i took to gardening this fall, it being perhaps
not the wisest choice--a hasty decision,
dancing lightly (lithely) like a forgotten swing
in a forgotten schoolyard, with unforgotten
memories shoving me outside
to see the sky
(to feel the sky)
but lacking apparel, and a green thumb--
i wandered, and wandered, and found a sidestreet,
where fighting tooth and nail with tollbooth phantoms
on Monday mornings was
normalcy
(when post noon departures whizzed by
in car-shaped, metallic, dragonlike masses)
over there, i learned that your eyelashes
are not the best place to start a garden; they clump
together when you water them.
on the sidestreet, in a sideshop, i found
a watering can filled with bright heart
and a pair of gloves for if ever my weeds
spread to the populace
and for my heart, i bought a sky,
with clouds, their shadows, drifting across it.
a sky to remind me that my roots are not
entirely in the soil--to remind me that
sometimes the ground will be crumbly, and dank,
and the pots will be narrow and small.
but my roots will not linger along the edge
of crude, hand-painted red clay.
they will break through the bottom
and they will hook an apex each
into the ground.
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125,013 Literary Works • 672,844 Reviews
Hello word play! Your title's very clever and definitely pulled me in but maybe it should be detoorpu | uprooted instead so it feels less like you're trying to decide which to use and more like a conscious decision?
Specifics
1. I'm not sure about the use of 'it being' that feels almost like you're about to explain why the persona took to gardening but instead you tell us it was a bad choice? I'd suggest something more along the lines of 'and found it perhaps' or 'it proved perhaps' (I like that one).
2. The rest of the first stanza is beautiful - you have an easy flow and a sort of lilting tone. Very pretty and you make good use of the repetition of forgotten and then the play on unforgotten.
3. I'd suggest removing the all from 'all normalcy' as I think it's breaking your flow a little and certainly slowing it down. I'd also suggest removing the on from 'whizzed on by'.
4. I'm not sure what you're trying to create with the line 'a watering can filled with bright heart'. That feels too abstract and one moment I have a great image of a watering can and then I'm floundering and trying to decide what to do with heart. I don't know. It just threw me a bit.
5.
Overall
There's very little to nitpick here because you have such a beautiful flow and a great use of the repetition winding through the stanzas. The extended metaphor works well and I really love the images around trying to start a garden in your eyelashes. There's a lovely blend of solid imagery and the more metaphorical branches and I really don't have anything else to say. It's very nice ^^
~Heather
Hi, Pompadour! I loved this poem so much, I could almost feel the deep longing and wondering/wandering that is going on in the heart and soul and mind. (I'm not sure if that's what you meant to get across, but it's my interpretation, and I apologize if it's wrong)
I'm used into poetry that's funny and rhythmical, which is odd considering that most of the poems I've written are free verse, but I do want to warn you ahead of time that I'm not used to writing reviews on these types of poems so whether or not this will be a review is yet to be determined.
The first paragraph was so beautiful, I hardly know what to say about it. It made me feel an immense longing towards something and I suddenly wanted to go outside and swing and look at the big blue sky (I doubt you wrote this poem to urge me in my physical activities or because you knew I am obsessed with sky blue, so I'll probably be moving on)
I found this amazingly genius and have never thought of anything in such ways that you have written down here!
I literally got the metal picture of eyelashes when wet, whether it be from plain water or those of the salt variety in the form of tears - maybe this person is speaking of the later?
You've mentioned sidestreet twice now, and I'm not sure if it was intentional or not. It isn't a huge deal because I didn't notice it until maybe the second or third time I read it, but if you want to change it, I would suggest replacing the first reference with 'alley' or 'back road' or something of the like.
I cannot tell you how much I loved this poem or how it inspired me. I thoroughly enjoyed this piece and will be looking forward to more of your work in the future! I decided to turn this into a review and apologize if you didn't get the constructive criticism you wanted or the responses you were looking for. You can always ask me a direct question about something and I will try to answer it as best as I can!
My favorite part:
Keep writing and keep on smiling!
~RagingLive
Hello Pomp!
This is a great poem, and I love the expression here.
Although this is well crafted, it seems a little odd that the narrator would forget the swing and the schoolyard, but not the memories. Perhaps he/she more strongly recalls the people or events rather than the places, even though he/she is talking about the places?
That's lovely.
Aha! I understand where this comes from.
This makes sense, but "for if ever my weeds" isn't a very common way to say something like, "if my weeds ever" which is more of the way we say things today. However, the first way does sound nicer, so you can choose whether or not to keep it.
I don't think that you need a comma after crumbly.
Overall, this is a beautiful poem. I like the message at the end, where the narrator refuses to be contained in a crude, small pot- they broke through in the very end.
Keep writing!
-Falco