Compose yourself!
I look at old pictures of myself
I muse over where you were then
I lean back, imagining your hand in mine
Your breath on my neck
I feel your body against mine
Our mouths meet
Your tongue grazes my upper lip
Our collective breath quickens
A dog barks in the distance
My dog
I blink and observe my surroundings
On the floor, surrounded by photographs
I remember that you are many miles away
Frustrated tears escape
SLAM
I toss a photo album across the room.
My dog whimpers
I shake my head
"Compose yourself!"
A desperate plea for peace
No such luck
I go back to thinking of only you
(https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/7odqdk/red_emotions/ds8wy73/?st=jc2gonaw&sh=f1e1252d)
Posted Jan 5, 2018, 9:38 PM UTC · edited
310
Narrator seems a bit self obsessed. My instinct was to say after the last line "Nah, you go back to thinking about yourself." I read it and forgot about it pretty soon after. Give me a reason to care about this narrator or their reminiscing.
I've taken your feedback into account and made a lot of changes. What do you think?
The narrator's self-obsessed because it's about "I". More lines start with 'I' than any other word. Instead of reading about what the narrator observes, I read "I blink and observe my surroundings". What are the surroundings? Describe them. Describe whoever it is the narrator's thinking about. I know zero about this person, other than the narrator and them made out once or twice. I know more about the dog than whoever this lover was.
A dog barked in the distance is a mega-cliche. I mean, credit that the dog exists in the poem.
I described the surroundings. On a floor. Surrounded by photographs. I prefer to leave the person I’m talking about ambiguous. I use the word I a lot because these are the narrators thoughts, the narrators fantasies, the narrators actions. That doesn’t mean the narrator is obsessed with herself. She’s thinking about someone else for the entire poem, of being with another person. How is that self obsessed? As for the dog thing, I didn’t want the dog to be a main focus of the poem, I used him to break her out of her fantasy. Maybe I could have done it differently, but I’m tired of editing this poem, and I have a feeling that no matter how I edit it you will not be satisfied.
yo lose the attitude. there's going to be a lot of times where readers tell you that whatever you're trying to communicate isn't working. it happens to everyone who writes.
you're trying to communicate a tension between nostalgia about an old lover and trying to move on, I think. When I read the poem I feel neither of those things because mostly you're telling rather than showing.
you've kept everyone on-purpose vague, so I have no idea what exactly you're being nostalgic about. how am I supposed to lose myself in your nostalgia if I have no details to bring it to life? you're telling me that the narrator is feeling nostalgic, but you're not really trying to make me feel it. It's like you're saying "HEY READER, I WOULD LIKE YOU TO FEEL SOME NOSTALGIA NOW". It does not work. Instead of saying "I look at old pictures of myself", which sounds self-centered, describe what's in the pictures. you start talking about the relationship with stanza #2, with a light description of bodies, lips, and breath, but then that's all we get. IIf your readers don't already personally know the narrator, then there's a good chance they won't be able to connect.
The dog is there to snap the narrator out of it, but I get snapped out of the poem, because it would be extremely weird to say "somewhere, a dog barked" and it's literally your dog. If you were actually sifting through old pictures and your dog barked, you'd say "Sparky yaps at me" or "The dog stuck her wet nose into my thigh." something like that. You'd have to be super stoned to not realize it was your own dog.
You're telegraphing again how the narrator feels. "I remember you are many miles away/frustrated tears escape" is exposition. "HEY READER, THIS IS THE SAD PART." It's like you're yelling. "A desperate plea for peace" is telling the reader how they should understand it. "No such luck, I go back to only thinking of you" sums it up -- instead, end with an action which allows the reader to draw their own conclusion.
Here's a possible rewrite: