Chubby
[deleted]
Posted Feb 7, 2022, 3:15 PM UTC
611
First of all, this is a real tear jerker and I think this piece carries that emotion with real authority and authenticity. I'm moved! I can see that you've done some really cool stuff within what seems to be four footed iambic lines? Forgive me if I make a fool of myself by diving into this, because I've only just recently started to learn a bit more about it, and I might make some mistakes here, but:
You've got a good example of pyrrhic substitution which makes the line really sing (I'm talking about 'BREATH pushes OUT as the PINK pushes IN - I glide over both stresses of the word 'pushes') In actual fact, I think this is the strongest line of the poem.
Which leads me to think, it could be worth considering adding more of this, as well as a few other things to liven up the poem. As it is, it reads with a very solid lilt, with plenty of entirely trochaic lines. The stress being on the first part; THIS is the DAY I took CHUB-by to DIE. This ends on a stress too, and that gives the line a lot of impact.
I do feel, though, that there is a certain musicality and continuation from line to line that is missing here. It could be worth thinking about getting a bit of enjambment in there, making one line continue to the next.
Phew, alright my brain hurts and I'm afraid I don't have the knowledge to really comment on the structure and iambic bells and whistles of this with any real authority in case I get it wrong and look like an idiot so I'll stop there with that.
One thing I REALLY liked about this was the collar leading the speaker - that's strong, and could be even stronger if we think about how the word cry could be made into a place, somewhere the reader can be lead to, although I'm not sure what that would look like so sorry if that's vague. But the image of being lead by a dog's collar is so good it almost feels like it falls a bit flat with the word cry.
Also, the pause in the line
a life, loved - ending, now time to begin
seems a bit out of place, and I'd consider re-doing that.
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First of all, we are all fools for diving into this. I really appreciate your critique. You know more about this stuff than I do. I think you've given me some things to think about here. I can certainly get locked into each line closing in my work, and I should be exploring enjambment more. This is the second villanelle I've written, and it is a bit clunkier than I would like.
I'm glad you like "Breath pushes out as the pink pushes in." I also think it is the strongest line, although I fear some readers won't know what it describes. I actually came up that line and wrote the rest around it.
The idea of a collar leading to a place is cool. I will see what I can come up with, but I don't want to have the change the entire rhyme scheme. Any places (that make sense) rhyme with die?
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As someone whose own pup is nearing the end, this resonated with me. The details about milky eyes and mounds of skin give me the all too familiar visual.
This one definitely benefits from being re-read, as the rhyme scheme threw me off at first. It worked nicely once I realized what was happening though. (I'm thinking in particular of the stanza with the dash. It felt like a sudden stop, but I hadn't even realized the -in rhymes kept the flow going until afterward). The symmetric repetitions of "cry" and "die" are a nice touch.
Honestly, I have no criticisms. RIP Chubby.
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Thank you, and I'm sorry for your impending loss. This poem is a villanelle, which has a weird rhyme scheme with refrains.
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DAMN. This poem on reddit leads me to cry. This won't be an amazing critique, as I am just starting to get back into poetry, but I will do my best.
The repetition in this poem is amazing and heart breaking. The first time I read "This is the day I took Chubby to die," I immediately teared up. Now, when you repeat it over and over, it just hits harder and harder. Beautiful.
Okay I just reread this again and I'm full on crying.
the ONLY critique I have is in the line "Though death is a mercy, I'm loathed to comply." I believe the meaning of this line is you hate that this has to happen, right? You know it is the right thing to do, but you hate to do it. The way it reads (to me) grammatically, is that something loathes YOU. I think it needs some type of rewording to specify that you are the one who loathes the death.
Thank you so much for sharing. <3
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This nearly got me to tears.
Beautifully written, easy to read and a great rhyme scheme!
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Thank you for sharing your poem with us.
Nice to see a villanelle. It's a very difficult form but it offers a distinctive kind of payoff.
The poem is crystal-clear in its subject and emotion (the speaker of the poem had to put their beloved dog to sleep and they're sad about it). That's an accomplishment right there. Oftentimes I'll think my poem is clear as day but brains outside of mine have a hard time discerning what I'm on about. So I really want to commend you on that skill.
