you are beautiful
to the touch, sight,
smell, taste, soul
as you lie in my hand, a
brown lump
hiding a shining secret
behind your dirt smudged skin.
your peel is flecked
in the same dirt under my fingernails
that i accrued from
scooping you up
from your prison,
but i know that underneath
you are oh so beautiful.
once the earth and grim and
peel is washed away
you dress up nicely,
shimmering in the soft
sunlight
as your yellow innards
expose a new you
the only you that matters
as beads of water drizzle
down your face
and pool in my palm while
i caress you.
your fragrance wafts through
the room
spurred on by a gentle
breeze
that curls around your browning,
sizzling skin
mixed with onion, garlic,
salt,
all of which mingle and
dance into my nose.
you are singing
a melodic song that curls
in my ears
that lets me know you are
almost ready.
you taste of magic
as your butter-soaked essence
floods my mouth,
with a hint of earth
still clinging to your crispy,
juicy flesh.
you warm my tongue with
your fireworks
and fill my stomach with
your soul,
your beauty and grace
never once lost through it all.
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125,005 Literary Works • 672,805 Reviews
Hi just 2951302 dropping in for a friendly review!!!
I never would have imagined that I would read a poem about a potato that is this beautiful. its so simple and yet provocative especially the last stanza:
"you taste of magic
as your butter-soaked essence floods my mouth,
with a hint of earth
still clinging to your crispy, juicy flesh.
you warm my tongue with your fireworks
and fill my stomach with your soul,
your beauty and grace never once lost through it all."
My only critique is your capitalization.
wolfe, had i been from another planet where the diets of my kind differed vastly from yours, and i was tasked with the quest of describing this oval shaped delicacy to my friends and family, this would be the work of literature i would refer to as i cite my sources.
the way you bring attention to even the most subtle of details, sparing no expense when it comes to explaining your attachment to this DIY french fry, shows us the passion you feel. let's take a moment to go through all of the nitty gritty details you've blessed us with:
girl go get a manicure
i know this is sort of a meme poem but HOLYYYY this was so smooth????the way you personify this object in such a glorified way, almost flirting with it, oof. so brilliantly done.they way you go about the poem keeping us at the edge of our seats is magnificent. us knowing what is happening yet wondering how it will happen at the same time, you thickening the plot with every new line. if ever we doubted your admiration for the golden hued dirt dweller in one line, the next was sure to steer our sails in the right direction. the images you paint in our mind with your words are nothing short of picasso paintings. i almost felt as if i was there, seasoning the potato myself, holding it and caressing like a newborn baby (not to be consumed).
hollers of pain i'd believe
and what a pure ending to such a wholesome poem. no matter what our protagonist may go through, we are reminded that it is what's on the inside that matters. maybe not so much as what the inside tastes like, but the general sentiment is still there. ode to a potato indeed, but it doesn't stop there.
no my friend.
this is an anthem.
thank you for sharing such a brilliant and entertaining piece of literature. do be sure to share more in the future, as i will be looking forward to it <3
Hi there, Wolfe!
Despite this poem referencing a YWS-er inside-joke, I think anyone could read this and gain a new appreciation for the potato and all its wonders. I like that you incorporated different senses in describing the potato, at it made the imagery more vivid.
Language
I love the small details you managed to pick up here, as they are specific images of things that you wouldn't normally notice about a potato. There seems to be a motif of there being little dots and speckles in these two images, with them being crumbs of dirt and water droplets, and if you ever revise this poem, I would love to see images of potato eyes in there as well.
Besides this, I like the juxtaposition between "brown lump" and "shining secret". It's a pretty stark contrast and links back to the overall narrative of the potato's beauty being revealed.
I'm a bit conflicted about the phrase "dress up" here, if only because a few lines later, the focus is on the potato's "innards".
Though you do use the word "curls" twice in the same stanza (stanza 3), I love the images that focus on the sound and taste of the potato. They're both metaphors you wouldn't expect to see in relation to food, which makes them memorable. I also like how crackling fireworks are somewhat linked to the potato being "crispy", at least, in my mind.
Structure
We've got some lovely sibilance/ consonance here that emphasises the pleasant imagery in these lines, making "shining secret" stand out over "dirt", for instance, very in-keeping with the narrative of the poem.
While I think the caesura in this poem, such as in "crispy, juicy" works well in conveying the speaker's intense feelings about the potato, I would have liked to see the longer lists expanded. Maybe because the longer lists seem placed a bit randomly (one in the first stanza and then another in the second-last, with different line positions), they didn't quite stand out to me in terms of rhythm. Would these perhaps work better as full images? Maybe placing lists in a predictable places in each stanza might make it more rhythmic?
The overall structure of the poem is relatively simplistic. It's a free verse poem using apostrophe (addressing the subject of the poem directly, as in "you are beautiful"), which creates an earnest, sincere tone. There's one instance of repetition in the first stanza that gives it a bit of symmetry with "you are oh so beautiful", but I do think the "you" address and voice remains consistent enough throughout the whole poem to make it feel cohesive.
Miscellaneous
Wolfe, I love that you wrote a serious poem about cooking and eating a potato plucked straight from the ground. Your appreciation for the simple things in life made me smile. : ]
That's all
Hopefully you found these comments helpful - and keep writing!
Cheers,
-Lim
Thank you very much for your review! Your suggestions were really helpful, especially about the structure, since I hadn't thought about maybe making some consistency in terms of the lists. I appreciate it ^^
It feels like there are two worlds here that you are teetering between. There is the simple, campy ode to an actual potato, where you'd use even more simple vocabulary and less poetic phrasing. And then there is a full-fledge poem that addresses a core thought of human existence while alluding to the imagery of a potato, which can be very earthy, luminescent, and has various textures to work with, too.
So that was fun.
You're in the middle ground, where you have some verbs/word choices that don't let me sink into a deeper philosophical thought, but you also have promising phrases that seem to reject the idea that this is just a poem about a potato.
I would lean into those promising phrases, such as the dirt on the potato and the dirt under the fingernails being the same because of the act of harvesting, and the idea of something's beauty and grace still existing even after being eaten.
I don't know if you want to put that much effort into it, or if you feel inspiration to go that far, but I would say there is potential if you do want to! I also almost wrote "I would say there is potato".
Again, I hope these comments are somehow helpful to you!
Please message me if you have any questions or comments.
Hannah
Thanks, Hannah! That%u2019s a way to look at it that I hadn%u2019t thought about, and it%u2019s an interesting way to look at it. Maybe I%u2019ll be inspired to revisit and revise ^^ (But the original intention was to be overtly grandiose about a potato, haha.)
WOLFE WHAT IN THE WORLD. THIS IS JUST AMAZING OH MY GOSH.
You actually wrote a poem about a potato omg. AND IT’S SO GOOD!!!! I love all of your alliteration, and all of the descriptions are so vivid. I can literally see, feel, and taste the potato xD You wrote such a beautiful poem out of a silly prompt, and AHHHHHH. YOU ARE SUCH AN AMAZING POET.
I love this poem with all of my heart and I’m going to read it so much, THANK YOU FOR WRITING THIS!!! This so gorgeous and lovely and wonderful, just like you <3 <3 <3