Poetry Forum

Forum Home » High Critique » Tinsel

For poets who want unrestricted constructive criticism. This is NOT a vanity workshop. If you do not want your poem seriously critiqued, do not post here. Constructive criticism only. PLEASE Only Post One Poem a Day!!!

1/6/2018 1:20:36 PM Zachary Gilstrap Posts: 2	Spattering sparks flicker in her eyes, highlighting each salty rivulet as they roll down on to the carpet stair. The jolly tunes are her confidant, the garland and tinsel her jury. “The car snapped in half,” she heard, failing to grasp how souls can be plucked like birthday cake candles, leaving deformed icing no one wants to lick. It was indeed a white Christmas, bloodless and loveless, deathly pale with tended fangs looking for love for sale. As she cried, and as the little drummer boy’s snare pops dragged slightly behind her bare sobs, she imagined how he slept in heavenly peace, his remnants reserved in her every last teardrop.
	• permalink • reply with quote
1/18/2018 11:13:37 PM Jack Webster Posts: 255	i think your three strongest metaphors are the jolly tunes being her confidant, the garland and tinsel being her jury, and the souls being plucked like birthday candles deforming the icing. I think they are profoundly original and dynamic in a way that clearly and crisply conveys the inner experience of the tragedy. i think your weakest stanzas are the ones describing the crying. the descriptions are notably lush (perhaps bordering on too beautiful, though this is a matter of opinion), but the moment you rely on saying plainly the person is crying, you've already stated directly they are sad, and indirectly told the reader they should be sad too. After that, there's no real way to be subtle about evoking the emotion within the reader, and vivid descriptions of the crying just become redundant or simply for the sake of imagery as they are not conveying anything new poetically, its just more and more and more: she's not just crying, but the tears are sparkling, and rolling, and they are big tears that (even fantastically) come down the steps, and soon there are so many of them she might just float away through the door like Alice in Wonderland. i think you could convey all of the grief intended with the description of the crying simply by extending the birthday/ holiday theme to wrapping paper: her face crumpled like gold and red wrapping paper, torn, and discarded in the bin. mixing the Christmas imagery with the birthday cake imagery was slightly disorienting to me, but i love both, so not what to suggest. normally I'd suggest stick to one or the other, but I'm not sure its bothersome enough to discard either of your very authentic metaphors. I would suggest rephrasing "birthday cake candles", as cake is redundant. if you're plucking birthday candles, its natural to assume or visualize a cake. if you wish to keep the word cake, i would rephrase as: ...souls can be plucked/ like candles from a birthday cake... that way cake is necessary as a noun and not redudant as an adjective. I would remove the line: ...no one wants to lick. this line makes the poetic meaning of the icing ambiguous, and the acting of licking (in this case trying to savor something sweet) may be seemingly sensual in nature. if the linez were: ...souls could be plucked/ like candles from a birthday cake,/ leaving deformed icing (end of stanza) - i think there is an idea that the icing is the sweetness and happiness of those left behind and how it is damaged by the act of taking and the absence of that source of light. With the line about licking, it asks the readers to determine what isn't icing that is lickable that the icing represents. licking is such a physical act that if the icing is supposed to represent something intangible the verb licking is misleading. if the icing is intended to be the body of the deceased, rendered "un-lickable" by the accident and the taking of the soul, then this becomes a potentially uncomfortable line. thank you for sharing. i hope something i said ends up being of some use. good luck edited by superlativedeleted on 1/18/2018
	• permalink • reply with quote