04-18-2014, 08:26 AM
Hello Stephanie, interesting poem. While the theme isn't clear, I can see flashbacks to diverse nature scenes in this poem, with a climax in the loss of a parent to death or divorce, which does fling the door to childhood open, leaving a kid exposed to the coldness of the outside world.
The meter is very haphazard, and it makes reading this poem an exercise in curls for my tongue. The abrupt iamb to trochee in lines one and two, at "DAYS BUTtered" and "LIGHT "TELLing", trips my lips as I read. I'm not sure I see what those lines mean either, unless it describes telling direction from the moss on a tree.
Stanza 2: Line 2 is a nice use of alliteration, with the logical flow of a drying dripping darkened pipe. But do tell, considering the line placement, is the snail shell supposed to be dripping dry or is it just a trick of the light that tells time?
S3 has "Elastic summers", which instantly brings up this image of the Texas panhandle. I agree with the above, remove the distracting "broken ankles" and it flows into the next line, like snow.
S4 "which collapsed", followed by S5 "like the". In S5, why did a tree and a shovel collapse in a missed storm?
Between S5 and S6, it feels like you have more to get out on the page. The dissonance between a door flung open and a flung toy is like the dissonance between abusive childhood and the grief of losing mom or dad. From this perspective, the last two lines are a chilling image.
The meter is very haphazard, and it makes reading this poem an exercise in curls for my tongue. The abrupt iamb to trochee in lines one and two, at "DAYS BUTtered" and "LIGHT "TELLing", trips my lips as I read. I'm not sure I see what those lines mean either, unless it describes telling direction from the moss on a tree.
Stanza 2: Line 2 is a nice use of alliteration, with the logical flow of a drying dripping darkened pipe. But do tell, considering the line placement, is the snail shell supposed to be dripping dry or is it just a trick of the light that tells time?
S3 has "Elastic summers", which instantly brings up this image of the Texas panhandle. I agree with the above, remove the distracting "broken ankles" and it flows into the next line, like snow.
S4 "which collapsed", followed by S5 "like the". In S5, why did a tree and a shovel collapse in a missed storm?
Between S5 and S6, it feels like you have more to get out on the page. The dissonance between a door flung open and a flung toy is like the dissonance between abusive childhood and the grief of losing mom or dad. From this perspective, the last two lines are a chilling image.
*Warning: blatant tomfoolery above this line