Post
by Tracy Mitchell » Thu Jun 20, 2019 4:28 pm
Sorry, I am not a fan of this, though for those who are, I take no issue. Sunsets, walks on the beach, warm smiles, holding hands and kissing owies -- there is little new ground plowed here. And each of these phrases bring into your poem so much pre-existing baggage. At some point the narration becomes waterlogged without the reader hearing the real heart of the matter.
I think the center justification of the lines is counter-productive, as are a goodly share of the short lines. While it makes the presentation look more poety, there is little in this to promote the substance of the poem, and in places, quite the converse. These are legitimate poetic devices but must be employed in the service of the poem. Or not at all.
The opening stanza reflects the Speaker’s attention on the newspaper – the obituaries in the Sentinel of lots of folks - up to age 91. We imagine him/her at the kitchen table, morning, a cup of coffee or tea at hand. While it appears to be a lead-in to Carrie, it is foremost a focus on the Narrator. My view is this is a wrong time to put the N. and his/her thoughts center stage. After all, the N is not the subject of this poem, nor should be the reactions of the N. You want to the readers to have a direct connection with Carrie, unfiltered through the N.
Moreover, this type of opening for a poem feels like a running start to the poem itself, which in this case is about Carrie, and not the N. and not all of these other people whose obits are being perused by the N. Such an intro might work well in prose. Or theater, or TV scripts. Not so much with poetry. You don’t want your readers off on a tangent speculating about how shallow or off the mark all of the other obituaries might be. That can tend to deflate the strength of your Carrie discussion.
I don’t understand the closing, as the thrust of the poem is that the point that the obit does not capture the Carrie’s life.
Last thought – I like that the title gets me going in the right direction, that the poem is about Carrie, but after the first read I have that, and I think a good title should be expected to carry more water.
That said, you show off to excellent effect your affinity for words and their sounds and how they can pleasingly be unfolded. I particularly like the mid-stanza end rhyme at S.1 L.2-3 and the way it suggests the phrase “one and done”, and how that subtly reinforces the tragedy that is Carrie’s life, it unrecorded in the damn obit.
I am glad you are posting here, Aimè, after the whirlwind of NaPo. While that was a celebration, our usual business is to provide a place to post and to get critical feedback to our poems. All of the critique comments here should be directed to the poem and its provisions. All comments should be received as comments on the poem and not on the poet.
These comments are offered as my genuine reactions. If they are not helpful, then please feel free to disregard with no hard feelings. One of the beauties of this site is that you will get a variety of feedback – there is no one view. Take what might be helpful and disregard the rest.
I also want to say that at a different site one member picked at every poem I posted. I didn’t really like it, but it made me better. And when he said he liked something, I could trust it to be true.
In any event, thanks for posting this. It helps to sharpen my own eye to figure these poems out and think through what my reaction actually is.
Cheers.
T