The Glass of Soda

Hey there! I like this poem, and it takes a fascinating and sentimental twist. From the beginning, the reader would not necessarily predict where you're heading in the ending. I like this, because it takes one concept and translates it to another. One especially cool thing you've done is bringing the past into the present. You've linked a picture of old with a more modern one. It gives the whole thing a really relevant feeling. Great job.

I see that your formatting is good. I didn't notice any outstanding spelling errors, either. Great work, and thanks for sharing!

Hello! Thank you so much for the reviews. I just thought I would help a little by clearing up some things that might not be evident at first. So this poem is actually not only a love poem to one of my favorite authors, it is actually also directed at a person - so the you mentioned in the last line is actually somebody the speaker of the poem is talking to. Another thing is that the glass of soda on the table is something that the narrator sees the next day after they have been to church. If you think about it church is on Sunday, then the narrator sees their friend later that day. On Tuesday they write the poem, saying the soda is so on the table from the day before. So two times the narrator brings Proust into their own life - once because of their appreciation of the beauty of the church, and once again to describe how their memory is opened up by an ordinary sight or experience.

A contemporary reminder of old writer.
I will admit that I am not familiar with Proust's work myself but I can pick up on what a love letter this poem may well be. You seem to tie this mans life to your own as if he were a grandfather but this makes sense because you seem to be telling the reader how his work still applies to today.

And just that title "A glass of soda" Something that has been around for centuries "a glass" with something that was only invented in the last century "soda".

"Yesterday I thought of him again

Except for me it wasn’t a cookie

In a fancy French tea

But a glass of soda

Sticky and half filled

Standing on the table

Reminding me

Of you"

I love this ending so much because it is bestowing a new meaning onto something so ordinary.
Which may well have been what every writer dose, I just realized that.
Perhaps in 100 years soda will have as much symbolic value as wine.

Hey there, Mordax here for a review!

In all honesty, this poem was amazing. It truly felt professionally written from the great flow you established to the beautiful story you delivered in so few words. I especially loved how you described Proust's memories and really brought him to life, then snapped us readers back to reality with the sticky, half-filled glass of soda. I love how you connected that soda to fancy French tea and cookies. It reminded me of movies as the character reminisces about something beautiful and luxurious only to reveal the lacking luxury in their current state. Only this reminiscing was not vain or greedy but rather this imagery you applied places Proust on a pedestal and paints him as this figure of beauty and refinement.

My only critique--and it may not even be so, I may just be misinterpreting--was how at the beginning, this narrator is said to be in church, the memory spurred at this setting. Then, at the end, it is said that the memory was spurred by this soda upon the table, reminding the narrator of Proust. While this works fine, I couldn't help but be disrupted from the impact of this poem thinking about where the narrator put the soda. If they are in church beneath stained glass windows, I'm assuming they are within the congregation hall with rows of pews, in which there is unlikely to be tables and especially unlikely for there to be soda on those tables. I may just be looking to deeply into it, but this disparity drew me away from the impact of the poem.

Overall, great job!! Wonderful poem and keep writing!

Mordax