06-12-2021, 07:40 PM
(This post was last modified: 06-12-2021, 07:41 PM by RiverNotch.)
I don't like the title, it feels too cheesy or on-the-nose xD
I feel like it could be punctuated better. Possibly em dash at the end of the first line, semicolon in the second? Just having all three lines end in periods breaks it up too much; the poem seems to me to have a much better rhythm as one big sentence.
Now for a more critical note (in the sense of how I read the poem, not how the poem might be better read). I disagree with the sentiment of the speaker. Songs fade away from memory -- they come and go -- that's what makes certain moments with them, like an old man with dementia suddenly recalling The Drifters, so powerful.
"records spin spirits past" is enigmatic. It could be the archaism base notes, but it could also mean records spin ahead of spirits, or they push spirits behind. I'm inclined to think of the latter, since the archaism is the more unnatural -- hence unlikely -- read. In which case I continue to disagree with the speaker: records bring spirits back. Something like Sleater-Kinney's One Beat, written as a lively push against 9/11 (and the more repugnant responses to the event), didn't banish those spirits of extremism and greed, they simply rallied other spirits against them: the spirit of youth, the spirit of sisterhood, and so on. Or, speaking of another kind of spirit, records bring back the dead, even contemporize them, from the remasters of Ma Rainey's catalogue to St. Vincent's '70s inspired album Daddy's Home. And spirits, at least for me, tend to encourage or even enflame love, if the love is right.
But that's my reading of the piece, and I hope they don't suggest any judgements against its quality as a poem.
I feel like it could be punctuated better. Possibly em dash at the end of the first line, semicolon in the second? Just having all three lines end in periods breaks it up too much; the poem seems to me to have a much better rhythm as one big sentence.
Now for a more critical note (in the sense of how I read the poem, not how the poem might be better read). I disagree with the sentiment of the speaker. Songs fade away from memory -- they come and go -- that's what makes certain moments with them, like an old man with dementia suddenly recalling The Drifters, so powerful.
"records spin spirits past" is enigmatic. It could be the archaism base notes, but it could also mean records spin ahead of spirits, or they push spirits behind. I'm inclined to think of the latter, since the archaism is the more unnatural -- hence unlikely -- read. In which case I continue to disagree with the speaker: records bring spirits back. Something like Sleater-Kinney's One Beat, written as a lively push against 9/11 (and the more repugnant responses to the event), didn't banish those spirits of extremism and greed, they simply rallied other spirits against them: the spirit of youth, the spirit of sisterhood, and so on. Or, speaking of another kind of spirit, records bring back the dead, even contemporize them, from the remasters of Ma Rainey's catalogue to St. Vincent's '70s inspired album Daddy's Home. And spirits, at least for me, tend to encourage or even enflame love, if the love is right.
But that's my reading of the piece, and I hope they don't suggest any judgements against its quality as a poem.