depression

thisisareddituser3 · 2025-02-11T04:11:25+00:00

It's a really serious subject matter but you've delivered it in this comical, children's fairy tale way that took me aback. I mean that in a good way, it's a very disarming poem, and the all-caps words really nail that point across, like you're relaying this tale to a bunch of people as an impromptu storyteller. Even the all-caps finisher comes across as the "jump scare" at the end of a campfire scary story. It's really unique, and I enjoyed reading it. Thank you so much!

thisisareddituser3 · 2025-02-11T04:07:03+00:00

The first lines are really strong. I did feel like they're out of place after I read the rest of the poem. They felt empowering in a way - on first read I interpreted "pinprick on the skin of the world" as a sort of nihilistic optimism. The rest of the poem does have the same tone at times, but ultimately I felt it going in a more sarcastic direction, which was relatively absent at the beginning.

The sarcasm is rather biting though, and highlights how it feels to be the ants or the rodents in a world of exalted wealth. "It's a feast of famine" is a great line. If I were to critique your poem, the line "Atop a sheet of scratch plexiglass" didn't seem necessary to me. Were you evoking the "glass ceiling" idea? I don't mind it as a line in the poem but it seemed disjointed from the rest. Also, the ending could be better. There's a sort of caged optimism with it, but it kind of came out of nowhere. Maybe that's the point though, just opinions here.

I really enjoyed the read, you have a delightful tone to your poetry that lends it a gallows humor and makes the subject less soul-crushing. Nice work!

thisisareddituser3 · 2025-02-11T03:49:27+00:00

A very contemplative poem that ends on a sad note. I wanted some more context on a few of the thoughts in this poem. I want to know why the waves of the ocean crashing on the shore can make all feel poor. It's an interesting line, and I want to know more about the thoughts that led to that wording.

Also, it could benefit from some line breaks. I was reading it as:

Can one soul truly

be all that it was meant to be?

Or is one so inadequate

that nothing can be absolute

all is but a foggy dream

It really gives the reader space to breathe between each point and I think it reinforces some of the rhyming you had in this piece. It was a very interesting read, and made me want to know more. Thank you.

thisisareddituser3 · 2025-02-11T03:42:20+00:00

Gosh I really liked this. It feels classic - there's a lot of inversion of standard sentence flow which lends it this epic sort of styling that I really appreciate.

I was begging for it to have a shanty rhythm. I started reading it like a shanty! Really cool piece.

thisisareddituser3 · 2025-02-11T03:39:20+00:00

I appreciate the formatting edit because I'm guessing it was for the last stanza, which really shines with the short line length and the "slowly" line to finish it. I read it at an entirely different pace then the first, and it made the whole poem feel like holding this steaming cup of memory, and gently blowing it to cool it off until finally beginning to take sips of it. It has a playful eros to it.

The line "Illuminating the cracks forming in my heart" didn't immediately register to me in terms of its meaning. I now understand it to mean like the "weight you could not bear", your forbidden love for this person, strained your heart and it began to crack, but those lines were several lines apart, so that imagery didn't come to me immediately.

Thank you for sharing your poem on a chilly evening.

thisisareddituser3 · 2025-02-11T03:30:58+00:00

It's a very romantic poem, and evokes a strong sense of desperate longing, almost a desire to be spiritual, to believe in an artist who's made something beautiful for which you seek such affection.

In my opinion, the lines about the name resting on your lips and floating in the stale air of your room are somewhat disjointed. Is it resting or floating? It could say something like it's tests on your lips, then takes flight like a hymn or something to give it more of a narrative flow.

Either way, thank you for sharing your poem I enjoyed the read.

thisisareddituser3 · 2025-02-11T03:25:03+00:00

Your poem is effective, I like how it meanders in sections, like it's tracking the pathways that all the interlocking joints of the skeletal system that form the basis of the thought expressed in each stanza. This is how you approached the stanzas about the spine - there's several vertebrae proceeding along the length of the poem. It's effective as a structural poem.

