by Ben Baker
...................................................................................
sometimes
eyes well
but nothing falls
your chest swells
with a warm angst
half written questions linger
dotting the mind
reminding the soul
that it has searching to do
for answers
that may not exist
or at least
are hidden
by the trappings
of days that pass
with nothing more than
a fleeting memory
the only straggler
Critique
Hi Ben,
This is a lovely poem! Simple and spare, yet touching—the emotional aspect of your writing is very strong, both relatable and powerful. I appreciate how you’ve managed to craft this deeply introspective, melancholic ambience, yet it retains a universality that I think allows different readers to have different interpretations of the meaning.
One of my favorite lines was “a warm angst”. This really shows your talent for evocative descriptors, with the adjective “warm” bestowing a sense of physicality, of palpable sensation, to the feeling of angst. However, there were other lines where I think this originality could have shined through a bit more. There’s certainly nothing wrong with the line “a fleeting memory”, but it’s a little more cliché and not quite as striking.
Rhythm is another crucial element of poetry. The great thing about free verse poetry is that it doesn’t have a set of rules for rhythm or meter, so I find that simply reading the poem aloud will help you get a sense of its cadence. Here, because you have very short lines and no punctuation, it’s rather hard to gauge that cadence, and when I read it out loud, it all seemed to flow at the same pace. Moments of pause are very powerful tools in establishing rhythm, and I would suggest that you make use of them. One way could be stanza breaks, or perhaps minimal punctuation, such as what I’ve done here:
sometimes
eyes well
but nothing falls;
your chest swells
with a warm angst
half written questions linger
dotting the mind,
reminding the soul
that it has searching to do
Note how the semicolon after “but nothing falls” creates a moment of hesitation for the reader. Of course, it’s up to you where you want to have these moments.
I also feel this way about your final line, “the only straggler”. Here is a case where I think the meaning actually gets thrown off by the rhythm. Is “the only straggler” referring to the “fleeting memory”? The answer that the narrator is looking for? Or something else altogether? Note now the interpretation can change with different punctuation:
of days that pass
with nothing more than
a fleeting memory:
the only straggler
of days that pass
with nothing more than
a fleeting memory;
the only straggler
These are very small changes I would suggest to an otherwise great poem. All in all, I truly enjoyed this piece, and you clearly are a strong writer with a good handle on poetry. Thank you so much for sharing your work with us!