Hey Spark!
Here's my first review towards the Clear the Green Room challenge.
I'm loving the combination of images you have in this poem between the wind, water, and unraveling sweater and how those come up a few different times.
My interpretation of the poem is that the speaker feels they get lost in the love of the subject which is at times overwhelming and then trickles away, similar to the way they love - all at once or just a little bit. The speaker is very self-critical in how they see their love comparing themselves to parchment, and an object in need of an instruction manual. They are desperate to have security, but things unravel quickly and they lose themself in the relationship so that in the end all they have is memory. They didn't ask for much - just that the subject stay, but in the end it doesn't seem like the subject could do that so it ends in a sad note.
--
Some themes I noticed - a self objectification -> the speaker describes themselves in what seems like an unsympathetic way - making the poem feel very ruminating to me.
One little thing I noticed that I'm not sure if it was intentional or not - there are a few lines that I feel like could be the speaker comparing themselves to a dog - being left in a ditch beside the road, talking about needing to be tied down, 'sandpaper tongue,' just needing a bed to sleep, and then in the end the word "stay" all by itself. Along with the "they told you i'd need"... the speaker has a little bit of a lost puppy vibe going on. I don't know if it was intentional, but it did trip me up a little bit wondering if maybe the poem was from a dog POV - if it wasn't intentional, I might exchange the "sandpaper tongue" for a different descriptor for clarity. If it was an intentional motif you were going for, I think I'd lean into that a bit sooner in, and try to get some reference to this dog comparison in the first two stanzas so the reader is more confident in making that comparison
I liked the formatting of the poem floating from left to right / conventional to italics - it sort of I think displayed that hot / cold, here / not sort of attitude that both the speaker and subject seem to have.
The stanza that I liked the best was "sweetheart i spend all my nights wrapped in that / stupid sweater of yours" - it so perfectly portrays missing someone, but still hanging on to them with the symbol of the sweater which could apply to the speaker hanging on to a lot of different things. And how memory is an insufficient substitute for a person. (just a side-note, I think I'd put a comma after "sweetheart" since you do after "darling")
A mystery of this poem is certainly who the "they" is that is referenced throughout.
Another aspect I very much liked was how conversational the poem sounded with the personal addresses and the little notes to the reader like "I lost you, didn't i?'
One thing you might consider as you revise this poem - is what the main message of the piece is - to me it's exploring that here now / then trickled out sort of love based on the title and first two stanzas, but the final two lines here, make it seem like the conflict is a bit different than stated there. If those two stanzas can link up a little better, I think that'll help the narrative - or else maybe there is a line to end on that engages a bit more - I did like the way you chose to end the poem as I thought it was dramatic and interesting, I just wasn't so certain at the end of reading that I knew the main theme of the speaker's lie.
Overall I really enjoyed this poem. Let me know if you wanted feedback on any other aspects that I didn't cover, I'd be happy to say more!
alliyah
Points: 144400
Reviews: 1227
Donate