Source
r/OCPoetry•
Genomixologist

I wish I didn't make mistakes

Feedback Request

today guilt rode at the center of my chest
not a well-constructed sphere of nothing
no, a moth-eaten empty gash with edges that felt paper thin
like they could
collapse into a true hole in a moment
in the time it takes to clench a jaw or
scrape a knuckle along rough stone
and it sucked in fat and ribs from all around to fill itself
to stave off emptiness
and it’s the sucking that hurts,
that puts the pressure on your heart and lungs
it’s the vacuum that bites and pulls
and guards growling at the core of you
sometimes, if you stare it squarely in the eye
it will relax its jaws and let black sorrow seep out, softly
and it’s a mark of how the guilt can twist
that this will feel like flower’s touch
instead of fist

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Posted Aug 27, 2019, 4:19 PM UTC

2714
Exibit_Viewer•

This is really good, and I love how were able to get me to feel how a mistake can feel like the end of the world.

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GenomixologistOP•

Thank you!

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juliaannastark•

i really enjoyed this, very well written and it all flowed together nicely. well done x

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GenomixologistOP•

Thanks!

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KeepPushingTheRock•

Yes, I understand this all too well. Guilt does indeed feel like this and God knows we all have our regrets. The putrification and internal imagery are nice and I think appropriate.

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GenomixologistOP•

Thank you!

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Hun43rds•

I am very new to poetry, both writing and reading it. However, while reading this poem I was able to recognise that it is of quality because of the emotions it made me feel. Through it’s rhythm, alliteration and imagery it was able to convey the sense of regret very accurately. I enjoyed it very much.

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GenomixologistOP•

Thank you very much!

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Billy_Ames•

I'm glad to see a current sample of your work. This helps me understand what you are referring to in your feedback. I am grateful for what you did commenting on my Demons/Passing Through, and want to return the favor.

There are some powerful images in this work: "moth-eaten empty gash" is my favorite. I'm just a huge fan of animal kingdom imagery. I think there is something about the animal world that relates to ours in a strictly unique way. "True hole," may not be considered overtly illustrative, but the way it is used in its line is quite powerful and a little bit scary.

From the first line on there is a thick application of pathos. I think a lot of us expect that sort of thing from a poem because perhaps we have read masterful works that come across that way. However, I have become super skeptical of this sort of thing, especially since joining this community just a short time ago. I think what makes work stand out in this sub is a balanced and subtle treatment of a subject. A professor of mine once advised me that I won't change the world with one piece. Think scalpel not claymore.

Really this might come down to taste, which we would have to argue elsewhere if there is a standard or not.

Great work. Thanks for sharing!

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GenomixologistOP•

Thank you very much for the feedback! That's a really interesting point about the pathos, I was actually already thinking about it after reading your response to my explanation on your post. I feel like maybe I'm starting to go too far down that road, I haven't ever been very good at expressing emotion so I feel like I'm attempting to work on that at the same time as improving at poetry and I may be mixing the two up haha. This poem was written after I'd made a big mistake at work and was feeling really bad about it, and I was a little worried about the line between honest expression and catharsis for the writer's sake rather than the reader's. I'll need to explore that more. Thank you for the insight!

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Billy_Ames•

Great to hear where you're at. It is a weird and fine line between writing for ourselves and writing for others. One philosopher has said something really lovely that I always try to remember, I paraphrase: "Writing is never some private enterprise. We are always writing for those who are unable to speak for themselves." He was referring to animals, because he is a weirdo. But I take it as a sort of mission to write for my brothers and sisters in arms that I served with in the Navy. On the other end of the spectrum are people like Kenneth Goldsmith and something Buk, who let machines write for them.

I think we have to do some level of processing ourselves through our writing otherwise it would not be specific to anyone. Sorry about the incident at work.

Please keep writing.

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GenomixologistOP•

I like that quote a lot, it's very applicable to a lot of what I've been thinking about lately. It's also a lovely take on the poetic process to write for a group of people that mean something to you, that feels in a way like a nice balance between writing for yourself and for a faceless other. And thank you, I'm feeling somewhat better about it now, and I'll definitely learn from it.

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sparlena•

I love this poem! The line "moth-eaten empty gash with edges that felt paper thin" set me up to feel how tenuous the speaker was feeling about the guilt in their chest. Then the lines "in the time it takes to clench a jaw or/ scrape a knuckle along rough stone" really drove that home because they emphasized how easily it could collapse. From there though, I got confused about what the poem was saying about how the speaker was feeling. The poem moved into describing what the collapse of the hole felt like with the line "and it sucked in fat and ribs from all around to fill itself" (I also loved this line). But there was no precipitating event between suggesting that it could collapse easily and describing the aftermath of the collapse. To me, it feels like there's a part of the story missing between the lines "scrape a knuckle along rough stone" and "and it sucked in fat and ribs from all around to fill itself."

Also, the line "and guards growling at the core of you" was confusing to me because I wasn't sure if "guards" was supposed to be a verb or noun. If it is meant to be a noun, then it feels odd to refer to the guilt as a "vacuum" in the prior line and then as "guards" in the next. Vacuum seems like a dehumanizing phrase versus the humanizing phrase guards. If it was supposed to be a verb, then the phrase "guards growling" takes me out of the flow of the poem when I read it because I'm just not sure what you're trying to say.

Overall I think your imagery is wonderful! I like how you approached the feeling of guilt.

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GenomixologistOP•

This is fantastic feedback, thanks so much for the detailed reply! This has given me some excellent insight into how this might read in ways I hadn't really appreciated before, and now that you've pointed it out I definitely see where I'm not doing the best job of conveying what I mean to. Thanks again.

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