404

[paperleaves]

my little sister's bedroom
was always a wonder to me.
we'd play for hours on end in the summer air, chasing what
remained of our innocence
off the back porch.
the sidewalk perpetually stained with ice cream, lemonade,
and chalk misrepresentations of cartoon characters,
their eyes sprawled, heavy with sadness,
across the concrete canvas. we never knew what pain was
unless we scraped our knees on our tricycles.
I started to wear make up, my breasts grew, and I doused my hair
in perfume to impress myself
above all else.
I kept a tidy room, my books organized in single-file lines
like ants en route to harvest
food, where I was storing
knowledge.
I only wore the best--clean, silk, pressed slats of fabric
pressed against my thin milky thighs
in hopes it'd bring me closer to self-actualization.
that's what I never understood--
my little sister's bedroom isn't heavily
perfumed, laundered, or worn.
hell,
sometimes you can't even see the floor
through stockpiles of warm winter socks and
pajama pants, but it always smells like
content, like warm milk and honey, like a lilac tree
melting in summer sweat.
there is something so honest about her beauty, something so
free, her morning chirps full of life, liberty, and the pursuit
of her own happiness.
she endeavors only to perpetuate joy in her life, permeating
through generosity to those who stare in awe
at her sleek ability to simply
not give a damn
about what others value as important. on Sunday mornings she'll wait for me to stir,
make me pancakes, and watch life in silence, smiling,
as if she knows something
the rest of the world does not.

[hillwalker]

A really sweet poem about growing up - while still longing for the safety net of innocent childhood I guess.

Some of your images are really vivid - "lines like ants en route to harvest" and "a lilac tree melting in summer sweat".

It paints a very detailed picture of a poignant moment frozen in time.
Good stuff!

[PrinceMyshkin]

Oh, of course she knows something "the rest of the world does not," as do you - but one thing I bet each of you does know is how much you love each other.

I was a bit troubled by the line: "the pursuit
of her own happiness," wondering if it was to be the introduction to some negatives about her, but the pancakes that followed soon after seemed to negate any criticism you might have of her...

[hack]

Paper,
Your poems are always so filled with wonderful detail,
like a baroque painting. They are busy, fractal even,
in their ever finer illumination of subject and emotion.
I love your work and this is up to your usual standard.

[blazeofglory]

my little sister's bedroom
was always a wonder to me.
we'd play for hours on end in the summer air, chasing what
remained of our innocence
off the back porch.
the sidewalk perpetually stained with ice cream, lemonade,
and chalk misrepresentations of cartoon characters,
their eyes sprawled, heavy with sadness,
across the concrete canvas. we never knew what pain was
unless we scraped our knees on our tricycles.
I started to wear make up, my breasts grew, and I doused my hair
in perfume to impress myself
above all else.
I kept a tidy room, my books organized in single-file lines
like ants en route to harvest
food, where I was storing
knowledge.
I only wore the best--clean, silk, pressed slats of fabric
pressed against my thin milky thighs
in hopes it'd bring me closer to self-actualization.
that's what I never understood--
my little sister's bedroom isn't heavily
perfumed, laundered, or worn.
hell,
sometimes you can't even see the floor
through stockpiles of warm winter socks and
pajama pants, but it always smells like
content, like warm milk and honey, like a lilac tree
melting in summer sweat.
there is something so honest about her beauty, something so
free, her morning chirps full of life, liberty, and the pursuit
of her own happiness.
she endeavors only to perpetuate joy in her life, permeating
through generosity to those who stare in awe
at her sleek ability to simply
not give a damn
about what others value as important. on Sunday mornings she'll wait for me to stir,
make me pancakes, and watch life in silence, smiling,
as if she knows something
the rest of the world does not.

Paperleaves through this poem I am revisiting my squandered days and unspent moments. I am trying to relive those days of imagination and beauty, carefree and and happy-go-lucky days. Life is so irksome now, full of account-abilities are taxing me. Like your younger sister I too was in reality a mountain boy,frolicking like calves. Now suddenly a world of duties contain me and what I call myself is a heap of labels. I am not living but different titles, accolades, griefs, envies wrap me up. Life has really been onerous. I fantasizes the moments you have beautifully presented.

You are a poet and or else such a beauty could not be birthed

[lallison]

That's a wonderful poem about coming of age and your love for your sister. I'm sure if you gave it to her she would love it. Your details and descriptions are terrifically vivid and you have a very deft change of verb tense from past to present in the middle, which elicits awakening realization. I think you could edit for line breaks that would allow the reading to be a bit smoother by breaking more on the punctuation marks that create natural pauses, as this poem is a bit prosaic and it would allow the natural rhythm of your speech to come out better. I enjoyed this, and there is some deep wisdom in it. Thanks for posting it.

[Hawkman]

Hi paper, I agree with everthing lallison says about this poem. It's evocative and expressive and the sentiments are beautiful, but it doesn't (for me at least) read as well as it could. Regards, H

[Babyguile]

Paperleaves there is always this sense of something so utterly profound being communicated through your poetry, a message that slip-slides and hides underneath your unique language and strangely down-to-earth style of communication. Something so powerful and utterly true that I'm almost afraid to read the poem to its conclusion due to the tension this creates in me; afraid to know the truth you are about to expose. Such is the daring and brilliance of your poems. And I do read them to the end, every time.

