Poetry / Deathbed (Analysis)

Thanks very much :)

you are picking up on all the things I’m intending, you may not have read the title but it’s called “Deathbed” :), I don’t know if I like that title but it’s meant to steer readers to the conclusions that you are coming too. also there is definitely meant to be spiritual and existential elements, I’m really glad you caught those, especially in the three quotes before the end which many people have commented that they didn’t understand.

thanks for the encouragement :D

Yeah--I don’t think its completely necessary to understand everything about this poem to find worth in it. Its not a short story, its not a novel. The imagery is amazing to me and can be interpreted in a number of different ways. I just think it does (with perfect rhythm and vivid imagery) what poetry should do--make you feel. Make you think. That’s why its a “10” for me. I say, good peice of art!
**I actually didn’t think of the title as a read the poem—very astute of you to notice!

Howdy, thanks for the review, I’m glad you went into details.

I looked at the “past calms” line and I agree with you. I think I did that to try to keep the flow but I’m going to change it, thanks. hmm, I just went to change it and noticed that I had already changed that part in an edit after I posted this, but I had changed it to a semicolon, which might be the best of both worlds, I’ll think about the period though.

On the “drifting whispers” line, the reason I have it in it’s own line is because its a “turn” down at the end, the last turn of the poem (a turn is a rhetorical change in the poem), where the person in the poem goes from looking at the clouds to a more surreal and spiritual experience of them. I’ll try seeing what it looks like though in the other paragraph, interestingly it would make a 3 2 1 in stanza lines at the end, like a countdown almost… hmm… I will go try that right now, thanks for the comments.

I’m glad you enjoyed it, there is supposed to be a certain uneasiness and violence to the first part, how much of that is recovered from the end I think is more partial to the reader, but I hope at least some of it was redeemed.

never mind I guess its 3 3 1, apparently I can’t count without seeing it lol

321 would have been too perfect.  I guess I didn’t see the turn since I figured that the clouds were imaginary just like the spiritual/God reference. Sort of a dying brains last gasp of hope.

thanks for the review, I appreciate longer reviews, unlike the one right before yours, heh.

Your take on the last line is interesting, the majority of the comments on this site have been overwhelmingly positive on the last couple lines, and my poetry professor who is a fairly well known poet (William Jolliff) said that the last two lines are the strongest in the piece, and he called the poem publishable. I’m glad your telling me your take on it, as everyone’s will be different. Are you perhaps an entirely non religious person? I’ve only put one poem up here but virtually all of my poems deal in religious and existential themes of some kind, and perhaps that’s not something your interested. but I suppose since you think it’s cliche sounding then maybe it wouldn’t matter. I’m surprised your calling it cliche but I know that using the word God is very touchy, it’s easy for any line with God in it to sound cliche, so I definitely see where you’re coming from and thought of that when I was dealing with the ending. I’m pretty firm on the last two lines at this point in the revision process. I think they might be more accessible to a religious person. the word “whisper” has sort of a religious overtone for some people that maybe you’re unaware of because you might have a different background or something like, or maybe you just don’t like the lines I guess.

It is a good point that whispers travel the speed of sound, but, and I wish I could remember the word for it, a common technique in published and well established poetry is to use things like “her words tasted bitter,” mixing senses together to make interesting images or feelings. that is more along the lines of what I’m aiming for, the idea of drifting whispers, like how you might just catch a whisper in your ear, and the clouds are like some of those whispers floating around waiting to be heard, even though whispers do technically move fast. Anyways, I do appreciate your comments and I’ll try to see how others take the lines, also the plumbing line too, to see if I need to change them, though I am pretty set on the last lines at this point.

thanks

Synesthia is the word for it.

Well if better writers than me say it isn’t cliche, far be it from me.  I am a published fiction novelist with a degree in English but y’know.  I’m not a poet.  

Drifting Whispers.. Whispers don’t drift nor do they resemble clouds.  I dunno, I just don’t see it.  Words tasting bitter makes sense.  Also, “drifting whispers” as synesthia invokes a sound, implying that you can hear the clouds passing, which I still doubt is your meaning.

Keep the lines if you feel strongly about them, like I said I’m not a poet.  I was raised religious but have been agnostic for ten years,  but I do have a strong philosophical slant in my fiction.

thanks for the review, can you say more about the second to last line? do you think it should be with the stanza before it and the last line by itself?

Since you asked; I would drop the next to last line but leave the double space.

btw I hope you asked for a refund from Nosferatu_Networker.

thanks for the tip, I’ll mess around with it.

as for nosferatu, I did ask for a refund, what a weird comment, not only did he obviously not read it but then he gave a bad review, usually when people don’t read things they just say they liked it or whatever. and he wrote his bad review to sound like it’s “poetic” further making him sound like an emo 15yr old

Thank you for this review, it is meant to have a relationship to death, I’m glad you saw that. Thanks for being so honest in your review.

HA!  I just read the title…perhaps I’m glad I didn’t read it before I read the poem.  It causes pause for reflection.  It was a personal piece to me, I put it on my favorites.  And then I saw your stats, you’re only 22???  That explains the youth in the poem and the blunt tragedy, again thanks!

Thank you very much, I’m glad you were seeing the existential element, that’s what I was trying to do.