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138,680 Literary Works • 672,225 Reviews
hey hey! ^_^
YAYYY we love nature poetry!
thoughts
[1] this is so soft and earthy! the image of mossy fingertips is lovely because it shows how the body is maybe no longer just a body and has been overtaken by nature. there’s intimacy here, but it’s not purely romantic. it feels like being touched by nature itself, or by someone who knows a lot about nature, or someone the narrator sees very highly.
[2] we really like the pivot in there's a past inside me / that i cannot reach / & i do not run / from it. it gives the poem a sense of strength underneath the mellowness! the narrator isn’t healed exactly, but they’re receptive. then the ending, with viridescent potential, makes the poem feel like growth after submersion. we found that very pretty and restorative!
suggestions
[1] the forces of nature is a little broad compared to the more specific tactile images around it. mossy fingertips and mist from the water are so vivid, so this phrase feels less cohesive. maybe something more specific could make that moment feel fresher, we think!!!
[2] viridescent potential is gorgeous, but also a little hard to grasp at the very end. we love the colour idea, but potential makes us think there's something beyond love at play. is the narrator actually talking about themselves? we wished there was another nature image there to bounce off of, something about a growth or a sprouting to complement the idea of potential.
we loved reading this!!! thanks for sharing!!!
~ adore
foxtails, I miss your poetry!
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I think this poem is very gentle, but it's not gentle in the way your older poetry tended to be, if that makes sense. I like how you discuss the past here, that it is not being recovered, solved, excavated, dramatized, etc. It simply exists inside the narrator as something inaccessible, and I find it refreshing how the narrator moves beyond refusing to panic over that inaccessibility. It's harder to write a poem about memory because they tend to be sentimentalize events, but here, you basically do the exact opposite. Love that!
The "you" also works VERY well here because the other figure feels elemental rather than purely human. Like with "mossy fingertips" - I like how it immediately places the addressee in a world of natural elements, and they become one through their proximity to nature. Whoever this "you" is, they do not solely exist in nature; they PLAY with it, and they seem aware of doing so. I think that gives the poem a very grand quality without becoming overblown. It reads for me like the narrator is being touched by some older version of the self, perhaps? I like how the role of the other figure changes each time I read through.
I also love the title - slowcore has always been my jam! If that was unintentional, you should totally check this song out:
Spoiler
Though, the poem is quite brief. I am not one to dislike brevity, especially when it's your poetry! I do, however, think this poem may be too brief for the scale of what it gestures toward. The idea of an unreachable past inside the self is very strong, but the poem moves from that revelation into mist / pore / potential imagery immediately. I want one more image / transition between those two states - you could write something that shows why the narrator does not run, or what it feels like to remain with that unreachable past.
Still, I enjoy this a lot! The ending is effective for me because the whole "viridescent" notion connects back to moss, water, mist, the natural force of the "you" here. I would suggest expanding the middle ideas more because the imagery is already lovely... Just embrace what you have so far and trust yourself.
<3 You should keep writing!
best,
chi