The poem proceeds as an uncomplicated, sentimental tearjerker: we have the "sad ... eyes," the "pittie grin," and the repeated this-made-me-cry refrain. The tone and emotional register remind me of the kinds of poems I used to see in the "local poets" page of the newspaper growing up, alongside poems from grandmothers about their gardens or grandchildren or whatever. There's definitely a community for this kind of thing.
Personally, I find it a bit too maudlin for my tastes, but I'll leave it there.
Let's talk formal aspects. Villanelles are distinctive because of their repeating lines, which are the source of both their potency and challenge. Here you're adhering to the form very strictly. The rhymes are all exact and crisp, which I appreciate. You've also chosen not to vary the repeating lines at all — stricter than Bishop, stricter than Roethke.
This enhances the challenge of framing those lines interestingly so that they progress or change as the poem proceeds. Unfortunately, I think this object is as cross-purposes with your uniform end-stopping. Every single line of your poem ends with a period, which means the variation in tempo relies entirely on whether a line contains a caesura or not. Now, some of those caesuras are very effective, as in the "pass peacefully" line. But I think this compulsive end-stopping cuts you off from more sophisticated sentence-to-sentence musicality and by the same measure, prevents those repeating lines from landing much differently when they're repeated. Look at those famous villanelles by Roethke and Bishop again and see how they use two-line sentences to both vary pace and give the repeating lines different spins. That's the kind of thing I savor from a villanelle. (Of course you are not obligated to provide that if it's not in your agenda, but at least it will help you understand where I'm coming from.)
Additionally, I notice that many of your end-stopped lines are sentence fragments rather than full sentences.
In my opinion, a little bit of this goes a long way. When it comes to poems in a speech-like register like this one, I think sentence fragments are most effective when interspersed with longer sentences. Here I can't help but feel the reliance on fragments is a crutch, tying in with the uniform end-stopping.
Metrically I detect a three-beat underpinning. Sometimes it's very clear, as in
and
(Nitpick: "loath" to comply is the conventional usage here. If you're trying to say that the speaker of the poem is hated — loathed — and reluctant — loath — then it's a bit overstuffed. But I suspect it's just a typo.)
Many lines contain metrical variation, but the underlying pattern is detectable.
This rhythm often feels jocose or sweet. It's the rhythm Dr. Seuss uses in a lot of his books and often lends poems a kind of skipping energy. Here it exaggerates the sentimentality of the telling. People who want their poems a bit sing-songy will enjoy it, so if you want this to be kind of like a spoken-word version of a tearful country song about a departed dog, the choice is effective. But for those of a less sentimental nature, it might make the poem feel mawkish rather than mournful.
All in all, I respect a lot of the impulses here (even the ones I'm not aesthetically aligned with), but I feel like some of the lines show the form controlling the choices of the poem rather than the other way around.
Thank you for sharing your poem and I hope my thoughts are of some use to you.
You're absolutely right, of course. Thank you for this critique. The form completely controls what I'm writing in this instance, and I absolutely hide in the safety of end-stopping. The villanelle is a new challenge for me, and I got hung up in the rules.
I appreciate your candor. What I do not want is sing-songy, Seussish, mawkish, local poet, grandmother vibe, so thanks for giving it to me straight.
I love some of this poem, but it is not as smooth as what I typically write. I think that the form is tripping me up a bit here. This is precisely the type of feedback I was hoping for by giving this one the Workshop flair. I'm going spend some time reworking this and will hopefully have an updated version to share in the next day or two.
Great, thank you for taking it all in stride.
I couldn't find a place to put this in my previous comment, but if you want an example of a villanelle that has some aspects in common with your poem — strict rhyme, the subject of death — but in other ways takes a completely opposite tack, you might be interested in "The Abject Bed" by Joshua Mehigan. It's heavily enjambed and alters many components of the repeating lines. It also has an iambic pentameter underpinning and you can feel the difference in effect.
I didn't want to say "write like Joshua Mehigan instead!" because I don't think that's good or useful advice. But it would be a good poem to triangulate off of as you figure out how you want to inhabit the villanelle landscape.
Thanks. I will get into it!