I heard recently that getting through depression means letting yourself feel the pain, say it is painful, then move on. I think it was Grey's Anatomy. But she the therapist told Grey that she knows she's getting better because now she can feel it and name it, let it wash all over her, then come out the other side.
I love the tactile sense this poem gives. I can feel the snow or rain on my face. I would love to see one about the warmth of the sun also, but this reminds me not just of real rain but feeling pain, letting wash over you and embrace it knowing that this is what makes you alive.
I think many people will see different things in this poem and that is a good thing, makes it more universal.
Great job and congrats for ending the dry streak!!!
Keep up the great work and don't forget, poetry is feeling first then form (if you choose to add form). It's kinda like building a structure.
Design is great but if it falls down in the wind, you don't have much. It can be pretty but shallow or it can be deep and no one cares if it's pretty or not.
That was so special. thank you for sharing. What a life altering moment for the Muslim girl too, not only the fear from the other passengers but the smile from one brave little child. She'll tell her grandkids about you, as a lesson in tolerance.
What I liked:
Unwelcome, Unbidden reminders. Clever way to put a message within a message and to demonstrate the line "They should drift there forever" by using the last line with the elipses that could go on forever.
Effect:
I think this is universal, really. This could be a person who has broken up, gotten divorced, widowed, or even close friends. In fact, my aunt's step son (at age 18) decided to end his life and I remember feeling very much like this about Mark-thinking about what he could have been, remembering vacation our families had together. There was no "love" in that sense but such a waste of potential. I can honestly say that I don't think about it unless I hear the word suicide (and I'm a social worker so the word does pop up a time or two with clients) and I automatically think of hearing the Cranberries sing the last song on their album (about daffodils looking lovely tonight-can't remember the title) while on the interstate leaving Birmingham, Alabama from work and heading home to Tuscaloosa and having to turn around. I remember it all but the pain isn't so bad now, just remembering. Good thing is, I share what happened if I think it will help others. For that, remembering has a purpose and, unbidden and unwelcome it may be, it isnt without purpose.
Good luck with your writing. I think you have a real talent here, at grasping at emotions and portraying them honestly and with poetic grace also.
Was this your husband's pain pump-the self administering kind. that's what I got from it. I got to thinking how we can so easily waste six minutes heating up something in the microwave, chatting, reviewing our email and how that same six minutes could be the difference between pain and relief, or the last six minutes of someone's life, or a delay of six minutes getting in your car and on your way to work that made the difference between being hit by a drunk driver...or not. Wow, time is relative, is it not.
I like the philosophical angle, and the line about the promise it can only keep every six minutes. It sounded almost like someone cooking meth or waiting for the coffee to finish making but then, thinking of your husband's recent trials, this is what I came up with.
Your description does sort of clue the reader in to the fact that this might be a pain pump. Great job with this. I love the deeper meaning.
You know what. I couldn't think of one thing to improve this anyway. It was sweet and magical and I wouldn't change a thing. I like that you wrote what you did at the end too. It drives me crazy when I write from a particular prompt and folks want to know why I did this or that when I surely wouldn't have picked that prompt out of thin air and written about it. It was what it was. And I can't help believing that something beyond us is helping us along with what we write and that someone needs to read exactly what was written. Call it syncronicity or whatever. I have written poems here and someone almost immediately writes back saying they were in that situation and needed to read that, on that particular night.
Maybe someone will donate their organs because of this story, or maybe someone will just have a warm feeling that there is order in the universe after all.
I enjoyed it and congratulations on your third place win as i know it was further proof that, while you chose the law, the muse chose you. Good luck with the writing.
Wow, you sound like my mom. She happens to be an attorney also. Had a teacher one time make the girls write a report about why boys are smarter than girls. When my mom and the chief of police (woman) mom of another girl raised cain, he did another competition and the boys lost. Then they had to do a paper on "how it feels to lose against the weaker sex."
I grew up in Alabama, still here, but the teacher was this short, rotund wrestling coach (looked just like fred flintstone) who was maybe Italian (His name was Chimento). A few years later, I saw him at the mall and just walked up and asked him, "you still make the kids do those rediculous reports about the weaker sex?" (I had graduated by then). He said, he was just preparing us to be able to handle chauvinistic attitudes in the future. Yeah, right. Anyway, after that year, no more boy against girl contests and No more of those reports.
