Row 6

[TrevorConway]

Hello Trevor, thanks for sharing your poem. This one was easy to read and imagine, so easy to critique. I hope some of my comments are useful.

Row 6

[Edit]

Our third plane trip together,
my daughter bends across her seat,
fascinated by stained-glass fields 
below--browns, greens and yellows. 

I'm not sure if my variation is an improvement haha.  I mostly just thought terrain was redundant. I do think your edit is an improvement from the original though... I especially liked fascinated by fields, below... because the simplicity of the line seemed to mirror the simplicity of childhood/childhood wonder. The image of the stained glass field is my favorite in the poem! 


I’m more aware of the man in row 6
with black hair and grey streaks like thin cloud. Nice... clouds stays in the airplane world.
He’s been watching us with eyes Hmmm, not sure about the enjambment here because it leaves me at the end of the line thinking, what else would he be watching with?
that seem, to me, glazed in some sad thought.  I'm glad you got rid of naked thought, read kinda creepy
He could be dreaming of sitting here,
his own daughter by his side. If he dreams hard enough he could create a tulpa.

I’m fascniated by the man in row 6
black hair with grey streaks like thin clouds,
and eyes glazed in sad thought.
He could be dreaming of sitting here,
his own daughter by his side.

I imagine he remembers
a love that saw its end in talk
of children and their absence,
of wanting and not wanting, being stuck between.
I want to tell him, Don’t regret
that you’ll never suffer dark moods
from mangled sleep, nights blent
into mornings and watercolour weeks.

This stanza is strange because it seems to be about the guy in row 6, but then I'm more interested in the psychology of the narrator? Its presumptive to assume this guy's situation and with such specificity? Makes me wonder if the narrator is projecting something themselves! I'd be curious what your  intentions are here. 

As if on cue,
my daughter whips up a storm of whining
over a broken pencil.
The food trolley approaches,
and I pay for a pleasant reprieve, I read this is as pray the first time, ha. I like that it can be both. 
closing my eyes to savour it.

When they open, he’s still there,
casting a glance as she kisses me,
plucking her spoils from a bag of Maltesers.
Be happy with who you are, I tell him,
imagining myself in his seat:
row 6, by the window,
without anyone to attend to.

The grass is always greener? I'd resist the urge to make too much meaning of the episode, hence the big cut at the end. Maybe that's more a taste thing than a valid critique? I don't trust a tidy ending! 

Thanks for your input, Miley. I have incorporated the stained-glass fields suggestion and dealt with the enjambment of "with eyes". Re the assumptions about the other passenger, I hoped it was implied that the speaker had a similar decision to make in his life, choosing a different path to the man in row 6. Hence, that man represents what could have been. Maybe I should have been blunter about it, but it feels like something that should be implied.

Thanks again,

Trev