shelleyg
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Ready for this journey!
Posts: 31 
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Post by shelleyg on Jul 16, 2024 19:04:15 GMT -5
Tug-Of War Twelve years old and pulled
from childhood to kitchen
from tag and stick ball to
quelling her mother’s fears
Twelve years old and tugged
between friends on bikes
and pink balls on stoops to
making dinners for the family
Twelve years old and
tugged from radio hits
and miniskirts to
tugging her mom from the brink
Twelve-year-old, look up
Tug at your tangled braid
Tug at the corners of your mouth
Tug your way back to the light
tug of war rev 3.docx (15.59 KB) |
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Post by denise on Jul 17, 2024 11:23:01 GMT -5
This is truly powerful, Shelley. I think the repetition works, particularly the Twelves years old and the way you have used Tug in the final stanza. I do wonder if using a few different words/synonyms for tugged in other lines might work. One question, at first I thought the first line of the last stanza had a typo (Twelve-year vs Twelve years in early stanzas), but after reading it several times, it seems as though the speaker is addressing that twelve-year old. Is that your intent? Loved it!
Denise
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Post by Gerry on Jul 19, 2024 11:25:23 GMT -5
I hate to say it, Shelley, but this is the first poem you've brought to workshop that's fallen flat. It's to condensed for one--so much of the visceral has been taken out of the poem. But more than that, the title sets us up for the tug of war and then you just use tug of war language so the controlling metaphor has too much control and further emphasizes the constrictive nature of the poem itself. I might suggest a different title. Let the 12 year old girl grow up via the images of the poem, but also show us what exactly she's dealing with. You leave too much out so that I never feel for the young girl. |
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shelleyg
New Member
Ready for this journey!
Posts: 31
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Post by shelleyg on Jul 22, 2024 8:55:55 GMT -5
I hate to say it, Shelley, but this is the first poem you've brought to workshop that's fallen flat. It's to condensed for one--so much of the visceral has been taken out of the poem. But more than that, the title sets us up for the tug of war and then you just use tug of war language so the controlling metaphor has too much control and further emphasizes the constrictive nature of the poem itself. I might suggest a different title. Let the 12 year old girl grow up via the images of the poem, but also show us what exactly she's dealing with. You leave too much out so that I never feel for the young girl. Gerry I do agree with you that the emotion has been cut from the poem. I am learning so much from the failures as much as from the poems that are almost there. I realized that I have already written this poem in a very different way. I think I am bored with bthis poem for a number of reasons, most prominent of which is that I have already written it this story much more effectively (see below). I have been working on this one for a long time and it is almost there. Why I Hate Geraniums I walk past it again––
the pitted cement flowerbox
on the low brick wall
of my Brooklyn porch
full of dusty geraniums
dull survivors, bearing dumb witness
to the noisy pile of twelve-year-olds
pretending adulthood
the sullen fifteen-year-old
with Janis Joplin hair
sneaking in past curfew
The seventeen-year-old
in frayed bellbottoms and fry boots
afraid the world will end
when she leaves for college
The flower box is reflected
in the windows of the Livingroom
A roiling collage of film clips:
My dad asleep on the couch
My neighbor who pulled the curtains and
relieved me of my innocence
That porch I lingered on
when I left school early
Who would watch my mother
as she woke
from electroshock haze
Who would remind her
who she was and
where she was and
that I was her daughter
I have to go now
before she wakes
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