build me a house

Mea!!! I somehow forgot that this was on my Will Review For Food thread, and now I feel bad because it's been WEEKS - I am normally much better at staying on top of that

The word choice and personification and figurative language in this poem are really lovely. I honestly really enjoy the poetry work you're doing over NaPo, because I have not had the opportunity to read all that much of your poetry, and you've got a strong poetic voice.

So now on to the specifics:

Interpretation:
I'll be honest, I loved the language and imagery of this poem, but had some difficulty parsing out what I thought it meant. My initial reaction is that this is about someone who wants to feel at home or rooted to a place (maybe even to an identity or sense of self) but there is some conflict within this task. Overall the feeling of being at conflict and a deep desire to just be able to be with nature seems to be prevalent.

Now let's go stanza by stanza,

stanza 1)
The speaker wants to feel ownership (ln 4) of a "house" where there is wind and water. The mentions of growth and breathing might imply that this sense of home or identity is connected with their quality of life - so they're could be some praise of nature coming through.

Quick Suggestion
this might just be a personal preference, but I think it'd be a good idea to put the title as the first line of the poem, just because people might miss the statement and just read the first stanza as "where trees breathe..." rather than the request/command "build me a house/ where trees breathe".

stanza 2)
The speaker feels a lack of agency, that they are bound by their surroundings. They feel enclosed and like they can't breathe (good continuity here with the breathing and wind mentions).

Quick Suggestions:
Overall I think this poem could be improved by more continuity within the piece (so it has more of a continuous story feel rather than just 2 contrasting voices of reflection, that ends up feeling a bit random/scattered in some places -- like the content is good but it doesn't necessarily always feel like it's building to anything.

* So, on that line of thought - what do the seasons add to the piece? There's not really a mention of temperature, precipitation, or leaves (ie. season indicators) anywhere else, so I'm having trouble catching the significance of mentioning summer and spring, except that spring should be life-giving.

* Also there's this mention of memories that is super dramatic - great line - "jagged memories of summer slice my fingers"- the mention of fingers is good because it can connect to digging in the last stanza, but despite "memories" being elevated almost to a character in this stanza there is no other mention of them in the poem, or even what these memories might be about.

Good things
This is an emotionally and visually strong stanza, all of your language from crush, slice, jagged etc make a great contrast with stanza 1. And I like the set-up of wanting freedom, peace and nature but receiving the complete opposite.

stanza 3)

As a side, formatting note, I couldn't figure out why the "I" and the "Let" were capitalized here, although the beginning command in the title and all the other "I's" were not.

Here again it seems like the speaker just really would like this beautiful home painted with sunlight, where they can do the work of building by hanging chimes and drilling the foundation. Love the slight rhyme scheme too.

Suggestions:
I'm not all that into house construction, but I'm finding the concept of drilling a foundation to be a bit strange and it doesn't seem in alignment with the first stanza. I'm not sure if this is supposed to show a character change from the narrator who loved nature, to a narrator who's willing to drill the ground in order to form roots, maybe this is part of the ownership discussed in line 4? The last three lines of the next stanza seem much more in alignment with the non-italics voice voice actually.

A continuity issue I see here, is the request for "time" which doesn't seem to come out anywhere else in the poem, so ends up reading as a bit random. And asking for time seems to be in direct odds with wanting to drill into the foundation rather than letting time take its course.

stanza 4)
I love the turn this stanza takes, where again it looks like it's going to be very angry towards whatever the narrator is going through, but then we find just when the speaker is at the lowest they discover that they are actually home. Very interesting.

Suggestions:
The phrase "your blind smile" caught me off guard, because the only indications of what the "you" could be are memories, maybe a landscape, or something that causes pollution maybe a city... all sorts of things that I don't necessarily connect with having "smiles". Besides this, I like the progression of the narrator in this stanza and the reversal that you did. For me, this is the strongest stanza of the piece as far as meaning and clarity.

stanza 5)
For some reason the first line in this felt a bit disconnected, maybe because it started with "today" and there wasn't an indication that the rest of the poem was in past-tense in a different day. I do like the simplicity of the last line though. I interpret it to be that the speaker has became more resolute in their quest and desire for a home rooted in nature and they no longer make requests of their surroundings but simply have came to this understanding themselves.

One small suggestion, is that one of the main images of the first stanza was trees (it's mentioned twice) but this doesn't get a mention in the last stanza, and it's not clear why the other three nature pieces get mentioned but not trees.

Other thoughts
I'm skimming through some of the comments below, and I like the concept of a tunnel and getting to the other hemisphere to find home, I'm not sure this comes through - I think it could be a bit more explicit about "digging through the earth" or "digging through the earthen core" or some sort of clue to the readers.

Overall
Overall, I think that your images are beautiful, but that maybe you're working with a few too many themes in this piece. It's a relatively short poem, but there are portions of it that feel a bit disconnected, rather than trying to cover so many things, I would focus on fewer pieces of imagery which you bring all the way through the poem (like breath, wind, foundation, home).

I very much enjoyed the contrasting formatting and flows of the two "voices" or maybe "attitudes" of the piece. It gave the poem a unique feel.

