2 hours ago
This is earnest and vulnerable which is always to be commended. Probably the two biggest things some readers may struggle with are the use of Standard Meter, and the static content.
The standard meter (4/3 or 4/4) can feel kinda played out, and sometimes weirdly has the side effect of trivializing the tone. This is because the same meter is widely used for nursery rhymes. Of course it didn't stop Emily Dickinson but worth thinking about as a potential formal tension.
Meanwhile, the poem doesn't really go anywhere - after the first few lines it's established that "I feel bad about how I treated you" and this remains the thrust throughout. The specific apologies - making you cry, drinking too much, breaking promises, not trying hard enough - are all pretty generic reasons for a relationship to sour. So it ends up feeling too universal and abstract to pack much punch. I can tell the speaker feels deeply, but I don't really feel much reading it.
I think what could elevate this is for the poem to somehow surprise us. Maybe the speaker seems to just be giving an expected litany of mea culpas, but then the "most of all" is something we didn't see coming, and emphasizing it reveals something particular to this speaker's state of mind or history with the beloved.
e.g. "most of all, I hate that I will never again pull into the drive-in with the windows down and wonder if I'm smelling autumn leaves and popcorn, or the traces of your hair" type shi
The standard meter (4/3 or 4/4) can feel kinda played out, and sometimes weirdly has the side effect of trivializing the tone. This is because the same meter is widely used for nursery rhymes. Of course it didn't stop Emily Dickinson but worth thinking about as a potential formal tension.
Meanwhile, the poem doesn't really go anywhere - after the first few lines it's established that "I feel bad about how I treated you" and this remains the thrust throughout. The specific apologies - making you cry, drinking too much, breaking promises, not trying hard enough - are all pretty generic reasons for a relationship to sour. So it ends up feeling too universal and abstract to pack much punch. I can tell the speaker feels deeply, but I don't really feel much reading it.
I think what could elevate this is for the poem to somehow surprise us. Maybe the speaker seems to just be giving an expected litany of mea culpas, but then the "most of all" is something we didn't see coming, and emphasizing it reveals something particular to this speaker's state of mind or history with the beloved.
e.g. "most of all, I hate that I will never again pull into the drive-in with the windows down and wonder if I'm smelling autumn leaves and popcorn, or the traces of your hair" type shi