05-31-2014, 12:31 PM
I'm a-ok with 'spilt'. I think you can get away with it even if it's not in Websters, mostly because it sounds good both on its own and in context, and because people will understand what you mean. Not meaning to discount olive_morphia's suggestions, just throwing it out there - different readers respond to different stuff!
I like this poem a lot, and I think the restrained line length and sort of restrained language contrasts with the kind of whimsical images used throughout the poem. I like the way "spill/spilt" and the different uses of "all" create moments of repetition here. I feel like there's a tension between showing us particulars and holding things back. I get a really clear image from the first few lines, though I'm sure its not exactly what you're looking at and imagining: I think about the smell of lilacs, mostly because that's familiar to me. And I like the idea of spring spilling into a glass and becoming wine, of the speaker getting sort of sloppy drunk on it. But at the same time, I wonder what other particulars in the poem refer to. It's like we see these brief snapshots with the red bracelets, the piano, "your hands" along seams. Seams of a tight dress, the first one that comes out of the closet after a long winter? Along seems of the world, undoing everything? I kind of have to put together the story myself from these snapshots.
There's a bit of sentence structure/grammatical weirdness I wanted to point out:
I hope you find this useful - let me know if you want to discuss further.
I like this poem a lot, and I think the restrained line length and sort of restrained language contrasts with the kind of whimsical images used throughout the poem. I like the way "spill/spilt" and the different uses of "all" create moments of repetition here. I feel like there's a tension between showing us particulars and holding things back. I get a really clear image from the first few lines, though I'm sure its not exactly what you're looking at and imagining: I think about the smell of lilacs, mostly because that's familiar to me. And I like the idea of spring spilling into a glass and becoming wine, of the speaker getting sort of sloppy drunk on it. But at the same time, I wonder what other particulars in the poem refer to. It's like we see these brief snapshots with the red bracelets, the piano, "your hands" along seams. Seams of a tight dress, the first one that comes out of the closet after a long winter? Along seems of the world, undoing everything? I kind of have to put together the story myself from these snapshots.
There's a bit of sentence structure/grammatical weirdness I wanted to point out:
(05-29-2014, 10:39 PM)expiring_touch Wrote: I’ve spilt myself all overI'm having a hard time figuring out how the bolded section of the sentence fits in with the rest of it; I get it as part of that scene, or as part of the overall milieu of the poem. The way it's after "red wine and all" suggests that the shy nods and obscene swirls are parts that the speaker has spilt all over the pavement, but because these things are actions and not objects, I'm having a hard time imagining it ... this part of the sentence feels more separate, like a comma is not enough to clarify and delineate what's going on here.
the pavement, too,
red wine and all, shy nods,
and obscene swirls
with a stranger.
I hope you find this useful - let me know if you want to discuss further.