For those who don't know, confessional poetry focuses on the poet's feelings and experiences, however unpleasant or unbecoming, with emphasis on description and a disregard to structure and punctuation.
___________________________________________________________________________________
They hate the sadness they see in me.
And they, like the good presentable housemaids they are -
with tidy souls but eyes dull as a blank page -
They fix their miraculous vacuums of optimism on me
and go about scrubbing me with sandpaper advice,
scraping under my arms and in my privates,
all the while singing, lackadaisical.
This dirt of depression,
or manic manure, or desperate, desolate grime of loss:
This grossness you see on me,
coating me, a fine but clinging dust--
It is not yours to clean! It is not yours to dispel!
My filth offends them, I can tell,
I can understand why they shower the air with false perfume.
But the smell turns to carrion my gut,
my eyeballs turning cartwheels in revolt of such control,
And perhaps I am sick in my mind,
but perhaps my mind perfers to be sick.
Hey there, LadyLazarus! I see you're rather new to YWS, so welcome.
I'd first like to say that I think your author's note is entirely unnecessary. Your poem should speak for itself. Don't weaken it by trying to explain expectations -- let it speak for itself!
That said, your poem does a real good bit of speaking. There are some really nice strong images and you do especially well with sensations, which are often neglected. Here are some of my favorite phrases:
Hoo, wow~ I liked pretty much that whole stanza aside from "miraculous", and how "vacuums of optimism doesn't seem to refer to a concrete noun, so it goes floating off in poem-space.
Superb!
And the idea of spraying the perfume to cover it all works really well with the subject matter.
The good stuff being picked out and complimented now, I have to say that the rest of everything is pretty weak. Kick it up. Explain less and show more. I know there's a speaker, but having the speaker say, "I think this. I know this. I see this." makes it seem false. Instead of "My filth offends them, I can tell", just TELL the reader HOW you can tell it offends them, yeah?
The introduction, too, is very weak. "They hate the sadness they see in me" gives NO image at all, engages NOTHING in the reader. It is too plain: "I am sad" is all it says. Give us more to start with. Give us the housemaids. Give us their plainness and their presentableness, but give it in specifics. Do they have a color? A uniform facial expression or characteristic? Give us a group gesture, maybe.
Oh, and take out the silly exclaimed phrases. Exclamations are for old-time poets and they sound silly there, too. They don't fit. It is not yours to clean, with a period is much stronger than "Oh mah gahhd, it is not yours to clean! Get outta here!"
Lastly, the ending, too, is over explanatory. I am sick, I am sick, and I like it. What is that? What, after all our scrubbing and going along with your manic manure, does that leave us with? Give us more sensation. Show us more; tell us less. It's even more important in poetry. Of course keep the sense of the basic narrative / purpose you have now, but coat it more so we can feel more instead of feel like we're getting read a list of facts.
Good luck! If you have any questions, leave me a PM or a wall message, okay?
And again, welcome! This is good stuff!
This is really good. I love the emotion you tried to express. I am also apprecative of the fact you let the reader know what you were trying to accomplish. I feel you mastered that rather well. There is plenty of alliteration which is always nice to see.
That is the positive I have to say, my praises would just be repeating the job well done. There are some issues, I as a reader, have with it. And I hope it will be of help to air these grievences.
1. I feel like there is more to be said, like the poem is unfinished. And it isn't in a way for the reader to determine the end. It is more you just didn't finish it. There is no conclusion in my opinion. Yes you say how you feel about the stares and snubs, but you seem to just let it end there when there could be so much more.
2. You don't really seem to create an image. Imagery is very key in poetry and with the statement that there is an emphasis on description, though you do a great job at describing your feelings towards the desdain of others, you lack a physical state of description leaving it only a few lines to create an image. The lines are,
"and go about scrubbing me with sandpaper advice,
scraping under my arms and in my privates,
all the while singing, lackadaisical"
and
"my eyeballs turning cartwheels in revolt of such control"
Otherwise there is no mental picture. Not every line of a poem, or any piece of liturature needs to be creating an image, but just these two lines won't due. Perhaps fit in a line or two about what you see when you think of these housemaids.
I have no furthur complaints. Overall this is a great piece of work and I hope these comments were of help to you. Good job and good luck!