(I remembered writing this about a week ago and read it every day since thinking about how I can make it better. It speaks to me even though I wrote it, which is a strange feeling. I remember people speaking to me about this already (on my blog) so I understand if comments are scarce. HeartRape. Mike)
There was a wall.
It's been torn down.
Here is a piece.
It says "Love".
I don't believe
in this person's
"Love"
because it's only
partial.
Besides,
it might just be
conditional.
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1 comment:
I think the first four lines are incredibly strong. I think my favourite part about it is the short clipped bluntness of it. Stating fact, and yet showing that there is so much more beneath that, like emotion reigned in and controlled but in its rigid format it brims with an ache that can't be contained.
I feel as though the strength is lost after that point however, and I feel that this is both a combination of the longer sentences as well as the route that you choose to take the narrative. The tone is already quite bitter from the start, what with a wall being torn down on which "love" was written - so much so that by adding the "I don't believe / in this person's / "Love", it makes it too angsty. Particularly the fact that "Love" in quotation marks is being mocked by the speaker with their snide cynicism, it felt a little too overdramatic and like you were trying too hard to get the message across when it had already been established strongly and clearly. The introduction of the "this person" was also out of place to me. I felt like I didn't want another character in this particular piece, or at least not one that is referred to as "this", as though we should know them, except they remain a shallow sideline character who could be absolutely anybody in any embodiment of love, not even just necessarily romantic.
The route of the narrative veering from the concrete story of the wall to "this person's / "Love"" is a somewhat unpredictable and predictable movement at the same time, to be paradoxical. Because I was enjoying the first four lines so much and was led into that "world", I was hoping that it would continue in that direction, so that when the change came I hadn't been anticipating it. However, when it came around, it seems a fairly typical move to link something such as a bitter love-wall being knocked down to someone's partner's infidelity or emotional toying simply to set up what you want to say in a poem, and then leave the intro to say what you really want to say.
Usually in such cases I would say that you should scrap the beginning - decapitate it as I always say - because no matter how much you love it for bringing you and your piece where you ended up, it becomes irrelevant to the poem. HOWEVER. In this case, I feel as though the beginning does a far more effective job of getting across what you want to say by being subtle. I think it would be made stronger if it were understated more. I feel as though you're telling rather than showing (sorry for using the prose fiction term, I know I probably shouldn't be crossing editing techniques for separate writing mediums...), and that, to me, dilutes the meaning rather than distilling it. It's trying so hard to tell the readers what it wants to that it devalues the words by being too raw and obvious.
Anyway, those would be my suggestions. I think I'm being too hard on this - it's not awful, but I do find it mediocre. Except the beginning, which is quite good. I think you have a right to feel that it speaks to you because I do feel it has potential, but I think it should be refined. Good luck with any editing! :)
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