It was a slow quiet strangling,
like a collar,
Outgrown,
Ingrown,
and never taken off.
It melded, and molded,
becoming a dull ache
Never absent,
Soon forgotten.
Like the sound of traffic,
or waves, or crickets, or rain.
Drowned out by all the living I was doing,
forgetting that I was dying,
Strangling,
constricted to fit in bounderies
I was never meant to fit.
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125,005 Literary Works • 672,798 Reviews
Hi there Justlittleoleme2. I believe that once upon a time I may have talked to you in chat once or twice in the olden days when chat was still up and running but I don't believe that I've read any of your poetry before so I may as well delve right in.
I can see early on that this poem is in the perspective of a dog? If the intention for this is to be like one of those sad puppy commercials (I did a project on this last year because we were supposed to make commercials in our technology class that parodied another and my group ended up making one of my friends, an upperclassmen, a puppy. That went...surprisingly well, actually. Anyway, off of the puppy commercial tangent (we played In the Arms of An Angel over the speaking and I'm now having vivid flashbacks but nonetheless) I don't see this to be bad either because this is particularly sad.
I can relate because I own a puppy and because I own a puppy I obviously want wellness for all other puppers and doggos out there in the world even though this pup chews on my pants and because of that the poem is quite relatable in the sense that anyone who owns a puppy or an animal or anyone who owns a soul can get behind not wanting puppers or doggos out in the rain.
I must admit that I am a little confused as well about the collar melting into the fur and skin of the puppy or dog that is our speaker being a metaphor to...what? What are these boundaries that the speaker is never meant to fit? That's the most confusing part of the poem and easily the part that needs fixing the most to give more of a clarity to the theme. Work on that during editing and revision and go from there, Justlittle. Furthermore the structure is also an element that can be neatened out with editing and adding more of this dreary atmosphere adds to the poem and in particular the tone. I do hope this helps in getting your ideas and themes across better because there's potential here for both to happen.
If you have any questions, don't be afraid to ask! I hope I helped and have a great day.
Would it help if I said the speaker isn't a dog, but a person?
and that the collar is a metaphor for societal expectations?
That does help, yep!
Hello, Steggy here for a short review!
An interesting yet confusing poem is all I can say about this. By that I mean is, I don't know exactly what you are trying to say here but at the same time, I do if that makes sense. Just from reading, I believe that this poem might be able trying to grow out of society's grips as you were doing that, it moved around you. That's just the way I see it and you do a nice job of showing that towards the end with the few stanzas that show how you were trying to escape and the collar (which is a nice symbolism) grows onto you. There is also nice, small descriptions throughout this too that kind of bring forth the idea you are talking about.
I feel like this chunk right here should start this poem off. It seems to go straight into the point you are trying to prove and when you do that, the readers will actually read about what is going to happen.
'Had' seems a bit bland to me and doesn't feel quite right with what you are saying. You could say something like 'bore' because within that line and the few above it, you are basically saying you've carried this ache since you were younger and it continues to hurt. Speaking of younger, the next stanza, to me, seems a bit confusing. What I think would sound a little better would be making it like 'ever since I was growing up' to show that you are still growing with the pain.
With this here, I think you could've just done something like this:
Repeating the I was kind of dragging the point of the poem and another thing be careful with going into another stanza. The way I think of it is when you have an idea in one stanza and you want to go onto the next one, you should finish that one thought or idea in the stanza before going onto the next one. You want all of your stanzas to be ideas that the reader will understand as they are reading it.
What a sudden (but good) change. Basically, you are again comparing your pain to loud things that are usually drowned out by what people are worried more about. Overall, this was a good poem and I liked the theme that was happening throughout your entire poem. If you have any questions, let me know!
Steggy
Hey, thank you so much for the review! It helped a lot!
Oh
Now I'm thinking of those dogs the Humane Society rescues sometimes. Is that the kind of thing you were thinking of? If so, I think it's really interesting the way you used that as an extended metaphor in this poem to talk about fitting in and trying to conform to conventional boundaries. It paints a very vivid image - at least if you read it and immediately picture a dog with a too-tight collar, like I did - which is impressive considering you use very little actual imagery in the poem. But the imagery you did use is enough to give me this mental picture, even though you don't mention dogs or fur or anything like that.
The only thing is, I'm not sure the title quite matches the message of the poem. I'm not sure what part of themself the narrator is supposed to have strangled. From reading, it sounds more like societal boundaries/conventions are strangling part of the narrator, but the title claims that the narrator "strangled that part of myself."
Thank you! I'm glad the imagery came across. ^-^ And yes, I'm going to need to change the title, I just haven't decided what it should be yet.
Understandable! I'm the worst at titles, so I definitely get that.
They can be tricky for sure! But I think I finally got it, and thanks to you and steggy I think I was able to make what I was saying come through clearer. ^-^