Hi there, Beast!
I thought this was a poem with a mysterious atmosphere. The voice was intense, carrying the sense that the speaker is entering another world and ‘drowning’ in it, almost as they pass that threshold to allow the moon to “shine” on them. I’ll share some of my thoughts on the interpretation before giving feedback on the language and structure.
Subject, Themes, Narrative
The surface narrative, I think, is that the speaker and the addressee encounter the moonlight and are “driven to insanity” by the moon, leaping into a lake and drowning. It’s a rather eerie story, now that I think about it.
I think there could also be a more abstract interpretation of this poem. For instance, the repetition of the idea of “shame” could mean that the speaker and the addressee begin in a state of shame, perhaps being constrained by social mores. Then the speaker questions “Why be afraid, ashamed of it shining on your skin?”, criticising this state of restriction, and through letting the moonlight “soak” into their souls, the speaker and the addressee are able to reclaim their freedom.
By the way the speaker speaks to the addressee, I get the sense that they might be lovers. They seem to speak in a very intense, passionate way, though that might be just because of the moonlight. Meanwhile the moon is personified as a feminine figure, a “lady of the moon” and described with sensual imagery such as “caress the recesses of our mind”. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like if the moon were characterised as a masculine persona, since the feminine version seems the most popular in poems, stories, etc. Might be a cool topic for a future poem!
Language and Imagery
The imagery in this poem seems to fall into two main categories:
Touch-related imagery
In relation to the repeated adjective, “naked”, there are a lot of phrases that imply physical contact like “bare my skin”, “long slender fingers” and “embrace”. I think this thread of imagery creates a sense of immediacy and urgency to the way the speaker is addressing whoever is listening, as people don’t usually talk about touch in a ‘casual’ conversation or if they’re trying to drag things out.
Water-related imagery
Water seems to be associated with madness, for instance by how the speaker calls for the addressee to let moonlight “soak” into their “soul”, and later describes themselves as “drunk”. The shame is also described with “permeates our soul”. I liked how there were subtle hints of water throughout the poem, leading up to the end when the “lake” is finally revealed and then the speaker and listener “jump” into it. I thought that created a good build-up to the ‘turn’ of the poem.
While reading, I noticed the word “spurge”, and I’m wondering if it might be a typo. Correct me if it isn’t, but I looked up “spurge” and I found that it was a kind of plant, like a shrub, and I couldn’t really see how that fit into the context of the line.
I loved the phrase “expiring bubbles” in the end there. It stood out to me, because I thought it was unique. Compared to “lady of the moon”, which is a phrase I think one might find elsewhere where the moon is depicted as feminine, “expiring bubbles” seems more creative and interesting. It helps that it’s a specific detail, too, so I could picture it more easily than “shame that permeates our soul”, which is a mostly abstract image. It’s not that abstract images are bad – not at all! – but I thought I’d just talk about what caught my attention the most in this poem.
Structure and Sound
I thought the repetition worked to unify different elements of the poem without becoming too overwrought. For instance, below:
No doubt the reason why we are naked and unashamed.
Our last thought is how we both were naked and unashamed.
The two instances of the phrase “naked and unashamed” show a sense of progression, which I liked and contributed to my understanding of the poem’s story.
The flow within the individual lines seemed to work well. I noticed that nearly every line was end-stopped, as in there is very little enjambment in the poem. In some parts, the way each line is made to be a ‘full sentence’ almost, makes it feel as though the lines of the poem are a bit disjointed in terms of rhythm (though not in terms of language). For instance:
Upon the moonlight.
We both see it.
While I can tell that the “it” is the moonlight quite easily, the lines read in a bit of a jumpy way, and I felt I was getting stuck going from one line to the next. One thing that I usually try when I feel like my poem is having a ‘jumpy’ flow when I intended for it to be smooth, is that I read the poem out loud and try to notice where my tongue gets caught. (Or I ask someone else to read it aloud for me~)
That's all
Overall, I thought the imagery in this piece was well-developed, and the repetition well-placed. If you’d like to improve some parts of this piece, I’d say reading it aloud might help with polishing the rhythms and I’d love to see experimentation with more specific imagery (more “expiring bubbles” so to speak!).
Hopefully you found these comments helpful - and keep writing!
Cheers,
-Lim
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Reviews: 545
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