choreography: enchant

hi darling, let's dance shall we?

I don't know how helpful I'll be to be honest, but I'll try. The poem is lovely, and truly you have so stunning imagery here (but I think you already know how good this is) so I'll focus this review on the aspects that didn't quite work out for me. But keep in mind that this is just my personal opinion, take it with a grind of salt.

I love your opening, it's succinct, it's beautiful, and it's powerful. But the second line is where the rhythm begins to feel amiss. The 'so i fell' is oddly jarring, partially because there is no punctuation and I'm not really sure where it's meant to start or finish. It carries on from your previous lines 'as suppliants fall...' but 'so I fell' is a different sentiment altogether and I feel that it deserves to be marked as such.

Ayeeeeee, 'comet dust' is a lovely lovely image <3

Your second stanza I'm on the fence about, it starts off beautifully but then somewhere along the way, your meaning gets all tangled up and suddenly, I'm not really sure what you're trying to express anymore. Words are begged to be sung here, but hmmm, as pretty as the imagery of searing (what exactly?) is, it's too ambiguous. Some of your meaning, some of your punch get swallowed within that ambiguity. There is also a jump, from words, to sudden wistful/wishful thinking and I don't really know what to make of it, what is the correlation between the two? The two wistful/wishful (I know what you're trying to do) but inadvertently they clash exactly because of how similar they sound, is there another way that you might weave it into the poem?

third stanza, punctuation again, you could put a comma after 'wine', it's the entire thoughts thing again (or maybe you intended this), you can play with punctuating within poetry but ensure that your meaning doesn't get too lost along the way. I really like the spacing between pull and press, annnnd then the stanza much like the previous ones starts to unravel a bit in terms of imagery and meaning. The 'reel' came out of nothing and that suddeness of its entrance threw me off guard of what you were building up earlier, the overall sentiment of your last stanza is crisp and sharp and lovely. It's just that, I think you can play around with words a bit so it's less ambiguous, one spot would be 'perfect' I'm not really sure why it's there. Perhaps to you, 'perfect' does signify something but to the readers we aren't inside your mind, if I cover 'perfect' up my interpretation of the poem doesn't change, one begs the question what exactly is the referent of this perfection? Is it the wine, or whoever the speaker is talking about.

I have to say, 'chink of light (i'm unsure about whether the use of ruin there adds to the meaning or just obfuscate it) stumbling through' is a delightful line, I could chew on it for ages.

I have criticised for most of this review (and hopefully you find something useful here), but you have your own style with language, it's poignant and bittersweet here and I know that you're capable of writing wonderful things. If you've got questions and whatnot, you know where to find me <3.

-Apricity

Hey there, I really enjoyed the piece so thought I'd leave some of my thoughts.

You have some absolutely beautiful figurative language in this piece! I loved the line about "certainty stitched or seared into the lining of my bones" - that's great, and a lot of the poem comes off as a double edged compliment. The speaker says something positive about the subject and then clarifies or complicates it. I will say that at this point I feel like the poem is overly ambiguous for my liking. Other people may really enjoy the ambiguity in the piece especially when some of the images and themes ring out so clearly. I'm having trouble putting my finger directly on what the conflict/plot of this poem is. As far as I can tell the speaker fell in love with some subject but their relationship was surface deep, the speaker uncovered or feared deeper flaws like the "single chink of light" that might ruin their relationship. I don't feel like the story is all their yet though. I don't have a good sense of who both characters are either, which inhibits me from feeling much sympathy or connection to their situation.

I feel like this poem could use a bit more clarity (again that's just my personal opinion and there are others who absolutely love ambiguity to this level). I think you could almost use one more stanza to give us a few more details into who these characters are. I have a lot of actions but no emotions yet; maybe that's intentional if their love is only surface deep, but even a short poem needs a little bit of character development in my opinion.

Overall, there is little to critique. You have a lovely piece and have made really interesting stylistic/formatting choices. I genuinely look forward to reading more of your work.

Best,
~alliyah