Darwin

Disclaimer: I'm kind of new to poetry; so perhaps I'm reading it wrong. That said, maybe you want your poetry to be accessible?

One thing that gave me trouble immediately was the staggering of the sentences. I read each line with a new breath. It ended up sounding really disjointed and being very confusing to me.

I know that poets tend to like to use specific structures, but no immediate pattern popped out at me. And if there is a structure, shouldn't each line contain an end of some sort?

The imagery confused me, but I tend to take things a bit too literally. Trying to imagine mother's plucking stars was difficult, but imagining them doing that in an explosion of blood and fire was something I'd rather not repeat.

I thought the Jack-in-the-Box bit was pretty cool; I thought it was good at describing the explosive force that characterizes growth.

Then Darwin is mentioned as taking stars and burying them in people. This confused me because Darwin wasn't an astronomer.

It seems then that the poem cuts to aliens listening to Earth describe itself as dying; which doesn't seem to link to anything else that was written above.

So, this first foray into reviewing poetry has left me very confused. All the moreso since everyone up to this point seems to understand what is going on and appreciates the beauty of the poem. Perhaps there is something hidden in the complexity; but I was hoping for more in the way of clarity.

I wonder what Darwin would think of this poem?

A very touching and beautiful piece.
While reading poetry I find it so wonderful if a poem can speak for itself in such a way that while reading it it seems as though someone else is reading it to you. You have captured this perfectly. There are very few poems that flow so well that it feels so good to read aloud, letting the words roll out in the way that yours do.
Great job, and keep up the good work!

~Era

To be honest, I don't completely understand this poem, but I love it all the same. It's just... beautiful <3.

Keep writing!

Sad but very good keep on writing!

This is heartbreaking. Really and truly this sank into my chest and then weighted there while I worked out how I felt about this poem. Turns out, I absolutely incredibly love it.

I don't know why you profess not to be a poet sometimes (I do know why, but let's not get into that) when you can write something which has all the right elements. This poem speaks to the audience in a soft voice of the fireside storyteller and it whispers when it needs to. I feel like this poem didn't read inside my head, but it translated instead through my lips. The sentiment is absolutely gorgeous and you write it out in all the right ways.

I want to say lose the caps because aesthetics, but it works so much stronger the way you have it at the moment. I will say that the beginning of the poem doesn't touch the way the end does. It starts in a slow way I think could be improved. I think what it is, is the repetition of "that' which becomes very obvious on second reading and words like "down" in the first line - do we need it there? It feels like it's too wordy or something, because it takes longer than I expect to read those lines. This may just be a response to the uneven lines - the break from long to short to long - but I don't think they themselves are a problem. They give the poem a motion which is like a sandbag, slowly shifting back and forth.

If you don't change this poem, I won't be sad. It is beautiful and I thank you for writing it. I thank you also for posting it.

♥