06-02-2014, 03:39 AM
This poem makes me sad and I like it a lot. It does a lot in a relatively small space. The title does a lot of work here. I wonder about how calm and understated it feels - it reminds me of lots of short stories about similar family and home troubles, where the calm or terse tone of the storyteller or narrator ends up calling out turmoil beneath the surface. It's not really like a Raymond Carver story or poem, but it's maybe … in the same general neighborhood. Does that make sense? (I hope so).
I get most tangled up in the middle stanza. All the images leave a lot up to interpretation, I think; there are a few ways to see 'comb and mirror' - her combing her hair over a black eye so it's less noticeable? Him fixing himself up after a fight, looking like a gentleman after brutish behavior? Because there's enough context elsewhere in the poem I can sort of 'get' the middle, even if it's not obvious, but I felt like that was a lot easier on my second and third reads through the poem. I saw courted sleep as something done gingerly, done to avoid further violence; letting him sleep even when she wanted to wake him up, or laying in bed praying for sleep for a few hours of peace. It seems like you're ok with the fact that the middle is sort of open for interpretation … is there something here that I'm missing, that you want to make sure readers get?
I also think that the image of the dove with the mother's eyes is very important, and wraps up the poem nicely without seeming 'pat'. Its familiar but strange, and a little haunting.
I get most tangled up in the middle stanza. All the images leave a lot up to interpretation, I think; there are a few ways to see 'comb and mirror' - her combing her hair over a black eye so it's less noticeable? Him fixing himself up after a fight, looking like a gentleman after brutish behavior? Because there's enough context elsewhere in the poem I can sort of 'get' the middle, even if it's not obvious, but I felt like that was a lot easier on my second and third reads through the poem. I saw courted sleep as something done gingerly, done to avoid further violence; letting him sleep even when she wanted to wake him up, or laying in bed praying for sleep for a few hours of peace. It seems like you're ok with the fact that the middle is sort of open for interpretation … is there something here that I'm missing, that you want to make sure readers get?
I also think that the image of the dove with the mother's eyes is very important, and wraps up the poem nicely without seeming 'pat'. Its familiar but strange, and a little haunting.