The sun
rested
round and dim on a mountain
shelf, its glow
no brighter than the dusty
bulb inside my father's shed. The air was choked
so thick with haze,
you could fingerpaint
shadow shapes in the sky
and watch the rays
seep in
to blur the edges. I
stared
at that cadmium sun as it fizzled
down to smoke and ash, the afterglow of a carbon filament
amplified by an eternity.
You say you are like the sun.
Best appreciated
from a distance. Blinding directly. Over-
exposure resulting in burns.
I remember drawing
animals on the sun
as it sank beneath an earthen blanket, too tired to sear
afterimages on my eyes. I remember
the clinging haze slowing time until the sunlight flowed like paint
on my fingertips. I remember touching the sun
as I touched you.
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139,347 Literary Works • 672,539 Reviews
I love and admire this poem something fierce.
You had me from "the sun".
I loved the first two line breaks. Man, those were powerful. After seeing the critiques below mine, though, I'm inspired to my own more sober criticism: I think that if you're going to use those dynamite line breaks, then perhaps you need to incorporate the same sort of dynamism later in the poem as well. You could do this by dividing up the lines a tiny bit more: for example, you can make "I stared" its own line, "Over-exposure resulting in burns" could be its own line, same for "until the sunlight flowed like paint", as well as "I remember touching the sun".
Your vocabulary and word choice are delicious. Not trying to boast, but coming from me, that's a high compliment. If you check out some of my work, I think you'll find grounds on which to feel well chuffed
The lightbulb metaphor is brilliant and well-executed. I found the following,
"The sun
rested
round and dim on a mountain
shelf, its glow no brighter than the dusty
bulb inside my father's shed."
to be fantastically well-observed. The image was immediately, and blindingly (no pun intended), clear in my head. You have found the perfect simile for that particular type of sunset glow so many of us try so hard to capture. This part,
"I remember
the clinging haze slowing time until the sunlight flowed like paint
on my fingertips. I remember touching the sun
as I touched you."
is also excellent. I've stood several evenings on a tall hill above my city, watching the play of sooty colors across the sky as the "cadmium sun" fizzles and dies.
I'm not sure to whom the second paragraph is directed, but I'm intrigued. I thought it portrayed a real, authentic character. Untouchable, has problems with intimacy, self-absorbed, perhaps consumed by an intellectual/artistic project? I wondered these things about the "you" in that paragraph. I think you are hinting at an interesting relationship between the speaker and "you". The sun is a perfect metaphor for such a person. "Best appreciated from a distance." I know a lot of people like this.
What an amazing work - damn fine, sir!
Alternatively: damn fine brain-child you've created, woman!
(these are supposed to be high compliments)
Thanks for the review, and I'm glad you liked it, though the gendered differences in the compliments at the end aren't very complimentary.
As for the suggestion about line breaks, breaking lines at the end of complete clauses is more conventional than it is dynamic. It also loses some of the double meanings in the individual lines as I've broken them. A good example of what I'm talking about is "on my fingertips. I remember touching the sun" which can be read with the punctuation or without to two complementary meanings.
Kyll! This is lovely. I'm not entirely sure if there's a purpose for the line breaks, but I would recommend reworking them (I wouldn't be surprised if I'm missing something though, as they're so significant!) I love the opening images, especially that of the bulb -- however, I read "choked bulb" at first, which I thought was almost more interesting than what's going on here. The images of paint really detracted from this poem in my opinion, because I've seen so much poetry using the idea of fingerpainting and skies, etc. and think that in conjunction with the other language that you've used, it just feels a little bit out of place. I loooove love the curtness of the second stanza. The shift in tone and chopped lines is excellent. I think some of the images are a bit weaker in the last stanza, but love the last line and the way that you've not only created a circular pattern in the poem, but have also given it such a tremendous, fresh meaning at the very end. Lovely, lovely!
Aw. <3
I was trying something new with the line breaks, so if you have any suggestions, they would be appreciated.
*pets paint images* My preciousss...
That last stanza drove me a little crazy because it's hard to match that first one. XD It's nice to know I didn't fail completely.
