Somewhere, you hold me.

Hey Ellie!

What a terrific and creative poem - I love seeing poets create / play with new forms of poetry! To me this feels a little bit like a play on an acrostic, and reminds me a little of the technique that Anthony Cody uses in his poetry book "borderland apocrypha" which I think you'd really enjoy reading potentially!

You picked an excellent line to make multiple meanings from, and to me it could be interpreted in a lot of different ways depending on the reader. Here's a few possible interpretations I thought of....

The poem could be a bit of a commentary on how sometimes a phrase (like "I love you") or an action (like "holding someone") can be repeated so many times / in so many different ways and contexts that it loses meaning or changes meaning. The couple that says "I love you" passionately at the beginning of their relationship as an overflowing abundance of love ends their relationship with rushed or desperate "I love yous" said like they're trying to convince the other person it's true - even intimate actions like holding a partner can turn like this too - so in the same way the same words of the poem can have their meaning change through time and repetition - it mimics how relationships can work too.

The poem may also just show the speaker working through trying to convince themselves the phrase is true / untrue - like when someone picks off flower petals saying "He loves me / He loves me not..."

I would say the feeling I got reading the progression of sentences felt like at the beginning "I never loved, but somewhere, you hold me" - felt like that sentence meant ... before you, and your presence I never felt what love was - but as the lines continued it took on new meaning and I could see how it could mean different things like "I never really loved you." but "somewhere" in a dissociated sense I guess you held me - maybe making a commentary that their presence never actually was true love.

I think there were a few lines that packed more obvious meanings than others... and I'm also curious if you tried this in some different patterns if it would create new meaning - might be an interesting excercize to even try writing this poem in reverse where the partial lines construct the full line - I would be interested in reading different iterations - as it was, I felt like the speaker got more desperate / lost as things went on - maybe the most crushing lines "why hold me" and "i never felt you hold me".

Overall I don't have much critique except to say - I'd love to read more, and I'd encourage you to try some different iterations of this poem too! Also you might check out that Anthony Cody book too - I guess fair warning I think it may have some mature themes, but just to glance at some of the ways he formats acrostic poems I think could give you some fun things to try very much in line with this type of poem.

Keep writing Ellie! You're good at it!

alliyah

Okay, I say this in every review but I suck at reviewing but I still continue to do it. So, lets just get to this horribly structured one like all my others.

It is pretty obvious that the perspective changes throughout the poem. I think that is so cool. Every line, there is a brand new way of seeing things. It is crazy how just taking out a few words makes the sentence completely change.


It just goes to show how much words mean. I have no bad commentary on this. Amazing job. Keep up the amazing work.


Love,
Hop

Heya! Hope here with a review.

You dont see too much stuff playing with images here, so I had to give this one a looksie.

It is generally simple, but it does a good job of getting its point across. It almost feels conflicting, or like the POV character is conflicted.

Because they at the same time saying that they 'never felt loved'
but also that they 'never let you hold me'

So is the feeling of lonelyness coming from the POV character's inablitiy to accept unconditional love?

Or is it coming from the POV character never really being offered unconditional love in the first place?

The line 'i never felt you hold me' seems to imply that it is a third option. It seems like the person who holds is holding, or is at least trying, but the POV character is unable to feel that love. So it doesnt seem like it is only the POV character's fault, or the holder's fault, but more of an incompatiablity between them.

The one who holds showed love to the POV character, but it wasn't enough. The POV character seems like they want to love the one who holds, but can't. There is also an implication that the one who holds is holding the POV character back from love, with the line 'i felt loved, somewhere, you hold me.'

Fun poem.

This is so good!!! I adore blackout poetry, and doing it repeatedly with one sentence is such a cool idea!

The gradual expansion on this character, using only the same nine words, is really well done. The phrase that stays the same the most throughout is "you hold me", which emphasizes it nicely.

My favorite lines are "wh y hold me.", "I never l e t you hold me.", and "I never felt loved." because they're such great examples of playing with the medium, and they really give us a great glimpse into the narrator's feelings.

This is really great!! Thanks so much for sharing!!

This poem is so good! The way it progressed with taking out bits and pieces per line made it really interesting. I love how the flow is a bit choppy because it gives the poem more feeling and depth. Overall I loved it! Nice job