Blind Review Friday.The author shall remain anonymous (unless they chose to divulge themselves in the comments.)
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If you would like your piece thrown to the wolves send it to salinger@ameritech.net with "Workshop the hell out of this poem" as the subject line.
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Last review's offering was from a Clevelandpoetics the Blog reader as is this week's selection.
coming home
lying back
her skin alabaster
he drinks her in with his greedy eyes
he lingers on
the gentle curve of her side
the space between bottom rib and rounded hip
he reaches yearning
his skin blue black, nearly ebony
to touch to feel to linger
her gaze never leaving his face
a sigh escapes him
as
his hand fits exactly into her curve
as though it was always there
waiting
just for him
10 comments:
I like this, but I think the word _alabaster_ is a bit boring. And it's kind of cold and hard, as opposed to flesh. But I don't have a suggestion for a replacement word.
_Ebony_ doesn't bother me as much, although again it's been used way too often to describe skin.
Very sensual.
I really like this, too. I actually like "alabaster," but would consider taking out "he drinks her in with his greedy eyes."
And even though most of the lines are already short, for this piece, I would make them even shorter, though I'm at a loss to explain exactly why. I just think it would give the words more emphasis and power. And, I would suggest a few other very minor changes (such as slightly different line/stanza breaks, using "that space" instead of "the space," "leaves" instead of "leaving," etc.). Here's what the poem would look like with shorter lines.
coming home
lying back,
her skin,
alabaster
he lingers
on the gentle curve
of her side,
that space
between bottom rib
and rounded hip
he reaches,
yearning,
his skin blue black,
nearly ebony
to touch,
to feel,
to linger
her gaze
never leaves his face
as a sigh escapes him
and his hand fits
exactly
into her curve
as though
it was always there
waiting
just for him
Of course, my suggestions are minor and purely aesthetic and personal ones (things, I suspect, that most poets would probably leave unchanged).
This is a great piece! Thanks for sharing it.
Thanks Mary and JE,
The funny thing is this was the very first piece I ever wrote that could even remotely be considered poetry. After it was published by a poetry website and people liked it the experience bolstered my confidence in sharing these little snippets of time with others. I call them sensual sentences, not poems.
I read the piece once Michael had it up and thought "hmmmm I think I want to take out the part about his greedy eyes".... lol....thanks for your comments.
And thanks for the opportunity Michael.
Karen Schindler :0)
Ebony and alabaster are a nice contrast-- I'll leave it to personal choice to decide whether they've been overused. I would, however, like to see them put into the same positions in the lines, so that they more clearly echo each other. You could, for example, swap the order of the second and third lines, so that the word "alabaster" ends the first stanza, as "ebony" ends the third.
I also like the erotic descriptiveness in its simplicity. I also like the way in which the poem brings in the dimension of time in an immediacy that says "now".
I agree. This is a lovely descriptive poem. Very immediate. It puts me right there with this couple.
I think Jim's change in line length is more than aesthetic. The poem feels different with shorter lines. Not necessarily "better" or "worse," but different. The flow may be better with the shorter lines, but the longer lines linger, as the couple does.
In my head, I've been playing with some rhythms and rhymes that jumped out at me in the first couple of stanzas. I can't continue this any further without completely rewriting, and I really do like the poem as written. This is just what lingers in my head:
lying back
her alabaster skin
he drinks her in
he lingers on
the gentle curve
the space between
Hey Shelly,
I liked what Jim did too, but I agree that it changed the immediacy of it. I did think that it was interesting that he somehow felt that the lines would be better shorter. My work is almost all really pared down to bare bones now. So maybe he instinctively felt my evolutionary path. [grins]
I never rhyme for free verse. But I have an epic poem called Sissyfriss Sockmonkey that was so terrible that it became viral.
....laughing....
thanks for your input.
And thanks to Rob and Geoffrey too.
This group is a very welcoming crowd. Please feel free to stop by my place anytime.
I leave the door open 24/7 and there's usually pie in the fridge.
Karen :0)
Homemade pie?
Of course Shelly.
And you can even have seconds.
I wrote a piece today about participating in this endeavor.
Thanks again for being so welcoming everybody. I really enjoyed the experience.
Karen :0)
Here's the link to Karen's blog, where she talks about her experience with Blind Review Friday. Thanks, Karen, and welcome!
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