04-18-2014, 10:51 AM
Hi alatos, I enjoyed your basic money theme, but felt that perhaps they suggest the narrative voice to be homo economicus (Economic Man, concerned with things only in terms of economic profit in all forms of existence) to such an extent that, in my eyes, your view of true love is subtly undermined. While it has the potential for genius irony in a poem, I'm not sure if it is intentional and if it is supported by the rest of your poem.
I did, however, find your word structure, punctuation and line breaks to be very effective here:
"it’s better spent on something worth the cost
of living than to waste, to patronize
my heart with dollar signs. Then, you left me."
The enjambment of the first two lines adds to the abruptness of your caesura, and the comma in "Then, you left me" resonated with me when I read it out loud. I tried reading it without the comma, and the phrase sounded too detached from its temporaneous essence which is so striking about it and indicates the change in the poem's emphasis. While I agree with Mopkins that you have a tense issue, "Then" seems such a good divider of ideas to me that I would be loathe to part with it without a better substitute than "But".
I did, however, find your word structure, punctuation and line breaks to be very effective here:
"it’s better spent on something worth the cost
of living than to waste, to patronize
my heart with dollar signs. Then, you left me."
The enjambment of the first two lines adds to the abruptness of your caesura, and the comma in "Then, you left me" resonated with me when I read it out loud. I tried reading it without the comma, and the phrase sounded too detached from its temporaneous essence which is so striking about it and indicates the change in the poem's emphasis. While I agree with Mopkins that you have a tense issue, "Then" seems such a good divider of ideas to me that I would be loathe to part with it without a better substitute than "But".