7 hours ago
Hello!
Enjoyed reading and pondering this!
In my opinion the poem's back half is where it really lives. "Honeycomb / and razor burn, the alcoholic's sting" is sweet, abrasive and toxic in one kiss. The turn at "Men I don't pretend to know" is excellent.
The opening worked less well for me. I felt "Men and women differ" restates the title as a flat claim, and I braced for an essay.
Other places I stumbled: Lines 2–9 lose their subject. "The other" aims, fires, mistakes, barrels and shines in one long chain, and by "columbine" I'd lost track of who was doing what, or which sex was which. Maybe break it into two sentences to give more clarity to the narrative.
"Dripping" and "shining" overlap, and "and dreams" is an abstraction propping up the line.
Columbine: after "aims and fires" and "chasing death," I hear the school shooting. Intended?
Back to things that worked for me. Loved "Women understand a bird," but the comma splice softens it. Doesn't it deserve a full stop?
The ending is the best part. Love the way "be one" implies either a bird or a man, and "drink the night" calls back the alcoholic's sting, so the speaker seems to envy a solitude she codes as male (if N is indeed female).
Have you considered how two "alones" instead of three might mirror the duality of your men/women pairing: two solitudes side by side that never meet? I feel like three loses that idea.
Thanks for sharing!
Naish
Enjoyed reading and pondering this!
In my opinion the poem's back half is where it really lives. "Honeycomb / and razor burn, the alcoholic's sting" is sweet, abrasive and toxic in one kiss. The turn at "Men I don't pretend to know" is excellent.
The opening worked less well for me. I felt "Men and women differ" restates the title as a flat claim, and I braced for an essay.
Other places I stumbled: Lines 2–9 lose their subject. "The other" aims, fires, mistakes, barrels and shines in one long chain, and by "columbine" I'd lost track of who was doing what, or which sex was which. Maybe break it into two sentences to give more clarity to the narrative.
"Dripping" and "shining" overlap, and "and dreams" is an abstraction propping up the line.
Columbine: after "aims and fires" and "chasing death," I hear the school shooting. Intended?
Back to things that worked for me. Loved "Women understand a bird," but the comma splice softens it. Doesn't it deserve a full stop?
The ending is the best part. Love the way "be one" implies either a bird or a man, and "drink the night" calls back the alcoholic's sting, so the speaker seems to envy a solitude she codes as male (if N is indeed female).
Have you considered how two "alones" instead of three might mirror the duality of your men/women pairing: two solitudes side by side that never meet? I feel like three loses that idea.
Thanks for sharing!
Naish