Autumns,
The tone of this poem has a lot of care and love despite the subject matter which gets us through swimmingly, there are some formatting/flow issues in the beginning that I'll point out, but for the most part it was such a beautiful voice, an excellent execution of a theme and plenty of little nuggets of lines I care to hold onto. So much beauty <3
I want to echo Lumi, the line "one day you feel like someone broke into you" really stood out for me as well. It's not just the truth that the line speaks, it's not just even the emotional nature of it or the way the metaphor is so apt--
I've actually had someone break into my house before, which is a horrific feeling and the thing that disturbs you the most is that feeling of just having been invaded. Your personal home with your personal belongings and here comes a stranger who takes away from you the most important aspect of a home, which is the feeling of safety and protection.
So, the metaphor is more than apt, I think, because as we grow and the safety and protection of our childhood fades away, it speaks of deeper layers of meaning than just the literal "breaking into" and it gets me thinking back to those growing-up years in a different light. Why as teenagers we feel so disillusioned with life sometimes, and how dramatic and juicy and tantalizing to think of a growing-up tale as a breaking-into-your-home conflict. I love it.
But that's not what steals the cake for me, an idea can only get you so far, the execution of it rather, is what gives it that extra oomph. This is what sings to me and why the poem is so powerful. The poem leads itself up to that powerful moment I think in a very special and symmetrical way.
It leads us by grocery lists. A grocery list of all the happenings and events that we go through as we get older from childhood into adolescence. Grocery lists, like all tactics, have a double-edged sword aspect to it. The positive: it is simple, it is easy to follow, it is straightfoward and it allows you to move and jump from idea to idea, memory to memory in the simplest and best of ways. The cons of this method?
It gets overlong and boring. It gets to be like, "why are you TELLING US WHAT WE ALREADY KNOW?"
But what your poem does is it works with the cons, and actually turns your negatives into positives. I think that what makes this structure work so well in this piece is that it enables us to cycle through our own memories together with the narrator as we read the poem, and the voice, ever soothing as it is promises us a pay-off and we actually get it! and it is satisfying.
We relate to the monsters under the bed and the acne, and the songbirds in our heart. The listicle allows us to bring our own memories into the reading of it and it is very relatable.
You could say the structure itself is childlike in its simplicity, as easy as 1, 2, 3, and then the poem's structure changes at just the right moment, and that is the brilliant aspect to this poem and its execution. The fact that it changes keeps it from seeming overlong, and it naturally gives us a twist and a change in the structure which keeps it interesting and propels us forward.
Where the poem takes the "cons" of its structure and turns it into positives is how the simplicity and the structure itself plays with the deeper themes and meaning to provide emphasis! The poem transforms from a list to a metaphor JUST as the theme of the poem gets to its climax, as though the poem is growing up with us as well. Not only is speaker/reader cycling through the memories of growing up, but the poem too!
It's not just a great lead-up, it's the symmetry of apt choices of both theme and structure acting hand-in-hand together. It emphasizes your subject-matter and hits us hard with it because we haven't just "got it" or "understood it", we've experienced it. Even if not personally, through the telling of the poem, we've become it. So a real beautiful job.
Some wonderful lines too: the maze caught in itself, the squeaky songbird, that entire last stanza <3 I have mixed feelings about detuned calliope - it hit me like one minute I was having pancake and eggs and then all of a sudden there's caviar - that particular diction-choice just sticks out like a sore thumb xD I love it, I do, but maybe worth moving towards the bottom half of your poem as the poem gains in complexity?
My only suggestion besides to get rid of the centering (It is not the optimal way to read a poem as it can be a bit distracting on the eyes and from a professional/literary style standpoint seems amateur) is to work on those first 6 lines that transition into the list.
The beginning line is a great hook, but it gets kind of muddled with the lines following it. We go from the idea of giving away old things (brilliant as the opening hook to your poem) to the idea of having old things staying with us untouched and dusty (kind of cliche, but just totally different idea from your first line?) Giving things away and things staying with us untouched are like two opposite ideas battling heads for our attention, two different forks in the road and the poem really only addresses the first fork and never touches upon the second fork, so it seems almost haphazardly done. You know this is true when you can remove the bicycle line and not have it affect the rest of the poem so it seems a needless addition worth addressing.
Other than that, a splendid piece.
~ as always, Audy
Points: 5533
Reviews: 696
Donate