04-13-2013, 05:19 PM
This is a very, very nice piece, particularly considering it was translated. I really like the concept, writing "as in me", bringing the bus and its journey and all its commuters and smells and sounds into the psyche of the narrator, showing how, in a way, he is his commute, with all it's chaos and boredom and sadness and predictability. My favorite part is about the old ladies' gossip being noise pollution. It's a seemingly harsh thing to say but personally I interpreted it as meaning not that real conversation is worthless, but rather that most of the talking within and around us is simply noise, drivel that stops us from thinking - and conversing - clearly and with purpose.
I would say that in the last verse, you may wish to add a line to just extra-emphasize that these are people you are used to seeing, for instance, if the limping old man always wore three pins in hit hat or the young girl always chose a certain seat or got on the stop after you, the behavior of the dog... whatever suits you, whatever applies, just something to really set the home-ish-ness, the familiarity of the setting.
With the last verse, my immediate reaction is that you should add in an 'as in me' or 'as in them', since this has been so continuous throughout, however, after thinking about it, I am unsure whether the poem overall suggests that this is both a familiar journey and a familiar state of being for the 'me', or whether this final verse is supposed to indicate a kind of checking of reality, that the 'me' is seeing things through this state of despair and misery, but is seeing the world continuing as normal.
But, overall, I absolutely love it
I would say that in the last verse, you may wish to add a line to just extra-emphasize that these are people you are used to seeing, for instance, if the limping old man always wore three pins in hit hat or the young girl always chose a certain seat or got on the stop after you, the behavior of the dog... whatever suits you, whatever applies, just something to really set the home-ish-ness, the familiarity of the setting.
With the last verse, my immediate reaction is that you should add in an 'as in me' or 'as in them', since this has been so continuous throughout, however, after thinking about it, I am unsure whether the poem overall suggests that this is both a familiar journey and a familiar state of being for the 'me', or whether this final verse is supposed to indicate a kind of checking of reality, that the 'me' is seeing things through this state of despair and misery, but is seeing the world continuing as normal.
But, overall, I absolutely love it