It
had never been so bright,
Blinded,
beaten, bruised.
Look
left right and left again,
The
platitude unused.
The
gravel on my fingers,
Blood
drying on my cheeks.
Faces
blur above me,
As I
attempt to speak.
The
heat begins to rise,
It
takes my breath away.
I
sink into the Earth,
Ceasing
the display.
A
Summer day in June,
The
neighborhood’s alive.
I
want to play and run and jump,
But forever, here I lie.
I think the imagery of being below everyone and everything is strong and the pain is conveyed well. I do think the "purpose" or context of the story being told could be a bit clearer. It seems as though the narrator fell but they also could have been pushed or hit by a person or some other object. It leaves the cause/s up to the readers' discretion.
ReplyDeleteLove all the sensations you let your readers experience!
ReplyDeleteHi Lara, thanks for leaving this comment, but if you could please be more detailed in the future, I would really appreciate it, and I am sure the poets reading your comments would too. The course guidelines ask you to leave at least one specific comment of praise and one of constructive criticism for each poem you comment upon.
DeleteI love your rhyme scheme in this poem as well as the sharp imagery. Though, I am not sure if I am correctly interpreting the scene you're portraying in this poem. How dire is the situation? Did you trip and are overdramatizing the fall? Or was this a life-altering car crash? We got a snippet of the scene which contains beautiful descriptive words although I would've loved a broader picture of the memory.
ReplyDeleteHi Ellie. I already said most of what I have to say about this poem in class, but I wanted to add that my favorite line is the very first one. It draws me into the poem and makes me think about the event in the poem happening on a dazzling bright day, which fits. But I am totally confused by "the platitude unused"--what platitude? Why unused?
ReplyDeleteI like the last line of the second stanza because it powerfully shows the sense of confusion experienced by the speaker after she takes the fall.
I am confused by the line about sinking into the earth. Previously the poem had seemed realistic, but with this line it suddenly seems surreal and strange. I have no clue what the line refers to.
I get that the last line wants to contrast the happiness of ordinary life with the suffering of the speaker, but beyond that I am perplexed. Why "forever"? Did the speaker actually die in the accident and is now a ghost?
Anyway, if you want to keep and improve this one, it will need some detail and greater clarity. It's great to see you experimenting with form, but poems that rhyme are quite hard to pull off unless you have a great deal of experience. I am impressed that you can hear the meter already, and that aspect of the poem is in tune.
I think the triple "b" sound in the second sentence is great. It makes the emotions sound stronger and more confident. And the heat rising and you sinking into the earth was a nice touch that I was able to sense but from what place are you originally transitioning from (either mentally or physically)? How did you get to where you are now/what happened prior to this scene? Overall, I loved the sensations in this poem and the way you fill it with many short sentences that are packed with action.
ReplyDeleteI really loved the last stanza. It captures the desire and the heartbreak of the author or the person that the author is writing as. The way you connected summer and the children playing and that want to be apart of it. Although I do feel with the poem as a whole it could have been a bit more concise about what was happening.
ReplyDelete