Poetry / i had never been more than a plant.

You have a wonderful title, and one of your best lines is, “the basement for a buried bird.”

I think I understand your note, but I’m not sure how to critique your poem from that. But I want to move on, overall this is very good and will be better with revision.

Maybe past tense would work best for this poem, for example: “your nails are hiding a gardenful of the soil you
clawed through probing for my veins,”

Yours nails hid a gardenful of soil,
you clawed, probed for my veins.

Tense could be applied throughout.

This is a poignant and sad poem. Thank you. I hope I helped.
Blessings, Gregory

I found this a surprisingly mature treatment of a failed relationship (and I like it that the kind of relationship doesn’t matter – parent, friend, romantic interest, it all works).  This poem could be horribly cliched and melodramatic, but its not; there is a fragile little hope twined through it, although I’m not sure that is intentional.  There is empathy for and responsibility placed on both parties, and an acknowledgment that not all hurts are intentional or world-ending,even when they are severe.  You held to your chosen analogy and made it feel easy and logical. I’m especially fond of that third stanza. Over all, very well done, and I look forward to reading more of your work.

Interesting idea to write from the perspective of a simple nondescript and anonymous garden plant. Hinting at some greater message I assume having to do with people interfering with nature with the apparent intention of making some internal, artificial environment more beautiful, like flowers are happier in vases. Something about the ignorance (and egoism)of humanity?
Anyway, technical stuff? I wonder about who the speaker is at certain points. For instance, “after we
shredded them together” Who is “we”? Perhaps this shift was intentional. It doesn’t distract too much however. I really like the image of the basement/buried bird.

im suggesting shrinking the title to just cut or cut.

boy this must be the anthropomorphic plants day cause ive been seeing a bunch (pardon de pun) of garden related poems today. dis is a good one.

This is lovely.

“you thought every sleeping bush dreamed of shedding its leaves”

There are parts that seem muddy to me, where the point becomes hard to see or don’t seem to make sense. lines to look at…

“clawed through probing for my veins,”
“maybe becoming food for
the lilies or the basement for a buried bird”
“i suffered bound into our backyard “

I loved two lines most…The ending is so solid, I enojyed it most of all…also..
“(nobody likes to admit it, but holding
something that vulnerable is worth the chase)”
Such a lovely thought…

what a nice poem

A strong, coherent and sustained metaphor to explain how your relationship ended. A perfect example of a poem that shows real emptin without becoming trite and kitsch and telling us how you feel.

really liked the first line, ‘thin life-canals’. Perhaps not too sure about the bracketed part of stanza one but its not a real stand out problem.

line 1 of stanza two, ‘we shredded them’ at first i thought this was a change in narrator, you as a person and your ex shredding the plant you’d pulled out. perhaps that should be changed, perhaps your not trying to blame him to much but the metaphor collapses on that line. plants cant shred themselves…. :P

really nice third stanza and the last line, perhaps a bit self-indulgent and angsty but great in the context of the plant imagery and the heartache your expressing.

lovely

thanks for posting

ben :P