03-17-2025, 04:44 PM
1
I like the way the first four lines ramble along. It evokes the very scene, or succession of scenes, it describes.
There's a tension that begins with the fifth and sixth lines between this piece as something to be read silently, as if from a book, and as something to be read aloud.
My neighbor kids: they weren't always a joy but they
were always---
(always) there.
just doesn't work read silently, it feels much more overbearing compared to the obvious alternative of
My neighbor kids: they weren't always a joy but they
were always there.
On the other hand, if read aloud, it might work, depending on how the rest of the piece continues it. Let's see.
2
The speaker now addresses someone specific: "you" plus the more conversational cadence of the shorter lines. I can only assume it's the same speaker, since the same sort of parenthetical refrains reoccur later in this section, but a different point in time and place. Reading ahead, this feels like the speaker when they were a child.
For the second and third lines of this section, I think the colon could be replaced with a period, and the semicolon replaced with a colon. But aren't pink slips pink, not red? You could also maybe remove "fired", if you make those pink slips the right color, and then have it so that the next phrase is part of the same sentence, thus:
I get it, I am too.
Alice reads the letter they sent her:
pink paper, black ink,
like so many others
we know. And our neighbors---
Here, the parentheticals now seem gimmicky, since "oh" just doesn't mean anything on its own, nor does it change or sufficiently enhance the meaning of what's around it. I imagine that, were this a transcription of a performance, that "oh" is an interjection a more reputable transcriber would ignore, or that the original performer never actually wrote down. The same goes with "no" later on and, retroactively, with "always".
Those gimmicky parentheticals removed, we have:
....And our neighbors---
the worst magic trick ever
discovered, they made our neighbors---
they made our neighbors
disappear and---
The repetition reinforces the idea that this is a kid.
The two scenes then seem to blend together with the final stanza, which makes me think that the numbers separating each scene is unnecessary: the careful reader, I think, could figure out the conceit on their own. As before, I would again suggested removing the parentheticals, although in this case removing the parentheses and adding a period would suffice:
don't forget that,
but---
nothing has,
please---
nothing ever has,
nothing's changed.
That final period would also reinforce the finality in this last statement. Nothing changes, nothing's changed: boom, recession, boom recession.
I like the way the first four lines ramble along. It evokes the very scene, or succession of scenes, it describes.
There's a tension that begins with the fifth and sixth lines between this piece as something to be read silently, as if from a book, and as something to be read aloud.
My neighbor kids: they weren't always a joy but they
were always---
(always) there.
just doesn't work read silently, it feels much more overbearing compared to the obvious alternative of
My neighbor kids: they weren't always a joy but they
were always there.
On the other hand, if read aloud, it might work, depending on how the rest of the piece continues it. Let's see.
2
The speaker now addresses someone specific: "you" plus the more conversational cadence of the shorter lines. I can only assume it's the same speaker, since the same sort of parenthetical refrains reoccur later in this section, but a different point in time and place. Reading ahead, this feels like the speaker when they were a child.
For the second and third lines of this section, I think the colon could be replaced with a period, and the semicolon replaced with a colon. But aren't pink slips pink, not red? You could also maybe remove "fired", if you make those pink slips the right color, and then have it so that the next phrase is part of the same sentence, thus:
I get it, I am too.
Alice reads the letter they sent her:
pink paper, black ink,
like so many others
we know. And our neighbors---
Here, the parentheticals now seem gimmicky, since "oh" just doesn't mean anything on its own, nor does it change or sufficiently enhance the meaning of what's around it. I imagine that, were this a transcription of a performance, that "oh" is an interjection a more reputable transcriber would ignore, or that the original performer never actually wrote down. The same goes with "no" later on and, retroactively, with "always".
Those gimmicky parentheticals removed, we have:
....And our neighbors---
the worst magic trick ever
discovered, they made our neighbors---
they made our neighbors
disappear and---
The repetition reinforces the idea that this is a kid.
The two scenes then seem to blend together with the final stanza, which makes me think that the numbers separating each scene is unnecessary: the careful reader, I think, could figure out the conceit on their own. As before, I would again suggested removing the parentheticals, although in this case removing the parentheses and adding a period would suffice:
don't forget that,
but---
nothing has,
please---
nothing ever has,
nothing's changed.
That final period would also reinforce the finality in this last statement. Nothing changes, nothing's changed: boom, recession, boom recession.