apology

[jmnical]

reading a book as I eat breakfast
he walks by and reaches to stroke my hair
and I recoil—
his eyes harden.

mom says ‘you’re too sensitive
and you know he can’t help it
so you should say sorry
because he’s not going to
and really you’re very lucky’

but for years the decibel of his rage
struck like a hand;
the sting of words reverberating longer
than the time he actually spanked me

so I say sorry because I know how much he loves me
from the sleepless weeks he spent
in a lumpy armchair beside my hospital bed,
since he still calls me ‘pumpkin,’ and
chokes up when he tells me how proud he is

[abu nuwas]

Ugh. I have no experience of this, but find that the content-matter prevents me from looking at it coolly and make useful suggestions.

[billy]

hi jmnical.
thanks for the 1st poem of many (i hope)

i love the contrast of you knowing his love though i don't suppose it made the violence any easier.
it's the 2nd stanza that really makes this a good poem as opposed to to decent prose. whether it's personal or not doesn't matter (really) that it reads as personal does, and this reads that way. it feels like something the writer has actually experienced. i think you could lose a few small words to make it even tighter than it is. specially the 'two but's' though of course that's just a minor nit.

[jmnical]

thanks for the feedback, billy. i played around with the 'buts' and think you're right that i should tighten it up!
abu nuwas, i know it's kind of dark subject matter but it's for a specific assignment and this is what came out when i sat down to write. but i know sometimes for me, poetry is more for me than the audience.

[Wildcard]

Hi jmnical,
Welcome and glad to see you posting. I'm no expert, but I think you have a poem there

This has a really good feeling to it with an obvious emotional connection. I did think you could have tightened it up a good bit (especially the overuse of pronouns, 'he', etc.) Of course that is just my opinion.

Thanks for sharing.

[Todd]

Hi jmnical,

Welcome to the pigpen!

You have some nice moments here. The confusion of dealing with feelings of love from someone who hurts you is a good topic. How we feel isn't always clean a tidy. As to suggestions I would focus on what you could cut and enhance the poem through the cutting.

Examples:

L2: Is the and say good morning really necessary?
L3: from the context recoil itself reads involuntarily so you may not need the word.
L4: you can this line the well written S2 suggests his emotional state so telling us actually pulls us out of the moment. Trust the image or the reaction rather than adding the word for the emotion. What did the eyes do to show the anger (harden into pale chips of ice...whatever you choose just let the image speak for itself or again let the reaction in S2 do the work).

You get the idea. I hope some of that will be helpful.

Best,

Todd

I’m reading a book as I eat breakfast
he walks by and reaches to stroke my hair and say good morning
and I recoil involuntarily—
his eyes can’t disguise his anger.

mom tells me ‘you’re too sensitive
and you know he can’t help it
and you should say sorry
because he’s not going to
and really you’re very lucky’

but for years the decibel of his rage
hit me like a hand;
the sting of his words reverberating longer
than the time he actually spanked me
so I don’t quite know what to apologize for

but I know how much he loves me
from the sleepless weeks he spent in a lumpy
armchair beside my hospital bed during the summer of 2006,
and since he still calls me ‘pumpkin,’ and
he chokes up when he tells me how proud he is

[addy]

This is a great effort, imo. The last stanza really elevates this for me -- just those simple specific details delivered a great emotional wallop, and it stings how the narrator remembers small, specific kindnesses against the blurry years of unhappiness. Love is messy indeed, especially within family.

As the others have already mentioned, this could be tightened up some more... each line should count, should cut and linger in its brevity. So in certain instances (like in stanza 3 line 5 for example), having "padding" words makes your emotional punches lose some momentum. Just imo

Great job overall

[jmnical]

thanks so much for the feedback, everyone. i've changed it a bit and here's the new iteration: not sure how i feel about S4 L1 though


reading a book as I eat breakfast
he walks by and reaches to stroke my hair
and I recoil—
his eyes harden.

mom says ‘you’re too sensitive
and you know he can’t help it
and you should say sorry
because he’s not going to
and really you’re very lucky’

but for years the decibel of his rage
struck like a hand;
the sting of words reverberating longer
than the time he actually spanked me

so I say sorry
because I know how much he loves me
from the sleepless weeks he spent in a lumpy
armchair beside my hospital bed during the summer of 2006,
since he still calls me ‘pumpkin,’ and
chokes up when he tells me how proud he is

[Todd]

thanks so much for the feedback, everyone. i've changed it a bit and here's the new iteration: not sure how i feel about S4 L1 though


reading a book as I eat breakfast
he walks by and reaches to stroke my hair
and I recoil—
his eyes harden.

