Vinyl Visions

[Bunx]

Vinyl Visions

Her face in my mind.
Memory spins spirits past.
A record in time.

[TranquillityBase]

Nice one.  But I have urge to change l. 3, something else besides “sprits past”.  Seems archaic.

[Bunx]

Definitely get that point! These are pretty difficult haha.

[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.

[Bunx]

River- Thanks for the thoughtful critique. It got my wheels turning about how board this poem can be taken. The original idea was brought out when I was listening to a whole of the first records I bought when I got my turn table.

There is this particular record from Lavender Diamond "Imagine Our Love". After my first adult love moved to Portland we broke things off. I listened to this record and remember crying and thinking. Man I can't listen to this without thinking about this moment in time, a past love almost like a spirit. To this day I listen to this record and remember the whole event so vividly.

I wanted to capture that in a brief poem. I reworded, re titled, and rearranged this poem to hopefully get that idea across more fluidly, the first edit was way to broad. I hope you like the changes and get the idea I was going for!

Thanks again for the thoughtful reply

[homer1950]

Vinyl Visions

Her face in my mind.
Memory spins spirits past.
A record in time.

You may want to bring more 
Vinyl imagery to your work? 

Example:

Her face in my mind,
spinning back to a-
single on 45,

Long gone now,
no more rotations-
a record in time…