Snow In New East World

Hi there Kelisot!

First Impressions

This poem has a mysterious energy. The main images that stick out to me are the elegant snowflakes and the contrast with how they taste, apparently like “sinews”, which makes me think of maybe the parts of an animal that a lot of people wouldn’t consider palatable. It kind of shocked me with the last line, which is why I felt that some mystery was afoot. I noticed the poem is categorised as ‘humor’, and I can certainly see the shock factor/ twist as being something that is shared between the mystery and humor genres.

Subject, Meaning, Interpretations

I interpreted this poem as being a ‘story poem’ or a narrative one. It seems to be about an unusual natural phenomenon. The “winter in summer” manifests as something that appears to be snow but isn’t actually made of water like you’d expect snow to be, hence why it tastes like “sinews”. It kind of reminds me of the setting of a game called Fallen London, where people live underground and so the ‘snow’ that falls there doesn’t come from condensation in the sky . . . but no one seems to know what it’s made of.

I can see it as having a more abstract theme though, such as things being different from what people expect. The people believe that a miracle has taken place and are cheerful about it, however, the one child notices that something doesn’t seem right, and that this ‘miracle’ might actually be a sign of something unpleasant.

Descriptions

Something that could be added to the poem, I think, would be more description as to where these people are situated. The title implies it takes place in “New East World”. At the moment, the poem feels like it could have taken place anywhere, because all of the descriptions are general ones, such as “the people”, “their own God”, “a unique illusion”. If the poem was intended to take place in a specific location, it would be nice to have descriptions that guide to reader to imagine said location. Is there something unique about their public places? Are the people watching the snow from a town square, maybe an observatory, or by the beach? Who are these people and what do they look like?

Structure

Something I think you’ve done well in this poem is to structure the line lengths and pauses. The regular shape of the poem makes the twist in the last line stand out. It ‘hides’ it until the last moment, making it more surprising, but also making sure that all the lines flow together in a unified rhythm. I also thought you balanced this well with varying the punctuation to reflect the content. For example “Small, white, watery flakes” made me pause after each comma, reflecting the idea of snowflakes gently descending, almost one at a time.

I also thought the voice was done very consistently. I know I sometimes have trouble trying to keep the speaker’s voice consistent, but here it’s easy to see that there is this old-timey arrangement of words (“a unique illusion seen”, “saw with awe above”) and the speaker is not one of the crowd of people, but rather a somewhat distanced observer.

Overall

I’d say my favourite line was:

And the people saw with awe above

Hmm..It seems like pieces of the sun are falling off and turning into snowflakes.These snowflakes aren’t ordinary snowflakes.They evaporate straight through your tongue, leaving you to taste your own tissue.That was just a thought that I had.It’d kind of funny and kind of terrifying at the same time if this were actually happening.Is Armageddon approaching? I hope that you will have a lovely day and night.

This is such a unique idea for a poem!! I love how you interpreted my prompt. I feel like this could be the premise for a dystopian sci-fi story, honestly (one that I'd definitely read).

My favourite line has to be "Elegantly like angels and their plumes" - such a pretty image! Now that I think about it, snowflakes do kind of descend from the sky the way you imagine angels might. And the subtle rhyme in the second stanza with saw & awe is a nice touch, as well.

Then the plot twist at the end is asdlrjsekthasdlkjf - "bitter tastes of sinews"? I was not expecting that, but it's such an intriguing cliff-hanger to end a poem on! Overall, this is a short poem but it packs a punch. :)