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A home without a wall, |
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| Critical Analysis #2 |
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Her reflection in a street puddle. |
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hush Senior Member
since 2001-05-27
Posts 1653Ohio, USA |
This is really different for me- I'm experimenting with using mostly imagery, as if the poem is told in a series of photos rather than a fluid motion- I realize that fragments punctuated with periods are kind of jarring, that was the intention. I'm curious as to what other people think- how well does it work? Thanks in advance. Her reflection in a street puddle. Graceless, she is not the silk and chiffon dreams are made of. Her face, a ruddy mask- pinched putty, soft-serve strawberry swirl melted. Slow motion, the sound of tire treads feeling the pavement. A pale blonde gasp, the flash of coarse mane- her hair is poorly groomed. A quick splash, and broad streetlit shoulders are splattered with mud water. Grass-stained white nightgown damp in the 60 degrees of mid-June night. Thick salmon-colored fingers brush wet lines from the cheeks. A man’s silhouette in nearby doorway. Children clandestine, round faces in the darkened windows. The woman’s hands tighten on the splintered telephone pole, one ear to her husband’s pounding voice, one to the thunder of the highway. "deeper is life than lose: higher than have |
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| © Copyright 2002 hush - All Rights Reserved | |||
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Not A Poet Member Elite
since 1999-11-03
Posts 3885Oklahoma, USA |
Actually, I like this quite a lot, not that I could or would write something like it, but each time I read it I find something new. It is, as you hinted by a series of photos, a little disjointed. But each stanza does build on the overall image you are painting. And, with a little stretch of imagination, they all do seem reasonable. I particularly liked the beginning. quote: But "melted" on a line alone seemed wrong. Maybe it just seemed out of order, like it swould work better before soft-serve. Or maybe it's just me. I like most of the next stanza. quote: except the last line feels awkward. It just doesn't fit the mood as well as it should. In the next, I don't like mud water or salmon-colored fingers. Technically I think you could use muddy or mud-water but something other than mud still seems better to me. Salmon-colored just doesn't work for me at all. The last one works as is except for clandestine. I don't think of children as clandestine. I would suggest a more child-like adjective instead. Overall, this is a very nice effort. While it is said that "a picture is worth a thousand words", you have described a picture, probably better than we would have observed it, with only 126 words. Good work. Thanks, Pete |
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SiO2 Junior Member
since 2002-06-05
Posts 24New Zealand |
I liked this too. I thought it worked very well especially the fear aspect, the hint is somehow more real than a concrete description. At the start I thought that the whole scene was going to be blacked out as a cape was cast across the puddle – but I guess that is just my miss-placed sense of humour. I think it was a very worthwhile experiment and you should persevere with it! |
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Kirk T Walker Member
since 2000-01-13
Posts 357Liberty, MO |
"her hair is poorly groomed" seems both slightly redundant ("coarse mane") and a little too obvious (one might say "prose-like" if it were not for the liklihood of drawing this thread in a heated debate, which has already been had some time ago and been driven into the ground from both sides, on the nature of poetry and prose). The rest of the poem I liked and found quite enjoyable. Disclaimer: The preceding statement is just my opinion. |
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Severn Member Rara Avis
since 1999-07-17
Posts 7704 |
Using fragments is an interesting technique, and can be highly effective. I've written a few that I refer to as snapshot poems. Essentially, I like this very much. In order to tighten this up though there are a few things I'd suggest. (Assuming your definition of 'working' meets mine of course lol...) 'Graceless, she is not the silk and chiffon dreams are made of. Her face, a ruddy mask- pinched putty, soft-serve strawberry swirl melted.' Firstly, I'd suggest removing 'her face' from the first stanza. If you're working with imagery, then I've found it works well to let the images do the bulk of the depiction: In this case the ruddy mask works well enough on it's own to suggest a face, without a face being mentioned. Love that last line. 'Slow motion, the sound of tire treads feeling the pavement. A pale blonde gasp, the flash of coarse mane- her hair is poorly groomed.' The same applies here, I'd drop 'the sound of' and let the imagery do the work without a definite description of what it is. I think that the last line is tautological with the one above and as Chris can tell you I DESPISE tautology - to the point of blindness so you might like to ignore that hahaha... 