[anzki4]

The childhood... What would I give to have it back.

How wonderful it would be,
to travel back in Time.
Just once again you could see,
the world with the eyes of a child.

Very beautiful and evocative poem, as lallison and Hawkman said.

[Bar22do]

Paper - We are now a choir to praise your poem - while I join lallison and hawkman re a little tidying of this otherwise so artfully detailed, vivid description of your relation with your little sister (but isn't her "naturaleness" resulting from the fact that her breasts have not yet grown, and which would explain her being so self-unaware?)

Always great to read your sensitive loving words - tinted with mastery when you say:

I kept a tidy room, my books organized in single-file lines
like ants en route to harvest
food, where I was storing
knowledge.

(but which perhaps you could only re-line a bit, sth like

I kept a tidy room, my books organized in single-file lines
like ants en route to harvest food,
where I was storing knowledge.

or otherwise. I would also suggest to capitalize the words that start new sentences, but if you dropped capitalization for a reason by me undetected - just disregard my comment!!!

Love and thanks for sharing!
ah - and: CONGRATULATIONS AGAIN FOR YOUR BEING ELECTED AND PUBLISHED IN OUR "LOCAL" LITNET NEWSLETTER! IT'S ONLY A BEGINNING! -

Bar

[Hayseed Huck]

Sappy--

but I like it.

This poem brings a conditional clause--

"If things were imagined at the linmits
of blessedness, then ..."

this poem.

You see, the conditional clause allows a poem
to scrap reality and do what it wants.

In this poem's case it wants to ignore smelly
tennis shoes... snot and pimples.

Thanks,

HH

[Il Dante]

You see, the conditional clause allows a poem
to scrap reality and do what it wants.

In this poem's case it wants to ignore smelly
tennis shoes... snot and pimples.


What's wrong with that? If I were to reflect back on my life and try to remember all "snot," every "pimple," all the blood, sweat, tears, embarressment, dirt under the fingernails, smelly stuff (and on and on ad nauseam)... I would go crazy.

To quote T.S. Elliot, "Humankind cannot bear much reality." That's not necessarily an accusation, but simply a statement of fact. And I think that generally it's better to deal with facts than collide with them. as in: :banghead:

It seems to me that since the dawn (was it a dawn?) of modernism in the artistic community there has been an almost pathological compulsion to obsess over the dark and dirty aspects of the human experience. Freud bears much of the blame. Exhibit 1: expressionism. Exhibit 2: Ulysses. Exhibit 3: absurdism a la Waiting for Godot, and on and on. And during those (these?) days anything bright and sunny was suspect and tossed out as "naive" or "unrealistic." I agree with the modernists that reality is often ugly. But perhaps instead of fatalistically insisting on such a reality perhaps we can create a better, brighter reality. The naive optimist says: life is great! The pessimist says: life is awful. The realist optimist says: life IS awful, but maybe there's something we can do about it.

So I'm not saying that modernism isn't art. I'm not saying it's bad art. All I'm saying is that perhaps we shouldn't require that ALL art be dark and ugly.

[Hayseed Huck]

Please re-read what I wrote.

Nothing is wrong with 'that.'

The clause sets an agreement--

in this poem's case... only the 'elevated'
will be discussed.

The other will be ignored.

Please re-read.

HH

[Il Dante]

Please re-read what I wrote.

Nothing is wrong with 'that.'

The clause sets an agreement--

in this poem's case... only the 'elevated'
will be discussed.

The other will be ignored.

Please re-read.

HH

I percieve that I have misread you.

But it seemed as if your describing the poem as "sappy" was somehow connected to your final comments. Thus the rant.

Here again, I may be utterly wrong. It has happened before.

[PrinceMyshkin]

Sappy--

"Sappy," of course, is in the eyes of the beholder


but I like it.

which sounds patronizing after the foregoing


This poem brings a conditional clause--

"If things were imagined at the linmits
of blessedness, then ..."

this poem.

You see, the conditional clause allows a poem
to scrap reality and do what it wants.

In this poem's case it wants to ignore smelly
tennis shoes... snot and pimples.

Thanks,

HH

What can you point to as an example that the poem "wants to ignore smelly
tennis shoes... snot and pimples."?

It seemed to me that it laid out sufficiently equal examples of both her own and her sister's habits...

[hillwalker]

Part of the point of the poem is surely that we all focus on fond memories through rose-tinted lenses - choosing to filter out the nasty smells and discomforts of youth.

The poem neatly counterpoints the older sister growing up with the pressures of puberty and adolescence and her younger, innocent sister whose life is much simpler.
A little regret - but mostly adoration.

'Sappy?' - in the right place, why the hell not?

[OctopusGarden]

To be blinded into living up to the expectations set for you by others is a curse many teenagers need to overcome. We all need to live for ourselves! Oh, how I wasted many minutes questioning myself to make sure I am always making a good impression, too self-conscious. Always thinking.

