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125,027 Literary Works • 672,774 Reviews
It doesn't show up for me XD
Wow, this is gorgeous. I love the imagery
This is beautiful, Looms <3
no you!
Hi there Lumi. This is Kays here dropping in for a review (I realized after doing about a billion reviews with this intro that I stopped using 'jumping' because 'dropping' is nicer on my eyes which is a weird observation) but hey, I'm not here to talk about that. I'm here to talk about this poem of yours, so let's do that this fine Friday morning.
I don't remember when I first read this or if I even first read this at all but that's alright because I'm alright with giving this a fresh take. As for personal interpretation I wanted to start with talking about the first three lines--true love is never ambivalent which I'm going to suppose means having mixed feelings or conflicting but true love is a joke among friends perhaps that true love is real or that true love doesn't exist--I can't tell which, if either, that line is pointing to. The third line finally suggests that the speaker is unsure perhaps of what true love actually is/looks like and or means.
However, the third and fourth stanzas bring development to this idea and hit the point home of true love having to be ambivalent to work and I agree. When have there not been doubts in a relationship and more importantly, when have their not been doubts in a long-lasting relationship? There can't not be doubts in that type of situation and there's a similar thought that applies to religion that most people at points doubt their faith and if that person overcomes that doubt the person can also be more definite in their beliefs and be more confident. Not being touched by Mid-April is probably why I don't remember this too well but I have to say that I quite like this one.
The second stanza doesn't seem as on-topic as the others and doesn't have as much direction and meaning(?) but the fourth line in the second stanza is a line I especially enjoyed. The rest seems to be a little confusing especially to the reader and those first three lines in the second stanza are definitely what seem to be the most out of place. Furthermore, as always I enjoyed the imagery and other than the flaws in the second stanza being weaker than the rest or less clear in meaning and the second line of the first stanza being on the weaker side and other little bits and parts like that able to be fixed with editing I quite enjoyed this! Nice job on breaking the dry spell, Lumi. This is a nice one.
If you have any questions, don't be afraid to ask! I hope I helped and have a great day.
>.> why can't i see a poem? is this a joke orrrrrr??? i can see the A/N part.
It's an image! D: I didn't want to bother with the huge amount of formatting, but I'll try importing to a pad for you later tonight!
okay!!!
*waves remnants of eyebrows in the air*
Pssht, I wasn't ever bothered by the grammar and punctuation, so I'm going to stay clear of there. Instead, might as well do what I always do, and go after the message. This poem is introspective, to say the least. It covers that common societal fear of trying to find something to make the passage from lift to death a bit happier (here symbolized as the razor's edge) via love. However, there is an intense ambivalence in the narrator's words, balanced between the innate desire for love and a fear that they will find themselves empty-handed. The poem fits together nicely at the end, explaining those mixed emotions in the space of two lines, packed with effective words ("empty air", in particular, has a negative and tragic connotation). Admittedly, beforehand, I didn't have a complete idea of what message you were going for. I mean, the opening relies on vivid imagery, and then does an about-face and conveys a more accurate message on love. Still, the black and white comment made me think of a classic good vs. bad situation, or at least the nature of society to act as such, and I didn't much understand what was ambiguous about love in such a perception. Perhaps it would've been best to refer to such colors as blending into gray when you refer to the first stanza at the opening of the second. That way, the first stanza can express more of the falsehoods and/or general statements, and the second stanza can correct and/or expand upon them.
Regardless, I admire the way that you linked the two stanzas together. The contradiction between the first line of each stanza sets up the tone of the latter as a series of ratifying statements. The memories are described more vividly, the emptiness of the wine gives a more bleak image of reality than it had before (it could be symbolic for the desire to fill one's heart in love), and the final description of ambivalence is solid and saddening, as everyone can relate to that fear that they will near whatever looks perfect at a distance and find it not to be good, if it exists at all. I still love the flow of "angles unbelievable", as it's just a unique and interesting-sounding descriptor. It allows me to more easily perceive the setting of the story as erratic, bizarre, and confusing - just as the world can be. Thus, all in all, this was another wonderful poem of yours; great job!
