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This sonnet oozes style. Enjambment throughout, combined with a few feet that feel a little more phyrric than iambic, give the piece a very natural flow: it really adds to that feeling of getting lectured by a curious expert in long-forgotten lore. That tone is set so early on with the second line, which is such a great line! You hit the reader with a total context change, and while we're still processing move into an aside that establishes a narrative voice, which together leave the audience in exactly the right frame of mind for that voice to work.
And the idea! What a cool thought, that the ghosts of the nymphs still haunt the objects we've made from... well, them, I suppose? The idea here is almost an inversion of an exorcism: add more spirits to calm the angered one. There's something really cool there, honestly, in the tone of communal care. And it's still somehow just as haunting, just as uncomfortable, as the permanent banishment of an exorcism—is a permanent binding truly any kinder to the nymphs?
That idea is... perhaps a bit grand for the form. We set up a lesson that feels deep, but the length constraint here handicaps our narrator from getting into any real depth. By the end of stanza three, I'm not feeling ready to wrap up: I want more, I want to keep listening to this lost knowledge and drinking in this arcane carpentry. Something of a shame to come away from it in that moment—but it's not necessarily a bad thing. I'd think a final couplet that felt dismissive could make it really work? Picture the old teacher saying "that's enough for today. leave me alone, I'm tired" kinda thing, and we would feel the same melancholy as the student we're embodying.
It's the final couplet where this piece fell down for me. On reflection, I do think it's trying for that same dismissive feeling my gut says this should end on, but the sudden hard cut to YouTube Self Promotion language was jarring. It feels almost like a feghoot, in that I don't feel I'm in on the joke but rather the joke is at my expense for wanting more? I'm not sure about that one, author. Maybe I've totally misread what you were going for with the rest of the piece? But it undermines the piece's biggest strengths for me without giving us something equally strong in return. Bit of a shame, really, cos I loved the rest so much!
And the idea! What a cool thought, that the ghosts of the nymphs still haunt the objects we've made from... well, them, I suppose? The idea here is almost an inversion of an exorcism: add more spirits to calm the angered one. There's something really cool there, honestly, in the tone of communal care. And it's still somehow just as haunting, just as uncomfortable, as the permanent banishment of an exorcism—is a permanent binding truly any kinder to the nymphs?
That idea is... perhaps a bit grand for the form. We set up a lesson that feels deep, but the length constraint here handicaps our narrator from getting into any real depth. By the end of stanza three, I'm not feeling ready to wrap up: I want more, I want to keep listening to this lost knowledge and drinking in this arcane carpentry. Something of a shame to come away from it in that moment—but it's not necessarily a bad thing. I'd think a final couplet that felt dismissive could make it really work? Picture the old teacher saying "that's enough for today. leave me alone, I'm tired" kinda thing, and we would feel the same melancholy as the student we're embodying.
It's the final couplet where this piece fell down for me. On reflection, I do think it's trying for that same dismissive feeling my gut says this should end on, but the sudden hard cut to YouTube Self Promotion language was jarring. It feels almost like a feghoot, in that I don't feel I'm in on the joke but rather the joke is at my expense for wanting more? I'm not sure about that one, author. Maybe I've totally misread what you were going for with the rest of the piece? But it undermines the piece's biggest strengths for me without giving us something equally strong in return. Bit of a shame, really, cos I loved the rest so much!
Oh, what a fun little piece! It reminds me a little of the poetry of Spike Milligan, a comic whose work I grew up surrounded by, which perhaps leaves me in a little of a warm and homely headspace that other readers might not get. But it helps! This piece is tied so strongly to a sense of the mundane—little discomforts, the everyday agony of a plan not quite thought-through.
The style here drifts a little away from the mundane, I think—and I'm not sure if that always works in favour of the piece or not? In places it absolutely works: "the massive sofa comes" is such a lovely line that has grandeur enough to spare, and sells the way that these problems seem to take up our whole world while we live them; "hope drained to the dregs" gives us such a dramatic turn, too, that deepens this feeling. Not sure it quite works for "raises lumps / that no ice packs can numb"—there's something about "lumps" with no qualifications that feels off to me, just a tad too grand somehow.
A minor nitpick, to be sure. To be honest, I love this one! It's well crafted, succinct, and does exactly what it needs to do.
The style here drifts a little away from the mundane, I think—and I'm not sure if that always works in favour of the piece or not? In places it absolutely works: "the massive sofa comes" is such a lovely line that has grandeur enough to spare, and sells the way that these problems seem to take up our whole world while we live them; "hope drained to the dregs" gives us such a dramatic turn, too, that deepens this feeling. Not sure it quite works for "raises lumps / that no ice packs can numb"—there's something about "lumps" with no qualifications that feels off to me, just a tad too grand somehow.
A minor nitpick, to be sure. To be honest, I love this one! It's well crafted, succinct, and does exactly what it needs to do.
Oh, what's this? A poem about not being able to throw away things because you're sentimentally attached, not to them but to the past when you were attached to them?
Joking aside, this was an... odd piece. I'm not sure why this piece is structured the way that it is: that extra line after the first quatrain, before the ABCB pattern starts up again, which really throws off the pacing (especially in a piece as strictly metered as this, where I always feel the alternating not-rhyme/rhyme lines each have their own kind of weight to them). And the juxtaposition of the almost gothic, old-fashioned (affectionate) voice with the down-to-earth mundanity of "moldy socks" didn't hit for me, I'm afraid.
