the art of escapism

Hello friend! I hope you are having a wonderful day!! I loved the last poem of yours that I reviewed, you I thought I would check out some of your others works too. Let's jump right into the review!

I love how this poem began, the entire first stanza was a great beginning. Stopping at a green light feels like a very poetic image to me. At green lights, we are supposed to go and not slow down before entering the intersection. But in this case, you sat still and listened to the static. To strain your mind and have a break from everything else going on around you, you paused. I find this to be symbolic of a lot of situations in life, where we just need to pause. Others around us might be continuing to move forward, but we are too exhausted and overwhelmed to move forward. So we get stuck sometimes and sit and wait, trying to heal, but the pressure of those around us wanting us to keep going can be overwhelming. You sum up these exact thoughts in the next verse:

existing is exhausting.
the feeling of taking up too much space
crashes like an unexpected visitor,
and the emotion settles in comfortably,
as if i’m a guest in my own home.
“goddamn it, i need some peace.”

Hi there rainforest! I noticed your post in the forums about this poem so I decided to come here and review it before reading your analysis.

General Impressions

The mood of the poem seems to be one of frustration. I noticed a lot of effortful-sounding words there, like “strain”, “exhausting”, “crashes”, “goddamn it”, “pressed”. The atmosphere feels very isolated, like there’s no one around the “I” on the road, since no one else is described. Even if there are other people, their focus is turned inwards.

Meaning

The first stanza conveys a feeling of overwhelm. The speaker seems to be ‘done’ with the regular flow of things, which seems reflected in how they’re going against what we usually expect and stopping at a green light instead of a red.

The second stanza seems to expand on the emotion with figurative language, up to the line of reported speech, where the speaker declares “i need some peace”. This line acts as a turn, as they try to convert their feelings into action.

I’m not so clear what the speaker is ‘worsening’ in the third stanza. There wasn’t anything introduced in the first two stanzas that the speaker was making a mistake on or ruining. It’s also a bit puzzling that “home” is introduced in a simile in the second stanza but then appears as possibly a ‘real’ place in the final stanza, if that makes sense.

Imagery

I like the central image of this poem. Stopping at a green light, then driving at a red light is a nice way to convey a lot of ideas and feelings. One of these led to my interpretation above as the speaker going against the norm. I also like how you used this image to begin and end the poem, as that helped make the ending satisfying in a way.

The second stanza had a lot of different figurative expressions. It felt like the individual images didn’t have enough space to develop on their own. “like an unexpected visitor” and “as if i'm a guest in my own home” are clearly related, but I kind of felt like having two comparisons in the span of a few lines was a bit much. And this next one is just a quibble about word choice, but “crashes” seems a lot more intense than “unexpected”. If the mismatch between the action and the “guest/ feeling” is intentional, then that works, but I just thought I’d bring it up in case it wasn’t.

I liked the atmosphere built in the third stanza by describing each individual turn of the traffic light colours. The phrase “the clock turned to midnight” also creates a sense of anticipation for the speaker’s reckless action in the end.

Rhythm

I thought this poem flowed pretty well when read aloud. The only bit where the flow seemed to be interrupted and where the line was a bit of a tongue twister was “goddamn it i need some peace”. I think the sounds of this line are just very different from the ones around it and also the impression I get from “goddamn it” is a lot more visceral than “i need some peace” which sounds fairly neutral to me.

I like the rhyming between light/night in the first line. The repetition of “i wanted” also works to emphasise and develop the speaker’s desire for a ‘break’ of some kind. I also like the assonance in e(x)i(sting)/ e(x)hau(sting). Even though it’s not exactly an uncommon phrase, somehow framing it in a poem like this lets me notice the sound patterns more, which is neat.

Overall

I interpret this poem as being a kind of dramatization of someone’s frustration. It doesn’t particularly strike me as a poem focused on form overall, though there are some good uses of sound devices. What does make it seem like a ‘lyric poem’ as noted in the genre is the focus on an emotion, rather than necessarily a literal sequence of events (like a narrative poem would) or a piece of rhetoric/ discourse.

Hope this helps – let me know if you’d like more feedback on something specific!
-Lim

Hi, hello there! This is Ina speaking. I am here to write down a comment/review for your poem that I've eyed in the Green Room. I think the language is okay though but the warning is better. Anyways, moving on to the poem.

"i stopped at a green light last night
to listen to the cold static on the radio.
i wanted to be alone;
i wanted to strain out every thought
from my restless mind
and feel empty."

This stanza seems like a good introduction for a sad poem or trying to find that ease and that peace when you have those negative thoughts. The two starting lines just give off a vibe of someone in the middle of the night in a close gas station near a highway. The next lines feel very desperate like, "I wanted peace, I wanted to take all of those bad thoughts out of my brain."

"existing is exhausting.
the feeling of taking up too much space
crashes like an unexpected visitor,
and the emotion settles in comfortably,
as if i’m a guest in my own home.
“goddamn it, i need some peace.”"

The next stanza is pretty confusing with the lines "I wanted" and then suddenly the first line of this stanza says, "existing is exhausting." Like it shifted to the present tense I think it's better if you use "I want" instead. I like that last line, "goddamn it, I need some space", it reminds me of NASA by Ariana Grande. I don't know why. Maybe because of needing space, with your thoughts about missing your loved one but this poem is not about that.

"i watched the light turned yellow,
then red.
the clock turned to midnight.
i pressed the gas pedal.
i always worsen things when told to stop,
but i need to return back home."

Like I said, you need to use past or present only. The first few lines just reminded me of Honeymoon Avenue by Ariana Grande, I don't know why maybe the car aesthetic and vibes. Midnight sad thoughts equal slay. I feel like the ending was nice and perfect to be an ending. That hope I look for in every sad poem. That's good.

Overall, it's good, you just need to polish it a little. It has potential and is good. Have a good morning, day, afternoon, or night.

hello hello!

i stopped at a green light last night
to listen to the cold static on the radio.

i wanted to strain out every thought
from my restless mind
and feel empty.

existing is exhausting.

i watched the light turned yellow,
then red.
the clock turned to midnight.
i pressed the gas pedal.

i always worsen things when told to stop,
but i need to return back home.