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morning
| Critical Analysis #1 |
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morning |
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hush Senior Member
since 2001-05-27
Posts 1653Ohio, USA |
I woke up this morning much like I do every other morning. We talked on the phone for nearly an hour and I walked upstairs to pee. My dog greeted me with her pink mushroom-shaped nose stuck against my cheek. There was a blue light in the bathroom; sunlight reflected from the snow. The days are passing in a blur but that’s okay for now. I think about the way your hands describe me as they pass along my skin, and our eyes settled into each other like a good book and a boring day. Sometimes I forget to think about these things. And our laughter, and why we laugh and how our friendship never ended we just punctuate playful insults with kisses now. The days are passing in more than a blur; they’re racing, chasing each other and I can never keep up. All I can do is ask you to hold me now, and it’ll be okay I’ve got a little hope today. "I'm thinking about leaving tomorrow |
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Not A Poet Member Elite
since 1999-11-03
Posts 3885Oklahoma, USA |
As usual, you tell a good story. The beginning here seems a little prosey maybe but the imagery is good. I got a little confused in the first stanza. I felt like the dog's nose should have been in the bed but the order of things makes me think it was while you were peeing. That's a pretty big dog which seems incongruous with the pink nose. BTW, I'm not sure we need to know it's mushroom shaped. I like the reflected blue light but the semicolon really should be a comma. I particularly liked the "hands on the skin" stanza. Then it seems to almost flatten out toward the end. The last line in particular maybe needs some lead-in or explanation. I think I know what you are saying but it would be stronger if you made it more clear. Thanks for the read, Pete |
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jenni Member
since 1999-09-11
Posts 478Washington D.C. |
hush-- i liked this piece overall, it has a sort of dreamy, slow-motion quality to it, like the special effects you see in movies sometimes where lovers are on a busy sidewalk or in an airport or something and the camera pans around them holding hands and looking at each other while everything around them goes three times normal speed. i also loved the last line; it manages to be sweet and somewhat fragile and haunting at the same time. very well done. the first stanza though, didn't seem to quite fit with the rest of the piece, it's just a little too off-putting (to me, anyway), with the peeing and the pink mushroom-shaped nose... a little too much information there, as they say. i think if you wanted to ground the piece in earthy, rather unromantic details, there are maybe other ways to go. another thing that seemed odd about the first stanza, though, is its very ordinariness, when what you describe in the rest of the piece is rather special. i think with the "good book and a boring day" line, you've already managed to convey the sense of how the ordinary can sometimes be quite special (or can exist within something special), so maybe you don't need the first stanza at all (or find a way to connect it a little better with the rest of the piece). one more thing... "the days are passing in a blur"... "the days are passing in more than a blur"... which is it? lol nice work, though, hush, thanks for sharing it with us. jenni |
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hush Senior Member
since 2001-05-27
Posts 1653Ohio, USA |
Pete- I guess I didn't give much thought to the order of occurences in stanza 1. This poem is probably one of the most autobiographical things I've posted here, and it's true to life. My bedroom is in the basement. Our dogs don't go down there. I call my boyfriend when I wake up. Then I go upstairs, and usually, I pee. My dog (a big whitish lab mix) usually walks in and snuffles my cheek with her pink nose to wish me good morning. Personally, my thoughts on the last stanza were that it bordered on cliche, but I wasn't exactly sure where I wanted to go with it. jenni- I don't know... I'm sort of attached to my details- they make up my day. They might not be the prettiest things in the world, but I could have presented it a lot more bluntly and 'unromantic' than I did. I didn't mean for the poem to be a romance poem, but rather a poem about my reflecting on romance. There's a difference, I think. The bit about the days passing in a blur- I guess I kind of meant for that to be the speaker correcting herself within the poem... like reflecting on her earlier comments and realizing they didn't quite capture the feeling... I guess 'more than a blur' was also an admittance that there really are no words, but it's not merely the cliched "days passing in a blur." I guess I'll try to make that more clear. "I'm thinking about leaving tomorrow |
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Opeth Senior Member
since 2001-12-13
Posts 1543The Ravines |
Simply put, there was no corelation between the first stanza and the rest of your poem. Either remove the first stanza, rewrite it, or add to the ending of your poem, the reason as to why you were taking a pee with the dog close by and thinking about that special person at the same time. |
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hush Senior Member
since 2001-05-27
Posts 1653Ohio, USA |
