oh ma’iingan
would you kiss me, kiss me breathless,
and hold me where the white birch catches sun;
i sometimes think i’ve waited too long
to be kissed,
like the fluttering gull in my chest has been struggling
to pry at my ribcage where its feathers moult
and its talons grow dull with age.
i’ve been alone for so long that the feeling stagnates,
pooling when it should be wild, and i’m not the ziibi -
not the stream your paddle catches.
i’m the zaaga’igan where hope has puddled deep
and the surface is the only part being
touched.
i want to be young with you -
to be sixteen and quaking in my hardened skin.
i could be your wasakwagama
(your makwa, your ikwe).
i could be the path that leads you home.
oh ma’iingan, would you kiss me,
would you free me, would you hold me in the only place
i know --
________________________________________________________________________________
the foreign words are anishinaabemowin. they are as follows:
ma'iingan - wolf
ziibi - river
zaaga'igan - lake
wasakwagama - white tree water
makwa - bear
ikwe - woman
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
Are you sure you want to delete this comment? This cannot be undone.
Mark this comment as a review? Points will be awarded to the poster.
Your comment was posted, but it wasn’t long enough to count as a review. Reviews need about four complete sentences (at least 250 characters). Try writing another review that explains your thoughts in more detail — the author will appreciate it, and you’ll earn points for it.
125,007 Literary Works • 672,817 Reviews
hello.... *waves with a grin*
I really liked your poem.
Hello, Dreamwalker! I'm here to leave what I hope is going to be a helpful review!
This image is so simple, but the way you put it puts the image into my mind immediately, and it lingers.First of all, I've already read it through five times, and the feeling it gives me does not diminish with each read, which to me means that you've created something that rings true to me, even if it is deeply personal to you.
Something like that tells me that you're getting close to some kind of Truth, something that resonates with humanity on a larger scale more than just something small and personal that you've created that also remains personal. If that makes sense and isn't too dramatic or philosophical for ya there.
I think the strength of this lies in the way that you establish a setting, and then all emotions relate to this setting, this lake near the birches. It keeps the reader in one place physically, but emotionally, we're accessing something that we were unable to without the aid of you, the poet. Good.
Personally, I would keep "to be kissed" on the same line as the previous because it seems isolated for no reason here. I can also understand that you're introducing the line with "i sometimes think," but it makes a stronger statement if you cut it out. So instead of having to go along with the narrator easing into the recognition, we have the idea right there in front of us, like someone who has realized this in the past and is now becoming tired of it. Which I think would add to the overall feeling we have here.
I like the gull image, but I feel like it doesn't quite connect with the idea of waiting too long to be kissed. I'm not sure how I would change it to connect more-- but for me, it isn't quite doing the trick.
Again, I'm not sure why you've isolated the last word, and I'd just put it onto the end of the previous line. While it is an important word in the poem, I don't think here that isolating it is going to make it any more important.
This is the only line that I felt a little confusion at. Hardened skin? Is the narrator now comparing themself to a birch tree? Just previously, they were a lake. I would connect hardened skin with some image before just putting it out there because it takes me out of the world of the poem.
This line break bothered me a little-- I would try putting the break after "hold me" and making "in the only place i know" one line. It would feel better.
Now of course, all these line break notes are personal preference, and if you had a bigger reason for breaking the lines in these places that I'm not understanding, feel free to ignore these bits of advice.
I really appreciate that you used anishinaabemowin. I had not heard of the language before, and it led me to research a little bit about it. You helped me expand my knowledge of the world.
Thank you for sharing this lovely poem! I hope that this review proves useful to you! Happy poeting!
Hello.
First off, this poem was very deep with emotion. I liked that alot. Secondly, the different languages really gave the poem a different feel.At some points in the poem I found it hard to follow, but other than that the poem did speak in its own way. Keep writing!
~Elephant
Hello there, first of all I would just like to say that I really love this poem.
I really like the fact that you avoid capitalizing "I" and various other personal pronouns as it really draws away from the narrator and to the subject that they are discussing. It just is a better way of providing a way for the reader to be drawn to the subject.
I really like the fact that you use a language other than English as it just creates a mystery around them, maybe because I don't understand the language. But other than that, its just really quite powerful. If in its space you just used wolf and bear, it wouldn't have had the same effect. It would have just seemed dull and bland, and I admire you for avoiding this.
Finally, I really felt the emotional connection you have with this poem. Its just really powerful to me, and it made me enjoy reading this piece.
I really enjoyed this piece and I hope to see a next one from you in the future
I love this poem so much. I love the mix of languages in it.
The wordplay in this is great and everything flows together very very nicely.
There is some small mistakes, like not capitalizing your "i's" and not using capital letters in other places, like at the beginning of a new paragraph.
Overall a very good poem that is very well written.
Thank you so much for the review! Just as a quick side note though, I do choose to avoid capitalization throughout this piece as a stylistic choice. I realize it's not everyones cup of tea but in poetry you really can do anything so I chose this particular style. Otherwise, thanks for the advice!
I like this. Especially with the addition of another language. That makes it more intriguing. I appreciate the key at the bottom so we can all understand it, and I think the words are more beautiful in that language.
Without that element, I would have been a little bored.
This was well written and I could feel the connection you have with it.
I guess the issue I had was that there wasn't anything for me that really made it pop, besides the words in another language.
I like what you have going here, I just feel like there is something missing.
I recommend working with the piece and tweaking it. Find something to make it pop. Make it something that will shine and stay with us.
For now, I will remember the beauty of this other language, and will very likely forget the contenta of this poem.
I hope that was not too harsh.
Good luck on all your future writing endeavors!
-Cody
Definitely not harsh! I appreciate criticism in any form I get it. This poem was super personal with a lot of references to my home life growing up (i.e. Wasakwagama is what my ancestors named the lake that is now currently Shining Tree Lake; it's a place which I spent a great deal of my childhood around/in). So I can totally understand why this would lack that sort of something that might bring it home for the reader a bit more. In any which case, thanks for the advice!