bittersweet melody

I thought that this was overall a very interesting poem. It is almost like a child who is desperate to get back the attention of their mother, who seems to have left them and is spending all of their time with a romantic partner, who in turn is hurting her, but she cannot resist seeing them. The way I saw it, this leads to her metaphorical "death" with the line "I wish you weren't buried next to him."

The use of the word bittersweet in the title raises some questions for me, because I can clearly see the "bitter" part of the poem, but where is the sweet? Maybe it is the relationship between the mother and the child? It also seems like music could either be a hobby/interest that they shared and bonded over, or it could be a metaphor for something greater, like maybe the music symbolizes their relationship? I think it was a good poem, and left a quite a few things open to interpretation, which is always something good in my opinion.

I like this poem and I think I have a slightly different understanding of it than the previous commenters. It took me three reads to to come to an understanding of it. It seems you lost your mother to alcoholism. However, I’m not sure if the whiskey is supposed to represent a bad man or the darkest side of her alcoholism. You seem sad and longing throughout, but the last like seems to show an anger. I’m confused if the anger is towards your mother or if it is a jealous anger. Also it is this last line that makes me believe that this isn’t about a man but about your emotions towards your mother. By saying (bitter) it’s like she wanted or willingly accepted the chaos from the whisky. I like this poem. Maybe I’m not interpreting it right. If I’m correct that this man represents her alcoholism I think it would help to make that connection clearer. Or if it is both a literal man and her alcoholism which creates a chaos that she willingly accepts(per last line), which results in her death, it is not clear if your angry or sad. The only advice I could think of(which only applies if my understanding is valid) is to show more clearly that you are angry.

Hello! :) I really like this poem!

I want to first start by discussing intent because I feel like that is the biggest thing any poet would want to take care of first in their poems. The intent that is coming across to me is that this poem is showing the speaker missing their mother's presence due to the mother and her partner getting caught up in alcoholism and them constantly fighting. It feels like - from my interpretation - that this poem tells of how drinking can destroy relationships (specifically family). If that wasn't your intent, then I think it's obviously worth looking back at your piece and cutting some details that suggest that.

For your speaker, I felt like they were clearly hurting from this unfortunate situation. Their gender nor their age is clear, but I feel like those aspects are not entirely significant in this case, as the message can be very universal.

The moods in the poem are: sad, nostalgic (in a negative sense), pleading, and grief.

There are a lot of things that are working in this draft. The emotions are very clear, and so is the sort of narrative you are writing in this piece. I think I can comprehend most of what is going on, and I think you paint the relationship between the speaker's mother and father very well. Your form is also very nice, you used stanzas effectively, and it is very easy to understand when we are shifting from one image/idea to the next.

Some things that I feel like you could work on moving forward, is expanding on certain aspects of the poem. I would've liked to see more of the speaker themselves. What is the speaker feeling during those moments? How can you show (without telling) how this has affected our speaker? I also feel like you could've painted some of the images a bit more and added more sensory detail. It's interesting (and very effective) that you used smell as a sensory detail since we always seem to go for sight first, and I would've liked to see more of that. What does that wine/whiskey taste like? What do those screams sound like? I also feel like the 2nd and 3rd stanza, could use more images. I feel like you tell us what happens, but you don't show what happens. I think you could go deeper into detail with your images and let them sort of speak for themselves.

Overall, this was a very delightful read. I see so many good things and potential in this piece, and I really hope you decide to move forward with it :)

Ooooooooh the relationship with the mother almost brought me to tears. The text was so vivid and clearly displays the character and voice of the poem. This makes me so happy. Thankyou.

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I am putting a melody to this in my head as I read it. I write folk songs so I do this a lot with poems, but this poem would naturally lend itself song. It strikes me as mourning a difficult relationship, perhaps a pleading with the recently deceased like something you’d speak alone at a grave or to an old photograph. Thanks for sharing!

Reads like a horror. Every line reveals a horror. I like that its subtly graphic. And yet the emotions it conveys are heavy, very sad and painful. Also, kudos on the language. You've used simple and easy to understand words but still painted a clear picture. I understand that the narrator is sad, sad about losing his/her mother. It's like they are playing a song on their mom's funeral. While reminiscing about the events which led to the mum's death. To my interpretation of the poem. Alcohol and the dad/or other male figure in the home had everything to do with it.