hummingbirds in winter

a/n this is real this is happening to me do not use "writer" "speaker" etc.

thank you.

This piece feels deeply personal and grounded, like someone walking through familiar spaces and realizing how different everything feels without the person they love. The focus on ordinary details — the fridge contents, the snow, the couch, the hospital chair — makes the absence feel painfully real. I liked how each section shifts from physical emptiness to emotional emptiness, especially toward the end, where the hospital scenes quietly hurt the most. The repetition works well without feeling forced, and the pacing allows the grief to sink in slowly. It reads less like a poem trying to impress and more like someone trying to process loss. The honesty is what makes it work, bananas effective and memorable.

herb - I am finally here!

As always, your poetry saddens me. I think you have a very specific way of encountering grief/emptiness/these very human emotions that everyone feels yet finds overwhelming; one compelling angle is how your poem treats emptiness as something that builds rather than something hollow. Most poetry I read likens itself to the same format (emptiness = the lack of something), but you really embrace it here as something that GROWS in space/deixis, which is actually more emotional. Each stanza inventories what is missing, but the effect is cumulative and heavy - such as the repetition of "your ___ is empty" that I found to be almost ritualistic, which ironically echoes the later hospital scene. This makes the poem emotionally dense, not vacant, which is incredibly effective.

^ I thought the same about your usage of mundane, banal imagery to represent the "lack" of your grandmother as well. You excel at using these seemingly random household items (Sunny D, Arizona iced tea, microwave potatoes, missing water bottles) as stand-ins/proxies for her. These objects feel intimate and specific rather than symbolic in a lofty way, which is how it appears to me MOST times in outsider poetry. I wonder if there is some commentary on consumer debris, like how grief can take form in craving things that belonged to her/consuming anything that reminds you of her: the cheap plastic containers are obviously holding disproportionate emotional weight. Very much so devastating.

The tone is handled carefully and well for the subject matter, especially in moments where humour or awkwardness briefly surface (like with the dog at another woman’s house, the forgotten name, etc). These moments humanize the poem and prevent it from becoming overly solemn (if that does exist - this "genre" of poetry is very difficult to become TOO emotional). However, I did believe that the aside "does that make me closer to you than i thought?" over-explains the emotional implication behind it. It is a challenge to introspect on this personal event, but you should trust the image to carry that sentiment and express it. Sometimes what’s left unsaid is more effective than what’s clarified.

For instance, the hospital imagery. While it is among the poem’s strongest material, particularly the slippage between "clerical" and "clinical" (great wordplay!), I felt the actual criticism of institutions and their coldness was lacking. This is a rare instance where your poem gestures outward beyond the personal, and it works well because it shows your anger rather than simply your sadness. It is not inherently negative to write a sad poem, especially with the subject matter, but I did wish you had expanded that idea further to show your how grief goes BEYOND what is traditionally expected. This could develop well into the last stanza too, where the lack of resolution would have more connection to YOU and YOUR emotions - the moment is beautiful, but how did YOU feel? Speaking to the "you" of your grandmother reflects your internal state, but it is vague compared to previous stanzas.

I mean, this is great. I can't think of much else to say. I really do wish you the best through this time in your life, and I hope you're well. Keep writing.

best,
chi

This is a beautiful poem. I interpreted it to be about love, loss and longing for what once was as a grandmother's health deteriorates (maybe with dementia?). I particularly enjoyed the opening stanza "our house is empty. without you,
on the floor over the hidden hardwood only/creak and bend slightly to the has-been./what once was is gone and what would’ve been/was plucked away faster than a weed in /spring."

The method of slowly unveiling parts of the poem overtime is especially affective. At first, we just know that someone has left their home, maybe dead or maybe ill. Then bits of the story unfold: a dog given away, a New Hampshire winter, "incidents," a grandmother unable to care for herself.

The imagery used in this poem is also very beautiful: " your blue skies turning gray in rapid succession," "the evergreens and towering mountains traded for cement and sterile tile," "it falls languid on your garage, stagnant in your mailbox, hauntingly on your porch."

I don't have any specific suggestions for improvement with this piece. I would encourage you to continue exploring your use of imagery in future works as it's one of your strengths. This is one of my favorite pieces I've read on this site and I look forward to reading your future works.