The poem is altogether really strong, and the imagery is just fantastic. I tried to show a few places here and there where the continuity could maybe be focused a bit for narrative and meaning clarity, but please just consider them as suggestions.

Let me know if you have any questions about my review!

~alliyah

Hmm, excellent poem. Have you had or considered having your poetry professionally published? This writing is definitely the quality I could see being published in some sort of poetry book.

Because it's already that polished, I don't really have too many suggestions. The only weak part to me is in the fourth stanza. "You buried me in steel and demanded i lift myself out buy instead i will dig until the cool brown earth whispers that i am home" is quite the run-on sentence. It could work as a firm declaration of anger from the speaker, but I don't think the poem builds to that well enough. I think instead what you can do is use more punctuation to let that stanza breathe.

I also don't know if the last two lines really work that well. Isn't the speaker about the poem wanting time to create something of their own? You don't really create the wind, water, or the sky. It's something that's always there and belongs to all of us. And if you're digging through the earth, I'd imagine burying yourself further would not be liberating.

Hey, I'm here to review!

I'm not gonna lie - the lyrical aspect of this poem is what pulls me towards it. The rhyme in stanza one and three are so delicious, and the rest complement them by not being rhymed. That said, I'm not particularly good at analyzing poems, but I'll try my best. >:]

First Stanza

The imagery is strong here and effectively set up the setting for the poem. It also describes nature in a loving way, so the atmosphere that's built up is peaceful and refreshing. The speaker's opinion of it is clear and the last line paves way to more elaboration to the poem. My only comment would be on the third and fourth lines where they are each a full sentence. I feel like they can be connected somehow, maybe with another comma, but the last line does seem like a slight jump from the rest. Maybe it's just me, but this is something to consider.

Second Stanza

The flow of events is more active here with the use of verbs. I love the personification memories - having them described as jagged and slicing builds a rather solid image in my mind. The setting here is a complete contrast to the one in the first stanza, and the reference of you to a place is quite something to be familiar of. I can guess how You is an industrial or modern place. The last two lines are my favourite, it portrays the struggle of the speaker quite poignantly.

Third Stanza

Vivid and beautiful imagery in the first two stanza. If I could, I want to put them in my signature. xD It's the way you use your words (painting with sunlight, hanging crystal chimes) that makes the visual not only beautiful but is delivered in a creative manner. The repetition in the last stanza further emphasizes the lyrical aspect of this poem, and naturally makes me sing to it. That being said, for the third line, I would suggest you to paraphrase because I'm not sure the connection between drilling the foundation and building a house is clear, however, because I think you want to get deep into the earth to get its resources, and the idea doesn't relate with wanting to build a house (unless you want to drill it to set up its basic structure - you'll go into technical aspect that way though).

Fourth Stanza

The stanza is kinda confusing. Like, if I follow my interpretation that the You is a bad place, it doesn't click well with how the speaker wants to dig until she meets the cool brown earth because it's like digging your grave if you go deeper into the ground of a city. Please enlighten me in this. Imagery is strong as usual here, and the attitude of You is consistent with the way city places feels like - demanding and cruel. I like how the speaker is determined to go against You, and the clash between both of them is quite intense.

Last Stanza

It concludes the poem nicely. Saying nothing is important includes You too, so this to me is a strong decision in the behalf of the speaker who finally places what she desires over what she has now. A nice ending overall, one that's sure gives hope for the readers that the speaker will finally win against You and get the type of house she desires, although it's hinted rather than told.

And that is all! Hopefully my review helps. Keep up the good job!

Radrook here to give a review. Please feel free to disregard any suggestion deemed unhelpful. If I offend, my apologies. It is not intended. That having been said:


Thanks for sharing this poem concerning someone who longs to live in a pristine earth untainted by mankind's irresponsible damaging activities.

The second stanza adopts an accusatory tone. The request to be allowed to live in another environment continues in the third by focusing how the dwelling should be allowed to exist.

The third stanza returns to the accusation of those responsible for earth's condition. Mocking smiles of the perpetrators not listening to the narrator’s petitions are mentioned. The narrators lungs lungs burn and he feels as if buried in steel. Their demand that he dig himself out seems to refer to the indifference shown by the responsible. He responds by declaring he will seek solace by digging deep into the earth and finally being at one with nature. The poem finishes by declaring that nothing is more important than our environment.

The poem’s urgent tone is reinforced by its vivid imagery which kept me reading with great interest. The conflict between those who selfishly ruin the Earth for their own profit pitted against the speaker’s intense concern created conflict that gave the poem an intense dramatic charm. The speaker’s determination rings a common chord with the indignation felt against the perpetrators of the Earth’s deteriorating condition by those who care. Nice touch with the poem's title serving as the beginning of the first stanza. I like the expressions "bind smile" "cool brown earth" "jagged memories". I also like the way that the poem is organized on the page.

Great poem and I look forward to reading more of your work.

Suggestion

The last statement seemed as if I was being told what had already been conclusively demonstrated and needed no repetition. It also drew undue attention to the writer himself instead of the story’s’s protagonist.

"The expression "earthen pines" caused me to pause.

Still, I cry "Odedience!"