4 hours ago
When we cleared Mawmaw's house
even the closet shelves were adorned,
edged with flat bands of crocheted bells;
originally from Norway, her father lost at sea.
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were adorned, (were) edged - past perfect tense
lost - past tense
was steeped - past perfect tense
Use of pp tenses now makes a link: closet shelves, daughter: reinforced by yr description of daughter as receiver of tea, receptacle. The rest of the verse supports this, focusing on items, things made. Side effect: it could be argued that you’re saying the *daughter* is sleek enameled silver, etc. (would be a pedantic argument, though).
—————————————————————————
Her daughter was steeped in ancestral tea:
sleek enameled silver, intricate
tatting starched into bowls, heavily
salted homemade food laced
with cream, brown bread slick with butter.
—————————————————————————
tea steeper, tatting, lace: nice. Calls to mind the hole-y kind of quality the official versions of familial memories have. Kind of interrupted by “slick”, an unpleasant word imo. So do you play with the unpleasant note, or do you replace? “Salted” could be aligned with holes, lace, scattering, if you change from adjective to noun. But speaking past poetic artiface, your lines
heavily / salted homemade food laced / with cream, brown bread slick with butter
make me homesick for my Yiddish-speaking great-grandmother. Her house smell and her painted wooden floors.
—————————————————————————
December heralded the baking marathon,
Alice knocked out a new cookie
every few days for two weeks, stacks
of tins piled high on every surface.
One year, missing some Christmas favorites
her family wouldn't touch, we dove
into a day-long recipe, a loaf of caraway
seeded meat in aspic, the start
of our late month lunches together,
—————————————————————————
This poem becomes relentless, two vivid scenes. It’s in motion, a sketch. Is the relentlessness the point of the poem, or does the vividness of the poem as a whole begin to suffer here? You have choices here, when (please not if) you continue to develop this. (I have cravings for aspic roughly every five years, and you remind me it’s due)
—————————————————————————
her grinning face lit with youth.
Now the recipe is mine but today, checking
the spelling of Kalvesus, all I could find
was the Swedish Kalvsylta, no caraway.
—————————————————————————
her grinning face lit with youth: I love this line.
I love this ending, too. It grounds things back. And now, we’re back to the narrator who is a receptacle, too, for their family. And confronting a hole in the lace: a problem. An unusual problem, which is usually what family is good at providing. As the phrase goes, “as is tradition…”
even the closet shelves were adorned,
edged with flat bands of crocheted bells;
originally from Norway, her father lost at sea.
—————————————————————————
were adorned, (were) edged - past perfect tense
lost - past tense
was steeped - past perfect tense
Use of pp tenses now makes a link: closet shelves, daughter: reinforced by yr description of daughter as receiver of tea, receptacle. The rest of the verse supports this, focusing on items, things made. Side effect: it could be argued that you’re saying the *daughter* is sleek enameled silver, etc. (would be a pedantic argument, though).
—————————————————————————
Her daughter was steeped in ancestral tea:
sleek enameled silver, intricate
tatting starched into bowls, heavily
salted homemade food laced
with cream, brown bread slick with butter.
—————————————————————————
tea steeper, tatting, lace: nice. Calls to mind the hole-y kind of quality the official versions of familial memories have. Kind of interrupted by “slick”, an unpleasant word imo. So do you play with the unpleasant note, or do you replace? “Salted” could be aligned with holes, lace, scattering, if you change from adjective to noun. But speaking past poetic artiface, your lines
heavily / salted homemade food laced / with cream, brown bread slick with butter
make me homesick for my Yiddish-speaking great-grandmother. Her house smell and her painted wooden floors.
—————————————————————————
December heralded the baking marathon,
Alice knocked out a new cookie
every few days for two weeks, stacks
of tins piled high on every surface.
One year, missing some Christmas favorites
her family wouldn't touch, we dove
into a day-long recipe, a loaf of caraway
seeded meat in aspic, the start
of our late month lunches together,
—————————————————————————
This poem becomes relentless, two vivid scenes. It’s in motion, a sketch. Is the relentlessness the point of the poem, or does the vividness of the poem as a whole begin to suffer here? You have choices here, when (please not if) you continue to develop this. (I have cravings for aspic roughly every five years, and you remind me it’s due)
—————————————————————————
her grinning face lit with youth.
Now the recipe is mine but today, checking
the spelling of Kalvesus, all I could find
was the Swedish Kalvsylta, no caraway.
—————————————————————————
her grinning face lit with youth: I love this line.
I love this ending, too. It grounds things back. And now, we’re back to the narrator who is a receptacle, too, for their family. And confronting a hole in the lace: a problem. An unusual problem, which is usually what family is good at providing. As the phrase goes, “as is tradition…”