Moments Like Freezer Bees

[Riesa]

..........................

[Pete J W-Mears]

reads like a list though nice

[Virgil]

Reisa, overall I liked it. I get the feeling you are projecting quite well. I liked the first, third, and concluding stanzas. The second stanza lost me. Perhaps it's me. I anticipated it would progress narratively from the first stanza, but as I read carefully it seems an amplification of the first stanza. I think the language confuses me in the second stanza. It seems you are trying so hard to charge up every phrase that it obscures meaning.

But your other stanzas have some really beautiful phrases:

lulled by the slumberous tug
of sweet melancholia
and

your moonlight reflection
I scoop and skim like
buttercream to my lips,
Actually the whole third stanza is lovely. And this from the last stanza is very interesting: "the lake shouts catfish leaping."

[Virgil]

Reisa, overall I liked it. I get the feeling you are projecting quite well.

Actually Reisa, I didn't get what you were saying. :blush: I get it now. I thought it was about depression. "Melancholia" of the second line threw me. Plus my mind kept thinking "freezer burn" not "freezer bees" in the title. :lol: very pretty. I still think you're trying too hard to charge up every line. :)

[Riesa]

thanks, Virgil. you know I wasn't trying to charge up every line, but I was having a whole lot of fun playing with it, so perhaps that's why it comes off as overcharged. I still don't see how it reads like a list though. a grocery list, a to do list, a wish list, santa's naughty and nice list? or is it that the flow is choppy?

[Virgil]

I don't think it reads like a list.

[Il Penseroso]

I wish my grocery lists had this much wonderful imagery. I don't get the Windsor yellow though (too lazy to look it up), sounds like a window cleaner to me, which is maybe how Pete got the list idea. Very nice work however. I like the changes, has a more polished feel.

[Riesa]

:lol:
hey IP! I see what you mean. windex, freezer burn, grocery lists. reader's misled thoughts. how does one steer a reader's thoughts where I want them to go? plainer language, perhaps. but then the writing isn't as fun.

thanks, Windsor yellow is just a color, a staple in a watercolorists palette.


nice to see you around, and I appreciate the comment.

[ktd222]

I have to agree with Virgil, Riesa. I think sometimes when you’re trying to find the perfect word(s) to describe an image, you can over-describe it; I think that’s what is happening in your poem.


lulled by the slumberous tug

I don’t think you need “slumberous” to describe the “tug,” by the fact that the one who is “lulled” implies that the “tugging” has a “slumberous” effect.
This happens a few times throughout the first two stanzas.

I like the third stanza, though. There is nice direction and feel to the images.

The forth stanza I like the imagery…but what is the “I seeped” in? What “abundance” are you speaking of? Is it all the imagery you describe above is what you’re seeped in? If so, and if that is what you’re striving for, then I think the images you had described in the above stanzas already created that feel for me. So all this stanza did was reiterate what I felt was already happening.

[blp]

Conceptual artist Bruce Nauman said that a lot of poetry was just listing things. I don't think he meant that was a bad thing.

That said, this doesn't read like a list to me. I think it's nicely done, though the subject matter's problematic, or you haven't, in my view, found a way of getting past the problems of the subject matter, about which, so much, obviously, has been said already.

[Riesa]

thank you ktd, blp, Virgil, Ip and Pete. I appreciate the time you all took in reading and critiquing. Points taken and considered.