I hope your summer is off to a great start! Here's my June poem. I'd love your general feedback, but I'd also like your suggestions re: verb tense. I'm trying to switch back and forth in tense to further the sense of imaginative travel. Is this confusing?
Word Games & Space Travel
Michael Thompson, Girl with a Hole in Her Stocking, 2008
A hesitation. A hole.
A rip.
Sometimes, my thoughts
proceed like this.
Like a teasing
at the seams where one
thread loosens, then
another
only to contract in another
place. The way I think
splinter,
then sister. O’ the association
games she and I played
to pass the time. Fall,
she’d say. Leaves, I’d reply.
Cotton
candy, clouds.
Statement-response,
syllables stitched up
the hours. Almond, eye,
telescope.
Words aligned
imperfectly,
but that was the pleasure.
In the crevices and
cracks,
we sought out the ineffable.
What do you see?, I’d ask.
A blue
earing pulsing
in the baseboards.
What
do you feel?, her follow-up.
My toe pushing through
a rip in my stocking.
Bending down, I beheld
the smallest opening
widening, widening
into ever-expanding present
where I feel grass, I
feel bark,
and leaves and linens
drying on clotheslines.
Trampolines and hot air balloons.
Yellow wings (are they
mine)?
The horizon is no thicker
than thread from which
violet-
blue beads hang,
tiny
orbiting planets
beneath my touch.
Hi Shannon-- this is one of my favorite poems of yours that I've read so far! I enjoyed it each time I read, and didn't feel the need to go in search of the image. I love "teasing at the seams" "Almond, eye" "crevices and cracks" "leaves and linens"... All those like and unlike pairs that are so lovely to consider together. A few tiny tweaks-- why not 'oh' the association (rather than o')-- there is a typo at ear(r)ing. "We sought out the ineffable" is too on-the-nose for my taste, but others may disagree.
ReplyDeleteI would think about adding --an--
widening,widening
into an ever-expanding present
I'm confused about the Yellow wings (are they mine) line.
To answer your question, I didn't have any problem with the verb tenses. I'm not satisfied with the title of this poem, though. It just seems to summarize... What about Blue Earring or Splinter Sister...? Thanks, Shannon.
Hi Shannon,
ReplyDeleteI’m so engaged by this poem. I felt like I moved from resonant sensory impression to resonant sensory impression all the way down the page. The sensory seems to be both the subject of the poem—“what do you see?”/ “what do you feel?”—and also a foregrounded part of the experience of reading the poem, as the graceful couplets move down the page and the sounds of especially the italicized words echo. I especially like “splinter” and “sister.” I almost didn’t need the reference to the painting at the top; I thought the poem stood on its own without it. Or perhaps consider changing the title to “After Michael Thompson, Girl with a Hole…”? I thought there was some pruning that would help these images to stand on their own. For instance, “Sometimes, my thoughts / proceed like this.” I love the poem’s opening, and moving directly into “Like a teasing…” feels more exciting and true to the poem rather than what felt like explanation to me in the “Sometimes” sentence. I could also part with the “Words aligned imperfectly” sentence, as it seemed to me to say something that most readers of poetry already understand implicitly. Re: your question about verb tense, I read the past tense to be within the memory of playing with the sister, and the present to be at the time of recalling that memory. If that is the intention, I did not find it to be confusing. Hope that helps!
Dargie
Thanks for these wonderful comments! This poem was just picked up by the Los Angeles Review, so it'll appear in print soon :).
ReplyDeleteWonderful news! Congratulations!
DeleteWhat a remarkable poem, Shannon! Filled with surprising images and so many cool sounds. The verb tenses worked perfectly for me -- and clearly they did for the LA Review, too! Congratulations on its acceptance! It's a beauty!
ReplyDelete