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Critical Analysis #1
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roxane
Senior Member
since 1999-09-02
Posts 505
us

0 posted 2001-04-15 03:32 AM


you know...
maybe you don't hear mumbled prayer

because i kissed a thorn

my lips bled
i wet my tongue with my own blood

licked your wounds

that will cause a
very difficult speech impediment

i will enunciate from now on


you said...
"if we crave salt why do we

always wash it off our pallets?"

why did you
cleanse yourself of sweat we shared?

watered down

i wish i had been
there to wash you with kisses

instead of tears

matt
maybe you didn't hear me praying
but surely you heard my knees hit the floor
and know i knelt to pray to you
too weak to stand anymore


"Faith means not wanting to know what is true." Nietzsche


© Copyright 2001 roxane - All Rights Reserved
Not A Poet
Member Elite
since 1999-11-03
Posts 3885
Oklahoma, USA
1 posted 2001-04-15 11:03 AM


Hmmmmm, I'm slow. Still reviewing here.

Pete

Tony Di Bart
Member
since 2000-01-26
Posts 160
Toronto, Canada
2 posted 2001-04-15 11:28 AM


I tried and will contnue to try and figure it out but let me say this I really enjoyed the poem in the way it was written, in the choice of wrods and the beautiful imagery.  I think that the style you have chosen to write the poem in adds to the sadness one feels for the character in the paom.

thankd see ya  

Carla
New Member
since 2001-04-15
Posts 6

3 posted 2001-04-15 12:53 PM


The provocative title sets this poem up quite well, telling me all I need to know about this relationship.

The narrator is a martyr, oh how she suffers! She kisses thorns in atonement for something she doesn't tell us about. Gritty humor in this line:

"that will cause a
very difficult speech impediment"

tells me that this is a strong person trapped by some compulsion.

Lost and hopeless at the end, she prays for sight from the blind, praying perhaps as well to the God she has already told us is just as heartless as Matthew.

Very powerful and emotional poem. Must have been draining to write it!

-Carla

Brad
Member Ascendant
since 1999-08-20
Posts 5705
Jejudo, South Korea
4 posted 2001-04-15 07:00 PM


Great title.
I enjoyed this quite a bit. The first part is filled with really good stuff, hiding behind this kind of humor, to my mind, is a great way to show those feelings that if described only seem to cheapen them. My one problem is the ending. There, I felt you were trying to breakthrough that thin veneer you had set up and I'm not that would be an effective way to end this poem.

i wish i had been
there to wash you with kisses

instead of tears

--I'm tempted to say end it here but ending on tears just wouldn't do this poem justice. It fits the poem however and doesn't seem forced.

matt
maybe you didn't hear me praying
but I'm sure you heard my knees hit the floor

--I just don't like 'surely' here. I always remember the surely/Shirley jokes.

--If you drop the last two lines, I think it leaves room for another double play here -- quite daring of you, I'd say.  

Thanks for the read,
Brad



Kirk T Walker
Member
since 2000-01-13
Posts 357
Liberty, MO
5 posted 2001-04-15 07:14 PM


-I agreed with Carla about the humor in the line about a speech impediment, but didn't find it appropriate for the tone of the poem.
-I disagreed with Brad about the ending. I thought it was fine except that it falls out of form with the rest of the poem.  I would break it into 2 or 3 stanzas.  
-I agreed with Brad about "surely" because 1)"Yes, I did hear your knees hit the floor, but don't call me 'shirley'" and 2)surely is unnecessary I think.  If you feel that you must keep it you can always use certainly or i'm sure
-is the sweat we shared supposed to be sexual somehow? I wasn't sure.
-Over all, this poem was very nicely done!

Disclaimer: The preceding statement is just my opinion.


jenni
Member
since 1999-09-11
Posts 478
Washington D.C.
6 posted 2001-04-16 08:09 PM


hey rox--

a very touching piece with subtle emotional power...very well done.  

the title is excellent; it's intriguing at first, but it really adds a lot to the understanding of the piece, to the reader's sense of who the speaker is and what she's been through.  

the wry humor in the first half of the poem is wonderful, and really does a great job of setting up the emotional pathos in the piece.  and the humor, along with the voice and tone and general spareness of the piece as a whole, really made me feel for the speaker; to me, anyway, she is a very real person, giving almost to a fault, compassionate, loving, and yet utlimately smart and strong, and not a push-over, despite what the "plot" of the piece may otherwise suggest.  you did a great job in making this poem say a lot more than "matt, you're a jerk."

i kind of disagree with brad about the last two lines, the closing is so heart-rendering, and you bring everything together so beautifully: first, the name of matthew (so the title makes sense), then echoing the opening line of not hearing the prayer, and then carrying it further and really taking the reader inside the speaker, making the reader FEEL not just matt's heartlessness but also the emotional consequences suffered by the speaker.  this was just great, i thought (although, yeah, i kind of agree about the "shirley" thing).  i think you need those last two lines, or something, anyway, to carry the poem those last few yards, and what you have there is excellent, i thought.  

one thing that confused me like the first 10 times i read the piece (yeah, i've been coming back to this time and time again since you posted it) was the word "pallets."  i kept picturing a little straw mattress, and the deal with washing salt off it didn't make much sense to me, then; i mean, why not wash it off?  who wants to sleep in salt, right?  it also made me picture matt as this little indian or pakistani man...i don't know, neither here nor there, but it's weird how word associations go, lol.  anyway, then it finally occurred to me that maybe you meant "palates", as in, the roof of the mouth?  this makes much more sense, lol.  

this was really a wonderful read, rox, sad and touching.  thanks for sharing this with us.

jenni

Kicking Kim
Member
since 2001-04-16
Posts 426
Cloud Cucko Land!
7 posted 2001-04-17 11:30 AM


I liked this poem very greatly1  I like the personal touch of the name Matt and how he is actually The Gift Of God.

^*~Kicking Kim~*^

roxane
Senior Member
since 1999-09-02
Posts 505
us
8 posted 2001-04-17 02:35 PM


to explain a little, i tried to make this a sort of allegory.  it could be interpretted on a sexual level, or a religious one.  the mispelling of "pallats"  is intentional.  thanks for all the replies.

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