Solitary

[LorettaYoung]

I like the way rhyme weaves through this poem, more important in some parts than others. It's not a form I recognize, but I don't know a whole lot about form poetry - is this poem written in a particular form, or did you start with a form and then tweak and bend it? There are parts of the poem that call attention to the rhyme, but other parts where it sort of chugs along in the background, unifying the poem but not overpowering what you're trying to say. I think the places where the poem uses half-rhyme, or where rhyming series of lines weave with lines that stand more on their own, tend to be a little bit more in the background. I like that better, personally, but other readers might feel differently. I feel like the rhyme is most noticeable and draws the most attention to itself in the last stanza of the poem, mostly because of the 2 sets of 3 lines each with an "ee/lly" end rhyme.

Something about this poem reminds me of Emily Dickinson; not her voice or her approach to line or sound, but definitely the kind of subject matter she engaged with.

I think the poem is strongest when we get to go beyond the general situation and get little glimpses into the speaker's mind. The first few lines make me ask "what is she imagining? Can I see this unbridled imagination?" and so I'm happy when the poem delivers on that. I'm particularly intrigued by the following parts, but I also wish I could imagine them more concretely:

Tiny atoms whisper rhymes
of merry play and ringing chimes.
I'm bent across the sill of possibility
floating aimlessly and free

This felt like the most clear and concrete vision or imagined thing in the poem. I could imagine the speaker leaning over the window sill, unfocusing her eyes, imagining the atoms in everything and the way all of matter seemed to be alive. It's a very exciting, maybe even childlike, generous way of imagining the world for someone who is physically confined, and it made me take my mind somewhere new.

Sweet dreams where urgent passions show
two faces of this confine grow;

The inverted syntax needed to make this rhyme gave me a little bit of trouble, but once I read it a second time I imagined the speaker dreaming about lovers, and then maybe yanking them from dream into waking imagination, seeing herself talk to them even though she's technically alone. Is that what you're getting at here? On second thought I could be missing something ...

shades of loneliness and excitement
lighting paths to know,
the destiny which beckons me.
A winding path in winds that blow.
A wealth of visions that path aglow.

I think the metaphor of the path is one that people will be familiar with, but I like the way you've dressed it up with image: the idea of lights along ones path in life. But I feel like I've stopped at the idea of the path, the fact that it exists ... I still wonder where it leads, what landscape it winds through.

A myriad of dreams engage
and float upon a crystal sea;

What is a dream like, floating on a crystal sea? Is a dream a boat, a leaf, a slip of paper, a person on their back? I think that using something concrete to describe something abstract can help us conceptualize it and can help us understand what the speaker is saying and feeling ... but here I don't know if it goes concrete enough for me to really grasp it.

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Dear Isis: Thank you so much for replying and reading; and you are mostly right on. This was a time I insisted on for myself because I had been so busy. I locked my BR door and and shut off the phone and cleared everything out of my mind except writing. Immediately, I began to enjoy the situation so much I decided to write about it. I really am a newbie in disguise, I am motivated by sound, rhythm and a particular passion to express and am here trying to learn to do it better, rhme was a device I used to create rhythm, perhaps interest. but am trying to use less. I was dreaming or imagining that in those confines I could do that; if I conformed my mind. One imagining was of floating free, aimlessly, I pictured the swan and have tried to express that dream as part of my freedom in solitary. You are the second poet to tell me about Dickenson. I have read some of your work here and admired it a lot; but being so new I am just learning to critique, it's hard for me to critique a poem which is so beautiful to read, but I can see how important it is. Thanks again Isis