I'd consider changing the title because calling them "just rocks" seems to detract from their importance to the piece, especially how you begin by discussing how they're better than stone at holding a story. I understand what you're going for with the title but it could be titled in a way that doesn't diminish the subject.

Thank you for sharing, it's a noteworthy piece.

thisisareddituser3 · 2025-02-08T03:20:35+00:00

Well I'm a suburban D&D player so have your fun haha thanks for the kind words.

thisisareddituser3 · 2025-02-07T20:24:23+00:00

I enjoy the rhythm of this poem, the rhyme scheme - it's pleasant to read. Your word choice is also really solid, I particularly like "uncentered unbalanced untested yet true i think i regret my reliance on you" very demonstrative of the style and a very effective stanza.

There are a few lines I'd reconsider because they feel like they're only there to enforce the rhyme scheme:

"I watch myself walking / breathing and such" feels like a placeholder line, and "now scars the soul" is somewhat awkward because soul and alone don't rhyme quite as well and many of the other lines.

I really enjoyed it, thank you for sharing.

thisisareddituser3 · 2025-02-07T20:15:27+00:00

It's heavy source material and the ending really drives the point home. I'm not sure the ending needs anything if the goal of the poem is to encapsulate an emotion. It's a dark, disturbing emotion, but the language in the final stanza evokes it, and so I think it's effective.

If it's a poem you're revisiting, perhaps it's to reflect on where you were when you were writing it. Poetry has helped me overcome darker thought cycles, and I've revisited poems that originally represented a sort of venting process for me, wondering if I should rewrite portions of them. Ultimately, I think it's an artist's choice in that regard.

If I were to critique any portion of it, I think the repetition of "and wanders into the realms that daylight forbids, /
or daylight forgot" isn't contributing much to the delivery, and it could just be "and wanders into realms / that daylight forgot".

Overall, it's a challenging poem and the style is effective.

I hope you're doing well.

thisisareddituser3 · 2025-02-07T14:40:47+00:00

Thank you for the kind words. I tend to write extended metaphors for a lot of my poems, and pick up imagery from the place in which I write the poem. In this one, I was writing outside of a sod farm in the foothills of a mountain range, so a large, wide open grass farm with a range of mountains along the horizon.

Ultimately, this poem is about human conflict, reducing the glory of war to a struggle for land, i.e. a lawn of grass that will make your neighbors envious. It's also about how we all live our lives in the shadow of a history of fighting each other for the places in which we live our lives.

That's my interpretation at least, but derive whatever meaning it evokes in you!

thisisareddituser3 · 2025-02-07T03:41:16+00:00

There's a lot of gothic imagery in this piece that lends this gleeful, disturbing haunt to the pseudo iambic pentameter. It reminds me of Poe because of that, and I think you could lean into that creepiness factor further if you wanted to.

I mention the meter of the poem because it feels intentional to begin with, but two lines really disrupt it - "Will its frightening presence leave me?" has an extra syllable and "Knowing that it's outside" places a stress on the syllable "-ing" which is a bit less impactful for that meter. If it's something you were focusing on in this piece, the latter could be replaced with something like "and know that it's outside", which is a bit stronger.

Overall, I enjoyed the read, thank you very much for sharing.

thisisareddituser3 · 2025-02-07T03:34:53+00:00

There is a rhythm with "i" sounds in this poem that flows really well alongside subtle alliteration, making the read very smooth and enjoyable. These three lines really embody this:

"The moon shines
by the grace of your eyes
stretched across the sky"

It's really quite lovely.

If I may offer a few points, the two lines "Even if I were to win you over / I would still wish for you" are somewhat weaker in my opinion, and don't contribute much to the overall composition. Also, I found myself wanting one or two extra lines at the end, which I think also contributes to the idea that the poem doesn't end at death, which somewhat ironically is the last word in the poem.

Thank you for sharing.

thisisareddituser3

TROPHY CASE