As a teen, it felt good that my mom wouldn't stand for that kind of crap (well, embarassing at the time but still cool, and I'm proud of her now for doing it). But out of a room with maybe 18 girls, those two were the only ones to call the principal and say "He said "what" to my daughter and the other girls." Both were highly educated women in positions related to the law and knew better than to let this happen. I also wonder about the other parents who feel powerless to change things.
I enjoyed reading this. Thank you for sharing.
SWPoet
Your daughter ought to be proud to have you as a mom.
I'm doing this review as a thank you for being the only one who posted in my guestbook. Thank you for that.
I really like the soul searching questions in this poem. It made a point and did it in a way that no rhyme or specific meter was needed.
My only question is in this line. "A place where love and joy abound,"
I don't have a dictionary but it seems like it should be "abide" as it (where they reside or live?)rather than "abound". I may be wrong but it just tugged at my eyes like something else should be there. If you look it up and right, no problem. It had nothing to do with rhyme or meter.
I really like this part. It flows well and really touches the basic feelings behind the words.
Why is self-loathing so easily felt,
Souls drained of self-worth,
Hearts longing for validation?
Great poem. You are really writing more and more and it's fun to check and see some things I haven't seen. This is probably one of my favorites you have written in poetry. I'm a sucker for philosophical poems with an emotional twist. Despite the word I mentioned, I still think it was a five start poem.
Brandy
See below for dictionary cut and paste. I figure that if I'm going to complain about something, I should suggest something too.
Here goes on the word abound vs abide. I asked Mr. Webster lol. This is just to save you some time. In the end, I think reside sounds like it fits what you are saying the best.
Abound is:
1. Be abundant or plentiful; exist in large quantities.
2. Be in a state of movement or action; "The room abounded with screaming children"; "The garden bristled with toddlers"
abide is:
1. Dwell (archaic); "You can stay with me while you are in town"; "stay a bit longer--the day is still young".
2. Put up with something or somebody unpleasant; "I cannot bear his constant criticism"; "The new secretary had to endure a lot of unprofessional remarks"; "he learned to tolerate the heat".
reside is:
1. Make one's home or live in; "There are only 250,000 people in Iceland"; "I live in a 200-year old house"; "These people inhabited all the islands that are now deserted"; "The plains are sparsely populated".
Wow, where did that one come from. Really good and I love the last line and the imagery all throughout. What an excellent way to show what depression does to people, especially the line about making it hard to fight back. People don't get that, I am sure. They want folks to snap out of it but you have to want to first and i think the lack of energy might well make you not want to do anything even if you really do theoretically want to get better. I really enjoyed this and I think this actually helps me understand my mom a little better. Thank you for sending this. Great job.
I love the hope this brings with the capitalized YES. I too believe that if we bury ourselves under the dirt of our "disorder", we deny others to see our gifts. And, we deny ourselves a chance to experience our gifts. Worse yet, we deny others from seeing in themselves, the same despair but also the same hope. I agree that sharing what you go through is a way you can help others feel they arent alone and isn't depression the ultimate ALONE. Others can see your positive attitude here and really believe someone else out there is like them and they found a way to dig out of the hole for now and stand up and be themselves and be proud of who they are. It's sometimes the most courageous thing to do, to stand naked (proverbially, that is) and say THIS IS ME. I accept me for who I am. I can't personally be anything but me. I'm a lousy liar anyway.
Other lines I liked are:
"Silence is not always golden, then"
and later you wrote..
"Perhaps it will touch their own silence.
Great job sharing and helping others understand Depression. It helps me understand my own mother more. Thank you for the insight.
I really like how this poem ends with the last four lines being about your son. At the beginning, it seems like a general comment on renewing faith but the first line in the word GIFT really gives it a personal punch. It tells the reader why there was a struggle for faith and a renewal of hope in the first section above. I also like how the sentences are finished at times by going to the next line. It's more fluid and less abrupt and definitely not a list of things. It is a poem in it's own right.
Only question-I noticed the tenses change from past to present to past. Just wondering if that was intentional. Could be, not really complaining. I just noticed it.
I loved this, especially the last three lines. Some of the areas in brackets or parentheses really enhanced the poem, but none so much as the third to last line.
If I were Anne Frank (and you were a diary)
My opinion of what this poem is saying (my reaction)-
The poem shows someone who has courage in their words but when speaking, tends to doubt their ability to say what they feel. Through art you are able to express what words fail. But if life were only to be expressed in words on the page, you would have no problem expressing yourself.
The parentheses are fascinating because you are almost saying Here is my poem , but just in case it's not good enough, take a look in the brackets.
This impression also works very well with that the poem actually says.;
"My courage blows away
and goes away."
