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125,005 Literary Works • 672,804 Reviews
So slippery, hexglass, but I love it. I have tried to come up to it several times and had to take a step back just as many.
I don't feel like there's anything that needs to be looked at again in the language. I love phrases like the "galaxies of adolescent concern" and "gazes lighting me up like a pyrrhic bonfire/ decomposed to feathery ash".
But what I keep getting tripped up on -- and I don't know if I'm just untangling the sentences in the wrong ways -- is the message within the imagery. It starts with (in my reading):
- They (people teaching me about photography) tell me to see photography this way, but I don't.
- They saw, in my photos, fear.
- I was thrilled and destroyed by them trying to interpret my personal creations.
- Because they saw romance, and it wasn't romantic to me.
And then I'm not quite sure about the they in the last two lines, because I feel like it's shifted, unless these "judges" burn into the glass because they are staring at a framed photo for so long, and the creator is just left burning on the inside because they feel like they can't give their own interpretation. I just get the feeling that this is a photography class and a critique day.
Because I'm not quite able to get a good narrative set in my mind, it keeps slipping away from me, I'm not able to fall solidly in love with the poem, but I sure as heck wish I could. I hope that my interpretation of it is helpful to you! PM me if you have any questions/comments about this review, and THANK YOU for sharing.
Keep on keeping on!
Hannah
Hey hexglass
I don't usually comment on poems like this... but I really loved yours so much.
The structure is so beautiful. I love the verses and how each line fitted in with the flow.
I think I'm going to start with the ending, the last line is amazing - so powerful yet it brings the poem to a close perfectly. "Smoulder" is a good choice. "Burn into the glass" was also really good - it made me think of creating fire using a piece of glass and the sun.
The list before also worked really well - the use of commas in ". it's more, and / heartbreak, lost love," gives it a really melancholic tone. The alliteration also helped with the... wistfulness? I don't really know how to describe it.
I had to look up the meaning of "pyrrhic" - but the imagery in that line was really effective. I wasn't sure why you left a space before "shudder and" ? There was probably a good reason
I loved the first 2 lines of the second verse. I like how "a lens" is on a separate line - almost as if, the lens itself is "behind". The phrasing is beautiful and I liked the use of the colon. It almost made it sound like a tale, or a fable with a message.
Ok - I just re - read the poem and I get why you have a space. It makes it sound like it is shuddering - the actual line. Like their is a pause - as if you're meant to read on but there's nothing there. It works so well. Sorry about that... After the "shudder and" the poem really picks up pace, and it really comes alive - which parallels the imagery of fire and movement etc... - like that is life, rather than what "they took away" as you said in the first line.
Ok so for the first verse - I liked the use of "stutters" and "shutter" - almost an internal rhyme. I like the "paint pain, / pain painted" lines but I feel like something needs to be added here. Or maybe in the next line. The last bit I loved though. Especially with the dashes at the end. Again, it is almost like you're recounting a tale, or going through your memories. I definitely feel like there is a lot of nostalgia, perhaps more so during the beginning until it picks up pace. And then the reader get's hit by the end.
I actual content was also amazing. Was the beginning meant to represent birth? Or were the "chemicals" like medicine - saving you from death? Either way - I thought that was a good point to start from. And I liked the "lens" idea, and how the "focus" took away so much truth and life from... well life itself. The "universe of fear" is also really good imagery. The blackness of the universe, and fear works really well.
Thank you so much for this poem - I hope you find my review helpful... please keep writing, this poem was so beautiful - I could read it over and over again.
Tick tock