"Darling, can you hear me?" Not really mum, I think, you keep breaking up.
I hang up the phone.
Truth be told, she only did that once,
But breaking up once is enough. When they told us, I went beserk.
Ran away screaming.
The suffocating dark of a pillow my only comfort.
Anger and shame filled me to the brim -
I couldn't even talk about it;
Always left it to someone else to explain.
They were worried, but I brushed it off,
Had to be strong for my sister, I lied. Well, I needed some excuse to hide the pile
of bottles, growing in the corner of my room.
Each one a new anxiety, an extra bridge I
hadn't learnt to cross (or burn).
The struggle to accept, and be accepted
was a hard one. And I'd like to think I won.
But I see the thousands still fighting, and
rejoin the ranks. Who am I kidding? I think, I didn't win this
all by myself. Why should they? |
bottles
Written by louise (4 comments posted) 21st February 2006 | | This was thought provoking - ex piece! I really felt for this young person. (thank you for your kind review of Altzheimers.) |
Written by amboline (183 comments posted) 27th February 2006 | Ouch. A very raw piece with a huge emotional punch. Stanza 6 ("Well I needed some excuse...") is particularly powerful as the fierce, pent-up emotions find themselves a physical manifestation (in the bottles). "Each one a new anxiety..." is particularly good.
A large part of me isn't sure whether this is really a poem "for public viewing". I don't want to even guess at whether the subject matter is (auto)biographical, but it very much reads as if it's come straight from the pen of the person in the story. This is both a strength (ensuring maximum emotional clout) and a weakness. The reason it could be a weakness is that when writing stuff that has a close proximity to one's own personal experience, it's very easy to be so caught up in the expression of emotion that one can be reluctant to actually make any changes or do any polishing/crafting - and sometimes the piece will be even more effective to a detached reader if you're able to do a bit of crafting. To illustrate what I mean:
(1) The poem in its present form is very unstructured. The ideas ramble - exactly as they would in an emotional splurge - but they don't really form a narrative, in the sense of a progression of ideas. The bottles of the title don't actually appear until stanza 6, which might suggest (if it weren't for the fact that stanza 6 is so good!) that a different title might be useful, to indicate the actual focus of the poem.
(2) Sections of the poem, particularly stanzas 7-9, are very introspective. Although the thought processes behind them might be very important to the poet, as an external reader with no other access to those thought processes I find that stanzas 7-9 are rather impenetrable. I'm not actually sure what they are about, or how they relate to the poem. A good way to bridge this gap is to find imagery in a physical object (like the bottles in stanza 6) or in an event (like the 'phone conversation in stanza 2) that provides an insight which anchors these emotions in the external world.
Those are just a couple of stylistic issues. I'm well aware that poetry with this degree of raw emotion in it is usually very personal to the poet, and not really amenable to critiquing. But when time and circumstances allow you to look at the piece with a more objective eye (and the benefit of hindsight!) it is often well worth a bit of time spent crafting these kinds of pieces for the benefit of a reader who wasn't involved at the time. For me, that tends to be when the very best poems of all emerge. There's certainly something really moving and powerful here and I'd love to see what you would do with the same material in a couple of years' time  | As promised...
Written by gerardconnolly (1186 comments posted) 19th April 2006 | I am no connoisseur of modern poetic form or of its tchnicalities. But I do belive a piece of writing may prove itself acessible to the occasional reader irrespective of, and in some cases even in spite of analysis. I say this since you have a very thorough piece of dissection above, a good deal of the tone of which I find myself in disagreement. Not denial. Disagreement.
I have already reminded Aboline previously that we sometimes have to accept the raw nature of emotions as poetic in themselves. There is nothing worse than a piece of poetry that looks like a well worked piece of poetry. Remember what that superlative, natural wordsmith Paul Abbott said ' Fuck the grammar. Let's hear the story'. To my mind in this piece you have done just that. Ok there may be fissures in the fabric of the text, so to speak and the scanning may be far from faultless. But there is a reality of raw emotion here redeemed by the hint of manic gallows humour in the pile of bottles, that give this piece a directness no amount of technical tinkering can improve.. No sign of literary pretension. A fine both barrells address.
This last, to my mind, absolves you from charges of sloppyness and also, for my mind, means you can be forgiven any oversight of form. Indeed I found the rambling quality of the lines ,if anything added to the effect of someome ever so slightly too near the edge. Brazenly dangerous stuff. For when someone is leaking gas they can ignite at any moment.
Smashing piece of writing that comes off the page and bites you. That's what I like in a writer. And that's why I think any reworking would kill it. Leave it be.It would make it into the slightly over literary almost prosaic piece I had the gripe with previously. Go ahead Clo. Enter it as is it is. If this isn't poetry I don't know what writing is for. And if they don't like it remember you can't be held responsible for other people's stupidity!
Good luck!
PS A good example of the best of both worlds in this genre is Donne's 'Batter my Heart'. You are probably familiar with it. But it may reward a second glance. |
Written by kitten_princess (31 comments posted) 21st April 2006 | Because I know you personally, the pain of this poem has a twist in it too. Unlike Amboline, I understand stanzas 7-8... for me, it's about the struggle of fitting in with whatever social things are happening at school while your home life turns upside down...
I agree with most bits of the reviews above, so no real need to say it again. I felt the raw emotion in this work too, it felt like this just poured out of you, just as I see it.
Another good un
Kitten xx | agree
Written by B.D. (82 comments posted) 5th January 2007 | | As you've been told, very raw, very real & very good. =) |
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