06-08-2014, 02:29 AM
Like a lot of other readers, I think the concepts here are interesting (showing the passage of many years through the seasons, looking at the life of a house and family through the lens of an important object), but there are a few things about the poem that keep me from becoming fully invested.
One of those is the repetition of "There is a red couch./It is _______". While that repetition makes it clear that the couch is the anchor in the poem, the thing that helps us see the whole story, I don't think it needs to be so prominent for us to understand the poem. And I think my interest would be captured more and the space of the poem used to greater effect if there was more variation within the theme here, more active phrasing. I like just mercedes suggestion of how to make this more actively phrased. "There is" and "It is" are both relatively passive, flat ways of describing something. Even though the couch is an object, it becomes animate through interesting verb choices at the end of each stanza: beaming, staring, squinting, gazing. Those choices convey tone and mood and do a lot for the poem. Something similar could happen at the beginning of each stanza. I think that the structure could become more loose and the poem would still work, but should you stick with the structure already holding up the poem, I'd focus on making the beginning of each stanza as descriptive and lively as the end. I really like the way the couch comes alive through the seasonal images at the end of each stanza, and I think it would work to make that happen throughout the poem.
I wonder a little bit about the shifting point of view in this poem. In the first two stanzas, the home belongs to "we/our". In the third stanza, there's a single speaker - perhaps the partner has moved on or died? And in the last stanza, all human traces are gone from the poem. Who is speaking at the end?
One of those is the repetition of "There is a red couch./It is _______". While that repetition makes it clear that the couch is the anchor in the poem, the thing that helps us see the whole story, I don't think it needs to be so prominent for us to understand the poem. And I think my interest would be captured more and the space of the poem used to greater effect if there was more variation within the theme here, more active phrasing. I like just mercedes suggestion of how to make this more actively phrased. "There is" and "It is" are both relatively passive, flat ways of describing something. Even though the couch is an object, it becomes animate through interesting verb choices at the end of each stanza: beaming, staring, squinting, gazing. Those choices convey tone and mood and do a lot for the poem. Something similar could happen at the beginning of each stanza. I think that the structure could become more loose and the poem would still work, but should you stick with the structure already holding up the poem, I'd focus on making the beginning of each stanza as descriptive and lively as the end. I really like the way the couch comes alive through the seasonal images at the end of each stanza, and I think it would work to make that happen throughout the poem.
I wonder a little bit about the shifting point of view in this poem. In the first two stanzas, the home belongs to "we/our". In the third stanza, there's a single speaker - perhaps the partner has moved on or died? And in the last stanza, all human traces are gone from the poem. Who is speaking at the end?