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Breaking Bubbles
| Critical Analysis #1 |
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Breaking Bubbles |
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warmhrt Senior Member
since 1999-12-18
Posts 1563
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she sits across from him, watching as words form, round and pointless, within his mouth. they float toward her, without substance, without guidance, exactitude, or affinity, multitudes of soap bubbles blown carelessly through his lips, aimed nowhere in particular, meaningless, there only for their own sake. she keeps her hands clasped tightly in her lap, for she longs to reach up, to slap each bubble between her palms, till its diaphanous framework dissolves, drips away from her hands, then dries unnoticed upon the table between them. Kris  "It is wisdom to know others; |
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| © Copyright 2001 warmhrt - All Rights Reserved | |||
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Kirk T Walker Member
since 2000-01-13
Posts 357Liberty, MO |
It is a shame that anyone's poem ever goes nearly a month without a comment. I try to post about 5 or 6 responses for every poem I post to the forum. I noticed (by looking at your member profile) that you have posted about 7 or 8 times more responses than poems. If everyone who posted in this forum would take the time to respond MEANINGFULLY and CRITICALLY to several poems by others each time they posted their own poems, this forum could be so much better. Between the excellent set up of these forums and the many, many members who log on, this site has huge potential. However, people get discouraged when they post a poem which they have put a lot of effort into, respond to the poems of others, and then receive no responses or only a couple responses whcih are not very thoughtful or helpful. Here are my suggestions for this poem: 1. A couple of the words you used required me to drag out a dictionary. Actually I used dictionary.com and since I already had the words pulled up, I thought I would post the definitions for others who may wish to critique this poem. di·aph·a·nous=1.Of such fine texture as to be transparent or translucent.2.Characterized by delicacy of form. af·fin·i·ty=1.A natural attraction or feeling of kinship. 2.Relationship by marriage. 3.An inherent similarity between persons or things After looking up the words, I see that they are not only aestetically pleasing, but also that they are very specific and precise and seem to be exactly the right words. 2.I never could quite get a sense of setting for this poem, but my mind sort of fluctuated between a field where the bubbles would be blown with an instument and a bathtub where the bubbles were actual soap bubbles blown directly by mouth. However, when the table emerged at the conclusion I was very baffled. As a reader, I wanted to see this but I couldn't because I didn't know what the backdrop was. 3. I had similar problems with the bubble-blowing character. At first I thought maybe this was going to be a romantic poem where the two lovers playfully bathe together. However, by the end of the poem I thought maybe it was a mother monitoring her child's bath and wishing she too could interact with the bubbles but repressing her child-like impulses. Once again it was the table between that really through me off, though I think it is also obvious by the end that the "she" is not in the bath. Disclaimer: The preceding statement is just my opinion. |
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Not A Poet Member Elite
since 1999-11-03
Posts 3885Oklahoma, USA |
Warped I suppose bu the bubbles reminded me of the bathtub too, but not soap bubbles and not blown by mouth  Sorry Kris, that's whay I didn't say anything before. But now that you do have a good response, maybe it's all right  Pete |
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Brad Member Ascendant
since 1999-08-20
Posts 5705Jejudo, South Korea |
Yeah, I think the 'soap' has to go but overall, I enjoyed the ending very much. You tug the metaphor in just the right way to make it interesting -- I loved that 'dried on the table part'. While this might have been intentional given the content, I think it's a bit too wordy for my taste. Look at W.C. Williams and that might give you some ideas to work with. Thanks, Brad |
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