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140,518 Literary Works • 673,289 Reviews
So darkly beautiful, emotive, and mysterious. Like an antique photo, I especially love this bit "and the rainwater drips off beat like a broken clock
and upsets the rhythm of my dreams."
Hey, Jack.
The first thing that knocked me out of my "this is lovely" was the addition of "forgot" so close to "remember". Like, I realize it was intentional, but in my reading it felt the same as an awkward accidental repetition of words, just too close together in the piece to get away with it; the remembrance was still fresh in my mind. Remember and forgot are so close a pair they function as the same word, especially when they're used in their everyday capacity. I'm torn, because I understand it was probably intentional and hard to take out of there, but it's like saying "but" twice in a row. See what you can do, if you'd like?
I was, at first, ashamed to not know what secateurs were, so I got angry like, "How dare you use words I don't know and expect me to like your poem!?". Then the other side was like, "Sometimes you just don't understand it! Leave it to the people who do." But then I saw they were just pruning shears, and I wondered if you've ever actually used the word secateurs in your life? If you do, keep it. I have never even heard it. We always say pruning shears. And shears totally works with your s's.
The next thing is that the end of that stanza seems a little clunky to me, mostly because of the double and (which I do, too). I realize upsets brings in a different motion from off-beat, but what would this not do?:
Or no, that's not quite right. That says that broken clocks are always off beat from dreams, but I want the off-beat to be with the dreams. Broken clocks were what were making the beat, so can they be off beat?
Lastly, the last thing was the "unkempt" of "unkempt" branches. It may be that I've seen it too many times in beginning writers wanting to make hair sound interesting, but I don't want it there. I know it works way better here, because it's actually referring to the pruning and gardening and such, but maybe you don't like it either? This is my "I don't like it so if you don't like it, too, you should probably change it" statement.
I do like:
Also, if anyone's coming here to ask if stainless steel can rust, I googled it, okay, and it can, so don't bother Jack about that~ hee hee.
Let me know if you have any questions or comments, please. Good luck! Keep writing. ( :
I don't think that I've ever reviewed anything of yours because usually I can't find anything to critique. But here I have one small nitpick: the word secateurs. The rest of your words are pretty simple, which I like. But I didn't know what that meant, and it really distracted me. It also felt out of place among all the simpler words. Maybe call them "shears" instead?
Otherwise, I really like it. Good job and keep writing!
Heya Jack,
A bit of a slow start here. In principle, I like the idea of sleepiness while the narrator recalls the memories, but perhaps the narrator can be performing something that demonstrates it more actively. Likely not your intention, but the second line reminds me of when everyone is drilling holes with augurs before they go ice fishing.
Interesting imagery, but we've done some digging in the earlier lines, so now we can see the results. Incidentally, I have the image of chewing tobacco, but that's kind of the taste of dirt, so it's not much different haha. But no, that sort of practice of chewing on cud comes to mind, but here we have dirt and the taste rotting worms. By the way, I think you should reverse "worms rotting" to "rotting worms" which makes it less of a mouthful.
I have a feeling all these thoughts on the past aren't fond ones. I like the idea of forgetting the forecast, kind of like just not abandoning all plans. I'm not totally there on the washing away the weeds. It seems to me that hiding your head in the earth would only reveal their roots. The metaphor you have seems to reward the behavior, but the tone says it shouldn't.
I like that first line, but "last springtime" can be cut. I'm not too keen on the spurned lover, especially since it's stainless (hence unused). It's a metaphor that doesn't quite equate. However, I love the contradiction of the "stainless" and "rusted"; it's just so paradoxical and wonderful.
We have this lovely set of images with drains overflowing and rainwater. "Offbeat" should be one word. You have image and sound (smell might be a good addition). But that last line irks me a bit. Abstract and not very profound. Just kind of there.
The first two lines are full of flowery stuff. I would cut them, maybe replace them with something else. I love the last two lines. I might cut "virgin"; I'm thinking you can relay that information some other way, it just seems tacked on as an adjective otherwise. A bit clunky. But I really think you hit it with that last line. It has this sort of reverberation that stays with the mind.
When titles fail
My least favorite part of this whole thing is the title, which is so ridiculously and glaringly obvious that it's almost as if you had the main idea for this poem and then just kind of went with that for the title. You have all these lovely images, and a title that just mashes them together and doesn't let the reader think for themselves. I know you can come up with something better. Maybe pull something out the body of the poem
But otherwise I rather enjoyed this. I haven't read your stuff in ages and it's nice to see once again.