I know nothing of poetry so I cannot comment on whether it’s technically correct or now. I just happened to see it on the all page. But this did resonate with me. I think it’s great!
Glad you like!
I didn’t really like the middle stanza, it’s too blunt and banal somehow, I guess that’s the point but it doesn’t really land for me at all. “Think of the starving children” is such a cliché, “while men make decisions on who gets to live” isn’t a great line to me.
And it is a shame because I really liked the first and last stanzas.
This:
The world is on fire and I’m choosing
between two kinds of soap.
is so much better. That is great. And the ending too.
I think the point is the banality actually, I think the point is that we’ve heard that line for so long that it’s hard to make it seem real, but then we actually ARE on fire and we realize we’ve ignored that too and are picking between sandalwood and lavender.
I see what you’re saying but it doesn’t really work for me. But looking at the replies I’ve gotten I accept that I seem like the odd one out here.
It’s ok if it doesn’t work for you :).
I like that it’s banal. There’s something creepy about how commonplace the horrors of the world are, how a child starving to death is so common that it is taken for granted that it is happening while I’m shopping for groceries. Every time I shop for groceries, no less. If I try to really appreciate the hugeness of the problem I get overwhelmed, so I just… don’t. I accept that the children who are dying right now are beyond my help, and I focus on finding something with which to wash my hair. It sucks.
I’ve been told “think of the starving children” so many times over the course of my life that it doesn’t illicit a reaction for me anymore other than maybe the rolling of my eyes. If the poet wants me to actually absorb this shift in perspective I require something else, more effective and specific imagery, more concrete examples… something. Simply saying it doesn’t do anything for me, and if anything it took me out of a poem I otherwise enjoyed.
But I appreciate that may be a me-problem. I may be too cynical and jaded.
That’s what I’m getting at: I don’t think it’s just a you problem. The cliched-ness of the examples (hungry child, climate change, powerful men making life-or-death decisions), the very fact that they are common enough to be cliches, makes me think of the callouses that build up out of necessity that allow us to function in a world filled with things that, should we ever experience them first-hand, would shatter us. Or would they? I’ve never seen a child starve to death. I don’t know how I would react. But the fact that such awful things happen while I blithely comparison shop soaps is… it feels like it should be jarring but it isn’t, and that absence is a kind of discomfort I don’t have a good word for. Ennui maybe?
Maybe it’s a painful stanza for a reason
yeah that is how it feels. makes me feel hopeless.
I ain’t going to be shamed for grocery shopping.
Quite poignant right now - and always.
Never heard that word in my life. Thanks for showing me a new word.
Be sure to look up the pronunciation of it too - it’s an odd one!
Poing-nyant
I guess? I know how to say it, but it’s hard to write phonetically
yeah that’s how i’d write it phonetically, but it must be said ‘poing’ is pronounced the same as ‘boing’ like when a spring goes BOING! haha! 😆