mom says ‘you’re too sensitive
and you know he can’t help it
and you should say sorry
because he’s not going to
and really you’re very lucky’

but for years the decibel of his rage
struck like a hand;
the sting of words reverberating longer
than the time he actually spanked me

so I say sorry
because I know how much he loves me
from the sleepless weeks he spent in a lumpy
armchair beside my hospital bed during the summer of 2006,
since he still calls me ‘pumpkin,’ and
chokes up when he tells me how proud he is

Well, think about why you don't like that line...maybe pull up because I know to the end of the line. Look at your line breaks in that strophe. In S4 L2 breaking on lumpy doesn't do much for you. I think either do the line break after spent or pull up armchair. In S4 L3 what does during and everything after it add...keep looking for cuts...just a few more thoughts.

Generally hit the edit button and place rewrites above your original than people will always comment on your latest version.

Best,

Todd

[Erthona]

2 observations
Although the speaker is probably female, this feels like it was written by a male.
-----------------------------------------
These first two lines read a bit awkwardly

"reading a book as I eat breakfast
he walks by and reaches to stroke my hair"

Maybe

I eat breakfast while reading a book,
he walks by and reaches to stroke my hair:
I recoil—
his eyes harden.

Personally, I would say "my father walks by..."

as I see no reason to be coy with who it is, and it would keep the reader from wasting time pondering who the speaker is talking about.
---------------------------------------------------
" not sure how i feel about S4 L1 though"

What about

"Sorry!" I say,

--------------------------------------------
Actually a third. Just because it is poetry, doesn't mean you can't use proper punctuation, especially as there seems no reason not to, and the clarity of this piece would improve by it's usage.
---------------------------------------------------
Also "decibel" does not express what you seem to try to imply with its usage. It seems you are trying to use it to mean intensity, instead of a unit of measurement.

Aside from those little things this is a nice vignette about young adult individuation and the tension it creates.


Dale

[billy]

i think the sorry line works better and after reading dale's idea of using the sorry as actualual speach i think that would be the best way to go.

[jmnical]

"Aside from those little things this is a nice vignette about young adult individuation and the tension it creates."

Thanks for the feedback. However, this poem is really about internal conflict caused by emotional abuse from a parent (fearing them and loving them at the same time). I guess I need to make that clearer somehow.

I also wonder what makes you feel like it was written by a male? And is that problematic if it's supposed to be from the perspective of a female? I am not sure quite what you meant by that.

[billy]

Wierd
I never thought about it but i did imagine it was from a female pov. Mainly because of the hair stroking.
It's something i did with my two daughters, so i guess it stems from that. It also 'just felt feminine"
It, was not a problem.

[Erthona]

"I also wonder what makes you feel like it was written by a male? And is that problematic if it's supposed to be from the perspective of a female? I am not sure quite what you meant by that."

I think I thought it was male because of the analytic nature of it, and it is also a more "male" reaction to attention from the father. It was problematic for me, because it seemed it was a girl who was speaking in terms of the clues provided, however (and this is where the problem arises), if he were a girl then there is nothing that indicates abuse, but if male, the hair stroking takes on a different meaning. Having the gender of the speaker be left ambivalent creates uncertainty about what the poem was trying to convey. since from the clues within the poem it appeared this was a girl talking, I made the assessment that it was an independence issue, and the girl resented being "smothered" or constrained by her father. Of course if it is a boy, the hair stroking, especially so openly takes on a more sinister aspect. At the very least it is problematic because the reader has to decide what the gender is before they can have any clarity about the poem. To me, that is disruptive to the reading of the poem.

Dale

[Todd]

hmm I didn't get a sense of the poet's gender from the write. I did think that the speaker in the poem was intended to be female with pumpkin and the hair line--also, the father's dialogue.

[Erthona]

I don't think intent is the issue, but how it can be read, and there is nothing keeping it from being read as the speaker being male, which puts a completely different twist on things.

Dale

[billy]

i know i must have brought some of my own experiences to the read. and my girls pulled away from me a lot. they hated me stroking their hair. more from irritation so i suppose that's not relevant.

[heslopian]

I really like this poem. I like how the father wasn't portrayed as a stereotypical abuser, but someone who's used physical discipline and obviously cares for his child. The waters you explore here are deep and troubling. The poem nicely illustrates the issue of spanking and if it's a necessary or useful punishment. I personally think it's a weak and damaging way to discipline a child, creating the kind of emotional distance you convey so well here, but the great thing about this poem is that it isn't biased towards my or anyone else's opinion. The child feels hurt by the father, but the father loves the child deeply. Thanks for the read, and I look forward to reading more of your work.