the louvre

Hello!

I like this, it's very nice. My first thought was that it's a soft poem, kind of, I don't know if you know what I mean? It kind of has this feeling of a dream a bit? Yeah I don't know just ignore this.

What I liked really much about this poem is the shapes that the lines make; as the text is centered, and each few lines are cut off from the rest by a double enter, they make these shapes; and I really liked looking out for them!!! For example, one was like an overturned pyramid, and another one like a face with a bowler hat and a large collar - it gives like a body to your poem, with the meaning being the soul in a way. I really liked that!

I liked the lines themselves - the meaning - but the person before me already said everything, and I don't want to repeat it, but at the same time I can't think of anything to add! Sorry...

I think that you could have capitalised the 'i's, but maybe you meant it to stay like this to give the poem a certain feel, or you forgot, or you were just lazy which is also fine. In any case it's you the author so you decide!

Overall/In conclusion/Wrapping up/Yeah whatever who cares, this poem is really really nice and I liked it. Keep writing, keep posting on YWS, thanks for sharing this, have fun and, of course, have a nice day!!!!!!!!

-HMMHhehe

LOL, I'll call the voice of this poem Art right now. gonna bouta hit ya w/ the glow-grow-glow sandwich, sister.

GLOW
NICE!! ok so the sparrow metaphor that opens this thing is doin a lot of heavy lifting in the best way, lololol. like "a sparrow who doesn't fear the wire. the cage. because it doesn't know there's anything that could exist outside the steel that encases it." this is genuinely one of the stronger openings you coulda chosen for a poem about self-perception and visibility. the sparrow doesn't resist its confinement not cuz it's brave but becuase it has no framework for imagining freedom. ohhh yeah that's good stuff. that's a really precise and painful way to introduce a speaker who's bouta spend the entire poem performing her own destruction for an audience. the line breaks here are doin real work too. "the cage." sitting alone like that gives it weight and finality before the poem's even getting going. WANNA talk about a strong open? yeah. this is it.

the ending is also good and earns its place completely. "i perished pretty. and burned bright." is the kinda closing that recontextualizes everything above it, lol. the whole poem's been building toward this idea that visibility is worth any cost even annihilation and you stick the landing without overselling it. the restraint there matters. you don't explane it. you just let it sit. NICE!

GROW
ok so the middle section is where the poem loses some of its tension, gonna be honest witcha. specifically this stretch. "i laid down my sword. an abdication of will and resistance. i became a dark spot on the wall. for the masses to gawk at. and the self-righteous to take me down." the abstraction here is workin against you. "dark spot on the wall" is evocative but then "the masses to gawk at" and "the self-righteous to take me down" flatten out into somethin that feels more like summary than image. like you've already shown us the sparrow. you've already shown us the hatchet and the splintering frame and the hair catching fire, lololol those are specificc and visceral and unforgettable. but here the poem shifts into tellin us what the metaphor means rather than trusting the reader to follow where you've already so confidently led them. the critics calling her "abstract" and the people calling her "nihilistic" is smart and ironic but the lines around those moments needa have the same precision the rest of the poem has. whadda you think it actually looks like to become a dark spot. what's the texture of being gawked at in that louvre dream. you got the skill to write those images, shoulda trusted it more here!

"for at least then i'll be pretty enough to suffer for it." is also a line worth sittin with longer in revision. ohhh the idea inside it is genuinely the thematic core of the whole poem. this hunger to be beautiful enough that your pain becomes legible. becomes valuable. becomes art. but the phrasing "pretty enough to suffer for it" is slightly tangled in a way that makes you hafta reread it to find the meaning. the "for it" is doin ambiguous work. pretty enough that suffering's justified. or pretty enough that the suffering is for prettiness. both readings are interesting but the line as written doesn't quite commit to either, lol. a small clarifying pressure on that phrase coulda make it hit the way it deserves to.

GLOW
ohhh yeah THIS part tho!! "if i called the louvre my mother and the stone wall the hands that rocked me to sleep. i think i'd wish to be stolen away. to be wanted so fiercely that wanting's only a consolation prize." this is the most quietly devastating part of the poem and it comes at exactly the right moment, lololol. like after all the violence of the first half. the burning and the splintering and the ash. this section arrives and it's so much softer and more honest. the louvre as mother. the stone wall as hands. to wanna be stolen not because it's safe but because being wanted that fiercely would at least be somethin. it reframes the whole poem's hunger from performance into genuine longing. and "wanting's only a consolation prize" is the kinda line that makes a reader stop, NICE!! it's paradoxical in the best way. wanting something so badly that the wanting itself feels like a lesser version of having. that's a real and rare thought and you wrote it cleanly and without fuss. hold onto that instinct throughout the revision, gonna need it!!

this is a GORGEOUS poem