At least, that's how I related the poem to my life. I love it.

[blank|verse]

Hi paperleaves,

(Sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin…)

Another thoughtful, evocative poem; a pleasure to read. There are some great images, I really like this:

the sidewalk perpetually stained with ice cream, lemonade,
and chalk misrepresentations of cartoon characters,
their eyes sprawled, heavy with sadness,
across the concrete canvas.
I like the 'ants' simile, but don’t ants form wavy lines, not straight ones like books on a shelf? A minor quibble.

It's interesting how the poem seems to fall into three main parts: the first section (which ends at the line: 'unless we scraped our knees on our tricycles') deals with your memories of you and your sister; the second ('I started to wear make up' to 'in hopes it'd bring me close to self-actualization') deals with your own development; and the third (from there to the end) is the conclusion of your thoughts about your sister. In this way, it's very much like how a Pindaric ode is structured into three stanzas in which the poet discusses two sides of a coin (so to speak) in the first two stanzas and then presents his conclusion in the third.

For this reason, and because your poem suggests it naturally, I think it would be good to have line-breaks at these points, so the poem is shaped into three separate stanzas; particularly before the decisive 'that's what I never understood' line, it just gives the reader a chance to catch breath and gives that line extra emphasis which I think it demands.

I think breaking the poem into three also highlights the fact that the last 'stanza' is too long, as it becomes noticeably longer than the other two. I feel you could do with editing this bit and making it more focused, more poetic, and less prosey. For me, this section contains more 'telling' rather than 'showing' which detracts from the conclusion.

For example, this last passage:

on Sunday mornings she'll wait for me to stir,
make me pancakes, and watch life in silence, smiling,
as if she knows something
the rest of the world does not.
is stronger than this one:

there is something so honest about her beauty, something so
free, her morning chirps full of life, liberty, and the pursuit
of her own happiness.
she endeavors only to perpetuate joy in her life, permeating
through generosity to those who stare in awe
at her sleek ability to simply
not give a damn
about what others value as important.
Why? Well, perhaps because the first is more concrete, giving the reader something to visualize, and also value judgements to make about your sister's actions; the second is more abstract (and longer) and there's less room for the reader to think.

And just a few little suggestions for tinkerings, if I may (which you're free to ignore of course)…
Start the poem with one complete line:

my little sister's bedroom was always a wonder to me.
Remove 'on end' and change the line-break and syntax of the next few lines, maybe:

we'd play for hours in the summer air, chasing
off the back porch what remained
of our innocence.

Try to avoid putting words on their own line unless it's really necessary – it's a terrible free verse cliché and doesn’t improve the poem here:

hell,
sometimes you can't even see the floor
You get the idea.

But overall, it's another nicely-written, free-flowing piece. Have you really written 404 poems? That's some going. I look forward to 405 when you've got the time between lectures….

All the best,
b|v

[AuntShecky]

First, a couple of minor critical comments:
-The opening lines introduce the speaker's sister's bedroom but it's never developed, as the verse abruptly shifts to mainly outdoor activities.
-Even though this is "free verse" it requires some kind of coherent form to give the poem shape.
--In general it reads like prose randomly chopped up into lines on the page.
--Where and how a line breaks can actually contribute to the meaning and the overall impression of a poem.


Nevertheless, the childhood images are evocative. Rather than using abstract feelings about a relationship between two sisters, the speaker employs specific, palpable images to evoke their shared childhood. The reader can almost see, hear, feel these things that could conceivably exist in the real world.

The title intrigues me. If I'm not mistaken, "404" refers to a webpage that for some reason cannot be accessed. Is the memory of childhood a "404" because the speaker can't "click" (so to speak) it back on? Hmmmm. (Then again, maybe this is the four hundred and fourth poem you've written, as in in Opus #404.)

I think this poem is off to a promising start.

[paperleaves]

Thanks for all of your comments! Yes, this is my 404th poem. Also, I am confused at some of the comments about looking at old memories through rose-tinted lenses and forgetting about snot, pimples, and the like. All of my poetry is raw, uncut, unedited, nor will it ever be edited unless in a few years I clean it up for publishing.
I appreciate you, my dear audience! Thank you for everything.

warm regards,
Kate

[MorpheusSandman]

There are times when I feel my own criticism is rather unnecessary in the face of all of the insight and opinions offered in a thread. To borrow a line from The Wizard of Oz, "I think I missed you (and your poems) most of all", paper. I swear, when you finally get your book of poetry published I want to write the first analytical study on it, because it seems with each piece I just find some new quality to praise. What struck me in this one is how effortlessly you draw us (or at least, me) into the world your describing and how through the vivid evocation of that world you manage to capture all of the relevant emotions; both common and uncommon, both tangible and very ethereal. I could certainly work up some constructive criticism like blank verse and others have offered but, honestly, when I become THIS absorbed in a work all of the technical details seem trivial to me. You're one of the few poets on here that make me completely forget about the craft behind the words. You should by all means heed such criticism if only because we should constantly aim for self-improvement, but I'm afraid I can only honestly find myself full of praise for you.