Hi illy! Lim here with a review.
First Impressions
This poem made me think of rose thorns in a different way! Your writing brought to mind the idea of ‘a thorn as a naked rose’, which is certainly an interesting one I hadn’t thought of before. Besides that, the fact that it’s an “English” rose made me wonder if it has much to do with Victorian flower symbolism, or that whole culture of the aristocratic English garden.
The poem has this sense of ‘bigness’ to it, as if it’s definitely about more than just the rose on a surface level, the rose seems to have an allegorical meaning. Maybe it’s a stand in for a person’s humanity, as I figured it was when I first read it.
Subject, Themes, Interpretation
I interpret the theme of the poem as being about the loss of innocence. The image of the “Garden of Eden” definitely gives strong vibes for this, as it could allude to that story in Genesis about how Adam and Eve ‘fell’ from the Garden of Eden. Likewise, the rose seems to have fallen into a different world and become corrupted with things like age and sin. Another thing that could relate to loss of innocence is the mention of “vigilantes” and “rebels”, which are kind of opposite to the very gentrified established image of a nobleman’s garden, for instance. They invoke ideas of conflict as opposed to the idyllic-ness of Eden.
Language and Imagery
The language of the poem makes me feel like it’s ‘set’ not in modern times, but maybe it’s in the style of poems from England in the seventeenth century, or something. Some parts of it still sound like present-day poetry, for example the use of “vigilantes and rebels” and “personal indulgence”, but the poem does remind me of older poetry from that era. That contributes to my interpretation of the theme I think, that it is about loss of innocence, because I think I associate the ideas of ‘innocence’ and ‘corruption’ with that era of English poetry (whereas I don’t think these topics are super huge on the poetic scene nowadays).
One of my favourite images from this poem is “a pretty thorn caught in its gullet”. I just love how visceral the word “gullet” is and also the irony of calling a thorn “pretty”. I think this image is super effective in creating the sense of the rose’s vulnerability, which is then hammered it more in the last line when the speaker declares that they, like a rose, are “naked to a planet of monsters”.
Structure
And if the living, breathing and loving were made bloodless
and if the gods adorned their followers with earthly sin,
and the vigilantes and rebels march to draw blood from those that are heartless.
“bloodless” and “heartless” kind of have an odd repetitive effect here. Like the rest of the poem is unrhymed, but these two words kind of makes it seem as though we’ve suddenly got a rhyming scheme going on? This could just be me, but I tend to find that introducing individual rhymes to a poem that doesn’t already have an end-rhyme pattern kind of works better when it’s in the middle of a line rather than at the end, for example:
And if the bloodless were living, breathing and loving,
and if the gods adorned their followers with earthly sin,
and the heartless were stormed upon by vigilantes and rebels
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My logic is that the ends of lines already stand out more to the reader. So by avoiding putting noticeable features like rhyming at the end (unless you want the rhyming to be like a major feature that is consistent throughout the poem) you can make it subtle enough not to break the general ‘unrhymed’ feel of the poem. And rhymes in the middle of the line still contribute to the sound and emphasis you want to give those two words. Hope that makes sense ^^ it’s just an idea.
Something I liked about the structure was the parts of the poem that parallel and contrast one another, for example:
genderless; blameless; ageless and priceless.
loved and carried and wrenched and pulled-
The four ‘-less’ adjectives in the first line convey this sense of emptiness – they’re very static, but also peaceful, in a way, describing the speaker’s state when they were in their ‘Garden of Eden’. Then the use of another list of four helps to make the contrast clear: now it’s all big, strong action words, the speaker is being violently removed from the garden. I thought that helped create emotional impact there.
Overall
This was a memorable poem, illy! I like how you gave a unique perspective on certain common images in poetry like the rose and heaven vs hell.
Hope some of this helps, and keep writing!
-Lim
Points: 41664
Reviews: 542
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