The Onion

[tomoffing]

Thanks for the crit tec,

If you have a chance could you help me out on my questions/comments below to aid the revision and editing?

Light filters to me through leaves
camouflaging the back field Awkward syntax...partly due to overwordiness.
as I lean, palms pressed upon cool marble, "As" is a non-dependant filler. If you were not leaning against cool marble would the other conditions vanish? Drop the as. Period after field. Capital "I", new sentence. Period after recipes.
over a spine-broken book of your recipes; Over over-over modified. are you referring to over-modification of the verse, or this line specifically?

Point taken and understood re the "as" dependency too btw

dog-eared, well-thumbed, Capital D on dog
inclined agin a rolling pin, Like agin, but not a lot
it instructs me
to peel and slice an onion. You cannot be serious! This is the end of the first sentence. Punctuate to clarity


Clasping the gleaming orb Faux-poetic, as someone on this site will agree granted, this is horrific
worked from earth, my elbow yields
to density, then rebounds What this mean?
from the board's wooden knell. You are off on a ship afloat in alphabet soup. board's wooden knell means nothing to me. Help

This stanza is trying to convey the action of dropping the onion's weight onto the chopping board. Would a more deliberate description of the onion itself in line 1 frame this better? or are the actions themselves confusing?


I nick and strip it's sere brown skin, Again, over-modified
center and split to reveal Read and repent.It makes no sense i cant see the over mod here? How would you more simply present the actions involved in slicing an onion? (im not being impetuous, just trying to understand
two pale discs of morning sun
and eclipsing one, begin to slice. Would be nice if clearly expressed

My dull blade chaws and stutters
through thick rotations, tearing layers
into one another and releasing
a keen earthy tang

that confronts and quickens
then blurs the senses
with concentrated tears; a furrowing
that needles the very middle of the mind.

But the sting is salved
when I scrape the grey mulch What? Enough
into smoking oil and it spits and sizzles,
simmering to golden translucent clarity,

liberating a sweet-savoury aroma
that stimulates a deeply satisfying
insatiable hunger to understand something
so much simpler and yet more accomplished than I.

...needs work...but doesn't everything.
Workshop it.
Best,
tectak

thanks again mate, t

---

This is not feedback (don't get angry mods!) but Tom I was really hoping this would be a poem about The Onion. ;D

i wish cloudy, not sharp enough yet for that kind of subject matter.
Funny you say that though, I was reminded of this classic onion effort yesterday.
beckett blanket