06-03-2014, 11:12 AM
I really like the use of repetition in the beginning of the poem, the way the speaker is torn between putting away these things and then taking them back out again. I think the simple statement works. It hurts. It's easy to connect with this poem even though I haven't experienced this same kind of loss. The focus on the simple motion of putting away and then bringing out again is a really concrete and understated way to show me what the speaker is going through.
I'm also wondering about the use of "thing" towards the end of the poem. "Thing" in poetry gives a writer a lot of leeway, both on the page and in the mind of the reader. Thing is about as broad as it gets while still denoting something tangible. A lot of times a writer will throw down "thing" on the page when no good noun asserts itself, or when no noun is broad enough to talk about all the things the poem is trying to talk about. So when I first see it in a poem I usually think that the poet could definitely make "thing" into something more specific and the poem would be improved. But here? I'm not totally sure. My first response was that the repetition of "thing" was something to edit. But all of the other words I'd change it out for aren't cutting it. I can't come up with a word that implies the value of these objects. But if you can think of one, that might be a good word to think about here, somewhere. I don't know if a word for a specific physical object, like gold or jewels, would get the main idea across - at least, what seems to me the main idea. The things the speaker has go way beyond just commemorative objects. A part of that person is in the old photos and letters, even though the person is gone. Those are physical objects holding something non-physical. At least, that's how I'm seeing it: the things that the speaker holds on to are way more than "just things" as we'd usually think of them. I wonder if there's a way to get at that towards the end. The poem does already, obliquely, because the repetition/self-rhyme of "things" feels very flat. But is there a way to call it out? Beyond "my soul" in the last line? I think it would work best sitting side by side with the understanding of these things as objects, but also as things beyond objects. And I think that including some other word could start calling out all the different meanings of "thing", how it's too much but not enough, how it encompasses every object but doesn't describe any one of them.
I'm also wondering about the use of "thing" towards the end of the poem. "Thing" in poetry gives a writer a lot of leeway, both on the page and in the mind of the reader. Thing is about as broad as it gets while still denoting something tangible. A lot of times a writer will throw down "thing" on the page when no good noun asserts itself, or when no noun is broad enough to talk about all the things the poem is trying to talk about. So when I first see it in a poem I usually think that the poet could definitely make "thing" into something more specific and the poem would be improved. But here? I'm not totally sure. My first response was that the repetition of "thing" was something to edit. But all of the other words I'd change it out for aren't cutting it. I can't come up with a word that implies the value of these objects. But if you can think of one, that might be a good word to think about here, somewhere. I don't know if a word for a specific physical object, like gold or jewels, would get the main idea across - at least, what seems to me the main idea. The things the speaker has go way beyond just commemorative objects. A part of that person is in the old photos and letters, even though the person is gone. Those are physical objects holding something non-physical. At least, that's how I'm seeing it: the things that the speaker holds on to are way more than "just things" as we'd usually think of them. I wonder if there's a way to get at that towards the end. The poem does already, obliquely, because the repetition/self-rhyme of "things" feels very flat. But is there a way to call it out? Beyond "my soul" in the last line? I think it would work best sitting side by side with the understanding of these things as objects, but also as things beyond objects. And I think that including some other word could start calling out all the different meanings of "thing", how it's too much but not enough, how it encompasses every object but doesn't describe any one of them.