i.
when i get home, i will split open your memory
on my new cutting board.
i'll follow the careful way of prying open
an unassuming thing, a practice i've learned from
watching you. i imagine your hands as gloves,
in place of mine, plucking out the seeds.
ii.
i don't recall you ever teaching me
about damage control; how easily a hardened thing bleeds.
how it feels to be the hands that mold. the bright red that spills out
much like the earth when it grieves.
how many graves have we unknowingly swept up
in the cleansing? i wonder, with my hands stained and sticky,
how many slates must i start over?
iii.
i had always thought that stillness meant haunting.
i'm thinking of this poem as a killing.
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.
125,027 Literary Works • 672,773 Reviews
Hi there Helvetia! Atticus here for a quick review.
While I do genuinely love the imagery of graves, and the way the reflection on that is placed in the poem, I do have some questions about what "the cleansing" is. The first part of the poem discussed breaking things open; the second part begins to discuss how things bleed and grieve and die, and then a cleansing is mentioned out of nowhere. I can't quite make that connection.Wow, this was a powerful poem that incorporated some really cool devices to convey meaning! I've read each part a few times, trying to pry out all the meaning and pick apart each section, as it feels like there are several layers to this poem. I enjoyed thinking through each section individually, then reflecting on how they all tie together. The enjambment in section 1 sets a good tone for the poem - disconnected, wandering, lost, lonely. The imagery and themes of graves, cleansing, the earth, grief, are woven together in section 2 in a way that binds the poem together. Finally, the rhythm of Section 3 felt like a fitting end to this poem.
My main note is that the breaking of the fourth wall (I'm not totally sure if that's the appropriate term? Referring to the poem within the poem, whatever you might call that) kinda came out of nowhere and was so abrupt from the rest of the poem that it jarred me a bit. I've been trying to think of a way to get around that - maybe replacing poem with a different word, but nothing feels quite right there, or maybe lengthening the third stanza, but that's sort of self-defeating. So as bad as I feel leaving a note like that with no suggestions on how to go about potentially resolving that, I fear I don't have much of a choice here, so hopefully you will have more luck thinking of something else that may resolve the abruptness of a fourth-wall break.
Besides those notes, I want to note that the sections in this poem are well-executed. The separations are natural, in that they fall in the right place, and the poem moves well from one idea into the next. The visual imagery of splitting a memory on a cutting board was exceptionally creative and probably my favorite part. Overall, this poem was difficult to review because it was so well written and creative that it was hard to find areas to critique. I hope that I've given you something to think about, despite feeling out of my depth reviewing a poem of this caliber. If you have any clarifying questions, feel free to reach out!
Best,
Atticus
The initial image is instantly haunting, and oy, I read the piece over a few times, perhaps picking out the seeds of image and structure. So brava on that right off!
I very much appreciate how concrete you've made the opening; it's tangible both in the "new cutting board", "plucking out the seeds" and in the voice of the writer/speaker. And though you don't have set meter or rhyme scheme, you've done a neat job at tying in assonance. The phonetic repetition of the long /'I/ (ee) echoes the image of things seeping out or bleeding.
There's also something aching and vivid about "prying open an unassuming thing" -- that, in fact, is the mystery I wanted to see unpacked in the further stanzas. That said...
I was not quite as sure of the images in the parts ii. and iii., and how they develop the beginning; in particular:
"how many graves have we unknowingly swept up?" and how "hands mold" connects with "hardened thing that bleeds". What cleansing? Perhaps I've missed an allusion. And is memory an unassuming thing?
Perhaps also continue the pattern of vowel sounds in /'i/ (ee) and match your image of a slate by amending the final line in ii. to "...with my hands stained and sticky, how many slates must I clean?"
The concision of the last two lines (iii) is an excellent punctuation to the lines meandering, that run over into lines, in the first two. Is the poem itself a direction then? Is it running through, prying out, memory from another's heart or mind? with words as knives? Or their own heart/mind?
You've got a talent for imagery, and I got the impression of the pattern of this poem in its format itself as haunting as it runs over itself. I'd like to see the images you paint so starkly reflect each other, if that makes sense? Oy, especially the 'graves' and 'cleansing' which had a good ring, but didn't seem to fit the previous or ending.
Cheers!
IMP