"He now is me, I can't be he" bring to mind deliberately obtuse nonsense verse. It's very Lewis Carroll, or Beatles (and of course I'm now learning Lennon was inspired by Carroll when writing I Am The Walrus). It hits the reader out of nowhere with a sentence that is deliberately hard to parse... and yet. And yet, that line & the next bring such a softness to the poem, such a quiet reflection on the nature of self and change. And yes, again, maybe this hits harder for me as someone who only uses "he" to talk about myself in past tense, not present. Maybe that's not really an intended feeling at all. But it brings that sense of peace and understanding of the self for me as a result, so...
How can I not like this piece? It's not about hoarding or sentimentality, not really. It's about honouring who you once were, long after you've changed and become someone new. That final couplet is so lovely, so tender, and I have no doubt it's going to become a permanent part of my lexicon. I may have had issues with this piece's rough edges, but it still speaks to me so clearly and that's more than enough.
What's going on?
> I am in this poem and I don't like it.
Joking aside, this was an... odd piece. I'm not sure why this piece is structured the way that it is: that extra line after the first quatrain, before the ABCB pattern starts up again, which really throws off the pacing (especially in a piece as strictly metered as this, where I always feel the alternating not-rhyme/rhyme lines each have their own kind of weight to them). And the juxtaposition of the almost gothic, old-fashioned (affectionate) voice with the down-to-earth mundanity of "moldy socks" didn't hit for me, I'm afraid.
"He now is me, I can't be he" bring to mind deliberately obtuse nonsense verse. It's very Lewis Carroll, or Beatles (and of course I'm now learning Lennon was inspired by Carroll when writing I Am The Walrus). It hits the reader out of nowhere with a sentence that is deliberately hard to parse... and yet. And yet, that line & the next bring such a softness to the poem, such a quiet reflection on the nature of self and change. And yes, again, maybe this hits harder for me as someone who only uses "he" to talk about myself in past tense, not present. Maybe that's not really an intended feeling at all. But it brings that sense of peace and understanding of the self for me as a result, so...
How can I not like this piece? It's not about hoarding or sentimentality, not really. It's about honouring who you once were, long after you've changed and become someone new. That final couplet is so lovely, so tender, and I have no doubt it's going to become a permanent part of my lexicon. I may have had issues with this piece's rough edges, but it still speaks to me so clearly and that's more than enough.
An amusing message, and it creates a vivid mental picture. On the technical side, the rhythm is irregular, and comes/numb doesn't quite rhyme. Still, a fun piece of verse, and a situation I've been in myself.
I like this look at what's akin to an alternate take on feng shui. I also like it when poets don't feel constrained to end sentences on the rhymes. Nice sonnet form. Some of the rhythm is off, like "furniture" and "sorcerous" go more hard stress-light stress-unstressed than the iambic pattern that exists elsewhere.
The final line even makes it seem more like a YT post, which ups the ante on this supernatural feng shui even being things people look to the internet for advice on. It does come about suddenly, but on the other hand, it does lampshade why there's no more context provided on all the world building here, since the viewer presumably already knows the basics or wouldn't have been watching the video.
Some mixed feelings, but this was pretty cute.
The final line even makes it seem more like a YT post, which ups the ante on this supernatural feng shui even being things people look to the internet for advice on. It does come about suddenly, but on the other hand, it does lampshade why there's no more context provided on all the world building here, since the viewer presumably already knows the basics or wouldn't have been watching the video.
Some mixed feelings, but this was pretty cute.
The "well thumbed" feels jammed into the rhythm, but otherwise, this is technically sound from a meter perspective. I do wonder what's going on with the rhymes. You start with an ABAB pattern, but then drop rhyming altogether until... well, no, it looks like you have an odd pattern of ABCBD, EFGFH, IJI, so it's only the lines sandwiching the middle of each group that rhyme. I'm no expert on poetic forms, so I don't know if this is a well-know one or something you invented.
I love the atmosphere of this, and it's immediately evocative. In so few words, I completely understand what the speaker is doing, what his situation is, and even his history. Plus it's a common enough situation that any reader should be able to identify with it. It's not one of those poems that wows me with its construction, but it is one that sticks with me well afterward because I really understand where the speaker's coming from. And it even does that without attaching a deep emotion to it. Like he says, the book didn't warrant some place of honor, so there's not a catharsis in rediscovering it, but sometimes it's the everyday routine thing that draws out an emotion better than the dramatic. I liked this a lot.
I love the atmosphere of this, and it's immediately evocative. In so few words, I completely understand what the speaker is doing, what his situation is, and even his history. Plus it's a common enough situation that any reader should be able to identify with it. It's not one of those poems that wows me with its construction, but it is one that sticks with me well afterward because I really understand where the speaker's coming from. And it even does that without attaching a deep emotion to it. Like he says, the book didn't warrant some place of honor, so there's not a catharsis in rediscovering it, but sometimes it's the everyday routine thing that draws out an emotion better than the dramatic. I liked this a lot.
>>QuillScratch
>>Pascoite
Thanks, folks!
My immediate thought when I saw the prompt was that "possession" needed to mean a spirit getting into a place where people didn't want it to be. The stone around the leg, then, would be a method of settling that spirit down. Not that the final poem quite ended up that way... I came up with the final line pretty early in the process and was shocked to discover how few things rhyme with "subscribe."
A little tweaking of the couplet, though, and this one'll be ready to start making the rounds of the SF poetry mags. :)
Mike
>>Pascoite
Thanks, folks!
My immediate thought when I saw the prompt was that "possession" needed to mean a spirit getting into a place where people didn't want it to be. The stone around the leg, then, would be a method of settling that spirit down. Not that the final poem quite ended up that way... I came up with the final line pretty early in the process and was shocked to discover how few things rhyme with "subscribe."
A little tweaking of the couplet, though, and this one'll be ready to start making the rounds of the SF poetry mags. :)
Mike