7 Responses to “Pantoum!”

1.  Anonymous  on 2:55 PM  

   Aaron,
   I like this piece. It begins in a familiar poetic mode and then attempts to pull away, to call into question emperical memory. "Memories that are whole forests away" is particularly lovely. However, I question how much you move the images by repeating them. The literal movement of the image is a change of season. The metaphysical movement though is unclear to me. the lines need a bit of tweaking maybe. The line i suggested above is vivid in the first iteration but when it comes around again it is weakened, outweighed by my memory of the first stanza and not evolved enough to shock me again. Kinda like when a comic does his call back, it only works so long as the original joke was strong enough to go another round of laughs, otherwise he/she has to evolve the joke. So here, I think the line might have new life in the drop of the single word "away". "Memories that are whole forests" changes it enough that there is a whole new image but that harkens us back to the first image therefore uping the emotional response to both. Every line in this piece has that same potential and you have a lot of beautiful images to work with. I'm not suggesting that you drop the repitition (which I very much like) but only that you take the images a step further along the same vein as the berries on the tree then the ground. (also, just an aside i think that "kid feet" does the work of "clumsy" and in a much more effective way). Lots of potential here and the idea of memory fits well within the Pantoum.

2.  Anonymous  on 3:31 PM  

   Can you remind of the pantoum constraints again? Then I can comment better.

3.  Anonymous  on 3:45 PM  

   I looked it up at dictionary.com: "A verse form composed of quatrains in which the second and fourth lines are repeated as the first and third lines of the following quatrain."
   
   You can play within those constraints though. You can still push the lines or move beyond the form now that you've tried it.

4.  Anonymous  on 6:34 PM  

   I compeltely agree that the lines and images need tweaking of some sort. I kinda find the poem a little immature and I think that stems from my unwillingness when I wrote it to deviate from the structure (except in the last name) and take a chance (which i think your word, Jenny, "evolve" is really important; it needs to be pushed further. So maybe I'll repost this sometime later edited.

5.  Anonymous  on 2:03 AM  

   Let me begin by saying that Pantoum is possibly the funnest word ever to say. Also, I very much like Jenny's suggestions, especially the change in the repeated forests line. I would further suggest that you change the second reminding to something else, possibly something like "reminding me of sand boxed and trees forted" might be interesting to work with.
   
   P.S. I love the simple line "A familiar taste of rhubarb" For some reason it strikes me as the most evocative in the piece.
   
   Jenny's point about kid feet is well made, and in fact, I would venture to suggest that as a possible title, meaning "kid feet" I think it captures nicely the sense of movement in the piece.

6.  Anonymous  on 4:14 PM  

   Though how closely associated are kids and rhubarb? I was afraid of rhubarb. But then, I also didn't like pizza. Aaron, it's a good poem. Can you explain the format of this poem? It's interesting and I can't figure it out. Call the poem Orange.

7.  Anonymous  on 5:38 PM  

   I loved rhubarb as a child!

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