'A quick splash, and broad streetlit shoulders are splattered with mud water. Grass-stained white nightgown damp in the 60 degrees of mid-June night. Thick salmon-colored fingers brush wet lines from the cheeks.' I think this stanza could be amazing if it was a little more sparse. Working with imagery requires balance...one thing I keep in mind when working with image is the (ironical) image of a poet providing a frame while the reader fills in the painting. Ie - too much imagery and the reader has no room to move within the poem. In this stanza I suggest dropping a few images - it'll still work well. 'A man’s silhouette in nearby doorway. Children clandestine, round faces in the darkened windows. The woman’s hands tighten on the splintered telephone pole, one ear to her husband’s pounding voice, one to the thunder of the highway.' Now the first line I have a HUGE problem with. 'In nearby doorway'? Where is the indefinite article 'a'? It simply isn't consistent with the rest of the poem. The next two lines are confusing too - are you saying that the children possess clandestine, round faces or that they are being clandestine. I'm fairly certain it's the latter, but the ambiguity is there simply because the lack of a possessive 'children's' fits in with the lack of the 'a'. I like the rest of this a lot - but I'd suggest joining the last two lines together; it would give the stanza a smooth finish and remove the asethetic awkwardness of having four lines beginning with four small 'o' words. Overall - there is a nice mood to this entire work, an evocative haunting - which is common in imagist writing. If that is what you were trying to achieve you have. Cheers  K |
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Elizabeth Cor Senior Member
since 2000-10-13
Posts 879Over the river and through the woods |
taking into account all that has been said before me… I’ll try not to be superfluous in my evaluation… I did find the punctuation jarring… not the full stop of the periods, but the aesthetic lay out of lines: hyphens, commas, and the grouping of stanzas… (in critiquing, I tend to lend suggestion by actually rewriting the areas I believe need working… so, if it seems presumptuous, understand everything done is only proposal, and presented this way more out of my inability to describe what I mean vs. show.) so…, in the first verse, I think a colon is more fitting than a dash: Graceless, she is not the silk and chiffon dreams are made of. Her face, a ruddy mask: pinched putty, soft-serve strawberry swirl and I’m not sure you even need the word melted… Still trying to decide how the first line might be adapted… are made of, period, is grating. Yet, silk and chiffon of dreams changes the imagery. Hmm. were it prose, the silk and chiffon of which dreams are composed might work… but its not, and its your poem, not mine…  Slow motion, the sound of tire treads feeling the pavement. definitely agree with Kamla (Severn) here… (see above critique) A pale blonde gasp, best line of the whole poem. LOVE this. but, concur with everyone here… the next two lines do not work… wonder if they should even exist… perhaps describe some other quality, or weave in another ominous allusion, instead? A quick splash, and broad streetlit shoulders are splattered with mud water. … keep the concept, but rework… this is bland, and unattractively obvious Grass-stained white nightgown damp in the 60 degrees of mid-June night. hmm… it almost fits, the uncomplicated description seeming to want to work here… but to be blunt and concise, you need it to still strike… does that make sense? when the imagery is this basic, the image itself needs to be shocking… ~smile~ don’t just explain, make your readers stutter… Thick salmon-colored fingers brush wet lines from the cheeks. the last line is excellent… thick, salmon-colored is somehow menacing! makes me squirm lol… in a way I hope you intended… Children clandestine, round faces in the darkened windows. see Pete’s (Not A Poet) suggestion… The woman’s hands tighten on the splintered telephone pole, one ear to her husband’s pounding voice, one to the thunder of the highway. oh, just awesome... overall, there is large potential… have you ever read Charles Bukowski? You should… then come back and edit this. [This message has been edited by Elizabeth Cor (07-06-2002 05:08 PM).] |
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hush Senior Member
since 2001-05-27
Posts 1653Ohio, USA |
Firstly, thanks to everyone for your time. You have all been very helpful... I'm working on a rewrite right now. Just a few things I wanted to touch on: I had originally intented the word 'rouged' instead of 'salmon-colored,' but it conveyed an almost too womanly image... this woman is not beautiful, she is not dainty, and rouge suggests the use of cosmetics, which I really didn't want... in addition to being the name of the color I wanted to convey, 'salmon' leaves a fishy, unnatractive taste in one's mouth... Clandestine isn't meant to be childlike here. These are not childlike children... there is no sense of fun in their spying, I want them to sound haunted, and that's a sense that I have always gotten from the word, so I used it. Severn... thank you so much, 'In nearby doorway' was a typo that I didn't notice... I almost never write without articles, and I have a HUGE problem with the fact that I didn't notice that myself. Elizabeth, you're probably right about using colons instead of dashes, but I don't like colons (I don't like the implication they hold of suggesting a list) and I am partial to dashes. You are, however, very right about the plainness of some of the images... I'll do my best on the revision. Thanks everyone. |
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