Wonderful poem on many different levels. I personally find that I have no loss for words when typing but I find myself all the time with a word on the tip of my tongue and substitute it for a much less desirable word because I just can't seem to express myself with as much fluidity as I can write.
My step-dad came here from Holland when he was 20 and his sisters still live in Holland (one sis in Niew Vennep and another in Noord Oost Polder, originally they were from Gouda. My parents had a German exchange student (as did my aunt), our best friend is about to move to Edinburgh, Scotland for three years for a doctorate in history and we are involved in Karate and have had friends from Japan stay with us a few times. My 6 yo and 3 yo sons LOVE sushi. All this and we are from a podunk little town in middle east Alabama -southeastern USA. People expect us to drive tractors, be "rednecks" and have horrible grammar. So much for stereotypes. Although, I have to admit my family is usually the only ones in the chinese restaurant who eat with chopsticks and whose kids are eating sushi WITH chopsticks. My husb and I have been Europe twice together and he has been twice without me before we married. I spent a month in Bolivia and a week in Brazil in college.
Great site and idea to do the poll. The world does seem to be shrinking and it's about time. I hope people from other countries realize that not everyone in America is proud of how Bush has done things and mend some fences.
Great job and I love the centering and the font. It is very delicate while "thinking" that it is not or that it is unable to do express what it is expressing.
We all tend to be that way, I think. We wish we were attractive, even when others think us attrractive enough. Others but not ourselves. We are so much harder on ourselves, don't you think?
Brought a tear to my eye. This is what I feel too. Frustration that people don't see that the things they can SEE are only window dressings. Within us all is the same thing -emotion, hopes, dreams, fears, sadness, etc. Thank you for writing such a moving piece.
There are a few typo-s. Nothing major and I would suggest nothing other than spell check or grammar check. I will try to show the parts I found (in parentheses)but please don't think I'm picking. I loved it!
I breathe air. I am hungry. I wait for breakfast. It’s my favorite meal. I wonder a lot. I am social. I am adventurous. I get this butterfly feeling when I see my love. I wonder when ill (I'll) see them (him/her?) next. I love kids. I want some of my own some day. I will raise them well. I want them to be the best. I worry a lot sometimes. Did I lock the door? I get bored. Sometimes I get in agitated moods. I hate it when people chew with their mouths open. I am obsessed with keeping things clean. I get angry when I watch the news. I think a lot. I wonder why humans hurt each other. I don’t want to get hurt. I get scared. I feel bad for people who are in bad situations. I hope things gets (get) better for them. I love to move. Sometimes I cry alone. I feel. I get hurt. I get sad. I get down. I get excited. I get happy. I am Asian. I am Black. I am white. I am Brown. I am Muslim. I am Jewish. I am what I am. I am Human.
Great job. Look forward to reading your work in the future.
The shame and guilt of sexual abuse-- Even if you left off "of sexual abuse", I think
How could I overcome? the reader would get it.
I felt, at such a naive age,
I couldn't tell my mom.
Only thrice it happened then, I'm not sure you need "then"
But I knew that it was wrong. Unless you wrote
Had I recognized my innocence, "Thrice abused, but even then
Silence wouldn't have lasted so long. I knew that it was wrong"
Twenty years I felt that guilt, These next two stanzas flow well
Lived with so much shame. and rhyme well. No changes
Before I learned the guilty one suggested.
And knew the victim's name.
Twenty years I lived with secrets,
Too ashamed to tell.
Keeping all my pain inside,
A special kind of hell.
I finally bared my soul Bared? Bore? Looks weird-not sure
To someone who knew what to do. which is correct past tense of bare.
She made me write it down How about "shared my soul " or even
And really see who was who. "shared my pain". Soul didn't rhyme with
another line anyway. ? Up to you.
I'm no longer ashamed of what he did.
I know it was not my fault. Since you have "I" in the second line
I freely tell my story so that to show the pronoun, I would start the
Child abuse can halt. first line at "No longer....
2nd line-Needs one less sylable
maybe "I refuse to feel at fault"
Really good. Hope the comments helped. Those are the spots I think might need some adjustment. If something changes the meaning you wished to convey, don't worry aobut the suggestion. Just as a reader, these were areas I had questions about or stumbled a bit when I read it.
I love this and I think it is even better without rhyme or a specific meter. It makes me slow down a bit and read the actual words. You nailed this disorder and I think it will help others recognize symptoms of this disorder. It also makes it clear what kind of damage can be done by someone who abuses children. It's not the bruises, its the brain connections that are altered that really count here. People (including us at DHR) tend to want to see evidence on skin but we can't look inside their brains and see the damage that is occurring those first few years of life.
