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125,021 Literary Works • 672,740 Reviews
I was just rereading this poem and remembered why I liked it so much lol.
Hey avimoon - sorry for some reason I didn't see this comment initially! Thank you and I'm glad you enjoyed!
Hi there Liminality! Niteowl here to leave a review!
I'll go ahead and start with your questions
1-the poem made me feel like two people standing on opposite sides of ancient ruins on a foggy morning, looking at their feet and pretending they don't see each other. The speaker walked away, looking for something better, but only found darkness, and so they're back. The other person stood still, persisting with life in a ruined land, and is pretending they forgot what they had with the speaker.
2-what's missing from the poem? There's a lot here about remembering what was lost and how both parties relate to these memories, but very little about the memories themselves. What did these ruins look like in their heyday? What makes them worth treasuring, clinging onto? Was it truly great, or is the speaker no longer seeing the not-so-great parts? We start out with some great imagery--it might be interesting to add more of that to actually show us the past rather than just hints of it. I also find myself wondering what happened when the speaker went west; from "the darkness swallowed it" and "the golden reflection sunk it," I gather that it wasn't good, but there's potentially more room for showing this.
3-I think the no caps suits the poem. It's almost like the proper sentence structure of the storyline eroded with time and distance.
Other thoughts
Man, this imagery is really cool. It's like the dust of the ruins is staining the wind, the remnants making the speaker unable to truly move like the wind away from the past.
This is such an interesting perspective. The whole point of ruins is that they fade and turn into nothing, and yet here, the speaker is saying they're permanent. That even if the actual building is gone, the land will always be marked in some way, different than what it might have looked like if these two people had never met and therefore nothing was built there.
This is a great ending. It contrasts a bit with the speaker's certainty that the other person remembers, despite their acting like they don't. They can be certain (or at least as certain as we can ever know another person's mind) that the other person hasn't forgotten, but how the other person feels about those memories is ultimately unknowable. This is something I've thought about in my own work, how two or more people can share an experience, but what each person takes out of that experience, and how they recount that experience to others, is unique and subjective.
Overall, I really enjoyed this. It's an interesting meditation on memory and the difficulties of moving on. There's potential for expansion and more imagery, but it's pretty solid as is. As always, keep writing!
Hey niteowl! Thanks so much for the review!
Ooh you're totally right on that being something to add. The phrasing of your questions is super thought-provoking too!
When writing this I'd thought of the ruins as being something bad rather than good, but I can see how the opposite interpretation also works (the ruins weren't always ruins, after all). That might be cool to explore when I next revise this.
Thanks again!
Hello, there! Avi here with a review
)
I'm going to start off with the Questions for reviewers you gave us after your poem, which is a great thing to do (A. so the reviewers know what kind of feedback to give and B. so the author can get feedback on choices that they may have been uncertain about) and could be a review template in its own right.
1. How does this poem make you feel? It makes me feel lost in the way Lewis and Clark might have felt when they were exploring the West. It makes me feel like sand and beachgrass and running barefoot across concrete with the sun beating down my back.
2. What's missing from this poem? I feel like a certain few lines could use that kind of punctuation that extends the verse or stanza without there being emptiness. I consider this kind of punctuation to be like pauses, and the lack of it to be emptiness. Having the punctuation gives it sections and organization along with a nice, pretty way to flow. Like,
"some ruins are the wind
the grey fog blotches
dust cast out into trembling meadows--
where the grass jackknifes to conceal its rubble,
where the two of us stand waiting to forget."
(Wonderful imagery, by the way. And "jackknifes" is a fun word
Another example:
"my echo wandered west looking for the sun.
dark shadows swallowed it,
but i still hear its traces."
Another example:
"my love wandered west to drown with the sun.
the golden reflection sunk it.
can you hear it singing still?"
Another example:
"you keep telling yourself otherwise--
you cannot believe some ruins
take on the myth of fluidity."
3. I normally use prose capitalisation rules on my poems, but I thought having everything in small letters made sense for this specific poem. What do you think of that? I feel like the lack of capitalization in this poem fits it wonderfully.
Favorite Verses/Stanzas:
"my echo wandered west looking for the sun" Thus began likening this to sand. Also, pretty.
"my love wandered west to drown with the sun
the golden reflection sunk it
can you hear it singing still?" The imagery in this is beautiful.
"you keep telling yourself otherwise
you cannot believe some ruins
take on the myth of fluidity." This one sounds really pretty. It has a rhythmic undercurrent, and the words make me want to cry (in happiness and understanding, don't worry).
"disguise
their secret permanence." The words flow very nicely here. It also reminds me of how I feel on a daily basis- like I'm hiding my understanding. That's the vibe it's giving off for me, anyway.
This is a lovely poem and so fun to read! I hope you have a great rest of your day/night!!!
(Here's a cookie 🍪)
Thanks so much for the review! Ooh, your punctuation suggestions were cool to see. The poem originally had punctuation (and in some of the places you've pointed out) but I removed it when I was reorganising the line breaks! So it's interesting to see that it still feels like it needs the punctuation there.
I liked hearing about your associations with the different images and lines, too. Sand is a cool one - I can imagine perhaps it connects with there being water reflecting the sun in the poem!