06-27-2017, 05:14 PM
(06-27-2017, 02:14 PM)CNL Wrote: [quote="just mercedes" pid='230620' dateline='1498381266']
Cicada summer (as published in Midnight Circus Summer 2017)
That started as a series of nice descriptions that made me want to browse wikipedia and ended as a powerful metaphor that will be stuck in my head for the foreseeable future. I love how, starting with "agony of light (which is great, by the way)," you express the chaos of their experience with all those successive adjectives, and especially how you broke up the conceptual descriptions with those raw, physical descriptions (ruptured skin, birth shock). The way that stanza returns to softer, airy words like consciousness and loneliness right after those two intense, graphic phrases had this whiplash effect on my senses that really complemented the turmoil you were trying to express. And of course the last section triples the meaning of all that pain you described so well. I loved this.
Thank you CNL! I like the way this thread shows the changes. I think it worked, in the end - well, mostly.
The Pen is a great place to workshop a poem.