Opeth- I thought that since the first stanza included 'We talked on the phone for nearly an hour' and then went on to explain that I go on with day-to-day activities, it was pretty obvious that I was thinking about this person (while peeing with the dog by me, which just coincidentally goes together- I suppose I could add a line or two about how she always walks into the bathroom, but I think that would be a bit extraneous.) because I had just gotten off the phone with him. I don't necessarily think that you have to have a "why" when you're thinking about someone you love... sometimes it just happens for no reason at all. I can see why that might seem like an inconsistency in the context of a poem, but I don't really think it is. Thanks for the input. "I'm thinking about leaving tomorrow I'm thinking about being on my own I think I been wasting my time I'm thinking about getting out" [This message has been edited by hush (01-04-2002 11:27 AM).] |
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Not A Poet Member Elite
since 1999-11-03
Posts 3885Oklahoma, USA |
Ok, it's a pretty big dog then. I still like the first stanza and would not consider dropping or moving it. I do go back to my original comment though that the mushroom-shaped pink nose still makes me visualize a little dog and just throws it off. Maybe some rewording in that one area would pull it all together, IMHO, of course. Pete |
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strbbux Member Elite
since 2001-12-19
Posts 3859 |
Hush I start out by smiling, then you go to other emotions, great writing. I loved this floria |
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Brad Member Ascendant
since 1999-08-20
Posts 5705Jejudo, South Korea |
I woke up this morning much like I do every other morning. --My first thought was the Beatles, but isn't there another problem here? It seems clear that you want the 'other' to stress all the other mornings but it can be read as "I woke up today like I do every other day, not everyday" so you're saying that on some days you don't wake up. I think you should clear this up or, and this may be the more interesting approach, write a poem where you only wake up every other day.  We talked on the phone for nearly an hour and I walked upstairs to pee. --I find these next three sentences jarring (that has already been talked about) but my problem is that you need more details, not less. You've set up a mood in the first two lines -- lethargic, routine, mundane -- but here, for no discernible reason, you seem to be breaking it with words like 'pee'. I like the 'walked upstairs'. Most sleep upstairs and move down -- this is an interesting metaphor here if you wanted to play with it a bit more. My dog greeted me with her pink mushroom-shaped nose stuck against my cheek. --Okay, but I think you can make the dog live a little bit more with the reader. Give us more, this seems too stark again for the mood you've set up. There was a blue light in the bathroom; sunlight reflected from the snow. --Instead of describing the rest of the poem, I'm tempted to say that you've got the skeleton for a poem in the first stanza. If you expanded these lines on color, the dog's description, and interrelate them to the phone call so that create an epiphany for you, a breaking of the lethargy of the first two lines, I think that would be a strong way to go. You don't need to tell the story anymore, you already have it in the images. The days are passing in a blur but that¡¯s okay for now. --I think this already telegraphed in the first stanza. I think about the way your hands describe me as they pass along my skin, --Why not integrate this idea into the phone call, compare and contrast the words with the hands -- I like the use of describe here. and our eyes settled into each other like a good book and a boring day. --blah, wouldn't it be better to give a specific book on a specific day? No doubt a good book can make a day pass in a blur as can looking and/or being with someone but I feel that you're being too general here (unless you mean the Bible, but then you would need to capitalize book perhaps). It's okay to describe a boring day, but don't let your writing be boring. Sometimes I forget to think about these things. --What things? More, more, I want more. And our laughter, and why we laugh and how our friendship never ended we just punctuate playful insults with kisses now. --There's alot of potential play here. I think there's a lot you can do with the ideas here (and 'punctuate' is very nice -- with 'describe' -- but more, more more). --Less isn't always more, you know. The days are passing in more than a blur; they¡¯re racing, chasing each other and I can never keep up. All I can do is ask you to hold me now, and it¡¯ll be okay I¡¯ve got a little hope today. --You have a kind of rising action here but I don't understand why. I still think the climax to this poem should be the colors of the bathroom. Thanks, Brad |
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hush Senior Member
since 2001-05-27
Posts 1653Ohio, USA |
Brad- I want to thank you for the great points you've made. There were a few things I have to point out though. I thought pee was a mundane word? It's a mundane thing. I pee all the time. It's boring. Nobody cares. You want more details? Do you really want to hear exactly how full my bladder was before I went, or about the tickle of relief as it exits my body through my urethra? I don't particularly care to hear about it too much- I'm not offended or put off, simply bored. I'm also curious as to the metaphor you see with the going upstairs? I guess I could make one if I tried, but there's nothing I can readily see (at least nothing I see that I'd really like to explore) it's just a fact of my life- my room is downstairs. Other than that, all excellent points, most of which I agree with. Thanks, everyone, for the input, this is probably one of the only poems I'll ever do a complete overhaul on like this- and all the suggestions have really helped. "I'm thinking about leaving tomorrow |
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