justin's - Untitled
In emergency
press lever down
slide doors open
says the train, as passengers
enter and dance through and around
each other, swans' necks tangled, painted
in starlight, slick sweat waiting for hungry eyes
and lost tongues; somewhere
along the line, we lost our ability
to smell, musty salty
human, active
human, ravenous
human;
try not to let my misery get caught
in your skin, lost in this
thick, wet night, this
last, hot night, this
emergency
press (lever)
down,
slide (doors)
open
---------------------------------
Justin, there is a unique voice in this poem that is different from the rest. Your images are very dynamic and are infused with tactile and acute sensitivity. The parallelism of the first and concluding stanza is well crafted; the conclusion reads is if ir were an antistrophe after a dramatic collision that occurs in the 2nd and body stanza.
This is a beautiful and well crafted poem; perhaps the strongest i've seen from you. My only recommendation is to consider the movement of your poem- for example, the line "dance through and around" sets us up for something graceful when in fact we are moving into a crowd- "dance" is an important verb as one of the first actions that takes place very early in your poem: are you sure you want us to "dance" into this poems of a potentially claustrophobic train ride? Why dance? There is no noise or music in your poem, - it is rather prosaic and necessarily so- I only mean to scrutinize "dance" to show that this is a rather important verb and if you feel "dance" is the appropriate action to begin your poem.
This is a very strong poem, hence my perfectionist scrutiny. It does not require much but perhaps a little more work can make it one of your best (that i've read).
thank you for sharing, there will be more to critique.
posted by . @ 9:48 PM
4 Comments:
Thank you for your comment.
I'll have to think upon that. When I thought of "dance" and then followed it with what I did, I was thinking more in terms of a rave-like atmosphere. Crowded, claustrophobic, as you mentioned. But animalistic. Dancing through and around people doesn't make me think "graceful."
I'll think more about it though and see if perhaps another verb would get my idea across better.
it is interesting how meanings differ from reader to author.
I hope this scrutiny of words is useful to you. I find, especially if you are describing a particular scene and want to convey a specific emotion, it is crucial that you lead your reader on the same path. My "path" of reading did not connote a "rave" like motion in your verb "dance", because words like "through and around" and "swan like necks" that followed evoked another sense of "dance". The connotations of words and their context are very important to crafting a particular image, emotion, or idea.
You have to create a particular path for the reader, but by no means hold her hand through it, but rather allow enough room for her to explore within the perimeters of your poem. For an example, when TS eliot refuses to tell us "what is it - let us go and make our visit", the movement of his poem (words, sentence structure, et al) performs rather than dictates "what is it". THere is enough room for the reader to interpret "what is it", without the author dictating what exactly he means.
What helps me is to think of poetry as "performance" - that is, how we use words to perform ideas, emotions, et al.
hope this helps.
See, I felt that dancing "through" people connotes a form of collision, or at least a close call. The swans' necks are "tangled," again, trying to get across a messy kind of beauty. I tried to make the "dance" of my poem the sexually charged sort, as goes along with the rest of the poem.
I'm trying to work with other words to see if they get the ideas across better.
Oh, and I forgot to thank you for the kind words about the poem. I am rather happy with it. I'll comment again when I have an alternative to the beginning of the second stanza.
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