Thank you for sharing your son's story and for giving a link to find out more info.
That is terrific. I really like it. I see this so much, you are right.
I really like the chorus and the last line-the best (except it needs to be two O's (choose). Otherwise, wonderful.
I would love to get a book together of domestic violence topic poetry that are inspirational and provide them to domestic violence shelters. I have another item-another song- in the social issues folder.
I thought I would make a few suggestions to make it flow better in a few spots, but when I put them down, your way sounded better or my way would have changed the tense. So I figure, why mess with a good thing. I thought you said it brilliantly and I enjoyed reading it.
Check out Light Survives Trilogy in the Social Issues folder. You said in much fewer words what I was trying to convey and I confused some folks with which mother I was referring to. Basically, it's the same message but you got to the point. (getting to the point isn't my thing sometimes.) Anyway, I loved it. Great job. I usually give 4.5 if I could improve it some but since I couldn't, Here's a 5 for ya.
Write On!
SWPoet
Read only if you wish:
The only suggestion I have is this:
I did think maybe line 6 would flow better with 5 syllables. Also line 4 would flow better if it had only 6 syllables. Not so sure how to rephrase it without changing knew to know and grew to grow. But then, everything else is past tense so it wouldn't sound right to make that future tense. Anyway, even though I couldn't come up with a better suggestion, I thought I would let you know the spot I mentioned above. A very very minor thing but since the rest of the poem had such good meter and flow, that line was the only one that seemed to disrupt the flow.
Love it! Great rhyme and rhythm and a little twist at the end. And I love the color. At first I thought the mom put the kid to bed and was fixing a PBJ for herself. WHy not? I think you did a great job.
SWPoet
I'm watchin the clock now. One hour and Jack Jack is at nap. ONly problem-Will doesn't do naps so I have to paint with him or do something special. Oh, well. Momma's play time is after 8. Best I can do.
You ought to write speeches. I can see someone standing up talking to Congress reading this. Great job. You show how insensitive and ignorant people can be (top half). Like when someone loses a child and some idiot says, "well at least you still have a kid". Some people are clueless.
Everytime I see my son who looks like me and we talk in the family about who one of the kids acts like or looks like, I have a little pang inside thinking of my cousin (the one my aunt adopted) looking at her parents and wondering what her "first" parents are like. Heck, I wonder. I've seen pics of the mother but the father is a mystery. We have a signature and a basic description but not a nationality. She has green eyes, dark hair, and her facial features almost look greek or middle eastern although she is not any darker than me. She is very pretty but I can see how she would catch onto any phrase from her friends parents (or me if I'm not careful) and feel bad about not knowing what they look like.
You did a great job and I like the optimistic and positive attitude and determination in this poem.
Wow, what movement. I like how you use words to show "lull, movement, circadian rhythms". I especially like the last few lines-from Yuppies down and how the last line cinches the deal. Great job.
I really like this. (changing the color for the word pink was fun, too).
This says alot about humanity. We look different on the outside but we all are still human-smell and all. Leave it up to a dog to be wise enough to notice that they smell the same. We would probably put one in one category and one sock in the other, failing to use our senses enough to notice they smelled the same.
Cute but also profound. Great job.
thank you for contributing.
I wondered about the line about foundation but the more I read it, it is actually very profound. It's as if you are saying we women are able to wake up to a new day, cover our storms with foundation and go out in the world again a new person. The putting on of a "new face" mixed with the covering up of mistakes from before allow us to to meet each day with a fresh start.
I think you got the spirit of what that format was looking for and I personally do not really care about form as long as you convey your message. i love it when you have to read it a few times in confusion and then, BANG, you get it. Or rather, you get what you think is the message. It's okay that three people may get three different messages out of this but, well, this was mine. I liked it very much. Thank you for trying it out.
I wondered about the line about foundation but the more I read it, it is actually very profound. It's as if you are saying we women are able to wake up to a new day, cover our storms with foundation and go out in the world again a new person. The putting on of a "new face" mixed with the covering up of mistakes from before allow us to to meet each day with a fresh start.
I think you got the spirit of what that format was looking for and I personally do not really care about form as long as you convey your message. i love it when you have to read it a few times in confusion and then, BANG, you get it. Or rather, you get what you think is the message. It's okay that three people may get three different messages out of this but, well, this was mine. I liked it very much. Thank you for trying it out.
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