01-01-2016, 01:44 AM
(01-01-2016, 12:23 AM)dukealien Wrote: House-shapedA neat little poem. The first and second stanzas I quite like, I think the last two need a little more work.
We shape our buildings, and thereafter they shape us. - Winston Churchill, 1944
This is a nice quote. Where did you find it?
A home is not a trap, a house may be:
The home may form or break, depending on
Each person who arrives, abides, departs,
Who loves or hates, who dies or procreates.
Each one shapes home-life - but the house endures.
I'm not sure the enjambment from lines 2-3 really works. That is, it feels like one continuous line you've arbitrarily broken at a certain point rather than two meaningful lines in their own right. I explain this a little more below with your other enjambments. That said, lines 4-5 are fantastic, I really like them.
The single man who buys a house invests,
Pays tax directly, not through fee or rent.
Depreciation’s his to bear, repair;
Appreciation swells his sole net worth.
But if he never marries, fails to form
A family, his house fills with the dust As with the first stanza, you have an enjambment in "form / a family" that I personally think sounds awkward.
Of years, possessions, everything but trust In contrast, I think the "dust / of years" enjambment works well. The purpose of an enjambment is, generally speaking,
to raise tension or emphasis. Breaking up "dust / of years" puts this emphasis on "of years," changing the meaning of the
line from literal to metaphorical dust. Which works very well within the context of what you are trying to say in this stanza.
However, in the previous lines, "form / a family" puts similar emphasis on "a family", but really the unit of meaning here is
"form a family" as a whole, and I personally don't see any narrative reason to break it up. There's no other meaning to
"form" here, since you already said marriage earlier in the line, so the meaning is already clear. The additional emphasis
just feels forced.
In others. He’s shaped by its walls, constrained,
Chained to its town and neighborhood, which change. What does the "its" in this line refer to? From context it seems it should be "his town".
His house is comfortable, so is he;
But as he, childless, tries to break their chains, What does "their" refer to? His possessions you list in the following lines? I would probably not want to use "chains" here,
since you used chains two lines up to refer to something different, and I'm not sure the repetition is anything but confusing here.
Each book, each chair and etching forms a link
That binds him, owned by all the things he’s bought. I like these two lines, they bring this stanza to a head. On a somewhat facetious note, who has etchings anymore?
As sad, or sadder, is the fate of those No need for the commas around "or sadder" here.
Whose family disintegrates but leaves I'm not crazy about the use of "disintegrates" here, but I don't hate it, either. I'll need to think about that.
Their house of many years, once home, a prize I would end the sentence at "years". So: "many years. Once home ..." Otherwise it's a very unwieldy stanza-length sentence with lots of comma-induced fragments. It also puts additional emphasis on "Once home", to re-emphasize
the ephemeral nature of home this poem is talking about.
To be fought over, all its joy escaped
Like laughing gas or baby’s breath, reduced
To walls and cellars, plumbing, attics, floors,
Maintained with envy, gripped with empty hate. Not sure I see the connection of "empty hate" with the rest of this stanza.
We shape our houses, Churchill said, but then
They mold us. If the cast is too exact,
Too hard, unless we melt we cannot leave,
For we’re no longer shaped to pass their doors. These last two lines sound quite awkward to my ears. I think it might sound better to write it as "we cannot leave unless we melt", for one thing.
Blank verse; something of a song of experience. All comments and suggestions for improvement welcome.