Hi Lumi!
I'm going to stick with your author's note for my review and give my interpretations and then just a couple other observations.
Interpretation
So the sense of tone in this piece is very strong. The feelings of longing and regret carry all the way through, but it's also not all mournful because the memories are painted in such a loving light - so it's not just pain in the last line, but "the precious pain of distance" <-- loved that. And it's all mixed up in this idea of ambivalence, of being torn to choose and decide and to love.
The poem reads a bit as though whatever relationship was happening in past tense, but each stanza may be coming in at a different point of time. Especially with the change in the repeated phrase "true love is never / must be ambivalent" we see transition in the speaker. Which leads me to think maybe they're processing through these memories or maybe each stanza is a different time slot.
Part 1
My interpretation stanza by stanza:
I interpreted this part of the poem to be that the speaker starts out with an idea of sort of true love at first sight, but they're already second guessing their emotions. Though because they're not confident in the feelings described for this person they don't want to label them "true love".
Part 2
I'm totally confused by the leg and thigh part, for me the mixed metaphor of putting the razor of time and the razor of binaries against the girl's leg and wishing it was softer just is almost too many things to balance in my mind and make sense of all together.
I took this stanza to mean though that time is passing and the speaker sees a world that seems to act in binaries -- where things are clear, and they want desperately for it to be clear in their relationship as well to avoid getting hurt by this razor of time. -- I like the idea of like the binaries cutting people off, because it seems true that when we're unsure about something (love or anything else) and we're forced to make a decision, often no matter where the line is "cut" we end up getting hurt or having to compromise in some way.
That stanza felt the most muddled and I think maybe the razor thing could be worked in more effectively, but I do like that the speaker keeps circling back to these concrete memories and working them out in different ways. This lets the reader get in on that decision making process and I think you do a good job showing through poetry and almost snapshots of memory how a person goes through a decision like this.
Part 3
Here the speaker seems to have ironically become sure of their un-sureness. They decide that love indeed must be messy and confusing or it's not true love. Despite their surety, it looks like from the rest of the context of the stanza that there's been some break-up in the relationship here. As a reader I don't exactly know whether that means they have decided for sure that they were in love or for sure that they weren't or maybe they're just unsure in this stanza. That first phrase "true love must be ambivalent" is almost an oxymoron which is incredibly interesting. It's like the rule, "The absolute rule is there are no rules".
Part 4
So the last two lines are perfection, I wish you'd worked in some ideas about air and even distance earlier in the poem so that it could reflect back on that, but still I really like those two lines. I interpret this last chunk to mean that as readers we don't get to find out whether or not it worked out for our speaker, only that they've finally made a decision on what love is and seem to be moving forward with someone based on the 3rd to last line. They conclude that love is all of the things we've read about previously. It's messiness, it's connection, it's both confusion and resoluteness. It is both ambivalence and sureness at once. That is quite a conclusion.
Other Observations
So I wrote a lot in my interpretations so I'll try to be brief in the rest of my review.
I thought your formatting worked perfectly all the way through. I loved how the first half mirrored the second half and how there aren't true stanza breaks except that one half way through -- which maybe mimics the binary and the razor's edge that is addressed. I think the line about empty air could be moved even further to the right because it's talking about distance and air and emptiness -- but really all the formatting was done well and added rather than distracted from the poem.
There are a few parts that stood out as odd for me. First the leg/razor/thigh part that I already mentioned. And second, the repetition of the word "unbelievable" seemed forced -- in both places it felt added in and unnatural with the sentence.
Also a minor point but I appreciated the way you portrayed different seasons subtly in the poem with the october, july, and coats.
Overall I liked your use of language, I thought the second little chunk got a bit wordy, but everything else was nicely concise and clear. This poem was a fun one to read because it's originality in the ideas expressed and also because I felt very invested in finding out what happened to the speaker because you describe their processing and emotions in a very engaging way.
Let me know if you have any questions about my review, I hope this helps!
~alliyah