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Feedback Received!

Morning warmth, my naked chest
Beset upon by sun in June,
I sit on cotton sheets and beam (grin),
Besotted (Smitten) with the thought of you.

Watch water trickle down my arm
In columns, like the boughs of a tree
In spring; across the tanned valleys of blemished skin,
And I wonder, "Will you remember me?"

Any sort of input would be appreciated. I've included alternative word choices in brackets. I was going to add another stanza or two so that it would cover more ground/subject matter and have more body, but wasn't happy with what little I'd come up with so I left them out.

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Posted Sep 21, 2016, 9:06 AM UTC · edited

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pseudonymousbach•10 yr. ago

This is my first post in this sub, so sorry if it's a little scattered, it's been a while since I've been part of a community that gives extensive feedback.

For starters, as far as your alternate words go, I prefer beam to grin. Beam feels warm, probably because of sun beams, and really jives with the mention of the sun in the prior line. I prefer smitten to besotted, not really sure of an explanation for that though. I love the image you depict in the first stanza as a whole, it's so familiar and bright.

You had a really good rhythm going with the first stanza. It definitely falters in the second stanza. The third line especially is very wordy. I've been lurking this sub for a couple months now, and I've picked up a lot on tossing unnecessary words. It's your poem, so obviously you get to decide which words are necessary, but maybe for the flow you could try:

Watch water trickle down my arm

In columns, like boughs of a tree

across tanned valleys of blemished skin,

And wonder, "Will you remember me?"

I feel like you've only scratched the surface, and that you can really push here to extend this like you said. A little more exploration will definitely have the final line hit harder. You have a good start though, and I would love to see this grow.

emojo_jojoOP•10 yr. ago

It's okay. I haven't been in a setting, academic or otherwise, where work is critiqued obstructively so I find myself on an unfamiliar footing.

It was originally 'grin', owing to the fact that the first line ended with 'skin', which became 'flesh' then finally 'chest'. But I agree with you! It was also originally 'smitten'; I toyed with 'besotted' because it shared a similarity in sound with 'beset', which probably ties in with your following point about unnecessary, or even overly flowery, words. My English teacher (who I loved) would often call me out for waffling.

The second stanza doesn't follow the first in flow, I agree. Perhaps if I'd changed the formatting... I had the reference to spring in there to tie in with the theme of seasons and to sort of indicate the passage of time over a few months (though I don't think it turned out very well). And spring rhymed with skin. In my head, it read as:

Watch water trickle down my arm in columns,
Like the boughs of a tree in spring,
Across tanned valleys of blemished skin,
And I wonder, "Will you remember me?"

I'd read about enjambment and was trying to play around with it so that, with the comma and semi-colon where they were, it would read as above. That said, I definitely see what you mean. I'll have another stab in a few hours. Many thanks for the feedback. Feels like I'm back in class again, it's fantastic!