Hi Liminality! I know this is a bit of an older poem but I needed to review something posted on a holiday, so here I am anyway
The most noticeable feature of this poem when I was reading it, was your use of "&" between stanzas - I think it's a really clever way to show separation of ideas, while also incorporating them literally into the poem as "and", if that makes sense. It also works well (along with the repetition of "was" at the begininning of stanzas / at the start of the second line) to create a sort of rhythm in the poem.
This isn't really a critique, but I did find it interesting that you used both ampersands and the word "and" itself, and both are meant to be spoken aloud the same in the context of this poem. It might not make sense or be possible, but I'd almost suggest cutting out the spelled word "and" entirely from the poem, just to emphasize the "&"s between stanzas. Or you could consider changing "and"s to "+"s or something? That's really more if you're looking for something to experiment with though, definitely not necessary!
Re: rhyming, I really enjoyed how you alternated between "past" and "last" -> it created subtle continuity without the words losing their meanings. I'm honestly not such a fan of the rest of the rhyming, as in some places it feels a bit forced, and in others, if you read it aloud, you don't actually hear it super well, because of where it is in the line. (Unless you take the line breaks literally at pause at the end of each line, but then it feels a bit awkward, for example: "was worse than a knife / on the skin, to the notion of life". If you say that aloud, you'll probably find that the rhyming is very subtle, and the sentence structure also feels a bit forced.)
Actually I'm going to take part of that back ~ I think the subtle rhyming isn't a bad thing, it's just not super prominent if you were going for obvious rhymes. But I would suggest looking at the third stanza and seeing if you could alter the sentence structure / reword it a little so it doesn't feel as unnatural.
I LOVE how you've almost tacked on the first line to the beginning of the poem (that isn't a great way of describing it, but I can't think of a better way of saying it) ~ all the othe stanzas start with "was", but the second line of the first stanza starts with "was", which makes it feel like the second line is the start, and "the fence sitter" is like its own stanza almost. It works super well to emphasize that phrase, and even visually it emphasizes the opening stanza because it's one line longer.
I really like the tone and word choice you've got in this poem -> one thing I admire about all your poems is the voice that comes through, it's very distinct and clear. And you have a great vocabulary with little repetition, which keeps the poem quite engaging.
Overall, I enjoyed reading this poem! I hope this is useful, and sorry for digging up one of your older poems
whatchamacallit
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