12-28-2015, 08:51 PM
Hi there Ellajam,
This is a really tight poem that I enjoyed quite a bit. I can see that this has been through quite a revision, and I have not read the original. However, I have provided some thoughts below. I hope this is helpful.
The Gift of the Empty Hand (edit #1)
You left without your things.
Eighty years of salvaged scraps sorted
and shelved alongside Twain, Cayce, Eliot;
illegible religious tomes and old issues
of Archeology, New Yorker and Science, (comma here)
each with one article you couldn't trash.
Closets stacked with antique picnic baskets
and almost working vacuum cleaners, (I'm not too sure about "almost working", but I'm not sure of an appropriate replacement. I see that you're trying to say that they're not working but well kept. Maybe you could replace it with "and well kept broken vacuum cleaners" or something descriptive like that.)
Polaroid cameras in their striped boxes, (I don't think you need "their".)
stacks of photos you caught, and that caught you. (add the comma and remove the "that".)
When the ocean took it all you came, (perhaps a full-stop, a semi-colon, or a em dash instead.)
I heard your grinning voice:
"It's just stuff."
My arms are full of empty,
free to hold today.
Great poem.
Emma
This is a really tight poem that I enjoyed quite a bit. I can see that this has been through quite a revision, and I have not read the original. However, I have provided some thoughts below. I hope this is helpful.
The Gift of the Empty Hand (edit #1)
You left without your things.
Eighty years of salvaged scraps sorted
and shelved alongside Twain, Cayce, Eliot;
illegible religious tomes and old issues
of Archeology, New Yorker and Science, (comma here)
each with one article you couldn't trash.
Closets stacked with antique picnic baskets
and almost working vacuum cleaners, (I'm not too sure about "almost working", but I'm not sure of an appropriate replacement. I see that you're trying to say that they're not working but well kept. Maybe you could replace it with "and well kept broken vacuum cleaners" or something descriptive like that.)
Polaroid cameras in their striped boxes, (I don't think you need "their".)
stacks of photos you caught, and that caught you. (add the comma and remove the "that".)
When the ocean took it all you came, (perhaps a full-stop, a semi-colon, or a em dash instead.)
I heard your grinning voice:
"It's just stuff."
My arms are full of empty,
free to hold today.
Great poem.
Emma