They surfaced again today:
worming free of dust,
imploring to be held
and smacked;
coerced to breathe
so they may turn their
unsightly faces
skyward and call me
Mother.
I was obligated to
nurture them, black-capped
and screeching like
Banshees.
These abominations cannot be mine --
but there is a throe in
the womb where they have
ripened and stolidly
eaten themselves loose,
the spawn of something aphotic
and unsettling.
They enervate me --
feeding from mana and
rarely sleeping;
but I
can never love them,
these tremulous ills
breeding malignly
in my belly
that would do well to just stay buried.
Author notes
1. I love Plath.
The poem is about the memories we try to forget but cannot.
A contest entry
- Quality Writing Only - looking to expand favourites list. Thousands of points available. by EstherG.
2000 points, ended June 5, 2007, 36 entries
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest - Poems That Should Have Won...But Didn't by trista.
1050 points, ended February 24, 2008, 44 entries
Silver trophy winner
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest
Please tell me what you think
Comments
1 - 6 of 6
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I love so much of this - the creative descriptions, the personification, and the tone are all wonderful. I do think there are a couple of areas that could use some tightening up, but they are minor:
Line breaks are so important in free verse poetry, and a few of yours made this a wee bit choppy when I read it aloud. You may also want to keep in mind that the last word in a line gets more emphasis and is more memorable, so ending with "the", "and", "to", or "in" can make a lot of your great use of language lose impact.
I know it is often a matter of personal style, but I'm not a big fan of starting each line with a capped letter. Your punctuation helps guide me through your thoughts despite that, but I'd still rather see a capped letter only when a new sentence begins. I think it would aid the clarity, presentation, and flow of the poem. The punctuation in general is very good...a few commas I think could be added behind “dust“ in L2, “Skyward” in L6 and “me” in L19, but just my opinion.
I'm not completely sure I would know what this poem was actually about without the author note. There isn't a lot within the poem to allude to what you're actually talking about. It isn't necessary to make it glaringly obvious, and I enjoy having to think about a poem a bit to figure things out. But even some suggestion within the title might have been good. "Memories exhumed" or something on that order, maybe?
So, just a few suggestions that you may or may not want to consider. All in all, I believe the strengths of this far outweigh any weaknesses. The creativity I see made this a wonderful read, and I thank you for entering it in my contest. Good luck, and thanks also for your patience as judging has taken me a while. Results will be out within a couple of days.
Best wishes,
~J. -
Damn. My thought the whole way through was: hernia/ulcer? Though I guess those memories can have the same effect. Beautifully done.
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Ha... this is so Plath darling you have no clue. Why's it that I've only read this today and it's been posted for months? I'm bad. But you know I'm always glad to discover new brilliant talented people on this site. And I love the word banshee. Whenever I yell, that's what my mom tells me I sound like. Oh and one last thing, I think you really really got the right feeling for the whole pregnancy/baby allegory. Plath is a big fan at using those and hating babies and whatnot and you really emulated that part of her writing well. Amazing job.
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thia was good... the descriptions are nice and the vocabulary is different, which I like when done well (as this is).
best wishes
Lea -
wow this is powerful. And the ending was great.
Nice work,
Creatress
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well your love for plath shows through except she uses much more mathematical wording. i love the imagery in this poem- i was a little confused until i read the caption of trying to repress memories. i did not know what the abominations were, but now it is much clearer. your writing style is very unique and captivating!
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