The sooted sky soothes rivers back to bed;
the waters sleep so restlessly today.
The stove’s electric eye creaked itself red;
I have been incredibly lonely.
https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/qzxuq7/bread_juice/hlpydfr/?context=3
https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/qzwfin/lavender_fields/hlpxv5d/?context=3
Posted Nov 23, 2021, 2:41 AM UTC
I loved the first two lines. Powerful imagery. I would be glad if you can explain to me how the last two lines connect?
its an attempt to respond to that Rilke poem, Archaic Torso of Apollo.
i've failed to do so several times, and this is one of many tries
I re read both the poems - yours & Apollo, I fail to find any connection. Maybe my bad.
Anyways, first three lines are beautiful. Something much more concrete can be built on top of that. Good Luck.
so short and sweet, thank you for sharing. i love it
welcome back
glad to see a familiar face here
likewise!
My inversion of the lisez comment:
The sibilance on line 1 and 2 feels a little too shouty for my tastes. More variegated sounds in that line would be more pleasant IMO. Look at line three for a model on what I mean--smooth phonoaesthetics without clustering the "s" sound too hard--great line there.
The final line hits pretty well for me, actually, and not in the Nashian levity sense, it feels like the speaker is fully revealed. The artifice of the poetic language ceases its languishing for the final moment. We have a discordant off-rhyme that helps the reader accept this shift in register: "today" "lonely," which, I feel, does a good job at transporting the reader to the anticlimax (or letting the reader down safely). Could the line better serve more imagistically-minded?--showing us the "lone colander" or what have you? I mean, I can see that--it's what most every other poem would do. ...Not sure if needed here. Maybe a series of these could help situate the bathos? (bathos isn't the right word).
Yeah this was like v3 of that first line and i smoothed it out too much, but the first try was impossible to say out loud first try.
also yeah the wrench rhyme is something i like, but i wanna bury the other rhymes i think
This was a good quatrain and a joy to read, I like this a lot and I don’t have any notes
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I really like this, the stove line was the most powerful one for me!
That first line is just marvelous! The repeating "s" sounds make it flow off the tongue so well, while the powerful imagery brings your poem to life. The rest of the poem is good too, but I especially wanted to commend you on that first line. Very nice :)
I am new to poetry so this is my first time giving thoughts on some one else work. I personally like your imagery. Even thought this poem is probably more set in the even perhaps even night time, the third line does give me the sense of an early cold morning in the kitchen which definitely plays well in to the fourth line.
Hello, my friend.
The alliteration in the first line gives me such pleasure. The juxtaposition of calm/restless to electric/lonely works really well here. I don't find the final line out of place as an abrupt ending - I think it works well in an unflamboyant way.
My thoughts are this: The narrator's external views are marked by descriptors with feeling, life despite how bleak everything feels. As soon as the poem turns itself back on the narrator it's very matter of fact - intrusive and a turn inward.
As always, great job.
intrusive is def a word that gives me hope. good 2 see u dawg
The first three lines of this quatrain are beautiful, each fitting into the last to build up the environment of a quiet and gloomy but slowly-livening morning further and further. First everything is grey and sleepy, then the waters become "restless" and start churning, then the stove begins to heat up and glow; then, just as a full awakening seems imminent, when the slow stirrings of life will finally break out into activity... there comes a doozy of a form-breaking line, at which I broke out laughing the first time I read it, and which still occasions me much mirth even as I reread it now in the voice of Sylvia Plath.
As it stands the quatrain is a fantastic parody of one of the more artless Confessional poets, or maybe of Ogden Nash, but I just can't take that last line seriously. And maybe I wasn't meant to, maybe it was consciously intended as a joke, but there's no way for me to tell on my end whether that's the case, and even if so it's a shame to waste such a good beginning on such a ridiculous punchline.
I do feel a little mean for rejecting the ending out-of-hand like this -- I can envision, and have indeed experienced, a state of mind in which one might receive it not only willingly, but even gladly as a profound and sincere conclusion to the poem -- but I can't help my present involuntary reaction to it, and so my critique stands. Even so, I still love the first three lines of the poem, and I congratulate you in them for an imagistic evocation well done -- and one governed by a solid but unobtrusive scheme of rhyme and meter, no less.
Good feedback. I must confess I also laughed at the last line. It's such an abrupt and unpoetic deviation, and takes you by surprise a la 'Roses are red, violets are blue, grass is green and I've been incredibly lonely'. It's almost an 'anti-poem' in its ending. Rereading it does help it feel less like a punchline, though.
I am glad you responded this way. I need the reader to be embarrassed for me, if you can indulge me, let me know if you feel the same way in a day or two before I sit down for revision.
You requested that I tell you in a day or two if I still felt the same way about this poem; it's three days later, and for better or for worse I still do. Well, not entirely: The humor has somewhat worn off, but without a corresponding increase in pathos -- the final line largely just leaves me cold now, though I still enjoy everything else. I'll be interested to see in what way you end up revising this, if any.
I think im inclined to agree with you, Part of the request was to force to confront the piece myself without the timer being dependent on me. I'm gonna try and make the turn convincing because I don't care about the piece without it, but we'll see how easy that is, haha