthetic' is still resting with me, still adding to the blandness and 'vanilla' seems a word for a happier poem, a chirpier one - so no, I disagree, I don't think it bland at all; vanilla ice cream and essence and cakes and baking is what I think of.

I like that she is craving something; but highlight her physical immobility here in some way - she is trapped by this life, trapped behind the glass, trapped in place by the waves and the boredom and the sadness. I need to see a strong sense of this entrapment - not just that she is wanting, but that she can't have it.

Her gaze lingers at the window, tracing
cracks in the glass like scars, mementos of attempted escape.
Her children play in the neat green yard,
their cries muffled to murmurs, as though underwater.

Take out 'mementos of' and the childishness of 'neat green' and this will be breathtaking.

She shakes her head, flaps at the air to diffuse the smoke—
swatting away a housefly, banishing the desire.

Somehow, I don't want her to be interrupted here in this crucial moment of regaining self-composure; I don't want even a fly to interrupt this stillness, the silence, the boredom. This is a point of focus for the poem, the axis, the last step before we are sitting on the soul of the poem. Don't ruin it here.

Her hands clasp like twin white scallops,
and she composes herself for the evening.

Shells, like I said earlier, and this should carry just the sense of despair as you want once that's changed.

Also, I wanted to share with you some poems I enjoyed reading:

Migration by Jagged - I worked with her on the beachy theme here and you'll note that while it flows off the tongue purely, it still had a certain rhythm to it, due to her use of rhyme.

02 - Second poem by Helpful McHelpfulpants that conveys the mundaneness of married life (no motif like yours used, though!).

Overall - a solid effort at reworking, I'd say. Work on the aural quality of your poem - both in terms of longer, easier sounds in the mouth and in terms of enjambment. Integrate the beach as far as you can till you've ripped apart the metaphor to its core and put it back together again. Play with the sadness and the depth of her emotion; bring more character connection to this.

Good luck with edits. I would be happy to look over anything further.

Thanks for the read


Navita

I am here to review like you requested, but I am not sure why you asked again last time I didn't even help you because I like your work so much. But, down to business. Oh I almost forgot I read your older version and like your new one much better so I am only going to review that. Here are my general comments:

light I love how you give this its own line it completely draws me in such a wonderful one syllable word.
washes through the square of the
window, I liked "light" by itself, but window is a bit much. Why does window deserve its own line? It doesn't seem like such and important word to me. Putting it on its own line just chops the poem up. I am also not sure why you have a comma there. In this case I think no punctuation would be better because, as far as I know, if this was a paragraph or sentence that wouldn't be correct.

seeps into her, like sea through sand— this is my favorite line <3 Could I please use it as my signature?

she wallows in silence, lips an O around This is an odd place to pause. It would be better if you ended the line at O. Or at least that looks better to my eye and sounds better in my ear. If you did this though to make the last line not so long you could make yet another line: the way the sky mouths...
a cigarette the way the sky mouths the clouds—

the air
an anesthetic
in her lungs. I would have never thought to use the word anesthetic and I like it.

the washer
rumbles and whirls
in funnels; I think you should make a new stanza after this.
the walls Why do "the walls" deserve their own line?
of the kitchen are I think this is a weird place to stop, but it is probably just me. I mean at the end of this line I just think: they are what?
white as bone pulled from
water. Again why its own line?

wave after wave
throws upon her,
wilting her sails as Suddenly you are back onto the ocean/sea metaphors?

her husband stands
a distant figure—

a faulty lighthouse on the shore.

her gaze lingers at the window,
tracing cracks in the glass like scars,
attempted escapes. This just finishes the picture in my mind of an abused wife great job.

the children play in the yard,
their cries muffled to murmurs
as though underwater.

her hands clasp into
twin white shells, What kind of shells? I lied I actually liked the old version of this line.
and I think this should be as, but I am not sure. she composes herself
for the evening—

another night adrift.

I find I don't have much else to say after all my non-helping opinions. The biggest thing that annoyed me was how short some of the lines were. A writer once told me short lines in poetry are only to be used when you want a word to stick out. All you short lines, like I said above, just seem to chop the poem up, but that is all.

Sorry I didn't actually help,

A. S.

Ok, so, I'm here as requested, if there is anything spelled wrong in this review I;m sorry, my spell check button is playing hide-and-seek and I just can't find it! Ok, so, on to the review, I like the theme and the word but the format of the seconf version is disoritating, there really is no set format. Some times you can get away with this, but the way you did it here just messes up the flow, I like the four lines in each stanza form in the older one, but I like the words in the newer one better...
This is where I nit pic it apart... I will show you how I think it would work better...

light washes through the square of the window,
seeps into her, like the sea through sand—
the wallows in silence, lips an oval around
a cigarette, the way the sky mouths the clouds—

the air an anesthetic in her lungs.
the washer rumbles and whirls in funnels;
the walls of the kitchen are white
as bone pulled from water.

wave after wave throws upon her,
wilting her sails
as her husband stands a distant figure—
a faulty lighthouse on the shore.

Her gaze lingers at the window,
tracing cracks in the glass like scars,
attempted escapes.I like this part here, not sure how to keep it with form, but leaving it will work to...

The children play in the yard,
their cries muffled to murmurs
as though underwater.This is my favorite part of the poem.

Her hands clasp into
twin white shells,
and she composes herself
for the evening.

Trufully, I like the first one better, I had to read the fisrt one to even onderstand what the second was talking about, I think that canbinding the second and first would make a great poem... I wont review the first version now, if you want me to PM me and I will...

Hope this helps,

~Rain~

Hey,
Thanks for requesting a review. Wow, it seems you have alot of really good reviews. I didn't really see anything wrong with this poem. I do love the descriptions. I know this is really short, but I don't know what else to say; everyone else has pretty much commented on what needs fix and other things. Awesome job

Have a great day,
Tiffany