I think I see what you're trying to do with the weight in those words? But they'd really carry it by themselves already imo, so it's not necessary. It just looks disjointed in the actual form of the poem, which doesn't really seem to suit the content to me? idk
I wasn't sure where else to break the lines. I considered posting this as a prose poem but didn't feel like dealing with the "this isn't a poem because it doesn't have line breaks" comments that would've resulted.
I might work better as a short lined poem with more consistent line length, but that might also just be my own style influencing that. I tend to find poems with lines that vary quite a lot to be kind of distracting? unless I know there's a reason for it. And yeah a prosey structure would work just as well, but on here you'd get complaints unfortunately.
*it might work better >_>
I tried the consistent line lengths first, but it felt off, so I went with each line = an idea on its own in addition to the straight reading.
Hey Kyll~
I promised myself I would come back and review this, so here I am.
The first stanza just blows me away. The imagery you use is completely fantastic, and by that I mostly mean that the words look pretty. By themselves, those words help the picture in my head. But when coupled with their definitions...that's where it starts to get a little confusing.
Wow. I can't tell you how much I love that. That metaphor just resonates throughout the whole piece. Perfect.
I read "shed" as "head". Why? I don't know. But it sounded very profound, and I couldn't help being disappointed when I read it the second time and realized what it actually said. Nothing on you. It's my fault for being dyslexic. XD
I absolutely love the imagery you describe next, with the air being choked with haze and the fingerpainting of shadow shapes and whatnot. It's gorgeous. The only thing I would change to make the flow less rocky is "seep in to blur at the edges". Personally, I would just change the to to an and.
This part just ruins something for me. The words are so pretty, and at first I'm in love. And then you throw in cadmium and carbon, and suddenly all of it goes away. My first impression of the pictures you're showing me is the glowing yellow of the sun, blinking through the haze. But then you're giving me silvers and whites and grays, followed by the next stanza, which describes the sun as a light that blinds and burns you directly. I don't know if this contradiction is intentional. I would have to guess so. It may seem like an insignificant detail, and I guess it's a personal preference, but the imagery of the white sun and the carbon filament just brings it down a notch. It creates a colder tone to your poem. If that's what you're trying to do, then that's fine.
The punctuation is dismissive. If it were me, I would take that away, but it didn't distract me that much from your poem.
Yes. Beautiful. I'm in love with this part. You have a certain way of forming and ordering your words that really burns (no pun intended) the images into my mind.
Sounds painful.
Overall, you've got something really nice here. I really had to look hard for anything to criticize. I could have gushed for this entire review about how wonderful your phrasing and imagery is. Honestly. I'll have to look into some of your other poetry, because this one is just brilliant.
Best wishes
Savvy
Thanks for the review. There are some thing that I could use some clarification on:
You completely lost me here. XD Are you saying to add in an "at" in that line? Which "or" are you talking about?
I think your confusion about these lines comes from which cadmium you're thinking about. This is the cadmium I had in mind, specifically cadmium orange, though the red and yellow variants also work. On a side note, the metal cadmium, when heated, turns a very vivid red-orange.
The contrast between the soft glow and the blinding burning of the next stanza was intentional.
I'm not sure what you mean by dismissive.
Well, we're back to talking about the gentle sun here, so not really. ;P
Gosh dangit, I meant change the "to" to an "and", not the "or". This is what happens when you review poetry during class. XD And wow, I didn't know that about cadmium. There's my fun fact for the day.
By dismissive, I guess I mean that when I read those lines with that punctuation, they had no effect on me. The way they were structured kind of lost the smoothness of the rest of your work. Which I guess since you're talking about "direct" and "explosive" light, and that kind of thing, it kind of works. i guess it's just me.
Moral of this experience: sleep before you review poetry. XD I'm sorry if my review wasn't helpful to you.
Your review was quite helpful. It gave me some ideas for tweaks to maybe improve this.
Though I'm keeping the "to" because the seeping colors are doing the blurring, which is a little different from the colors seeping and blurring.
It's been a while since I've written any reviews so, this might come off a bit rusty.
I liked reading the poem. It was lyrical, though, it didn't have rhymes. I mean, sometimes, such poems are meaningful, but, are awkward to read.
" I remember touching the sun
as I touched you."
There were a lot of profound lines in your poem, but, these lines made a little sentimental.
Keep writing better and better!
Thanks for the review. I'm glad you enjoyed reading.